Actually, there is no such thing as a homosexual person, any more than there is such a thing as a heterosexual person. The words are adjectives describing sexual acts, not people. The sexual acts are entirely normal; if they were not, no one would perform them.
Interpretation
Gore Vidal challenges the labels of sexual orientation, suggesting they are merely descriptors of behavior rather than defining characteristics of individuals.
Gore Vidal's quote emphasizes that sexual orientation labels like 'homosexual' or 'heterosexual' are insufficient to fully define a person. Instead, he argues that these terms refer to specific sexual acts, and that engaging in such acts is a normal aspect of human behavior that shouldn't carry stigma. By framing sexuality in this way, he encourages a more nuanced understanding of identity as complex and multifaceted, resisting simplistic categorization.
In practice
In a discussion about sexual diversity at a community event.
We must declare ourselves, become known; allow the world to discover this subterranean life of ours which connects kings and farm boys, artists and clerks. Let them see that the important thing is not the object of love, but the emotion itself.
American writers want to be not good but great; and so are neither.
Writing fiction has become a priestly business in countries that have lost their faith.
The important thing is not the object of love, but the emotion itself.
For the average American, freedom of speech is simply the freedom to repeat what everyone else is saying and no more.
Ayn Rand's 'philosophy' is nearly perfect in its immorality, which makes the size of her audience all the more ominous and symptomatic as we enter a curious new phase in our society.... To justify and extol human greed and egotism is to my mind not only immoral, but evil.
Many feel that in today's climate some of those in authority are exercising, in effect, a self-serving, 'ends justify the means' mindset as well, and that, in turn, empowers them to do the same.
Men decide far more problems by hate, love, lust, rage, sorrow, joy, hope, fear, illusion or some other inward emotion, than by reality, authority, any legal standard, judicial precedent, or statute.
Who knows the end? What has risen may sink, and what has sunk may rise. Loathsomeness waits and dreams in the deep, and decay spreads over the tottering cities of men.
The more I learn about God, the more aware I become of what I don’t know about him.
If the land mechanism as a whole is good then every part is good, whether we understand it or not.
Imagining what it is like to be someone other than yourself is at the core of our humanity. It is the essence of compassion, and it is the beginning of morality.
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