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Old 08-01-2011, 08:37 PM
 
3,424 posts, read 5,955,371 times
Reputation: 1849

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Quote:
Originally Posted by mysticaltyger View Post


It really doesn't work that way. The only thing I could liken it to is male prison inmates having sex with each other. A lot of them really arn't gay, but when no other choices exist, some straight men will mess around with men.
I make no such exception for inmates. If female inmates choose to be with women (females) or male inmates choose to be with men (males), they are choosing to be gay. Thats their perogative, and they are free to lie to themselves and fool themselves into thinking otherwise, but I am equally free not to allow them to lie to me.

Thats like saying that "there was no mcdonalds around so I ate another human, oh but Im not really a cannibal". Like, really? No buddy, you are still a cannibal. Why that person became a cannibal is up to that person to rationalize, but it doesnt detract from the reality that the person chose to consume another human being.

 
Old 08-01-2011, 08:43 PM
 
Location: A safe distance from San Francisco
12,350 posts, read 9,647,930 times
Reputation: 13891
Quote:
Originally Posted by solytaire View Post
I make no such exception for inmates. If female inmates choose to be with women (females) or male inmates choose to be with men (males), they are choosing to be gay. Thats their perogative, and they are free to lie to themselves and fool themselves into thinking otherwise, but I am equally free not to allow them to lie to me.

Thats like saying that there was no food source around so I ate another human, yet Im not really a cannibal. Like, really? No buddy, you are still a cannibal. Why that person became a cannibal is up to that person to rationalize, but it doesnt detract from the reality that the person chose to consume another human being.
Thank you, solytaire.

There are always other..and far better..choices.
 
Old 08-01-2011, 08:48 PM
 
3,424 posts, read 5,955,371 times
Reputation: 1849
Quote:
Originally Posted by CrownVic95 View Post
Thank you, solytaire.

There are always other..and far better..choices.
Right, or in my opinion, just different choices. I dont care that people choose to be gay or straight, I simply dont allow people to make excuses for why they do so. Fine, you choose to find zebras attractive. Well say that then. Dont hide behind this gooble dee goo of "well there were no humans around, and the APA says I cant help it because I was born this way bah, bah, bah" Or the lamest excuse "inmates sex each other in order to exert dominance over the other"...- no you sex each other because you like it.
 
Old 08-02-2011, 08:53 AM
 
17,842 posts, read 14,329,056 times
Reputation: 4113
Quote:
Originally Posted by mysticaltyger View Post
The thing is...a lot of people who say this will NEVER be convinced, no matter how much evidence is put foward. I'm gay but I will admit there needs to be more reseearch before before it's scientifically proven. But my common sense tells me it is biology. Nobody who's gay actually wants to be, especially in their teen years.
I think you are right that there are people who will never be convinced that homosexuality is inborn no matter how much evidence is put forward.

However are you aware of these very recent neurobiological studies from Savic, Lindstrom and Swaab?

For example, we know men and women have differences in brain symmetry and connectivity. We know that these differences are already developed in utero before a person is born.

So when scientists show that gay men's brains have brain symmetry and connectivity like straight women and gay women have brain symmetry and connectivity like straight men, it's pretty convincing evidence.

Interesting that those still demanding studies have completely ignored these posted earlier:

How are gay people able to "choose" the way their brains developed in utero?

__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ _____

Sexual orientation and its basis in brain structure and function.

Current evidence indicates that sexual differentiation of the human brain occurs during fetal and neonatal development and programs our gender identity—our feeling of being male or female and our sexual orientation as hetero-, homo-, or bisexual. This sexual differentiation process is accompanied by many structural and functional brain differences among these groups.
http://www.pnas.org/content/105/30/10273.full.pdf

__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ _____

Gay brains structured like those of the opposite sex

Brain scans have provided the most compelling evidence yet that being gay or straight is a biologically fixed trait. The scans reveal that in gay people, key structures of the brain governing emotion, mood, anxiety and aggressiveness resemble those in straight people of the opposite sex.
The differences are likely to have been forged in the womb or in early infancy, says Ivanka Savic, who conducted the study at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden.

"This is the most robust measure so far of cerebral differences between homosexual and heterosexual subjects," she says.

Previous studies have also shown differences in brain architecture and activity between gay and straight people, but most relied on people's responses to sexuality driven cues that could have been learned, such as rating the attractiveness of male or female faces.

Brain symmetry

To get round this, Savic and her colleague, Per Lindström, chose to measure brain parameters likely to have been fixed at birth.
"That was the whole point of the study, to show parameters that differ, but which couldn't be altered by learning or cognitive processes," says Savic.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14146-gay-brains-structured-like-those-of-the-opposite-sex.html


__________________________________________________ _________________________________________________


PET and MRI show differences in cerebral asymmetry and functional connectivity between homo- and heterosexual subjects

The present study shows sex-atypical cerebral asymmetry and functional connections in homosexual subjects. The results cannot be primarily ascribed to learned effects, and they suggest a linkage to neurobiological entities.
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2008/06/13/0801566105.full.pdf+html

__________________________________________________ _____________


Sexual differentiation of the brain and behavior.

During the intrauterine period the human brain develops in the male direction via direct action of a boy's testosterone, and in the female direction through the absence of this hormone in a girl. During this time, gender identity (the feeling of being a man or a woman), sexual orientation, and other behaviors are programmed.

As sexual differentiation of the genitals takes places in the first 2 months of pregnancy, and sexual differentiation of the brain starts during the second half of pregnancy, these two processes may be influenced independently of each other, resulting in transsexuality. This also means that in the case of an ambiguous gender at birth, the degree of masculinization of the genitals may not reflect the same degree of masculinization of the brain.

Differences in brain structures and brain functions have been found that are related to sexual orientation and gender.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17875490
 
Old 08-02-2011, 09:02 AM
 
17,842 posts, read 14,329,056 times
Reputation: 4113
What scientifically rigorous evidence is there that people choose their sexual orientation?
0

What scientifically rigorous evidence is there that people somehow "learn" to be gay or "become gay" by the way they are parented?
0

What scientifically rigorous evidence is there that homosexuality is a mental disorder?
0

What scientifically rigorous evidence is there that homosexuality is caused by child sexual abuse?
0

On the other hand we are seeing more and more studies that show a biological inborn basis for homosexuality.
 
Old 08-02-2011, 11:28 PM
 
Location: Fairfax County, VA
3,719 posts, read 5,674,467 times
Reputation: 1480
Quote:
Originally Posted by mysticaltyger View Post
Dude, you don't have a clue. Gay men from very religious/traditional backgrounds are very adept at repressing their homosexual inclinations. Of course, eventually those inclinations pop out. I have met more than one gay man from such a background. One guy had 8 kids and he didn't come out of the closet until he had a nervous breakdown. His doctor told him he was going to die unless he came out of the closet. This man was an extreme example, but I have seen quite a few of what i call "gay overcompensators". These are the gay men who will go to great lengths to be the "perfect husband", "perfect father", and they often have more kids than average. It's all a way of providing cover for the fact that they're gay (both to themselves and to others. And it is, in fact, the perfect cover....for a while). Thankfully, this kind of behavior is less common among younger gay men these days, but it is by no means nonexistent.
Still not gay, sorry. Thanks for throwing all logic out the window.

Quote:
Originally Posted by mysticaltyger View Post
Being gay myself, I could never imagine why a gay man would get married and have kids and make a mess of his life and that of his wife/kids I still can't completely wrap my head around it .
That sounds like bisexuality.
 
Old 08-03-2011, 09:23 AM
 
2,031 posts, read 2,972,962 times
Reputation: 1379
Quote:
Originally Posted by solytaire View Post
I make no such exception for inmates. If female inmates choose to be with women (females) or male inmates choose to be with men (males), they are choosing to be gay. Thats their perogative, and they are free to lie to themselves and fool themselves into thinking otherwise, but I am equally free not to allow them to lie to me.

Thats like saying that "there was no mcdonalds around so I ate another human, oh but Im not really a cannibal". Like, really? No buddy, you are still a cannibal. Why that person became a cannibal is up to that person to rationalize, but it doesnt detract from the reality that the person chose to consume another human being.
That's because the word 'cannibal' describes a person based on behavior. The words 'homosexual' and 'heterosexual' don't - they describe people based on sexual orientation regardless of behavior. A closeted homosexual who only has sex with his wife and has never had sex with a man is still a homosexual because he is attracted to other men -- same-sex attraction is the definition of 'homosexual', not behavior. Similarly, a celibate heterosexual who hasn't had sex yet is a heterosexual even before the first time he/she has sex -- opposite attraction is the definition of heterosexual, not whether one has yet had sex with someone of the opposite sex.

You're free to make up your own definitions of words, of course, but that doesn't make sense. If you're attempting to communicate in English, it helps to use English words in accordance with, you know, the definitions of those words. And dictionaries are widely available, so one really has no excuse for insisting on using words incorrectly.
 
Old 08-03-2011, 12:34 PM
 
Location: West Texas
2,449 posts, read 5,933,785 times
Reputation: 3125
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jaymax View Post
What scientifically rigorous evidence is there that people choose their sexual orientation?
0

What scientifically rigorous evidence is there that people somehow "learn" to be gay or "become gay" by the way they are parented?
0

What scientifically rigorous evidence is there that homosexuality is a mental disorder?
0

What scientifically rigorous evidence is there that homosexuality is caused by child sexual abuse?
0

On the other hand we are seeing more and more studies that show a biological inborn basis for homosexuality.
Cited "studies" that have passed the scientific community's scrutiny to accept your "more and more studies" as fact?

0

Reasons based on these "studies" to change military doctrine, religious practice, etc.?

0

But you keep right on pretending you have any logic to support your opinion more than the other side of the argument. If you say it over and over enough, you might... you just might ... convince one other person who doesn't need evidence to make concrete decisions that your position is the right one.
 
Old 08-03-2011, 03:30 PM
 
17,842 posts, read 14,329,056 times
Reputation: 4113
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rathagos View Post
Cited "studies" that have passed the scientific community's scrutiny to accept your "more and more studies" as fact?

0

Reasons based on these "studies" to change military doctrine, religious practice, etc.?

0

But you keep right on pretending you have any logic to support your opinion more than the other side of the argument. If you say it over and over enough, you might... you just might ... convince one other person who doesn't need evidence to make concrete decisions that your position is the right one.
It might help if you actually READ the studies I linked to instead of just ignoring them and pretending they don't exist.
 
Old 08-03-2011, 04:33 PM
 
19,045 posts, read 25,129,286 times
Reputation: 13485
Quote:
Originally Posted by Voyageur View Post
That's because the word 'cannibal' describes a person based on behavior. The words 'homosexual' and 'heterosexual' don't - they describe people based on sexual orientation regardless of behavior. A closeted homosexual who only has sex with his wife and has never had sex with a man is still a homosexual because he is attracted to other men -- same-sex attraction is the definition of 'homosexual', not behavior. Similarly, a celibate heterosexual who hasn't had sex yet is a heterosexual even before the first time he/she has sex -- opposite attraction is the definition of heterosexual, not whether one has yet had sex with someone of the opposite sex.

You're free to make up your own definitions of words, of course, but that doesn't make sense. If you're attempting to communicate in English, it helps to use English words in accordance with, you know, the definitions of those words. And dictionaries are widely available, so one really has no excuse for insisting on using words incorrectly.
Excellent post. Well done.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Rathagos View Post
But you keep right on pretending you have any logic to support your opinion more than the other side of the argument. If you say it over and over enough, you might... you just might ... convince one other person who doesn't need evidence to make concrete decisions that your position is the right one.
I'm sure I've brought my adopted brother up in this thread previously, but I'll do so again for your benefit. It was quite clear to my twin and I at the age of 18 that our 6-8 year old little brother was different. He was raised by the same father, a catholic, same general upbringing, etc. He turned out to be gay. When he decided to seek out his biological family in his early 20s he found that his bio father was bisexual, an uncle was gay, and his bio brother was gay as well. That's enough evidence for me, personally, that homosexuality is physiological.

Beyond being gay, he's quite normal according to society's standards. His partner is a scientist. He is a uni librarian. They're both highly educated, quiet adults living their lives.
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