Quite a tirade, «scottfreitas» ! I’m reminded of a chap I met when I started weight-lifting at the age of 15 ; he was three or four years older and was very helpful in showing me various techniques and tricks. I liked him, but there was one thing about him I found it very difficult to understand - he claimed to hate gays and his favourite sport (aside from weight-lifting, of course) was to cruise the areas in which gay people congregated (not openly, of course -all this took place more than half a century ago), pick someone up, and then beat him up. One of the people he beat up (but not too badly) was a secondary school teacher in the school I attended. I found no attraction whatsoever in these odd games ; I preferred cruising where girls hung out. Only later, with a bit more experience and a better education under my belt (I remembered that I never saw my friend with a girl) did I understand what had been going on - my friend probably felt an attraction to these gay people which he found it impossible to accept, and dealt with this cognitive dissonance in the only way he could, by beating up people to whom he would have liked to make love. I like to think that this sort of thing happens less frequently these days, but it it still happens, and far too often. Thus «Churchillwasright»’s advice to those serving in the US military is well taken, in particular if one doesn’t have a commanding officer and in particular, non-commissioned officers who don’t permit that sort of nonsense….
Quite a tirade, «scottfreitas» ! I’m reminded of a chap I met when I started weight-lifting at the age of 15 ; he was three or four years older and was very helpful in showing me various techniques and tricks. I liked him, but there was one thing about him I found it very difficult to understand - he claimed to hate gays and his favourite sport (aside from weight-lifting, of course) was to cruise the areas in which gay people congregated (not openly, of course -all this took place more than half a century ago), pick someone up, and then beat him up. One of the people he beat up (but not too badly) was a secondary school teacher in the school I attended. I found no attraction whatsoever in these odd games ; I preferred cruising where girls hung out. Only later, with a bit more experience and a better education under my belt (I remembered that I never saw my friend with a girl) did I understand what had been going on - my friend probably felt an attraction to these gay people which he found it impossible to accept, and dealt with this cognitive dissonance in the only way he could, by beating up people to whom he would have liked to make love. I like to think that this sort of thing happens less frequently these days, but it it still happens, and far too often. Thus «Churchillwasright»’s advice to those serving in the US military is well taken, in particular if one doesn’t have a commanding officer and in particular, non-commissioned officers who don’t permit that sort of nonsense….
Henri