The Gay Thread

[Alex]

No, no, no, Alex, you are, I believe, missing a big point. Shirvell is not gay bashing. His blog and actions are not against homosexuals in general. He is stalking and blogging about one particular gay man. This reeks of obsession in the same way his persona reeks of gay.

Ok (I don't really buy that first part since while he's targeting a single gay man he is doing it in terms critical of homosexuals), but the whole part about what "hypocrisy" means was started by someone questioning my contention that a gay gay basher is not inherently hypocritical.

So divorce Shirvell from my responses and the poitns remain the same and valid in the original context.

And even further, even if Shirvell is gay he may not be doing what you say because he himself may be unaware (through confusion or simple pyschological inacapacity) of his homosexuality.

Under the assumption he is gay, then his completely gay action of stalking and obsessing over a particular gay man while pretending not to be gay and not to be obsessed with him for that reason is hypocritical.

Still not hypocrisy. Just lying. Let's use a milder sitcom plot as a surrogate. Maybe one from a movie you recently enjoyed.

The male characters, let's call him Kick-Ass, has a crush on a girl who he feels barely knows he's alive. He pretends to be gay so that she'll have no reason to thinks he's sexually obsessed with her and under this ruse manages to be with her wherever she is, doing what she's doing and completely taking advantage of her to even the extent of getting to see her naked.

Is he a hypocrite? Or just a liar? As with Shirvell (under your assumption) he's denying his sexuality in order to mask the intention of his actions.


I'm generally quite the descriptivist when it comes to usage, but I have issues with just saying "well, hypocrisy has been redefined in common useage to include entirely new things." Those being:

1. Those entirely new things already had perfectly good words for them (liar, dissembler, self deluding, etc.)
2. This leaves no good word for actual hypocrisy.
3. And because I think frequently the misuse of the word is intentionally designed to confuse so as to dismiss out of hand as hypocrisy something that would otherwise have to be addressed more substantively.