• @marmulak
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    -362 years ago

    This has nothing to do with whether or not gay people exist, but how society views or deals with these topics. The total absence of any law shouldn’t be taken to mean societal approval. If it’s so taboo that they won’t even talk about it, there won’t be any mention of it publicly or at home, so no laws, and some people will grow up not knowing what it is.

    You seem not to be very well aware of how this works. Part of the marginalization of sexual minorities does involve pretending they don’t exist, and you may also have heard of this place called the closet but if you don’t know what that is you can ask someone else.

    If you think all gay people are open and out in the DPRK and they get treated well by society, I would be a bit skeptical.

    Like I mentioned elsewhere, communism in North Korea isn’t California communism…

    • Seanchaí (she/her)
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      272 years ago

      Thank you for explaining to me, a trans lesbian, what the closet is. I very much appreciate it, I never knew.

      What I am saying is that it doesn’t matter how much people talk about it, or don’t talk about it, or threaten people who talk about it: being gay is an inherent part of nature. It happens regardless of socialization. It happens regardless of culture. Whether the DPRK approves of queerness or not was not the discussion. The discussion is believing that no one knows what gay is there to the extent that gay people do not exist because they do not know they are gay. It’s wild to actually believe. Truly wild.

      • @marmulak
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        -262 years ago

        Well you are and have been for a while misrepresenting this discussion, so if you are really as knowledgeable as you claim then we can leave it here.

        • Seanchaí (she/her)
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          252 years ago

          Misrepresenting the discussion? You said “this is probably true” about a person saying they don’t even know what gay is in the DPRK. So uh…that was exactly what I was discussing. The wildly unbelievable character of such a statement, as if there was ever a society where gay people didn’t exist.

          It’s also pretty silly for you to say it’s likely true that they don’t know what gay is, but then follow it with a comment that gay people are poorly treated. How can they treat them poorly if they don’t know what it even is?

          • @marmulak
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            02 years ago

            Yes and it’s likely true that this person did not know. Your assertion that this means gay people don’t exist is bereft of logic. I already explained this in a previous response, and I’m sorry if you don’t understand.

            One thing you’re doing wrong is making absolute assumptions about everyone in society being identical. Not all individuals in a society have the same experience, which I’m sure you know.

            Just to give you a case in point, my grandmother who grew up in the USA, said she didn’t know what sex was until she was an adult, and she was quite elderly when she found out about anal sex. By your logic, this would mean, that if my grandmother was telling the truth, that sex did not exist in the USA and nobody knew what it was. This is false reasoning.

            • LunaticHacker
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              22 years ago

              But she wasn’t talking about herself, in the post ‘they’ is referring to DPRK society. In your grandma example it will be the equivalent of your grandma saying nobody in USA knew what sex is. remember yenomi left DPRK when she was 14

              • @marmulak
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                -12 years ago

                I agree with you the fact that she was 14 (rather young) is a factor. She might not have been aware what other people knew or didn’t know, like maybe her same-aged friends in her village or something were never told about sex, but their parents knew but didn’t talk about it. That sort of thing. Some people if they live in this kind of conservative bubble they may be surprised even as adults to see gay people. Maybe it’s because of my age but I remember when even in America people were shocked even as adults to find out about certain things because the society they grew up in didn’t have a place for them. Yes some people are just naive and not worldly. Hard to relate to especially now if you’ve had the Internet since birth.

                I just don’t think in this case she’s lying but her experience has an explanation, like her age as you mentioned.

                • LunaticHacker
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                  32 years ago

                  Propaganda isn’t just lies, like you said for all we know she might just be explaining her experience. the problem is trying to project that to an entire society for malicious slandering. in isolation we can’t find any malice in this statement, but there are plenty of other instances where we know for sure that she lies about DPRK. the most infamous being the ‘train pushing’ on JRE.

                  This is why we shouldn’t take anything defectors say on face value because it comes in two parts - ‘experience’ and ‘narrative’. experience itself doesn’t have to be a lie. but the narrative they package with that experience can be malicious. For example certain parts of yenomis stories about poverty are likely true. but her narrative that it’s because of the ‘evil’ DPRK government is false.

    • Catradora-Stalinism☭M
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      202 years ago

      Like I mentioned elsewhere, communism in North Korea isn’t California communism…

      What the fuck does this mean