4 ms·

I have a theory that the normalization of homosexuality in the united states was a move by the security agencies to lower their exposure risk. If everything is

I have a theory that the normalization of homosexuality in the united states was a move by the security agencies to lower their exposure risk. If everything is cool, nothing is blackmail. Blackmail is what sinks orgs because you have no idea who is going to be a mole.

eastbound 2y ago
I have the impression that sexual harassment became the opposite. Something most successful man are blamed for, decades later when all possible proof have vanished. In terms of blackmail, the power seems much higher.
- watwut 2y ago
  People who sexually harass are on supreme court and literally the president. For considerable amount of people, it is a positive sign that "the guy is like us".
  - vitajex 2y ago
    I don't think anyone takes it as a positive. It's just not what voters vote on. If they support one candidate's policies more than another's, they won't flip because of that issue. The example of Bill Clinton demonstrates that this happens across the political spectrum, and his feminist supporters were the ones making this argument back then. They got criticized for being hypocritical, but in politics you have to prioritize.
    - watwut 2y ago
      I do actually think they see it as a positive. It is not just that they do not care. It is that it heightens his credit in their eyes and they get to see him as victim. It makes him look more manly for some people.
      - progmetaldev 2y ago
        At the least, it often makes them feel empowered to speak out in favor of forgetting all about the issue, and emboldening them to push for whatever the politician pushes that they agree with. At least in the US, you can hop on social media and take a look at your local newspaper or news channel's posts, and see some of the truly insane comments (and I use insane here as in bringing up politics to promote their voted politician, or smear the other side, when the issue is something at a local level or unaffected by politics in any way).
4gotunameagain 2y ago
As much as I would like to believe this, I highly suspect that the normalisation of homosexuality killed the forbidden fun for those high power psychopaths.
- atq2119 2y ago
  There may be some truth to that. There's this idea that sharing in illegal or socially shunned activities is an effective way to establish strong personal ties, and strong personal ties can in turn help advance careers. Which is why there were a lot of successful secretely gay people in politics even in the 19th century. As homosexuality became accepted, there was a shift to "harder stuff" playing this role. Not by literally the same people, mind you, but over time the composition of who's powerful shifts towards people who engage in shunned activities to form their strong personal ties. And as more activities become socially accepted, the activities that are shunned and give people a leg up become increasingly worse. I don't like this conclusion, but it's the strongest potential argument against social liberalism that I know of.
  - TheOtherHobbes 2y ago
    Epstein. When child abuse becomes a political and financial status symbol - the ultimate exclusive consumer good for narcissists/psychopaths. As well as a handy source of material for blackmail.
error_logic 2y ago
It was a move by the political parties to campaign on social wedge issues and ignore economic ones.
- roguecoder 2y ago
  Pretty sure it was a move by gay people to stop getting arrested, left to die, and beaten up so they could just live their lives. Things besides money also matter.
  - Maxamillion96 2y ago
    >Things besides money also matter. To people, not politicians
  - progmetaldev 2y ago
    I think you're both correct. For those that care about their fellow (hu)man, it is extremely important to improve people's lives, to live without fear and violence. Unfortunately for the politicians, it was often just an issue that could be spearheaded to avoid and "hide" other issues. Much like businesses that celebrate pride month, and then drop the issue and remain silent on it until the next year comes around, because people are too easily fooled by a perceived month of caring. I am not of the opinion that gay or LGBTQ+ rights were ever pushed in order to prevent blackmail, especially since in the US, it is often the side that fights against those rights that end up getting caught in controversy for the exact thing they fought against. Much like how you hear that homophobia and transphobia is often perpetrated by those that haven't accepted their sexuality.
ben_w 2y ago
I can see why that idea is tempting, but it doesn't seem to work. Military had "don't ask don't tell" for a long time because legalisation and social acceptance are different (also seen in reverse order with cannabis). Even today, the percentage of people in the US who think society should not accept it, 21%, is higher than the percentage who are homosexual or bisexual: https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2020/06/25/global-divide-on-homosexuality-persists/ https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2020/06/25/global-divide-... For this reason, there's still plenty who want to stay closeted. And there's a lot of stuff with 5% or more reporting interest, according to Aella's sexual taboo survey, that society still very much isn't OK with: https://aella.substack.com/p/fetish-tabooness-vs-popularity https://aella.substack.com/p/fetish-tabooness-vs-popularity If sexual liberation was driven from the top to reduce blackmail opportunity, I think there'd be a lot more desires whose taboo was lessened, not just homosexuality. (Though perhaps I'm underestimating how much else has changed due to what hasn't; I'm sure "cheating on spouse" used to be a thing that killed political careers, clearly doesn't now). It also feels like the social acceptability of trans people has moved backwards. (Just my perception, or has that actually shifted?) That said, the logic you give is still sound, and I think the increasing ease of private surveilance means we must eliminate as many taboos as we can so that society can keep functioning.
- thih9 2y ago
  Note, the second link, as expected, lists especially unpopular sexual taboos; think twice before clicking.
  - ben_w 2y ago
    I assumed this would be obvious from context, but yes, this is true.
  - sofixa 2y ago
    Screw especially unpopular, it has multiple downright illegal and unquestionably immoral ones. But the gender ratio preference is fascinating. There are multiple ones I would have never guessed (e.g. cannibalism is much more interesting to women than it is to men, which is weird because of all the high profile cannibals that I can think of, none are female).
red-iron-pine 2y ago
> I have a theory that the normalization of homosexuality in the united states was a move by the security agencies to lower their exposure risk the decades of civil rights expansions, first for women, then african-americans, then disabled, and eventually the gays -- that was all just the CIA trying to do recruiting 2% easier?
- lazycog512 2y ago
  rather, homosexuality as a secondary non-lifestyle, non-professed interest, often in one-off scenarios, is WAY more common than culture would like to admit, and the intelligence agencies are in the perfect position to precisely observe that fact.
- lostlogin 2y ago
  For the US: Women ~50% African Americans ~12% Disabled ~ 20% Homosexual ~7% It’s a lot more than 2% for any one of those categories, let alone them all. You’ve comfortably described a group that forms the majority of the US population, even when allowing for the homosexual, African American, disabled woman, who is in all 4 ‘minorities’. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Americans https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Americans https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disability_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disability_in_the_United_Sta... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBTQ_demographics_of_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBTQ_demographics_of_the_Un...
- etruong42 2y ago
  I'm not the parent comment, and I think I get the gist of what you're saying. To be fair to the parent comment though, it's not just making recruiting easier. It's reducing the risk of compromise within your organization. Just one compromised employee can present a tremendous risk, which is nothing to 2%.
- ineedasername 2y ago
  Why recruiting? It’s not as if gay people universally stayed away from these jobs. Given the times plenty probably didn’t understand or accept this part of who they were until careers were in full swing. The issue would have been stopping a risk that was already known and actively exploited. I don’t think this is at all why normalization occurred, that intelligence communities had anything to do with it, but if they had then it wouldn’t need to have been for recruitment.

eastbound 2y ago

I have the impression that sexual harassment became the opposite. Something most successful man are blamed for, decades later when all possible proof have vanished. In terms of blackmail, the power seems much higher.

watwut 2y ago
People who sexually harass are on supreme court and literally the president. For considerable amount of people, it is a positive sign that "the guy is like us".
- vitajex 2y ago
  I don't think anyone takes it as a positive. It's just not what voters vote on. If they support one candidate's policies more than another's, they won't flip because of that issue. The example of Bill Clinton demonstrates that this happens across the political spectrum, and his feminist supporters were the ones making this argument back then. They got criticized for being hypocritical, but in politics you have to prioritize.
  - watwut 2y ago
    I do actually think they see it as a positive. It is not just that they do not care. It is that it heightens his credit in their eyes and they get to see him as victim. It makes him look more manly for some people.
    - progmetaldev 2y ago
      At the least, it often makes them feel empowered to speak out in favor of forgetting all about the issue, and emboldening them to push for whatever the politician pushes that they agree with. At least in the US, you can hop on social media and take a look at your local newspaper or news channel's posts, and see some of the truly insane comments (and I use insane here as in bringing up politics to promote their voted politician, or smear the other side, when the issue is something at a local level or unaffected by politics in any way).

4gotunameagain 2y ago

As much as I would like to believe this, I highly suspect that the normalisation of homosexuality killed the forbidden fun for those high power psychopaths.

atq2119 2y ago
There may be some truth to that. There's this idea that sharing in illegal or socially shunned activities is an effective way to establish strong personal ties, and strong personal ties can in turn help advance careers. Which is why there were a lot of successful secretely gay people in politics even in the 19th century. As homosexuality became accepted, there was a shift to "harder stuff" playing this role. Not by literally the same people, mind you, but over time the composition of who's powerful shifts towards people who engage in shunned activities to form their strong personal ties. And as more activities become socially accepted, the activities that are shunned and give people a leg up become increasingly worse. I don't like this conclusion, but it's the strongest potential argument against social liberalism that I know of.
- TheOtherHobbes 2y ago
  Epstein. When child abuse becomes a political and financial status symbol - the ultimate exclusive consumer good for narcissists/psychopaths. As well as a handy source of material for blackmail.

error_logic 2y ago

It was a move by the political parties to campaign on social wedge issues and ignore economic ones.

roguecoder 2y ago
Pretty sure it was a move by gay people to stop getting arrested, left to die, and beaten up so they could just live their lives. Things besides money also matter.
- Maxamillion96 2y ago
  >Things besides money also matter. To people, not politicians
- progmetaldev 2y ago
  I think you're both correct. For those that care about their fellow (hu)man, it is extremely important to improve people's lives, to live without fear and violence. Unfortunately for the politicians, it was often just an issue that could be spearheaded to avoid and "hide" other issues. Much like businesses that celebrate pride month, and then drop the issue and remain silent on it until the next year comes around, because people are too easily fooled by a perceived month of caring. I am not of the opinion that gay or LGBTQ+ rights were ever pushed in order to prevent blackmail, especially since in the US, it is often the side that fights against those rights that end up getting caught in controversy for the exact thing they fought against. Much like how you hear that homophobia and transphobia is often perpetrated by those that haven't accepted their sexuality.

ben_w 2y ago

I can see why that idea is tempting, but it doesn't seem to work. Military had "don't ask don't tell" for a long time because legalisation and social acceptance are different (also seen in reverse order with cannabis). Even today, the percentage of people in the US who think society should not accept it, 21%, is higher than the percentage who are homosexual or bisexual: https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2020/06/25/global-divide-on-homosexuality-persists/ https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2020/06/25/global-divide-... For this reason, there's still plenty who want to stay closeted. And there's a lot of stuff with 5% or more reporting interest, according to Aella's sexual taboo survey, that society still very much isn't OK with: https://aella.substack.com/p/fetish-tabooness-vs-popularity https://aella.substack.com/p/fetish-tabooness-vs-popularity If sexual liberation was driven from the top to reduce blackmail opportunity, I think there'd be a lot more desires whose taboo was lessened, not just homosexuality. (Though perhaps I'm underestimating how much else has changed due to what hasn't; I'm sure "cheating on spouse" used to be a thing that killed political careers, clearly doesn't now). It also feels like the social acceptability of trans people has moved backwards. (Just my perception, or has that actually shifted?) That said, the logic you give is still sound, and I think the increasing ease of private surveilance means we must eliminate as many taboos as we can so that society can keep functioning.

thih9 2y ago
Note, the second link, as expected, lists especially unpopular sexual taboos; think twice before clicking.
- ben_w 2y ago
  I assumed this would be obvious from context, but yes, this is true.
- sofixa 2y ago
  Screw especially unpopular, it has multiple downright illegal and unquestionably immoral ones. But the gender ratio preference is fascinating. There are multiple ones I would have never guessed (e.g. cannibalism is much more interesting to women than it is to men, which is weird because of all the high profile cannibals that I can think of, none are female).

red-iron-pine 2y ago

> I have a theory that the normalization of homosexuality in the united states was a move by the security agencies to lower their exposure risk the decades of civil rights expansions, first for women, then african-americans, then disabled, and eventually the gays -- that was all just the CIA trying to do recruiting 2% easier?

lazycog512 2y ago
rather, homosexuality as a secondary non-lifestyle, non-professed interest, often in one-off scenarios, is WAY more common than culture would like to admit, and the intelligence agencies are in the perfect position to precisely observe that fact.
lostlogin 2y ago
For the US: Women ~50% African Americans ~12% Disabled ~ 20% Homosexual ~7% It’s a lot more than 2% for any one of those categories, let alone them all. You’ve comfortably described a group that forms the majority of the US population, even when allowing for the homosexual, African American, disabled woman, who is in all 4 ‘minorities’. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Americans https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Americans https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disability_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disability_in_the_United_Sta... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBTQ_demographics_of_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBTQ_demographics_of_the_Un...
etruong42 2y ago
I'm not the parent comment, and I think I get the gist of what you're saying. To be fair to the parent comment though, it's not just making recruiting easier. It's reducing the risk of compromise within your organization. Just one compromised employee can present a tremendous risk, which is nothing to 2%.
ineedasername 2y ago
Why recruiting? It’s not as if gay people universally stayed away from these jobs. Given the times plenty probably didn’t understand or accept this part of who they were until careers were in full swing. The issue would have been stopping a risk that was already known and actively exploited. I don’t think this is at all why normalization occurred, that intelligence communities had anything to do with it, but if they had then it wouldn’t need to have been for recruitment.