Friday 5 June 2015

What is normality.

What is "normality" ?  I have just been listening to a spat between a heterosexual male and a transvestite.
The terms heterosexual, transsexual, transgender,transvestite, gay, lesbian all proclaim a territory which is defined by "their" particular understanding of "normality". The hermaphrodite is as normal as someone suffering bi-polar, or altruism, its a fact of life that they exist as they are and we have to try to understand that their norms are as normal as ours.
Viewed from the 'singular' this is what we, as a mature civilised society should aim for, and wonder at the complexity of the mind (for I believe it is the mind which throws up the variants to confuse us) to have so many variations.
When it comes to society there are other factors which inhibit our whole hearted compliance with the rights of people to be who they are.
If my nature is to be brutal and aggressive society expects that collectively we take a common stance and decry the right of the person to be aggressive to others.
If there is a detrimental effect on society to witness overt acts perhaps of a sexual nature then we have a right to expect the rules by which we establish the norms in society to come into effect and quell what is at that moment a normal but inappropriate act.
The coming together of two men or two women who claim they love each other and wish to act as a if they were a couple and play the role of 'active sexual interplay, by (within the bounds of physical ability), mimicking a heterosexual couple and suggest that it's normal, has some people up in arms.
There is the claim that the act of having sex is to procreate, to create a child and that sex therefore should only be between a man and a woman. Sex as a stimulant is to be avoided, having sex outside marriage is to be avoided and so on. It's true to say that 50 years ago society had very different views about the sanctity of marriage and the permission marriage gave to young people to engage in sex.  Having a child out of wedlock was viewed as disgraceful and equally being an adulterer was likewise despicable.
The question of whether "normality" changes, as societies view on sex and marriage has,
that is the question !
If we were all encircled in our own enclave, each allowed to do what is the norm for that particular group, does that group have the right to demand the right of their own normality to invade that of the other groups ?
Is it there  a 'cosmopolitan' right in society to demand that we 'all' accept something even if there are deep objections, objections which are brushed away in the over arching right of the noisy cosmopolitan.

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