Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Oh fudge, now Mikhail Pletnev in trouble too

Don't go. Don't let the ignorant bigots win. I agree with your feelings, and that amazingly offensive stuff should have been stopped earlier (and what is left should get deleted), but still, you are infinitely more valuable to us than that twaddle. And note that although the medieval one with the ignorant issues did lots of postings, the actual numbers of people who are more reasonable, educated, and humane is much much larger.

That is a good point.

I am off to bed too (well, with my laptop to do some work ), and really hope that either this thread has gone back on track by tomorrow morning or that it has been closed.

It really doesn't offer proof of anything. I know a couple of men who fathered children (and who are now grandfathers, incidentally) who identify themselves as being gay. The fact that they were able to have sex with a woman doesn't mean that it was their main sexual interest and desire.

This reminds me of a Catholic guy in a small town I where I used to live. He was married and had five children before he faced up to the fact that something was really wrong, and that he was mainly sexually interested in other men. He did something interesting; he tried to file a lawsuit to get the Catholic Church to pay child support, on the grounds that they had brainwashed him into assuming he was straight and having all those kids. The case was tossed, but probably more because of lack of good legal representation and money than anything else. I talked to him about it once, and think he was quite sincere about it.

Sexuality seems to be far more flexible that the labels currently being used to describe it. Some people did a study of the sexual practices of migrant farm workers (all men) in the part of the world where I live. They found that a large majority were having sex with each other, even though when at home, they were with their wives. And interestingly, depending on what they actually did, some denied it was even homosexual, in spite of the physical facts.

+1

If you had bothered to read what this was in response to, you would have noticed I was dismissing this argument that was made by another poster.
I very clearly stated that a pederast should not be seen as a homosexual reacting against discrimination!

I am not scandalized by anybody's views. Few things scandalize me anymore, let alone opinions.

Having said this, homosexuality is natural, as natural as drinking water, having blond hair, having big hands or schizophrenia. Is schizophrenia not natural? Please.

I am very disappointed that homosexuality was thrown into the discussion almost from minute one. We were talking paedophilia. By the way, i am a heterosexual.

Sad state of things. Can't say i didn't see this one coming though.

Schubertian, Read through the posts again and I think you will see that the majority here would agree with what you say (I do). Just as in society (and this is a little microcosm of society) there will always be some folks with opposite views, some more outspoken and closed minded than others. It's really a shame that there are folks here that are determined to make the Pletnev issue into a "homosexual" issue rather than what it is, a possible case of pedophilia. A discussion of homosexuality, the morals, it's place in music etc. should be a separate thread (and I suspect a thread that wouldn't live long).

I hope you reconsider your "swan song". And then again, this is just a forum and not really worth getting too heated over. We have enough to deal with with in the real world.

++1

Oh, my. What's been going on here in the last 17 hours?

Ah, well. At least it's a distraction from the Lebron James fiasco.

The usual.

To quote my mother: "We just can't have nice things, can we?"

Don't you think that was most probably said with tongue firmly in cheek?

On an unrelated note, +1 again to the 'don't go Schubertian' crowd. It would be a shame to be put off by what really is a tiny minority.

Completely tongue-in-cheek. Rachmaninoff was neither Jewish nor gay, but Horowitz revered him.

Maybe that can excuse it, but I don't understand the humor. Just speaking honestly.

OK, let's take the challenge of explaining a joke -- rarely easy.

He happened to notice (as I think would have been impossible not to notice, if you were in that crowd) that at the time, a great many top pianists were Jewish, and many others were gay -- and especially because he was both, and probably also to tweak some very fine pianists of his acquaintance who were neither Jewish nor gay, he made an exaggeration out of it.

(OK, not a great explanation, but I said it wasn't easy......)

P.S. I think it was a great and hilarious joke.
BTW....Are there any other (arguably) great funny lines attributed to Horowitz?? I don't think so.....

edit: I googled, and got reminded of this other one (which I don't think is that great, because I don't think it was particularly true, and IMO this one doesn't work if it wasn't):

"My face is my passport."

....as well as this other one, which IS funny but probably wasn't intended to be:

"My future is in my past and my past is my present. I must now make the present my future."

"When I go onstage, I want to make sure everything is perfect. I check all the details, to make sure my shoes are tied, to make sure my fly is closed. If they are open they are terrible."

"Scarlatti is the master of Grosse Kleinkunst, which is preferable to Kleine Grosskunst."

LOL.....even without knowing that line (as I didn't), don't most of us have dreams where we're out there playing the piano, and we realize we forgot to put our clothes on.....

That was my original interpretation of it. I'm sure it's fun to push the 'pendulum' the other way, since there has been so much historical oppression of both groups. But I still just don't approve of any group talk. For all the enlightenment in this thread, may I remind that it's a truism that humor is not any excuse.

Hey, Rettardo, how do you possibly know it was thousands of years of collective human experience? Did you ever think that maybe people were too afraid to admit such things? Come on, even a common 10 year old knows our basic human history. I'm sure you do too.

On a side note, I guess Tchaikovsky was a moron, pretending to be gay when he really wasn't. Because it's not human nature. Oh and gay people DELIBERATELY act gay, just so that they date a sex they don't really like anyway. Would you willingly date another guy? Just out of spite, or out of - I don't know what, you make it up. Hey, you know what, tonight instead of spending the night with my boyfriend, I'm going to head to a bar and chat up some girls. If I'm lucky enough, maybe one of them will come home with me!