Hyperfrank's Badness homophobia post

I dunno man, this argument is just constant and boring and just runs and runs, and it'd help to have a journalist who didn't just come out with the usual 'oh my god I don't believe these black men are talking about killing queers' angle as if they're shocked about it, I'd like to see one who could actually give a balanced view of things.

It's perfectly understandable to see why blokes hate the idea of homosexuality -

i) Anal Sex. Which is putting it up another person's shitter which is cool by me if people find that uninteresting or repellant. Anyone who doesn't understand why people wouldn't wanna do that or be disgusted by it is fooling themselves.

ii) Fear of penetration and rape, which is understandable.

iii) Alpha male stuff about being perceived as the most masculine, which is a part of growing up.

iv) Representation : if you make a list of homosexuals in the public eye over the past twenty years, and their representation in popular culture...all you have to do is look at the front cover of Gay Times, it's no fucking wonder people chat about killing queers.

I don't know whose fault that is but blaming people for having an opinion against it isn't gonna get anyone anywhere.


I like the rwd comment about 'grime talks about killing everyone, why should homos be exempt'....Lol at the 'lefties' stuff, it reminds me of skins vs punks.

grime talks about killing people yes, but it doesn't talk about indiscriminate killing of an entire social group terribly often. As ms hyperfrank points out, if this was drawn along racial lines then this whole thing would blow up. There's blatant inequality here, and yes some people feel threatened by gays, but fuck it, these people need to learn to deal with it.

Talking about killing people indiscriminately is acceptable, but not a specific group of people?

mistersloane said:

I dunno man, this argument is just constant and boring and just runs and runs, and it'd help to have a journalist who didn't just come out with the usual 'oh my god I don't believe these black men are talking about killing queers' angle as if they're shocked about it, I'd like to see one who could actually give a balanced view of things.

It's perfectly understandable to see why blokes hate the idea of homosexuality -

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sloane, we get it, you're cool, you're one of the guys, you don't mind if people "hate" homesexuals - however, you're also one of the only openly gay members of this forum, so when you blow off the topic, it has the effect of shutting down the discussion ... which is unfortunate, imho ...

In any case, to respond directly, it is not perfectly understandable that in 2007 "blokes hate homosexuals". It's a complicated topic to be sure, but "hate" for sexual orientation is simply not "perfectly understandable." Surely it deserves a thoughtful discussion, which seems to be what mos dan intended by starting the thread ...

And by the way, I find your criteria justifying homosexual hate to be completely pathetic, and ridiculous ...

dssdnt said:

sloane, we get it, you're cool, you're one of the guys, you don't mind if people "hate" homesexuals - however, you're also one of the only openly gay members of this forum, so when you blow off the topic, it has the effect of shutting down the discussion ... which is unfortunate, imho ...

In any case, to respond directly, it is not perfectly understandable that in 2007 "blokes hate homosexuals". It's a complicated topic to be sure, but "hate" for sexual orientation is simply not "perfectly understandable." Surely it deserves a thoughtful discussion, which seems to be what mos dan intended by starting the thread ...

And by the way, I find your criteria justifying homosexual hate to be completely pathetic, and ridiculous ...

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Yeah, I was strugglin answering it in case it had that sort of effect, it's a difficult one. And personally, I wasn't answering to be cool, or one of the guys, it was to try and understand my own homophobia.

I was attempting to find ways around answering or entering into the discussion which haven't been said a thousand times before. I thought a good way to start may have been to list reasons why people might feel like that, rather than say feeling like that was pathetic and ridiculous.

Why do you find those criteria pathetic and ridiculous?

mistersloane said:

Yeah, I was strugglin answering it in case it had that sort of effect, it's a difficult one. And personally, I wasn't answering to be cool, or one of the guys, it was to try and understand my own homophobia.

I was attempting to find ways around answering or entering into the discussion which haven't been said a thousand times before. I thought a good way to start may have been to list reasons why people might feel like that, rather than say feeling like that was pathetic and ridiculous.

Why do you find those criteria pathetic and ridiculous?

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You're obviously a brilliant fellow and a valuable poster, I didn't mean to sound so harsh ...

And to answer your question, I don't think a male's fear of rape is really an operative criterion here - how often does that actually happen? Especially in comparison to women? "Alpha male" behavior is utterly risible even to many, many straight men, and rejected outright by them, so I don't see that it is some overwhelming fact of nature that we can't get around - alpha male behavior is lame, and we ought to say so as often as possible rather than excuse it or accommodate it. As for the cover of Gay Times, surely humanity is at a point in its history when people - be they gay, female, ethnically 'defined' or else - can put out their own magazines and explore their own imagery without incurring hate or threats of violence and killing?

I didn't say that you were ridiculous, only that justifying hate in the abovementioned ways is.

Logan Sama said:

Talking about killing people indiscriminately is acceptable, but not a specific group of people?

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Neither are acceptable, but the second is definitely even less acceptable, yes. If someone were going around chatting about killing black people I don't think you'd be asking this question, would you?

And in reference to the question of why blokes hate homosexuality, surely the number one factor, above all mentioned, is that they're too damn scared to stand out from the crowd by not being homophobic.

The same was true with regard to race a few decades ago. The sad fact is, most people, however much they go on about being individual etc, will never stand up against prejudice, even in any small way. I'm by no means brave at all, but at least I'll call someone out on a blatantly fascist comment most of the time (unless I stand in immediate danger of getting killed for it, of course).

Much of this argument hinges around incitement. People can talk about free speech but we dont have unrestrained free speech in the UK, we have the right to free speech up until the point you begin to impinge on other people's rights.

So compare "I murder all wastemen" to "go and kill Badness!" - there's a difference as to whether it's incitement or not. The idea applies to discussion of violence within grime, just as much as it does homosexuality. So grime MCs can report the violence around them or their views on it fine, but the line would be to me is when they try and incite other listeners to violence, which thankfully pretty much never happens.

Legally, the additional factor is around the medium of the message: who said it and where they said it. Grime MCs are largely marginalised in mainstream society so they can say a bunch of things they absolutely could not say without legal repercussions if they said them on TV, in print or on radio, by the nature of the fact that they've said them on a stage in front of largely likeminded fans.

(Btw i was there and was surprised by the bars too - it looked like there was at least one gay man in the room... but as far as i know no one threatened him.)

PS Reggae journalist Sarah Bentley wrote about this general subject on my blog a few years back.

What I think is saddest here is the impulse to pick on the 'weakest' (not literally, but in the sense of the pervasive climate of homophobia that still exists, well, almost everywhere) target by the MCs. There seems to be more rage about other people's sexuality amongst MCs (which DOESN'T EVEN AFFECT THEM, for Christ's sakes) than there is about any kind of political grievances etc.

Logan Sama said:

Talking about killing people indiscriminately is acceptable, but not a specific group of people?

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I think the second is surely worse.

Like Blackdown says chatting lines about 'killing off waste MCs' etc. it is fairly clearly a lyrical brag/boast and not true incitement. I mean where would you start?! You'd have a crazy long hitlist!

But the second actually has realistic precedent - for instance the murder of gay men in Jamaica. I'm sure I'm not saying anything anyone hasn't heard before anyway.

I think it's Footsie who has some slightly similar lyrics; in the "Me a rasta like B.O.B, Me a rasta like Buju" bars. I might be wrong.

baboon2004 said:

What I think is saddest here is the impulse to pick on the 'weakest' (not literally, but in the sense of the pervasive climate of homophobia that still exists, well, almost everywhere) target by the MCs. There seems to be more rage about other people's sexuality amongst MCs (which DOESN'T EVEN AFFECT THEM, for Christ's sakes) than there is about any kind of political grievances etc.

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I know what you mean - heterosexual men are running things the world over!! We really don't need to pick on anyone else for fucks sake! Women and gay men are not threatening our hegemonic social dominance any time soon.

viktorvaughn said:

I think the second is surely worse.

Like Blackdown says chatting lines about 'killing off waste MCs' etc. it is fairly clearly a lyrical brag/boast and not true incitement. I mean where would you start?! You'd have a crazy long hitlist!

But the second actually has realistic precedent - for instance the murder of gay men in Jamaica. I'm sure I'm not saying anything anyone hasn't heard before anyway.

I think it's Footsie who has some slightly similar lyrics; in the "Me a rasta like B.O.B, Me a rasta like Buju" bars. I might be wrong.

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How many young black men have been killed in London this year over perceived "disrespect" which led to them drawing for the "skeng" and proceeding to "leng a man down"?

And now ask yourself how many homosexuals have been murdered in London due to their sexual practises?

And then tell me which one has "realistc precedent".

Don't be so utterly ridiculous.

And now ask yourself how many homosexuals have been murdered in London due to their sexual practises?

OK fair point, could have put it better. I'm sure nobody is going to listen to Badness and go 'OK, better kill this battyman'. But mob action in other countries has had that result - people have been killed by a pack of strangers for nothing more than who they choose to sleep with, which is a mind-blowingly horrific thing to happen to a human being.

With that in mind i do find Badness' lyrics far worse than some guy chatting about bringing a gat to the anonymous yard of some anonymous waste MC.

Put it this way - I'm sure nobody feels threatened when an MC chats that type of anonymous generic violent threats. But I think if I were gay and saw an MC a foot away from may scream 'Chi-chi man fi dead' and raise his gunfingers I might feel a bit threatened. I don't mean of immediate physical violence, but a bit marked out or scared or whatever.

Logan Sama said:

How many young black men have been killed in London this year over perceived "disrespect" which led to them drawing for the "skeng" and proceeding to "leng a man down"?

And now ask yourself how many homosexuals have been murdered in London due to their sexual practises?

And then tell me which one has "realistc precedent".

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This is a warped argument. No-one's defending lyrics that specifically call out killing young black men, are they? If someone was chanting "burn the black man", you'd be united with everyone else on here in condemning it strongly, right?

And yes, there have been gay men in London murdered for their sexual practices. Recent cases on Clapham Common and outside Heaven. Which London do you live in??

Your comments on Dissensus are usually really well-considered and intelligent. Obviously, you would risk alienating a huge section of your grime audience if you made comments that could be construed as 'pro-gay', so it's interesting that your comments here are so ill-considered.

viktorvaughn said:

I know what you mean - heterosexual men are running things the world over!! We really don't need to pick on anyone else for fucks sake! Women and gay men are not threatening our hegemonic social dominance any time soon.

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Lol. Well, okay, I didn't quite mean it like that. It's just that when someone makes a homophobic comment, most people will just let it pass in the current climate. Twenty years ago, a similar racist comment might have gone unchallenged. Today, in a lot of contexts (not all, by any means, obviously) someone would get pulled up for a racist comment. Which I think is a good thing. It doesn't solve prejudice, but making it (more) unacceptable to the 'average man in the street' is surely a step forward?

baboon2004 said:

This is a warped argument. No-one's defending lyrics that specifically call out killing young black men, are they? If someone was chanting "burn the black man", you'd be united with everyone else on here in condemning it strongly, right?

And yes, there have been gay men in London murdered for their sexual practices. Recent cases on Clapham Common and outside Heaven. Which London do you live in??

Your comments on Dissensus are usually really well-considered and intelligent. Obviously, you would risk alienating a huge section of your grime audience if you made comments that could be construed as 'pro-gay', so it's interesting that your comments here are so ill-considered.

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But it's not like a huge amount of grime's core audience is going to check Dissensus is it?

It's disappointing that one of the scenes biggest ambassadors seems reluctant to unambiguously condemn homophobia.

baboon2004 said:

Lol. Well, okay, I didn't quite mean it like that. It's just that when someone makes a homophobic comment, most people will just let it pass in the current climate. Twenty years ago, a similar racist comment might have gone unchallenged. Today, in a lot of contexts (not all, by any means, obviously) someone would get pulled up for a racist comment. Which I think is a good thing. It doesn't solve prejudice, but making it (more) unacceptable to the 'average man in the street' is surely a step forward?

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Yeah I get where you were coming from, just being silly! We can only hope that in 20 years attitudes to homophobia will have changed as they to racism.

viktorvaughn said:

But it's not like a huge amount of grime's core audience is going to check Dissensus is it?

It's disappointing that one of the scenes biggest ambassadors seems reluctant to unambiguously condemn homophobia.

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My view would be that I can understand if Logan just didn't say anything on this topic, as being seen to be pro-gay could severely hamper his career if it 'got back to the grime audience', sadly enough. I certainly would be nervous about this in his position. So why can't he just say nothing?

I was there too and from what I recall (I'd had twotreebeer at that point) I did go just short of ape-shit crazy for the reload, but had Jimminy Cricket quietly calling me a wanker in my ear as I did.

I basically don't take these lyrics seriously or literally. "Battyboy", "Wasteman" and "Dickhead" all mean the same thing to me really, and in any case it has nothing to do with sexual orientation.

Nevertheless, though the bars are hype, I couldn't escape feeling the weird discomfort that Frank felt.