Hop Against Homophobia and Transphobia

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Dirk Caber, homophobia, Hop against homophobia and transphobia, Jesse Jackman

Welcome to the Hop Against Homophobia and Transphobia (or welcome back, if I’m not the first stop on your way…), sparked by the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia.

First things first, at the bottom of the post, you’ll find a link that takes you over to the main HAHAT page (since WordPress likes to strip scripts. :/). From there, you can find lots of other posts with LOTS of other stories surrounding Homophobia and Transphobia from some amazing authors, artists and the like. It’s worth the visit!

Next, I will be giving away an e-book copy of any of my titles. If, by chance, you’ve got them all, I will, for the Hop only, reserve a copy of my upcoming title, No Sacrifice instead. For US visitors, I will also ship some cool (if I do say so myself) swag of your choice!

I plan to address a number of my posts this week to homophobia and hate, so be sure to check back each day. Every comment made on any of my HAHAT posts qualifies as an entry. Look for the HAHAT badge.

My week this week has been a roller coaster of emotion. It started out rough with a disagreement that blindsided me. I bottomed out with depression on Tuesday, and struggled through the day. I did have a number of wonderful people post to support me and that helped. Time, really, is what pulls me further out of depression than anything. But I digress (I’m good at that, though you guys very likely know that already). So, when I got up on Wednesday, I was doing better, feeling more like I could tackle the day (and life). I loaded up facebook (as is my wont first thing) and started paging through. And ran across a picture from someone I follow.

Look at those two and tell me they’re not in love. I dare you. And that is one of THE most beautiful things in the world. (Photo courtesy of Jesse’s facebook page. Used by permission.)

See, I follow two lovely adult actors on facebook (and in their various other spots) who are married. Jesse Jackman and Dirk Caber have a beautiful relationship. Their feelings for each other would be obvious to a blind man; they’re quite in love and it shows.

But they get a lot of crap, especially coupled with their professions, but mostly it’s because of who they love. Their stuff is often reported for being offensive (and I certainly have experience with that as my pics of Pablo alone have garnered that reaction, even when the poor boy is dressed!), though nothing is ever shown–except for their lips touching (well, hugging, possible bare chest… you get the idea).

I mean… fully dressed at the gym? (Another from Jesse’s fb page.)

This week, that’s taken an even nastier turn. I’m sure Jesse and Dirk are no strangers to hate. The vast majority of us aren’t. Living within the spectrum means we’ll see it. But there’s hate and then there’s ridiculous. Apparently, “offensive” wasn’t enough for some people. I suspect the things they were reporting weren’t getting pulled. So, instead, they’ve decided to claim Jesse (and Dirk, I believe) are now… abusive.

Yeah, right.

In all I’ve seen and read from both of them, neither of them have ever even approached abusive, and I’m sure anyone who takes even a cursory glance at their pages will agree. All this is intended to do is to make him (and his husband) miserable. Why?

Because they’re gay. That’s it. That’s all. And it’s infuriating.

Well, I got angry. I’m not the activist I’d like to be (mostly because I struggle enough to get through everything else I have to do) but sometimes, I see something that just pushes me past my limits (and my limits are pretty high, I promise you!) and the more I read about this, the angrier I got. And I just knew I couldn’t keep my mouth shut.

I am tired of my morality being dictated for me by someone who has no business sticking their nose where it doesn’t belong. And if they don’t want to see Dirk and Jesse’s beautiful relationship, that’s their choice. But it is not their choice to keep me from seeing it, if I want to. I invited people to simply walk away if it’s something they don’t want to see. And I sort of, uh, went off about it.

It apparently got Jesse’s attention and the wonderful person that he is, he shared my status on his page. It brought any number of people over to my profile and page (THANK YOU JESSE!) and I got so many wonderful likes, comments and shares on it. And the neat thing about it is the few comments people left on the shares that were less than positive… were immediately responded to with intelligent, well-worded arguments. Nothing ugly, just good discussion. And by the time I went to bed Wednesday night, I was feeling really good about the whole thing. I saw a few people say they went back to Jesse’s page from mine and liked him (or re-liked him) and I was so glad to know that maybe, just maybe, I helped a little.

But then I get online yesterday to see their fight continues. Apparently, since the “abusive” reports started, the likes on their pages have stopped (and even gone down). I have no idea for sure why or what’s going on, but this kind of thing needs to end.

Jesse and Dirk are so public because of who they are. But they are only a public example of so many people who go through something similar. I have a… dubious benefit because I am married to an opposite-sex partner. I say dubious because it just happened to turn out that way. I am bisexual. I could have fallen in love with a woman and every one of my wedding pictures or vacation pictures could have been just as “offensive” to someone as these two men are. It’s got to stop.

Homophobia is a misnomer. It’s not a “phobia” at all. It’s hate, pure and simple. Hate for something that has no business being hated. Love is beautiful, it’s something we should all be celebrating. Like Jesse and Dirk, we should be happy for them, that they found someone that works so well with them. That they are (aside from the hate) happy. I mean, look at this:

Jesse & Dirk courtesy of Titan Media. Warning, link goes to TitanMen, a very NSFW site.

Okay, yeah, it’s a still from their movie and they’re actors, but even so, their feelings for each other still come through. And I just can’t find any way to see that as anything other than beautiful.

To see more from Jesse, check these out: Jesse’s facebook page, JesseJackman.xxx (NSFW) and Jesse writing @ Huffpost. For Dirk: Dirk’s facebook page & Dirkcaber.com (Where I nearly got lost reading instead of writing my post!). And just so you know, there IS quite a bit more than just “porn” on their sites. Both of them are intelligent, articulate men with interesting things to say. So, go show these lovely men some support! Give them some likes and say hi. I’m sure they’d appreciate it. It’s a small thing you can do to help fight the hate. Show those on fb and other places that they can say what they want about Jesse and Dirk, but both will still have fans, in the end.

Tomorrow is my Sexy Snippet Sunday post. Not directly HAHAT related, but I do hope you’d enjoy it. However, Music Monday and Tease Me Tuesday most definitely will be part of the hop. So be sure to stop back!

And for more from the Hop Against Homophobia and Transphobia, go to the HAHAT Main page.

And just because it’s so gorgeous, one more from the sweet, sexy men:

Courtesy of Jesse’s fb page, used by permission.

Thanks for reading and please feel free to let me know what you think! Tell me, aren’t those men just sexy, gorgeous and beautifully in love?