Don't you think, though, that it's a little extreme to HATE people just because they're different? I mean, clearly it's not JUST the fact that those people are different that bothers you, there has to be some underlying reason why their particular difference bothers you, right? If they dress in all black you might think they worship Satan or something, and if they're Japanese and you're Korean you might have years of underlying familial anger behind your hatred. So it's more than just their "otherness" that makes them an object of hate; the deeper question for those who hate gays is: what is it about their difference that bothers you so much that you HATE them for it? I puzzled over this question while I was reading the book (it actually took me longer to read the book than it should have because I had to keep putting the book down to ponder things) and as I was puzzling, something occurred to me, and I think it's important and I think it applies particularly to the plot of the book and our discussion here, but I also think if I'd come right out and said it at the beginning without setting it up like this, I might have made people get mad and stop reading (if you haven't already stopped out of boredom) because it might sound preachy and baseless unless you know I'm not preaching and I do have a base for what I'm thinking. Hey, I don't like being preached at either, but for purposes of discussion, let's discuss this
idea of hatred being borne of fear.

Here's what I realized about hatred and fear. As I was pondering the whole "why hate?" issue I remembered a time in my mid 20s when I was asked to stop attending a local church because the pastor said I was "timid, shy and fearful" and this was a sin and sin affected the whole congregation. I stopped going to that church, but the whole situation bothered me and I talked about it with a friend, and he said my shyness bothered the people in the congregation because I wasn't like them, and after years of going there when I still hadn't changed it bothered them even more, and they didn't want to have to look at me all the time and be reminded that I was different, that I was in pain, and that they couldn't change it, so they made it my fault and asked me to leave so they could feel better about themselves and they wouldn't have to see me anymore.

Gay sex is weird because it's... well, it's DIFFERENT. It's not normal like normal sex is. Sex between men and women IS the norm, it's what
we see in movies and on TV and read in most books, it's the kind of sex most people have. A great majority of people have questions as to
how two people of the same gender even go about having sex (though they'd never ask) and the very thought of two people of the same gender having sex seems to bother people quite a bit. I was asking a friend of mine why men seemed to be ok with seeing two girls making out but they were bothered by seeing two guys making out, and he told me that he personally didn't care if two guys made out, he just didn't want to watch it because he wasn't attracted to men, he was attracted to women, so seeing two women make out was hot. I can see his point, but most people who have a problem with gays don't just "dislike" seeing two men make out, they freak out and say "that's disgusting" (and if they're like my one friend, they leave the room and go into the kitchen and refuse to come out until the show is over with, even though the guy-on-guy kiss only lasts like 10 seconds). I've monitored this for a long time, and people honestly have a lot of extreme reactions to gay sex or even gay kissing that look a lot more like repulsion or fear than simple dislike. Why is it such a big deal for people? There are a few scenes in "A Density of Souls" (and here's where I start giving away the whole plot and ruining the book for those who haven't read it) where some of the young male characters experiment with each other sexually when they're kids. It's a big theme of the book that this experimentation leads to bad things for these kids once they get older, because rather than just forget it, some of them dwell on what it means and don't like where the answer takes them.

Most people do this kind of same-sex experimentation when they're young (I know I did, at least). It makes sense, because at younger ages boys and girls tend to have friends of the same gender, so when they're exploring their bodies and beginning to ask these early questions about what their bodies might DO, they hang around with kids of the same sex, so they explore together. Child development books will even tell you that it's a normal part of growing up (and not to freak out if you catch your kids and their friends doing it, or you might give them a complex; a caution which a lot of parents ignore). My question is, when does it stop being "normal kid stuff" and start being "a big deal"? More importantly, WHY does it make this switch from being "not a big deal" to being "very serious"? In a perfect world, it wouldn't. In a perfect world, people would mess around like this as kids, and some would say, "hey, I like this" and that would be ok. Or some would do it and say "Hmm, I don't like this," shrug and walk away, and that would be ok too; they wouldn't freak out years later remembering what they did as kids and thinking what it meant about them... "Oh fuck, am I a sissy? Am I a fag? I hate sissy fags!" That kind of reaction wouldn't be necessary if maybe we talked about this issue more than we do. People maybe wouldn't feel the need to scream that homosexual sex was disgusting or run from a room if they saw two men kissing on TV. Instead, we live in a world where it's cute for two little boys to hold hands when they're three, but it
provokes disgust if they do this when they're 23. I admit again, I don't get it. But I think it would be better if we all talked about it instead of not talking about it, because not talking about it leads to more confusion and anger and yes, hatred, and then we have high school students shooting other kids in schools because they're gay. Yes, we'd still have anger and confusion and violence and hate even if we talked more as a society about why "gay" squicks us out, but wouldn't it be nice to remove ONE of the reasons for all this hatred for at least make it less taboo by dragging it out of the shadows and talking about it once in awhile)?

So here we have "A Density of Souls," this little 274 page book that provokes so much anger and adulation from different sources (all because of the plot though, most people don't even talk about the issues the book raises, and that makes me sad and it makes me write... lucky for you readers). I admit, I like the book (of course, I don't do anything the way anyone else does). I like the book because it makes me think. I might not have been able to articulate my thoughts on this topic were it not for the book, and for that alone, I'm grateful. It has a lot of plot twists and it gets confusing at times, and there are times when a few plot edits would have helped, but overall, even when it gets a tad overblown and ridiculous, I like it. I like it because it draws me in, it makes me care about the characters, and it makes me ponder things that help me clarify my position on some very important issues. I can't recommend it to everyone, because it does seem to be reviled by quite a few people, but if any of the issues that I've rambled about are of interest to you, I suggest you check it out. And the next time you start to hate someone or something, maybe think about where that hatred comes from, maybe discuss it with someone else, and most of all, try not to shoot anybody or blow anything up, ok?