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I feel sad for him too and the woman he finds to marry him. My older brother did that twice, divorced twice too. Both women found out that he was seeing men on the side, they could not handle the deceit. Now is is so angry and depressed, yet goes to gay bars on the weekends and then prays the gay away the rest of the week. It saddens me when ever I see him, he is so unhappy with his life and how it turned out. He hates it that I am still with my partner of 34 years and said he will pray for my salvation so that I can go to heaven on judgement day. I told him that I do not need, nor want his prayers, that I am happy as a clam. Oh, he also told me he blames the church and catholic school for making him feel like a sinner. He is second time around born again christian.
Hey now, I just want to do what's right. A lot of people have been there before. It's easy to feel sorry for me, but there are a lot of gay or bi people who struggle with these thoughts and feelings too and need support and encouragement no matter what decision they make, as long as that decision involves openness and honesty.
There are gay and lesbian people I like more than heterosexual people.
I also think everyone is a sinner. Everyone. Just some of more so than others. And a heterosexual can be a far greater sinner than a homosexual.
Any homosexual can have a number of virtues.
I don't think anyone is 100% homosexual or 100% heterosexual. In part because there is far less sexual dimorphism between adult male and female humans relative to some animals like gorillas. Among human children there are virtually no difference in sexual dimorphism, but only a little. Therefore, it is not surprising some young transsexuals can look like they were born female.
What I think is that homosexuality (or bisexuality) and lesbianism is like a heterosexual woman that finds herself attracted to taller men riding motorcycles that are patched members of a motorcycle club, and finds she's rarely or never attracted to shorter men that are high school gym teachers.
If males and females are equal, if personality and intelligence are the real distinguishing features, if men should not promote an ideal body type for women, if fat women are worthy of love for "who they are inside," then a man discriminating against a fat woman for a man (male lover) is what it is. In part, its placing a special emphasis on sodomy.
Or let me put it this way. If a man publicly stated the most important factor in him choosing a mate is that she have a body type like Jennifer Lopez and has to always allow him to sodomize her, most the public today would be outraged. And their outrage has nothing to do with "truth" descending from down on high, nor from "truth" coming from science.
And as a biology professor of mine once said during lecture, science deals with very little truth but with a lot of facts. Homosexuality as a principle orientation would be a fact, sodomy would be a fact, putting your penis in a vagina would be a fact, and men that like women with big butts like J-Lo, that like to put their penis in female butts like hers, would be a fact.
Another fact, with respects to Sexual Selection, would be a feminine lesbian woman attracted to butch (in Black-America they're called studs if they dress like LL Cool J etc.) women, that chooses a woman like any of these (and some look like prepubescent boys):
She is discriminating against these men in favor of, for preference of, in those women whom she likes due to their masculinized looks or prepubescent boy looks.
I see a lot of Black-American women most would term "lesbian" attracted to women that dress (as "studs") like the thuggish males in Hip Hop with baggy, sagging pants etc. While these women are in a sense praised, a lot of criticism falls on the males. But there are no genes making women attracted to grown women dressed in Hip Hop clothing trends, that look either like men or prepubescent boys.
Furthermore, if a man was attracted to prepubescent boys most people would be "opposed" to that. So, I guess it depends on what you mean by "opposed."
THIS homosexual was raised in a typical middle class, semi religious home with married parents. I had a very happy childhood, never abused in any way, made good grades, we had adequate food, went on family vacations every summer.
The only time I have been unhappy in my life is when I tried to hide who I am, and be hetero.
I have been to serious therapy, and the outcome was that I accepted who I am. I decided to live my life for me, and I don't care what you or anyone else think. I haven't been happier, or healthier since I was a child.
I posted that particular study for the conservative so-called "Christians" to show them that even their own are now saying that their own research has been showing that sexual orientation doesn't really change.
"Their own" are not necessarily saying anything within the sciences. NARTH for instance, does not agree at all with the hypothesis (and it is a hypothesis) of the heritability of homosexuality.
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As for your knowledge of genetics, have you not studied epigenetics yet?
Are you also unaware of all the twin studies and the much higher concordance for sexual orientation in monozygotic twins than dizygotic twins (including those raised separately)? Higher than for handedness?
And handedness and sexual orientation have quite a number of correlations including hormonal influences on the developing fetal brain (eg influences acting on androgen signaling in the brain), so it's an appropriate analogy.
There is an old maxim in science: correlation does not equal causation.
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Apart from more than 60 years of human research on homosexuality starting with researchers like Dr Kurt Freund in the 1940s, there has been quite a lot of research on animals - for example, the brains of male rams - approx 8% of which consistently engage exclusively in male/male pairings.
As for the field of Psychology, are you not aware that Psychologists have been using the knowledge gained from neurobiology for quite some years now, especially in Attachment Theory, Trauma and PTSD etc? It's not quite the 'soft' science that you appear to think it is.
And 60 years of research is supposed to mean what to me? I had to sit through lectures in a philosophy of biology class--one given by an openly, effeminate homosexual belong to a campus gay group--negatively critiquing the social biases in those early scientific studies of homosexual males and lesbian women dating to the 1940s and '50s or whenever many of them were carried out (and still selectively quoted today), because every single one of them assumed as fact all homosexual males were effiminate and all lesbians were butch. They also studied the anatomy of homosexual males and came up with statistical "evidence" that homosexual males statistically have smaller hips (or some part of the body, but I can't remember exactly which) than heterosexual males. Just like these statistical correlations between genes.
I've mention Thomas Kuhn as a philosopher, historian, and scientists that had an enormous impact on the philosophy of science. He coined the term paradigm shift.
It was once thought by all scientists that homosexual males were effeminate males. They also looked for statistically different anatomical differences in between homosexual males and heterosexual males. This was "the" only "right" way to investigate male homosexuality. Similar to those that think "looking for genetic causes" is the "only right way" or some other bio-chemical determinist cause that either begins at conception or results through prenatal development.
Kuhn also points out how no subject in school is taught so closely related to theology (dogmas) than science. Even though science is not supposed to be built on dogmas. It gets slightly less dogmatically taught in undergrad college. And even less dogmatically taught at the graduate level.
Already at the undergraduate level I'm repeatedly having it drilled into my head by professors and TA to question and to solve the puzzle and attempt to bring resolution to a problem. Something, I continually find non-science students sneering at on the internet as they throw up one published study after the next as if merely parroting the views of some published papers is how "science is done."
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The rest of your musings and speculations about homosexuality don't appear to be based on anything but your own... well... musings and speculations - which you are certainly entitled to express, even though I think most gay and lesbian people would find them rather amusing and naieve. And rather offensive with some of your comparisons with pedophilia and child molestation. Try my blog here, where I've posted research on the lack of correlation between homosexuality and child molestation: http://www.city-data.com/blogs/blog3...lestation.html
Try these then, I've been posting studies like these for several years on these forums:
The fetal brain develops during the intrauterine period in the male direction through a direct action of testosterone on the developing nerve cells, or in the female direction through the absence of this hormone surge. In this way, our gender identity (the conviction of belonging to the male or female gender) and sexual orientation are programmed or organized into our brain structures when we are still in the womb.
There is no indication that social environment after birth has an effect on gender identity or sexual orientation.
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.
"This is the most robust measure so far of cerebral differences between homosexual and heterosexual subjects," she says.
Previous studies have also shown differences inbrain 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.
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.
"This study demonstrates that homosexuals of both sexes show strong cross-sex shifts in brain symmetry," says Qazi Rahman, a leading researcher on sexual orientation at Queen Mary college, University of London, UK.
"The connectivity differences reported in the amygdala are striking."
"Paradoxically, it's more informative to look at things that have no direct connection with sexual orientation, and that's where this study scores," says Simon LeVay, a prominent US author who in 1991 reported finding differences(pdf) in a part of the brain called the hypothalamus between straight and gay men.
"Epigenetics – how gene expression is regulated by temporary switches, called epi-marks – appears to be a critical and overlooked factor contributing to the long-standing puzzle of why homosexuality occurs". In the current study, researchers... integrated evolutionary theory with recent advances in the molecular regulation of gene expression and androgen-dependent sexual development to produce a biological and mathematical model that delineates the role of epigenetics in homosexuality" (2012) http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...1211083212.htm
"There's a converging line of evidence between the hormonal studies, the genetic studies , and the neuroanatomical studies. My research has identified candidate genes within these new chromosomal regions that could link together all of these different findings”
Several studies report that the cognitive performance of gay males is more typical of heterosexual females than heterosexual males.
Furthermore, the brain waves of gay males while performing verbal and spatial tasks are more similar to heterosexual females than males or significantly different from both."
Relationships among childhood sex-atypical behavior, spatial ability, handedness, and sexual orientation in men. Cohen KM. Arch Sex Behav. (2002)
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Camperio Ciani, A., Cermelli, P., & Zanzotto, G. (2008). Sexually antagonistic selection in human male homosexuality. Plos One, in
press.
Rahman, Q., Collins, A., Morrison, M., Orrells, J. C., Cadinouche, K.,
Greenfield, S., et al. (2008). Maternal inheritance and familial fecundity factors in male homosexuality. Archives of Sexual
Behavior, 37.
Camperio Ciani, A., Iemmola, F., & Lombardi, L. (2008). Male homosexuality partly correlates with an increased androphilia and fecundity in females from maternal line
Vasey, P. L., & VanderLaan, D. P. (2007). Birth order and male androphilia in Samoan fa’afafine. Proceedings of the Royal
Society of London, Series B: Biological Sciences, 274, 1437–1442.
Blanchard, R., & Lippa, R. A. (2007). Birth order, sibling sex ratio, handedness, and sexual orientation of male and female participants
Archives of Sexual Behavior, 36, 163–176.
Savolainen,V.,&Lehmann,L. (2007). Genetics and bisexuality. Nature,
445, 158–159.
Bogaert, A. F. (2006). Biological versus nonbiological older brothers and men’s sexual orientation. Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences, 103, 10771–10774.
Rahman, Q., & Hull, M. S. (2005). An empirical test of the kin selection hypothesis for male homosexuality. Archives of Sexual
Behavior, 34, 461–467.
King, M., Green, J., Osborn, D. P. J., Arkell, J., Hetherton, J., &
Pereira, E. (2005). Family size in white gay and heterosexual men.
Archives of Sexual Behavior, 34, 117–122.
Camperio Ciani, A., Corna, F., & Capiluppi, C. (2004). Evidence for maternally inherited factors favouring male homosexuality and promoting female fecundity. Proceedings of the Royal Society of
London, Series B: Biological Sciences, 271, 2217–2221.
DuPree,M.G.,Mustanski, B. S.,Bocklandt, S., Nievergelt, C.,&Hamer,
D. H. (2004). A candidate gene study of CYP19 (aromatase) and male sexual orientation. Behavior Genetics, 34, 243–250.
Blanchard, R. (2004). Quantitative and theoretical analyses of the relation between older brothers and homosexuality in men.
Journal of Theoretical Biology, 230, 173–187.
Bobrow, D., & Bailey, J. M. (2001). Is male homosexuality maintained via kin selection? Evolution and Human Behavior, 22, 361–368.
My "musings" and speculations are part of and product of my educational background in biology as my major. Contrary to what you may think, when a professor or TA asks a class a question they do not want a student replying back with "this study says X, Y, Z.." They want you to apply what you have learned in an attempt to resolve a problem.
Its said science of old before Galileo was carried out much the way of merely repeating what the wise elders before them said.
You also don't seem to be able to differentiate between a hypothesis and a theory. There is not scientific theory that homosexuality is genetically heritable. End. Accepting your or your teams hypothesis as a researcher does not mean a scientific theory has been established.
My views actually are in part (not wholly) influenced by other scientists and philosophers learned in the sciences. This geneticist used the term "nuances" in the conclusion of his paper on homosexuality. His conclusion was basically it is unlikely homosexuality is genetically heritable but a result of more nuanced factors in a person's life as they develop. Terry McGuire
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Terry McGuire
Professor
Rutgers University
Department of Genetics
Nelson Biological Laboratories
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McGuire. T. R. (1995). Is homosexuality genetic? A critical review and some suggestions. Journal of Homosexuality 28: 115-145.
This paper of Terry McGuire was required reading in a philosophy of biology class of mine, as well as papers promoting the idea homosexuality is genetically heritable. In other words, we did not just look at one side of the debate.
Also, thus far we have spoken about genes in so far as they are some entity we denote as "a unit of heredity." Which is fine. But it's English 101, prose, the writings of a storyteller, it's philosophy. It's descriptive in terms of a dictionary meaning. It's speak of "gene" the way we speak of "god." Which is to say neither term in and of themselves tells us much as the hard scientific level of chemistry, physics, and math,
We can define a gene chemically, and we know it codes for proteins (again, more literary style than mathematical content for the latter). The whole thing driving the human organism and genes are molecules and atoms. Not the English language.
So, given what little I have learned in biology, I ask myself (I don't just parrot a view of a paper published) how does the shape of proteins "tell" a grown woman to be attracted to a "stud" with braids, dressed in baggy pants, that looks like a teenage boy (which seems to correlate to male pederasts attractions), rather than a grown man dressed in a suit and tie that looks like a grown man?
Notice, I never said I brought resolution to that question. But the whole issue of homosexuality remains unresolved (no matter if you think it has been resolved).
And my basic proposition is that I suspect no one--not me, not anyone--is "born with a sexual orientation."
I state this in part because I don't recall being sexually attracted to girls or anyone 2 days after my birth. In fact, as an infant I can't recall being sexually attracted to anyone. Not to mention there is little to no sexually dimorphic difference between a male infant and a female infant. I also subscribe to the view human sexuality is far more fluid than contemporary European and U.S. cultures feel comfortable admitting.
(And I never said there was a correlation between "homosexuality" and pedophilia. There are heterosexual, homosexual, and probably bisexual pedophilies. What I said--through observation--is that lesbians that have a things for some studs that look like 12 year old boys or teenage boys, seem to have some correlation in their attractions to homosexual pedophiles and pederasts. But I never asserted or implied that was something I observed for all lesbians or gay men. Not all lesbians are attracted to "studs" for one.)
Do you think that all human behaviour, interactions and relationships are driven by the desire to propagate the species or 'procreate' as the religiously minded like to call it?
The religious do not assert that. But your assertion here tells me you've never formally studied biology in university.
The biological Theory of Evolution is essentially all about "procreation" and how traits either become prevalent in a population, exist in a population, or are loss from a population.
Two lesbian women having sex with one another and two gay men having sex with one another, absent having sex or reproducing with a person of the opposite sex, will not pass on their genes. If they have "gay genes" then those genes, we would expect, would eventually be lost from the populations they are in--assuming sexual orientation is unbreakable, that a gay man can never have sex with a woman, have an erection, and ejaculate. Similar scenario with the lesbian.
We might expect to see bisexual genes existing but maybe not homosexual genes.
Religious people tend to agree with biologists that the primary function of our genitals is for sexual reproduction. I took a course on basic information of STDs given by clinical scientists with doctoral degrees in their field. At least one specializing on viruses. I think it would surprise to general population that they take a somewhat negative view or oral and anal sex. This has to do with the flora of bacteria in various areas of the body which we might call "their natural habitat" to put it like that. Placing bacteria from the vagina into the mouth and throat can potentially cause some problems. There are issues related to anal sex too. One archaic--and bias--term would be "gay bowel syndrome."
The religious tend to believe the purpose of life on earth is for a broader reasons beyond our own material existence. An atheist like Ricahard Dawkins claims a very material view directly associated with "procreation." that is we human mean zero, nothing at all, and that our genes are the only thing that matters, that we exists for the sole purpose of passing on our genes. Or another way to put it our species exists to reproduce.
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How do you explain that the majority of men who sexually molest pre-pubescent boys are actually heterosexual in their adult attractions, not homosexual? Only a small percent (approx. 7% according to one of the largest studies of over 4000 child molestors- Abel & Harlow, 2001) are true pedophiles with no adult sexual attractions.
This sounds like an oxymoron to me. Not because I don't think heterosexual men can't rape other males, but because pedophilia is a specific kind of attraction to a certain phenotypic and morphological look. And most pedophiles tend to be attracted to a certain sex. More than certain sex they seem to tend--like other heterosexuals and homosexuals--to like certain looks on a boy (e.g., be Hispanic etc.).
But your proposition here is not a tautology of your thesis of the genetically determinist nature of sexuality, rather it is a logical contradiction.
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How do you explain that the majority of men who rape other men, are heterosexual?
I have throughout this thread and other threads by stating I suspect homosexuality, heterosexuality, and bisexuality and not genetically otherwise biologically deterministic traits. And by me further stating I think human sexuality is much more fluid than that. That I don't think anyone is 100% homosexual or 100% heterosexual or 100% bisexual.
So-called "observational science" that supposedly began around the era of Galileo, which is predicated on directly observing things, supposedly forms science today, although a lot of science today draws upon inferences and not direct observation. So, observing that you have had homosexual men that have married women, fathered children with women through sexual intercourse, and observing that heterosexual men as you have pointed out, rape other men, what is one to conclude about human sexuality and orientations?
That it's impossible for a heterosexual man to gain and erection and have sex with a man? That it's impossible for a homosexual man to gain an erection, have sex with a woman, and be so aroused that he ejaculates and impregnates her? Because in both cases their genes forbid them to do those things?
No, observation would seem to tel us otherwise.
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How do you explain why some humans neglect, mistreat or sexually abuse their own children?
Your use of the term 'select for' suggests a focus on simplistic biology around human behaviour, interactions, and relationships
Have you not yet studied the development of the human brain?
My use of the phrase "select for" has to do with the sub-theory in the Theory of Evolution called Sexual Selection and nothing more and nothing less. It's me applying what I've learned in my biology courses to questions of life.
On the other hand, you seem to create one ad hoc hypothesis (not really hypothesis as statements but meant as ones through assertions followed by questions) after another. First, homosexuals and heterosexuals can't have sex with the opposite sex because they're not programed that way. Then when it suits your purpose you point assert heterosexual males have no problem gaining erections to have sex with men.
As for your last question I think I told you I'm an undergrad in biology. So, why does your question irk me some? It seems to have no comprehension the sheer scope and amount of information in the sciences. Very little is understood about the human brain and the amount that is understood and known requires years of advanced graduate study to be come very informed in. You any idea the amount of information that would be? I doubt you do. But it's certainly more than reading a few articles or papers.
I had a biology class that had a 50 question exam covering 8 chapters. That's an ungodly amount of information as one chapter in a science textbook often has the amount of information you might cover one half a semester of English or history. And most the questions--while multiple choice--were not memorization questions, but rather questions to see if you could apply what you learned.
So, no, I don't know much about human brain development. I don't know much about biology period. But what little I do know I try to apply to problems or questions in the world.
Nothing is cured by therapy if the person does not WANT to be cured.
20yrsinBranson
Members of "Ex-gay" therapy groups quite often want to be "cured" because of their religious beliefs. And yet those organizations have admitted not a single person has ever changed their orientation.
Quit believing lies. You can't change your orientation voluntarily. You can suppress it or lie about it, but it doesn't change.
Personally, I...just...don't...CARE!
I wish EVERYBODY, homosexual and heterosexual alike, would take their sexuality back to the bedroom where it belongs!
And KEEP IT THERE!
I don't want to hear about it, I don't want to see it, and I certainly don't want my grandkids to be exposed to it. Just go back to bed, and BE QUIET, all of you!
That's the truth and what so many can't seem to understand, no matter how many times it's said. Love the part I bolded and underlined. lol.
Location: planet octupulous is nearing earths atmosphere
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Originally Posted by Fleet
It's not a sin? Since when?
it's only a sin if you are a religious nut case.. personally I could care less what they do as long as they don't push it on me..
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