naruball said:
1. Yes, i have read the comics. Still no need to use that kind of language, but since you can't help yourself, I'll start using it so that you can perhaps understand me bette, since civilized cinversation is not your thing. 2. "you definitely need to get your head checked": Do me a favour and take your own advice 3. "Do we really need a scene where Spider-man is essentially hooked up to a polygraph test and saying he's not gay to prove he's gay?" No, we don't. I wasn't the one pulling numbers out of my ass. You were. To make that kind of a claim, you do need such a scene. There isn't so we can't be 99.99999999999 (or how many more 9's you want to add) %sure. 4. "Why the ridiculous standard of evidence required for this particular claim": The only thing ridiculous here are the examples you provided. Plus, you are once again wrong. I didn't say there needs to be proof he likes girls. I said he may also like boys. Huge difference, but if you can't see it, not my problem. 5. "if you want to talk about evidence, fine let's talk about it." All your evidence suggests that he likes women. I never argued that he's gay. Through the comics we're shown one side of the character. That doesn't mean other sides don't exist. Take Eric from True Blood. We see him only date women, only have lust/love for women and then in one episode he mentions that he's been with men too. So up until that episode we think he's straight. If one were to argue that he also may like guys, you'd say "but here's the evidence!". Evidence showing what? That he likes women? We can all agree on that. What we don't know until that point is whether he likes guys too. And they/he says he does. In other words, just because we're not shown something, it doesn't mean that we know that the character never did it/felt that way. 6. "But yes, you were talking about closeted cases, because if Peter Parker was attracted to men, and it has never come up over about 30 years of life, then he definitely was closeted". Once again you're dead wrong and jump to conclusions. It never came up for Eric either until that episode, yet he wasn't closeted. Just because someone may have liked 2-3 women his life, but never been with one, it doesn't mean he's closeted straight. He may have liked some guys and we only get to see that in a flashback (as happens in most shows when there's a huge revelation). 7. "It seems like a reasonable prediction that if Peter Parker was attracted to men, then each time he meets a man, of which he has met thousands, there should be a chance that he'd be attracted to him, especially since he's met dreamboats like Johnny Storm and Steve Rogers. And, since most comic books are told from Peter Parker's first person thoughts or an omniscient third person narrator, we should see some sign of his attraction to men in thought bubbles, dialogue, or narration. So let's run our test. Out of 10000+ encounters with men throughout Spider-man comic books, the rate of Spider-man showing any signs of attraction or romantic interest is 0%. Simply hasn't happened. So, we have to reject the hypothesis that Peter Parker is attracted to men, and accept the null hypothesis that he is not attracted to men." That's a very flawed logic. Extremely flawed, I'd say. The narrator chooses to show us some sides of him. Not all of them. Yes, it is possible to have purposely hidden that side of him even if he'd met thousands of men. Similar to how a narrator may be a ghost, knows that they are a ghost and doesn't reveal so until the end of the movie. If you read papers on the Aeneid and the tricks that the omniscient narrator is playing on the reader or even Plato in the Lysis, you'll see that narrators do not always reveal the entire truth. Saving such a revalation for later tends to shock the audience. 8. "And if you cannot present evidence but you still insist that there is any real possibility he's attracted to men, then yes, you need your head checked". Once again, take your own advice. 9. "Peter Parker didn't have friends in high school. His closest male friend in his youth was Harry Osborne, and that's established as a platonic relationship." I'm not sure if you can see the contradiction here, but let's just say I bolded it for you just in case. 10. "What you're suggesting is retconning. Changing established continuity and creating something in the past that never happened. If this happened, then yes Peter Parker would be gay/bi or whatever". But, it didn't." Once again, you're wrong. It was never shown. We don't know if it did happen. All it takes is a single reference or a flashback to show us that it did happen. We don't see every single event from his life, just parts of it that he chooses to share. The others tend to be revealed through a flashback. 11. If he's not going to have a relationship with a guy, then what the hell is the point? Why go through the effort to inject some homoerotic stuff into Peter's past to not have any follow up? That's just shitty storytelling. Like, seriously why? Just to say "hey readers, just so you know, Spider-man liked this dude once. Not important for any reason, but just so you know." You're not actually making a case for Spider-man liking dudes, you're just kind of saying that it would be neat if we got some gay Spidey fanfic. And if we're going to do gay fanfic for marvel characters, this is a terrible choice. Seriously, Bucky and Captain America. Two warriors who find love among the horrors of world war II only to tragically be torn apart and then awaken years later to face eachother as enemies on the battlefield. That's a way better story then "hey Spider-man met this cute guy once and he kind of liked him." Shows further how little you understand these issues. As I said many teens struggle with their sexuality and are afraid to speak about it. They tend to oppress it, get married and then cheat on their wives/husbands with people of the same gender (think Brokeback Mountain). This could show teenagers that it's something that other people go through. Maybe they're not actually gay, but they need to figure that out by talking to someone or through exploration. Maybe they are, but it's ok. Peter Parker also kissed guys so if I feel like kissing a dude, there's nothing to be ashamed about. It is something that people who discovered they're straight through doubts and eventual exploration can relate to. It could be a great coming of age story. And it could represent all the bi people, who are neglected by the media. In most movies/tvseries and even comics, you're either gay or straight. Parker can be pansexual and have only found great love in women. |
1. No civilized "cinversation" is definitely not my thing. Being sarcastic is my thing, so let me help you out. When you're trying to be a dick (which I frequently do) you gotta be on point with spelling. If you're not, it ruins it :)
2. See, there is a difference here. I suggested you get your head checked because you show no knowledge of logic. You just randomly blurted it out in a rather uncreative attempt at an insult.
3. You do realize that people sometimes use a % as a figure of speech right? Fine, you caught me. I didn't actually do the math. The point is that there is absolutely no reason to believe it, and you still have yet to provide one.
4/5. As I said, if he were gay, we would expect him at some point to show some indication that he were attracted. If he does not show any indication in 40 years of material, it is incredibly reasonable to believe he is not attracted to men. Do you disagree?
I don't watch True Blood, so I can't comment on that. Are we privy to the inner thoughts of this character? How much do we see him? Is their an omniscient narrator explaining his motives? Have other characters had access to his mind?
I can't completely rule out the fact that an imaginary character may have had homosexual urges at one point. However, with no evidence of such it is stupid to think he has. And when we have literally thousands of examples of Peter having encounters with males with no evidence of sexual interest, it would be incredibly stupid to suggest that there is a realistic possibility that he has such interest.
So here's your chance. Show me ONE piece of evidence that would suggest Peter Parker is attracted to men. What logical reason do we have to believe this besides the fact that he hasn't yet passed a polygraph test saying he's straight?
6. I'm dead wrong that if a character likes men and has never acknowledged it either to others or even in his own thoughts that he's closeted? Cause I'm pretty sure in the closet means he's never addressed his attraction to men. Either my definition of in the closet is wrong, or your definition of "wrong" is wrong. And I don't know why you keep bringing up Eric. I don't care about him. If one writer makes shitty writing decisions (again never seen true blood) that doesn't mean it's ok.
7. Except for the fact that we have no reason to believe the narrator has an agenda, and more importantly, Spider-man is quite often the narrator of the stories. And if a series of narrators across different books and writers are trying to trick us for about 40 years now, then they're really playing the long game on this one. Lol.
If you think a 40 year conspiracy is more likely than Peter Parker being straight, get your head examined.
8. If you think that no indication of attraction to men over 40 years of storytelling does not give us good reason to believe that he's not straight, then you have long ago left the realm of rational thought. You also need to come up with your own lines if you want to insult me.
9. That's not a contradiction. Harry and Peter became friends when they both attended Empire State University, not in high school. Let's just say that you're making yourself look more and more ridiculous, plus exposing your lack of knowledge on the topic. :) Again, you need help with the sarcasm. When you want to point out someone's mistake in a dickish manner, it helps to not be wrong.
10. We also don't know that Spider-man didn't eat a baby when he was seven years old. We don't know that Juggernaut does not work as a clown at birthday parties in his spare time. Would it be valid for me to say "Spider-man may eat babies"?
IHere's how we do things when we talk about literature. If an event is not described, referenced, or in any way alluded to in the text, we assume it didn't happen. Because if we don't adhere to that rule, we could make up whatever retarded shit we want, which is what you're doing.
"Well Spider-man may have been gay because we can't prove that he never had a homosexual encounter that nobody ever wrote about." Seriously?
11. My comment had nothing to do with what it's like to be gay, and more to do with storytelling. It's a principle called Chekhov's gun that basically states that if you bring up a plot point in a story, you have to use it later on. Remove everything that has no relevance to the story.
"If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it's not going to be fired, it shouldn't be hanging there."
Making him attracted to men and then never following up on it is basically leaving that gun on the wall. And if you just bring it up once and then never follow up on it, I don't think it would be all that meaningful to gay kids. And regardless of whether or not it would make gay kids happy, that has no bearing on whether or not it is true according to the text.
Basically what you're saying is "if we don't have 100% proof that Spider-man is not attracted to men, it's a valid proposition." Which is lol stupid.
By the same logic, I can make the following equally valid claims...
Superman rapes children in his free time. Luke Skywalker and Yoda once had steamy sex in the swamps of Degobah. Voldemort does charity work to support aids research in his spare time. Luigi is an avid stamp collector. Sonic the Hedgehog is sexually aroused by papayas. Kirby is an anti-semite. Joker is actually evil because he never got that pony he wanted when he was a kid. Tommy from Rugrats eventually became a suicide bomber and detonated a nuclear weapon in Paris, leading to World War 3. After the conclusion of 1984, Big Brother realized the error of his ways, and reformed society for the better. Juggernaut dreams of being a competitive synchronized swimmer. Willie Loman is resurrected three days after death of a salesman, and becomes a successful porn star. Captain America secretly harbors a deep adoration of Adolf Hitler. Wonder Woman eats babies. Pinkie Pie is into scat porn.
I can't completely disprove any of these things. But that doesn't mean that it's not absolutely retarded to believe them, because we don't have a shred of evidence, and often have evidence to the contrary. So, I ask you these two simple questions.
1. Is there any evidence that Spider-man is attracted to men? If so, provide it.
2. Do you think there is reason to believe Spider-man is gay?
If you answered no to question 1, and yes to question 2, then you don't get how logic and evidence works, and you do indeed need your head examined.
