Possibly there's no perceived inequality on the part of the writer or consumers of those stories, because the partners are physically and mentally equal ... or maybe they just have enough imagination to give one charactera personality and not the other? *G*
I've an older friend I love dearly, but the one thing we do NOT agree on is "gay" - she's anti and I'm pro. And I really can't understand why, because she's pretty liberal on every other issue. I believe it has to do with her limited experiences around gay people. For example, she's had one experience with lesbians and told me the story - apparently she was at a hotel pool with her grandson and there were two women there who were lesbians (frankly, I'm not sure how she knew, if they were kissing or cuddling at some point or what). And apparently one of them kept calling the other names and dunking her head and pinching her and doing all manner of mean-spirited, non-teasing things to "dominate" her. And then she tells me she's known several gay men, sons and grandsons of acquaintances, and they're all gay because they didn't have positive male role models growing up or they couldn't make friends with the boys at a young age, so when they got old enough they sought attention from older gay men and did whatever they demanded, just to be accepted.
Now I can't speak to her experience, because SHE experienced it; I didn't. But I suppose if your only exposure to "teh gay" is dysfunction and unhappiness, you might not think there's anything "normal" or positive about such relationships either? *shrug*
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Date: 2008-03-27 03:15 pm (UTC)I've an older friend I love dearly, but the one thing we do NOT agree on is "gay" - she's anti and I'm pro. And I really can't understand why, because she's pretty liberal on every other issue. I believe it has to do with her limited experiences around gay people. For example, she's had one experience with lesbians and told me the story - apparently she was at a hotel pool with her grandson and there were two women there who were lesbians (frankly, I'm not sure how she knew, if they were kissing or cuddling at some point or what). And apparently one of them kept calling the other names and dunking her head and pinching her and doing all manner of mean-spirited, non-teasing things to "dominate" her. And then she tells me she's known several gay men, sons and grandsons of acquaintances, and they're all gay because they didn't have positive male role models growing up or they couldn't make friends with the boys at a young age, so when they got old enough they sought attention from older gay men and did whatever they demanded, just to be accepted.
Now I can't speak to her experience, because SHE experienced it; I didn't. But I suppose if your only exposure to "teh gay" is dysfunction and unhappiness, you might not think there's anything "normal" or positive about such relationships either? *shrug*