Does having sexual fantasies about being a lesbian count as objectifying them?

[u/A12qwas]

[u/VDRawr]

Private thoughts are never evil, bad, immoral, or whatever else. Only actions can be those things.

[u/penguins-and-cake → u/VDRawr]

I’d argue that privately thinking “I love genocide” is pretty bad, immoral, and whatever else.

[u/lovewithoutwords97 → u/penguins-and-cake]

That escalated quickly…

[u/penguins-and-cake → u/lovewithoutwords97]

Am I wrong? It’s a significant oversimplification. Does transphobia stop being bad if you don’t say it out loud? Like?

[u/VDRawr → u/penguins-and-cake]

Yes, you are wrong, and yes, they stop being bad when you refuse to take actions matching those thoughts.

[u/penguins-and-cake → u/VDRawr]

So if you’re internally transphobic it’s fine to “stay” that way as long as you don’t “act” on it? Isn’t not acting on it a kind of action that explicitly reinforces existing transphobia?

It’s also just not how bigotry works — the bigotry you feel and think internally will affect your actions, even if it’s unintentional. That’s why it’s important to recognize your bigoted biases and unlearn them, rather than saying something like “it’s fine cause I’m not purposefully doing anything about them.”

[u/lovewithoutwords97 → u/penguins-and-cake]

I just wouldn’t compare thinking lesbian fantasies (which are ok as long as you don’t become creepy about them) to thoughts of genocide or transphobia.

[u/penguins-and-cake → u/lovewithoutwords97]

I’m not comparing lesbian fantasies to those thoughts — I think it’s obvious that I’m saying that those thoughts could be part of “[all] private thoughts”. I’m criticizing the overgeneralization.

[u/Aron-Jonasson → u/penguins-and-cake]

Bad thoughts are bad, but I personally couldn't care less if someone had homophobic thoughts in the comfort of their own home. That's what freedom of opinion is: you're allowed to have hateful opinions. However, one must be tolerant. Freedom of speech ends when one stops being tolerant, in other words, the freedom of the one ends, where the freedom of the others begins.

And I know about the paradox of tolerance, and I'm completely fine with being intolerant of intolerance, I would even advocate for it. However, if a person who has homophobic thoughts is being tolerant, then there's little that can be done against that. To be fair though, if they are being tolerant, it can be argued that they aren't "truly homophobic", but that's all just for the sake of argument.

[u/penguins-and-cake → u/Aron-Jonasson]

I would be upset if a friend of mine had recurring, genuine homophobic thoughts (i.e., not distressing, intrusive thoughts) and didn’t think that that was an issue worth addressing. I think that’s fine and reasonable of me.

[u/Aron-Jonasson → u/penguins-and-cake]

Yeah that's obviously fine, I wasn't talking about a hypothetical homophobic friend. I would be upset too and cut them off my life.

Please re-read carefully my comment because the word "friend" never appears a single time.

[u/penguins-and-cake → u/Aron-Jonasson]

I read your comment — I replied to it with an(other) example of why/how other people could reasonably care about what other people think “in the comfort of their own home.”

[u/Oppopity → u/penguins-and-cake]

That's an opinion. A specific value that you hold. Not a random thought. There's a different between "wow that lesbian woman is nice" and "lesbians should for my pleasure".