puddingmouse wrote:
I made a post on Guardian's Comment if Free (foolish endeavour, I know) about how I found teenage girl's magazines in the 90s (with their attempts to educate the readership about sex) heteronormative. That is to say, I'd read J17 every fortnight and feel crap about myself not only because I couldn't afford the fashions in there but because it was all boys, boys, boys, blowjob tips, blah, etc. There wasn't any admission from the editors that some of the readers might not be straight. I was replying to this because the journo who wrote the articles was lamenting the loss of a teenage publication which back in the day was all about the fashion and straight sex. I just wanted to give my different angle on things rather than whine.
Anyway, someone replied with 'first world problems'. I thought, well, yes they are, but that doesn't make them go away. You try being an LGBT teenager and telling me how it feels. Plus, heteronormativity is not a first-world problem. It might be worse in more 'traditional' cultures, but just because I wasn't sent to a foreign country to get married off to a first cousin at the first sign of sexual non-conformance doesn't mean I can't complain about anything. I know my problem was relatively trivial but they do this sort of thing with more serious problems.
I suppose gay marriage is a first world problem, so everyone should shut up about it? You know, at least we're not getting beheaded in this enlightened country. People do it with women's issues or anything gender related all the time, too. They also sometimes do it with race and class (at least you're not being beaten up in the street for your ethnicity/working in a sweatshop).
I wish I was a straight, middle-class, white guy so I could go around telling minorities that they have first-world problems.
Just ranting here because the comments were closed before I could come back with anything. I expect people on here to tell me 'but yeah, he's right, you are complaining about nothing' - but I needed to get this off my chest.
I thin you misunderstood "First world problem": So being homosexual is something that exists everywhere in the world, so it cant be a first world problem. Thing that are called to be first world problem are as example: "OMG, my mobile phone is disconnected." "Someone disliked my party photo on facebook." ...so here is a wide variety of such nonsense.
http://first-world-problems.com/
First world problems are simply problems, that are no real problems, nothing that is really treating you in any way. So being homosexual in a land, that forbids homosexuality IS treating you, because it disables you to have a happy life if you dont want to risc getting to jail. So this is a major problem, influencing your whole life. While "I have problems writing SMS on my mobile phone with my new artifical nails." is a typical first world problem. Or "OMG, they dont have organic milk left in the supermarket." (So I buy organic stuff on my own, but the issues and problems some of those people create themselves are hardly to understand. I mean got damn it, if the organic milk isnt avalaible, then the normal milk will do just fine. I dont waste a thought on that.)
27 Apr 2013, 1:58 pm
