An Early AM Question

[deelaundry]

Do you think the male nurse House spoke to in episode 6-8 (the Thanksgiving ep) was gay? Why or why not?

I know some people on my f-list thought the male nurse House spoke to in episode 6-8 (the Thanksgiving ep) was gay. If you thought this, what specifically made you think it?

You can screen your comment if you like.

ETA: I have turned off comment tracking for this post. If you have anything to say to me, you can send me a PM or direct email. If anyone says anything offensive to you in this post, you can let me know directly.

Comments

[onewayfreak.livejournal.com]

So in order for it not to be offensive, she should have made herself sound like she's presenting a paper to a review board? It's casual conversation. You know what Dee's intentions were here and you know that she is in no way a homophobe, or prone to heterocentrism. If the queer community spent all their time arguing semantics with people who have completely innocent intentions, nothing would ever get done.

[zulu.livejournal.com]

If what it took for people not to be offensive was to be careful of their speech, would it be worthwhile for them to be careful of their speech?

[onewayfreak.livejournal.com]

Of course it would. If that's all it took. But we both know it's not. We both know there are MUCH worse offenses than a innocent person inquiring as to whether a fictional character is gay. As a queer woman, I saw no problem in the question whatsoever. If you do, then that's fine. But please, fight gay bashing and oppression of civil rights first, then come back and deal with whatever presumed problem you see in a wonderfully tolerant woman's semantics.

[spoggly.livejournal.com]

people can do more than one thing at the same time, and it's interesting that you're characterizing friendly/neutral questioning between friends as an attack/aggressive

[bell]

You are derailing. When and to whom someone chooses to express their frustrations is up to them. It is fairly common to point out in fandom conversations when a wording could be improved, and that is what I saw queenzulu doing. I did not see any accusations of homophobia.

[onewayfreak.livejournal.com]

Linking to snottily written articles to insult my intelligence isn't the best way to get me to discuss things in a civil tone.

Voicing an opinion that I think a debate is trivial is well within my rights (and a valid argument), and implying I'm stupid for doing so seems a lot less mature than what I'm doing.

[bell]

I linked to that article because it's a quick reference to explain to what I meant; I did not mean to insult your intelligence. I do stand, however, by my point that you are derailing the discussion and I think you are continuing to do so. I respect your opinion that the post presented no problems; I also think that other people should also be say that they thought it could've been expressed better without being told to prioritize differently.

To Dee, and to try to return to the original conversation: I also felt that the wording in your post was abrupt/problematic and I think that the non-leading framing you'd intended was undone by the comments explaining your purpose. I also know it wasn't your intention to offend and I'm also interested to read the answers and think about what they say about perceptions/stereotypes.

[onewayfreak.livejournal.com]

Alright, fine, I'm officially done "derailing".

I agree that people should be allowed to voice their opinions, and I didn't set out to imply that anyone's views are invalid, and if I did that, I apologize. If semantics are to be argued, I can do that: If Dee's post could have been worded better and clarified, then so could the original comment. If the comment had simply said that the wording of the post was problematic, then that would have been fine. I wouldn't have even replied. Posing the thoughts in the form of such an open-ended question with what I thought to be a fairly obvious answer (since I took it at face value) made it sound as if the commenter was in some way offended by the post, rather than a little miffed and wishing to ask for a rephrasing.

[bell]

I agree that people should be allowed to voice their opinions, and I didn't set out to imply that anyone's views are invalid, and if I did that, I apologize.

Thank you.

I do not regret speaking up against what I was seeing as an attempt to silence a legitimate concern about problematic wording/framing; I do agree that there could've been better wording in the conversation, and I'm sorry I didn't use a better link/worded myself better. I'm glad you could understand my point of view.

[deelaundry.livejournal.com]

You are being snotty to my friends. Please stop. As you say, " When and to whom someone chooses to express their frustrations is up to them," so why are you tsk-tsking Onewayfreak for it?

[spoggly.livejournal.com]

in what way is pointing out that someone is derailing a conversation about the way questions about queerness are framed snotty

[deelaundry.livejournal.com]

Linking Onewayfreak to the article was snotty. Jumping into the middle of your conversation with Onewayfreak was particular snotty.

What conversation was Onewayfreak derailing? She was the one engaged in the conversation with Zulu, and Usomitai was the one jumping in the middle.

[bell]

What conversation was Onewayfreak derailing? She was the one engaged in the conversation with Zulu

Just to explain, I thought she was derailing Zulu's attempts to explain her concerns by saying that her concerns were not appropriate ("If the queer community spent all their time arguing semantics with people who have completely innocent intentions, nothing would ever get done" and "But please, fight gay bashing and oppression of civil rights first, then come back and deal with whatever presumed problem you see in a wonderfully tolerant woman's semantics").

I linked to the article because I do not know Onewayfreak and did not know if she would be familiar with the term "derailing". In retrospect, I should've chosen a better link that was more explanatory and less snarky; I was upset and forgot to check the nature of the link before using it.

[spoggly.livejournal.com]

But please, fight gay bashing and oppression of civil rights first, then come back and deal with whatever presumed problem you see in a wonderfully tolerant woman's semantics.

This kind of statement is a commonly used one, often meant to imply that the other persons' questions/statements/concerns are pointless at best, harmful at worst.

[bell]

I realize this will sound snotty but I am honestly not trying to be and I apologize if my language/wording is failing me-- how was I snotty? I've been upset by Onewayfreak's comments and trying to explain why.

[deelaundry.livejournal.com]

My suggestion is to tell OneWayFreak you are upset by her comments, instead of telling her she shouldn't be making them.

[bell]

Fair enough; I could've phrased myself better.

[leiascully.livejournal.com]

Given Dee's journal title of "two men because hot" and her notable history of writing notable slash (Hi, Dee!), I'm not sure if you can say that she's innocent, necessarily, given that she might have the motivation of writing fic about him. I'm not saying it's a bad motivation, mind you, but that there might be an interest that reaches beyond mere inquiry.

Zulu also wasn't calling her intolerant, from what I've read. I think she just wanted more information about what the question was intended to discover and what came behind it, and it's true that if Dee was seeking evidence based on language use, she could have clarified and re-framed the question to indicate that, especially given the other markers of queerness that might have been present. It's good that as a queer woman, you saw the question as mere curiosity. It's also good that Zulu, as a queer woman and a scholar of gender identity, linguistics, and sexual politics, wanted to read deeper. Surely there's room for all of us here. I'm not quite sure why you're vexed about this.

As for myself, I haven't seen the episode, but Dee, I find your line of linguistic inquiry interesting!

[onewayfreak.livejournal.com]

She didn't ask what Dee's intentions were, though. She asked why queerness has to be interrogated, which sounds a lot more like she's accusing Dee of interrogating queerness (which has a negative connotation). If she wanted to know the intentions of the question, that could have been asked outright instead of beating around the bush. It all comes back to semantics in the end, I guess.

[leiascully.livejournal.com]

I thought Zulu's question was very neutrally worded. It's true that Dee's question is framed in a rather binary way which makes it difficult to read intention.

[onewayfreak.livejournal.com]

Your opinion of Dee's question is a subjective thing. It's no more a fact that Dee's post was problematic than it is a fact that Zulu's question was problematic. You found Dee's question difficult to interpret and I felt the same way for Zulu's. Why does someone have to be wrong (why does one opinion get to be called fact while the other is just an opinion)?

[leiascully.livejournal.com]

I never said that you were wrong or that either of them were right or factual. I wondered why you seemed to take offense at Zulu turning the question around, when that's a technique often used in discussion to open up new avenues of inquiry. As a scholar, I also found Dee's phrasing interesting and wanted to know more about why she chose those words and what she wanted to discover. It's a fact that Dee's question was binary, allowing for a yes or no answer, and that her follow-up question did not reveal what sort of information she was interested in obtaining (which is obviously also valid - the respondent doesn't need total knowledge to respond, and that can make responses more interesting).

I found neither question difficult to interpret; I found intention ambiguous. I was pleased to read people's responses with their justification, and I was pleased to see that Dee's curiosity was well-informed by current linguistics project and interested to know the results.

[deelaundry.livejournal.com]

Hi, Bone! ♥ I figured out a way to re-phrase my question while keeping it accurate to my intentions; I hope it doesn't sounds negative.

♥ ♥ ♥