Kizyr wrote:By the way, I'm not saying that bigotry against homosexuals isn't real. I mean, I think race is a fictitious concept, but racism is still real (and a real problem). Bigotry against homosexuals is similar in certain regards; it just requires more effort to create an identity centered about who you're attracted to... Though, I don't think it's so necessary to create that identity. I mean, I'm quite attracted to redheads, I don't need to create an identity based on that.
True. I do remember more than one person of my acquaintance calling himself a "breast man" or a "leg man", referring to which (feminine) features caught their interest the most. But the most negative reaction that's likely to incite is mild contempt, and they probably didn't define their whole social interaction by that preference. Probably. I'm not sure about one of them.
You make an interesting point about identity. To me it goes with the American love of labelling, categorizing, cubbyholing...things people do to avoid having to actually think and assess each person individually. If you can check off features for, oh, straight, Democrat, black, male, you can figure that you know what they think about X, Y, and Z without actually troubling to find out directly. It somewhat doesn't really surprise me that people assign labels to themselves as well.