I have often been struck by how some people react positively to violence, probably via intensity ('if s/he's gone so far as doing this, s/he must really love me').

It seems the worst thing for us is indifference -- even a little (how much?) violence is OK as long as we're not just being ignored or forgotten.

I don't know if the narratives that this scholar examines mean much more than this (as the interview with the 'And it Felt like a Kiss' girl shows): violence proves intensity, and we'd love to think we caused that intensity in someone else. Because anything is preferable to causing nothing.

It's a pity, isn't it? that the love-hate relationship we have with other people can be exaggerated out of proportion like this.

And yes, kudos to the commenter above who noted that, as far as songs go, men do as many life-affirming, anti-violence stuff for women as they do violence- and abuse-full ones.

If he's so sure that he would never find an ideal mate in real life -- either because there is none, or (more likely) because he isn't very skilled at meatspace dating and with real girlfriends -- isn't it better to at least have something to dream about? Sodini, that guy who shot the women in the fitness club -- that might have kept him sane.

So we're afraid of male-to-male kisses -- more than female-to-female or female-to-male. OK. I suppose somewhere someone is imagining that this is part of this big conspiracy to teach faggotry to kids in highschool, as the campaign against gay marriage in Maine suggested. His/her thoughts might go something like this: --

Yes, think about it. It makes sense, as Glen Beck might say. Two men kissing... when? When there's controversy about gay marriage! And in the TeeVee, and without any parental guidance warnings -- so you couldn't protect the innocent.

Of course we have nothing against gay people and their love. No, not at all, it's just public faggotry that we really oppose, like everybody should. Or else what would happen to the real America?

Remember: faggotry to America is like kryptonite to Superman. For no obvious reason and in no obvious way (must be some radiation thing), it just destroys.

--

As for public displays of love between homosexuals, I'd agree with bigguns above -- let's get used to them, so that we aren't revolted by the idea of love only because the participants are of the same sex.

These letters make it clear that there is a serious emotional investment in retaining the socially constructed gender binary. How else would the "dudes" know who to feel superior to?

It may well be true that there is a strong emotional component to our understanding of males and females in society. But if you think that the notion of two easily definable and distinguishable statistical populations depends on emotionality to be true -- if you think it isn't simply a fact of nature -- then I think you must agree that letters like yours show that there is a serious emotional investment by some people in the idea that the whole male-female distinction is just 'culture.'

I of course agree with what you say about there being clear cases (black and white) plus intermediate cases (outliers). I'm not sure they are as many as you think -- as far as sex goes, I don't think they'll get to more than 1%, if at all. But still they're there, and of course they shouldn't be dismissed by those people who think it's always obvious who is a man and who is a woman.

But I don't think that this was clearly said in Ms Clark-Flory's post. No -- I don't see a discussion of the black and the white there; rather, she seems to be saying that it's all shades of gray. If I have misinterpreted her, please let me know where -- I did get the impression that she was claiming the existence of gray tones makes black and white simply a matter of social construal, an idea which, as far as I can tell, is not true. If this impression is wrong I certainly would like to know.

I pray for you, Pee-Jay.