Topics of sex, politics, and religion always make for lively conversation. These three things you’re never supposed to talk about… with friends, family, strangers, or at the dinner table. So let’s do it here, right now.
These three topics are such personal topics to each of us, we believe and FEEL them to the deepest of our cores. That must be why we get so passionate about them, that the saying we shouldn’t talk about them even came about. But why is it such the no no, that when we do actually talk about any of these, we seem to always jump to a “I hate you” level of a fight or argument? It can’t be just because, “It’s MY belief.” After all, think of all of the sports fans.
I heard a story the other day of a man who was in Boston visiting, and he was with his 12-ish year old son. He saw a Red Sox’s hat and was going to buy it for his son. Before he could get to the register, the man’s wife saw what he was doing and declared, “You can’t do that, WE are Yankee fans!” Yet they live in Texas Ranger territory. And they don’t even really follow the MLB and might get in a game a year, on a good year.
Even with that level of deeply rooted passion, we don’t ever really get to the level of absolute fist-a-cuffs in our discussing these topics. So, maybe it’s something different than the belief in the topic itself?
Personally, I don’t discuss sex with anyone, because it is something special and private between me and my wife. Other topics around sex, like the whole “gender issues” and LGBT topics, I have no issue discussing, as well as, politics and religion. And I no longer feel the need/desire to resort to name calling and nasty comments and fighting.
I know for me, the issues I had around these topics, was not the topic itself, but the fact of being heard. With all of the social media sites (including Medium) we just are not HEARING each other any longer. I know what I know, and I know what I believe. Why should someone else have the power over me to affect how I believe? And I have no reason to get mad or angry when someone else has their own opinion.
Can’t we just all get along with each other and discuss with each other why we think, do, say, and believe the way we do? And when I say discuss, I not only mean, be able to speak freely on what my thoughts and beliefs are, but then to shut up and truly listen to what the other is saying. And maybe by doing that, we can get along with each other, and learn from each. Even if in that learning, we simply only learn why the other person believes different than I do, but we might also learn something new about the topic, and maybe even something new about ourselves.
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