This is the most intelligent thing written so far about Anderson Cooper.

[Smarmie Doofus]

This am's NYTimes. It expects a lot.... yet he's (Mendelsohn) hard to argue with.

>>>>Mr. Cooper’s gesture was a righteous and worthy one, and there’s little doubt that it will make this already hugely popular figure someone who “will inspire countless others,” as Herndon Graddick, the president of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, put it. But what may be even more revealing about his e-mail was its tormented rhetoric — the justifications and evasions that inadvertently expose the ways in which even the most privileged and enlightened gay people are still constrained by, and often internalize, the prejudices that oppress them.

The secrecy of many closeted celebrities stems from a fear that revealing their homosexuality will destroy the public personae on which their lucrative and influential careers are based. This anxiety is particularly notable in the case of Hollywood stars and professional athletes, whose audiences, still prey to clichés about masculinity, can’t countenance gay heroes. But Mr. Cooper insisted that his concern was privacy. “As long as a journalist shows fairness and honesty in his or her work, their private life shouldn’t matter,” he wrote to Mr. Sullivan. “I do not desire to promote any cause other than the truth.”

What’s interesting is the assumption that simply being known to be gay could be considered pushing “an agenda”: by whom? Nobody thinks that straight journalists are pushing a straight agenda. The mere use of the word “agenda” smacks, unfortunately, of the substanceless rhetoric of the cultural right, with its paranoid fantasies that gay teachers are trying to convert straight children to homosexuality (as if such a thing were possible) as part of a gay agenda.>>>>> more at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/04/opinion/a-closet-by-another-name.html

[xchrom]

1. Du rec. Nt

[LuvNewcastle]

2. I like that article.

Right-wingers have so politicized sexuality that reporters like Cooper feel that they are compromising their objectivity by being open about it. Nobody thinks that a married straight reporter isn't objective because he has a wife. It's a terrible double standard.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

3. wonderful article

thanks so much for sharing

Whatever they tell themselves, public figures who haven’t followed his lead are still prisoners. The closet is still a closet, even if it’s a duplex on Fifth Avenue or a mansion in Beverly Hill

[William769]

4. Great article.

[HillWilliam]

5. Rec 5

Well said.

[closeupready]

7. K&R

nt

[Maven]

8. Excellent article. Summarizes what I found so disingenuous about Cooper's pained rationalizations

for keeping his sexuality "hidden" (and I put "hidden" in quotation marks for reasons all here can guess). It had been bothering me, and Mr. Mendelsohn lays it out perfectly here.

K/R

[dsc]

9. The one thing Cooper said that I understand

was that he was afraid what would happen in countries that are anti gay. Frankly I wouldn't want to be the famously gay reporter covering the Muslim Brotherhood rallies in Egypt to give one example.

[Raster]

10. Each and every time another public figure reveals their...

...sexual identity without guile or intrigue, they add clarity and honesty to the continuing discussion of sexual identity and orientation so desperately needed today.

Each time another public figure openly and proudly declares who they are, they offer yet another choice to a Lesbian, Bisexual, Gay or Transgendered child, who has been conditioned through abuse and shame to believe the only way out of their closet is in a body bag.

Thank you, Anderson Cooper.

[Aerows]

11. Femininity, too

You must have feminine qualities in the public eye.

Lesbians have just as many issues proving that they are feminine as men do proving they are masculine for this screwed up sexual dichotomy that our society accepts as gospel because it is rooted in religion.

[Smarmie Doofus]

12. Less religion, seems to me, than some other cultural phenomenon that....

>>>>This anxiety is particularly notable in the case of Hollywood stars and professional athletes, whose audiences, still prey to clichés about masculinity, can’t countenance gay heroes.>>>>>>


... I can't quite put my finger on. Religion is... for males... kind of a "feminizing" ( pardon the terminology; our vocabulary for talking about this stuff is limited.) influence. In the sense of: religion ( most varieties, anyway) is about pacification, domesticity, peacemaking, etc. What we generally think of as "feminine" qualities or attributes.

Seems to me the dichotomy is more firmly rooted in the hunters vs. gatherers divide. (But I'll be glad to defer to real life anthropologists who can show me otherwise.)


What we can probably agree on is that we can't outgrow these straight-jacket gender stereotypes fast enough.Truth is we are all a mixture of all our influences, which usually includes much of "mom" and much of "dad".

It goes beyond sexual orientation ( though there's lots of overlap) and in many ways gender fascism is even more destructive than homophobia. If only because it hurts *everybody*. Not just 10% of the population.