You say that a lot.

Because it needs to be said a lot.

I don't happen to agree that being ourselves is the same as having a bad image.

And I'm sure your guy buddies "just being themselves" in the locker room or in a strip club is the same way they should act in front of the public crowds in a restaurant, or in the presence of your grandmother's bridge club, right? Please consider what I am saying here.

You are fully entitled to care all you want about appeasing The Massa.

It's not about appeasing "The Massa," it's about acting in a way that doesn't live up to the stereotypes, because there are many thoughtful people out there who want to learn about us fairly, but nevertheless have a lot of negative media hype to get past before they can do so, and it doesn't work to our benefit to have that "fuck you" attitude to them as well as the antis. We are not yet at the point in time where any of us can afford to act like creeps in public and not have the entire community blamed instead of just those individuals, as was the case for minority groups like blacks and homosexuals back during the 1950s. You are only making things more difficult for us by having a contemptuous attitude towards everyone outside of the community, instead of only those who may actually deserve it.

I don't happen to think you're entitled to expect anyone else to give a fuck. Gatekeeper was passive aggressive? Well boo-hoo, we better watch that. Wouldn't wanna hurt the delicate feelings of any of those Anti readers who only wanna innocently stomp our fucking faces into the dirt right before they set us on fire.

I think I am more than entitled to think that, bro, and I'll tell you why. Once again, you harbor a very foolish misconception: That the only Nons out there who read this board are full-blown, died-in-the-wool antis. You cannot conceive of the idea that anyone outside of this community could possibly at least harbor a desire to learn about us fairly, and actually do not want to get all of their info about us from the media. You find it easy to think in such a distorted way--i.e., that everyone outside of the community is our enemy and we should spit in their face every chance we get--because you have hidden in the toybox so carefully since you realized you were an MAA. Well, I have never been in the closet/toybox, and I have met more than enough people who did not judge me based on my attractions once they got to know me. You have also never attended a workshop from B4U-ACT, where you would have experienced some of the things I have: An older MHP who was a member of the mainstream homosexual community sit down beside me and share a lunch table with me, fully knowing I was an MAA, and apologizing for the behavior of his community towards us, failing to understand why they cannot empathize with us after going through essentially the same thing when he was a young man just realizing that he had sexual preferences which were considered "deviant" during the 1950s. You do not want to acknowledge that people like this are out there, since you allow virtually everyone who loves and respects you in real life to comfortably believe you couldn't possibly be an MAA, and you have never sat down as an MAA at a workshop where several MAAs and social scientists who were not MAAs talked respectfully amongst each other, had lunch together, and some of them choosing to hang out with us after the workshop had ended, where they laughed and talked with us as equals, simply because they came to like us as people. Imagine how they would have reacted if we acted like Gatekeeper so often does, or we talked or joked loudly about how we would love to get blow jobs from young people, and considered that "just being ourselves" around them. Then again, you wouldn't give a fuck how any of these people would feel, of course, because if we acted politely to anyone outside of this community, and maybe showed a little respect for their sensibilities just as they were for our own, that would be the equivalent of "appeasing" or "placating" them in your eyes.

Well, sorry, BB, but I do have those expectations, because I am not contented with just spending my time bitching about how we are treated, and slinging mud back at the world outside this community. I need to vent like that sometimes too, of course, but I am also interested in improving our situation and gaining progress for us, and I'm sorry, but there are times when that takes showing courtesy and respect to the people that we want to receive the same thing from.

MAPTherapy seems to understand perfectly well that he is an outsider in a community where outsiders are viciously mistrusted and with good reason. He understands this; why don't you?

Because you are showing a dismissive attitude towards the type of behavior that causes people to viciously mistrust us in the first place, or at least the type of behavior that causes people who reach out to us to get driven off with an opinion that does not help us one bit. Some of us understand that it's possible to improve our situation; why can't you?