A lot of people have said that if Aaron was a straight man and Joel a straight woman, there would have been uproar. I think the comparison is disingenuous.

The first reason is the context. The context is entirely incomparable. If that had been a straight man doing that to a straight woman others would have stepped in straight away and there wouldn't have been an air of hilarity about the room with several housemates actively encouraging Aaron. Without the hilarity and the encouragement, drunken Aaron would have stopped much, much earlier.

So why do people laugh when it's a gay man chasing an (apparently) straight man.

Maybe it's because they've observed these two together; their baths and conversations; their MUTUAL flirting. Now Joel would vociferously deny he's flirted back, but I don't think that's fair. If he was that uncomfortable about his own sexuality he wouldn't constantly indulge Aaron's conversations about it and camp it up in front of Aaron. He's blatantly conflicted about how he's reacting to Joel - but reacting he is. Aaron knows it, Joel knows it and we know it.

Whatever's going on with Joel, the BB house is not the right place to be going through it. And Aaron was absolutely out of order. He should have the cop on the let whatever's happening happen at it's own pace. But he was drunk and he's young and a bit stupid.

In any event, I strongly believe that a conversation with both of them, separately, a conversation with both of them together - by BB - and a warning would have been more than sufficient.

If you roll the clock back 20 or 30 years women were viewed differently and many were treated as second class citizens in almost every way possible. If you roll back 10 or 20 more years you have a society that was readily accepting of women being demeaned and treated in a sexual way that many laughed at, including the women. If you go back 100 plus years they were chattel and basically little more than a possession for men's benefit and enjoyment.

My point is that we haven't come across a situation (at least many haven't) where there is the behaviour we saw from Aaron. A situation where a gay man is uncomfortably aggressive towards a straight man...a situation that Joel was clearly trying to both escape and not make into a huge drama. Aaron showed his absolute immaturity and lack of reading people by carrying on the way he did.

I appreciate what you're saying, but I think the context issue is more regarding the fact this is something many haven't been exposed to.

The punishment should be the same regardless... be it a man to a man, a woman to a woman, a man to a woman or a woman to a man.

Good post.