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Online politics rule
(thelemmy.club)
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this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2026
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I haven't seen anyone blame their stupid position because of their secret homosexuality. I have however seen people call out their hypocrisy in being gay while being a part of the anti-gay party.
https://tes.lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/lemmy.blahaj.zone/45532986
Feel free to peruse the comments here that go on about how they just want men with high T because they find them so sexy.
I didn't find any comment that blamed their sectret homosexuality. I think you're just reading into jokes too much.
any alternative theory?
Theory for what, why they're shitty people? Do I need to explain to you that straight people can be shitty?
E: Jesus Christ, do you mean the testosterone thing?? Are you going to sit here and tell me you think every straight man with testosterone anxieties is secretly gay?
yeah like, what is the underlying idea? because there has to be a reason the man just told the entire world he thinks the military isn't manly enough. from a neutral perspective it's just an incredible own goal, so there has to be some rationale other than he wants soldiers to be bald and hairy.
Right wing straight men have a lot of anxiety over sperm count and testosterone levels dropping since the 60s, and their solution is a bandaid (more testosterone) instead of looking at the cause (likely pollution and worse physical health). These values are based in heterosexist beliefs about testosterone and masculinity.
right, that's the obvious reason, but announcing it directly was obviously going to be a pr disaster. so what made it worth doing?
I know what someone who wants dick but can't admit it to themselves acts like. I used to be one.
And I'm looking at Pete Hegseth and Jesse Watters right now.
I know a straight guy who is on gender-affirming TRT, when I asked him what it was like, he talked about how he found all kinds of women more attractive, how he would see any bit of jiggle and it would turn him on.
My friend's fascination was withwomen's bodies, not men's bodies, that's what he found himself thinking about.
The way Hegseth talks about Manly Fit Men makes it clear where his interests lie.
It's not that hard.
You are quite literally projecting. Your own personal experience and struggles with internalized homophobia doesn't excuse using homophobia as a political weapon.
I don't think the person you're responding to believes that the problem is politicians being gay, but that they can't separate their feelings about their sexuality from their job as politicians. Just because this fact can be used by homophobes to demonize gay people doesn't mean that Republicans in office don't have a pattern of sexual self repression that colors their politics.
You're talking about confirmation bias, not an actual rule about the composition of the Republican Party or Republican lawmakers as a whole. Every time a Republican is outed it sticks in your mind because of the hypocrisy, but you don't notice or remember the ~95% of them that are straight and never get 'caught' because they aren't attracted to men. Turning around and using the closeted minority to insinuate that, actually, any given Republican is gay and closeted is just homophobia.
the sheer patience in your replies 💚
How am I using homophobia as a political weapon? What the fuck?
Did you think Lindsay Graham was straight?
Did you miss that the thread I linked is not about Lindsay Graham and is in fact about Pete Hegseth? Did you black out on the part where you talked about how Hegseth was obviously gay because of the fixation on men having high testosterone? Blaming sexist policies on people you think are closeted is homophobia, I don't care how much you think you see yourself in him.
Sometimes pieties get in the way of seeing what's in front of your face.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mass_Psychology_of_Fascism
In any case we seem to agree that these are bad policies and I'm assuming we are both doing what we can to stop them in the way we best see fit.
I don't consider it a 'piety' to say that it's promoting homophobic viewpoints to talk about how much members of the Trump admin want to suck cock every time politics comes up, and that there are much better ways to attack them that don't rely on homophobia 🤷♂️
I don't say anything about Vance or Mullen or McConnell or Rubio or Kennedy being closeted.
I've criticized all of them plenty though, because they suck. They're not throwing off 100,000 roentgens of closet power though.
It seems like maybe you are operating with a default assumption of obligate heterosexuality, and think that it's automatically an insult to think about other people having latent desires.
How many married men have hit you up asking for cock on the sly? Ever had to navigate dating needing to distinguish between men who are attracted to women with penises vs men who see trans women as a psychological bridge to gay?
I've seen this from multiple angles, I've been in the closet before, and I'm currently one of the people that guys like Pete Hegseth are trying to get to top them. I know people who do sex work because they have no other option and closeted men are real people that often present real life danger to the people they get fucked by.
You want to tell me it wasn’t being used in an insulting way in the thread I linked? Really? What do you think was the point of it?
I’m no stranger to sex work, I was trans in NYC in the late 00s. I still don’t think it’s acceptable to deploy vibes based accusations of being closeted as political discourse.
I agree that if I were writing a letter to a US Rep or giving a public address arguing for the proposition "Hegseth should be immediately impeached" and at any point stated "he sets off the community's gaydar like an LA earthquake sets off car alarms", that would be bad politics even if the argument was effective.
But I'm shitposting on Lemmy, and I don't want to self-censor about the fact that queer people need to be particularly careful of people like Hegseth, and about pointing out the larger way that the fascist project exploits exactly this kind of psychosexual tension.
I will say that I don't understand their repeated assertions that sexuality is a choice. I don't see how anyone could believe that unless they're actively repressing something.
But I don't know where that disconnect lies. Is it just a bad faith argument, and they don't really believe that? Do we have a fundamentally different understanding of what sexuality and sexual orientation consist of?
Edit: spelling
Could be a combination of factors. Sexual education is basically nonexistent. One could confuse arousal with sexuality. One could also misconstrue a biological response such as a random erection in inappropriate settings as a sign of sexual orientation. Combined with religious and social pressure, eschewed beliefs can emerge and result in oppressive reactions.
Wrong conclusions, fear and stubbornness - a dangerous cocktail to be sure...
Yea, straight cis guy here. I once got kissed by a dude after I actively flirted with him for like 3 hours at a party once. Honestly, 10/10 best kiss of my life, objectively, but that's how I learned I was definitely straight. Sexuality very much isn't a choice.
I know it's trite to point out republican hypocrisy but anyone else notice how they insist women must be modest because men can't control themselves while also believing sexuality is a choice?
Well, is it an impulse or a choice then??
To be fair, you cant logically explain a position that someone came to have for baseless illogical reasons. They dont have to have a logical repression based reason for believing being gay is a choice if they believe being gay is a choice due to illogical sky daddy issues