The Ultimate Experiment in Homo/Hetero-Sexuality - Surrogate Experiment (school, gay people, money)

[twinkletwinkle22]

The information "coming out" in recent years is that sexual preferences are not strictly hetero or homo, they can exist on a spectrum including asexual. Maybe we are all pan-sexual but for social reasons are guided into a "norm" that some people cannot fit into.

I have known 2 men who look/act gay-gay-gay and yet I know they were not, one was 101% into women, couple ex-wives and no he wasn't acting he loved women.

There are also cases of people who were hetero half their lives and gradually discovered an attraction to opposite sex. Was this buried in their psyche or did their hormones change at some point? Could be both.

Some cultures have space in their society for non-linear sexuality but they are the outliers nowadays. Greek and Roman culture accepted homosexuality. Judeo-Christianity does not accept it through their historical documents. Institutions and the people behind them have been trying to shape human behavior since forever.

I think epigenetics is behind 50% of our gene expression. We are who we are under a specific set of circumstances.

[guidoLaMoto]

Originally Posted by silibran

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epig..._homosexuality

If you are truly interested in this, and are not simply interested in uninformed speculation, here is a straightforward explanation of what is thought to be the way homosexuality happens.

It is not a long read.

The authors of that article are stressing their idea of epigenetics with minimal support from observations or experiments. The only real conclusion we should draw is that sexual behavior/preference is complex & multifactorial. No doubt there are genetic influences and environmental influences, including learned behavior based on opportunity & training.


We know hormone levels play an important role-- there's the classic experiment of injecting female rats with testosterone and they start displaying mounting behavior like males, for instance. There's also learned behavior: Milton Berle not known to be gay, was famous for dressing up like a woman in his act. If he didn't get laughs, I doubt he would have continued the bit for very long.


The genetic component may well be a required but insufficient factor. Being that any "mutation" that caused the behavior would result in a lower birth rate among its carriers over the years, it should be quickly lost from the gene pool.... But the behavior persists in the population, so there is either a very high rate of new, spontaneous mutations, or the genes are quite common but the environmental factors supporting it are less common, so "latent homosexuals" are having an adequate number of kids to keep the gene frequency high.

[CookieSkoon]

Homosexuality/Bisexuality/Transgenderism occurs at its most basic in the brain chemistry like most things do, common trait and anomaly alike. It is all in how the individual develops and has nothing much to do with linear genetics.

There is also social conditioning to consider, which can change how the brain grows and morphs especially during childhood and the teen years. Sometimes a taste is acquired rather than built in.

Sexuality can be affected by both, and often is. Though I'd argue that brain chemistry and hormones have the greater affect.

However the 73 plus other genders are a construct of an overly-political and incendiary society and the failure of public education and parental discipline, and have nothing to do with scientific fact or study.

[rjshae]

Originally Posted by LuckyGem

This is the way to find out if homosexuality is genetic.

Your thoughts?

There doesn't appear to be a single gene, or handful of genes, that can explain the phenomenon.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...xual-behavior/

Who knows, maybe it is epigenetic? At least science is getting over the reluctance to study it.

[Middletwin]

Originally Posted by LuckyGem

Imagine for a moment.

The science and technology exists today to make this happen.

Take sperm from a homosexual man, and combine it with an egg from a lesbian woman.

Incubate it in a female surrogate until she gives birth.

This is the way to find out if homosexuality is genetic.

__________________________________________________ ___________

I wonder if such an experiment can be done.

After the child is born raise it in a "neutral" home absent of religious dogma and outside social pressures for gender identification until age 5 (when they start kindergarden), and see if a natural born male child gravitates toward female gender associated things, or if a female child gravitates toward male typical gender association.

========================================

Your thoughts?

That you don't understand how genetics work. That both arguments of whether homosexuality is or is not genetic, mean the same thing: that this person is flawed. That sexual orientation, hetero, homo, bi, or try is none of our business, so why waste brain power on people that aren't flawed in the first place.

[silibran]

Originally Posted by Middletwin

That you don't understand how genetics work. That both arguments of whether homosexuality is or is not genetic, mean the same thing: that this person is flawed. That sexual orientation, hetero, homo, bi, or try is none of our business, so why waste brain power on people that aren't flawed in the first place.

I don't think of it this way. Someone who is gay is not flawed. But others have problems accepting that homosexuality is in any way normal. I think studying it and finding causes, if actual causes can be found, would help with acceptance.

There are still people who believe homosexuality is a choice. They believe this fervently.

[Middletwin]

Originally Posted by silibran

I don't think of it this way. Someone who is gay is not flawed. But others have problems accepting that homosexuality is in any way normal. I think studying it and finding causes, if actual causes can be found, would help with acceptance.

There are still people who believe homosexuality is a choice. They believe this fervently.

Agree, gay people are not flawed.

Choice infers they're flawed. Genetic panders to the argument they're flawed.

The answer is they're human.

I am skeptical of discovering actual causes as a motive for acceptance, but I understand this viewpoint.

[Sonic_Spork]

Originally Posted by Middletwin

Agree, gay people are not flawed.

Choice infers they're flawed. Genetic panders to the argument they're flawed.

The answer is they're human.

I am skeptical of discovering actual causes as a motive for acceptance, but I understand this viewpoint.

Indeed, it's always been my worry that if science ever definitively discovers a single root cause of "what makes gay people gay" then there will be groups who believe that society has some kind of imperative to correct this so that there will no longer be gay people.

I mean, we had a dude up-thread asking the question along the lines of whether any parent would choose to have a gay child if they could easily render said child hetero, in the womb. Even in the absence of a cause, there are people wondering about a "cure"...not to mention these wackadoodle conversion camps that exist.

About the ONLY area in which I am even vaguely, slightly, sort of willing to touch that idea with a ten foot pole is if there were a way for the gay individual him, or her self, to be able to declare as a fully autonomous adult that they no longer wish to be gay, and would like for some kind of a "cure" if such were available to them. (Assuming it exists, works, and doesn't do more harm than the intended purpose of it.) But I would hypothetically support a person's right to change their OWN sexual orientation, just as I support a person's right to make decisions about their own gender.

Which brings me to this... There are some funny people in this thread, conflating transgenderism and gender performance and gender expression, with sexual orientation. Please, people who don't have any or many LGBTQ+ friends, hear this and understand it. There are many, many gay men who do not speak, act, dress, or in any way appear "feminine." There are many, many lesbians, who do not speak, act, dress, or in any way appear "masculine." There are transwomen (people assg. male at birth who transitioned to female) who identify as lesbians and are only sexually attracted to women, before and after their transition. There are transmen (assg. female at birth, transitioned to male) who identify as gay men and have only been sexually attracted to males before and after transition. There are non-binary people who perform no gender expression at all, who may or may not be attracted to only one gender...either one, or any, or none at all. It is utterly pointless to try and say that transgenderism, homosexuality, and/or non-traditional gender expression/performance, are somehow the same thing. Which is one reason that the clunky acronym gets on my nerves, to be honest. These things are all separate things. If there are causes to be found, they are not likely to be the same.

And if you believe, that most gays or lesbians give it away because they are either "flamboyant" or "butch" somehow, odds are very high that you have met plenty of gay people that you never knew were gay. Because nothing about them made it "obvious" (to you) and they didn't bother to tell you. I'd lay a bet too, that you also may have assumed some people to be gay because of mannerisms they had or a haircut or something, and they were not.

[Curly Q. Bobalink]

Originally Posted by Sonic_Spork

I mean, we had a dude up-thread asking the question along the lines of whether any parent would choose to have a gay child if they could easily render said child hetero, in the womb. Even in the absence of a cause, there are people wondering about a "cure"...not to mention these wackadoodle conversion camps that exist.

As the "Dude" you are referring to in your post, can I take it that you would be against parents being able to "customize" their child via in-utero procedures? For instance, would you be against parents choosing to "turn off" the gene (if there is one) that produces near-sightedness, or baldness? What about degenerative diseases, such as muscular dystrophy?

If not, and such a thing is or becomes "legal" in the future (I acknowledge there's going to be a lot of handwringing over it), then I have to wonder if sexuality (or gender itself) will one day become a choice for parents. Even if you do disagree, is it any of your (or my) business, if future parents make such choices, including those regarding gender and sexual preference?

On a related side note, I'm sure you heard that China got itself into trouble in recent decades via their "One Child" rules, and parents making the choice to favor males over females, by aborting females. Fast forward twenty years, and there are a lot of lonely Chinese guys who have trouble finding wives. I believe they've since dropped that law.

[Sonic_Spork]

Originally Posted by Curly Q. Bobalink

As the "Dude" you are referring to in your post, can I take it that you would be against parents being able to "customize" their child via in-utero procedures? For instance, would you be against parents choosing to "turn off" the gene (if there is one) that produces near-sightedness, or baldness? What about degenerative diseases, such as muscular dystrophy?

If not, and such a thing is or becomes "legal" in the future (I acknowledge there's going to be a lot of handwringing over it), then I have to wonder if sexuality (or gender itself) will one day become a choice for parents. Even if you do disagree, is it any of your (or my) business, if future parents make such choices, including those regarding gender and sexual preference?

On a related side note, I'm sure you heard that China got itself into trouble in recent decades via their "One Child" rules, and parents making the choice to favor males over females, by aborting females. Fast forward twenty years, and there are a lot of lonely Chinese guys who have trouble finding wives. I believe they've since dropped that law.

Yes, I was referring to an idea I scanned across, without going back to find and credit it, but I believe it was yours.

There would be a lot of hand-wringing, because it's eugenics, which is and always has been controversial. I mean, from a very zoomed back impersonal place, I think that most parents would rather birth an infant that does not have, say, Down's Syndrome, and if there were an easy way to push a genetic button to move a fetus from that path, to one of NOT having that condition, I think most would make that choice, yeah? Unlike homosexuality, I think that most would agree that Down's Syndrome is quite a challenge to live with. But then if you talk to people who have had children, siblings, close friends or relatives who have it, they'd want to strangle you for saying that their loved one should optimally not exist in the state that they are in, because they love them for who they are. And really, I do think that somewhere in all of this is the fact that it makes for a healthier, more socially adapted person, to be able to accept and love people not just in spite of their differences, but even because of them. Not merely tolerant, but really accepting. Perhaps "flawed" (arguably, whatever that means) individuals help teach us how to love, even when it isn't necessarily easy.

But compared to something like a serious mental or physical disability, variations on gender or sexuality don't really hamper one's ability to live a good and happy life, so long as they receive love and support from the environment around them. The ONLY handicap is one created by judgmental others. Which makes me question, if the flaw is within them, or within other people?

I have no preference for straight people over LGBTQ+ people in the slightest. But I also don't think that a trait that puts one in a minority, makes one somehow inferior. I have no desire to see all individuals around me in my population be as identical as possible. In fact that idea disgusts me. I don't like to be bored, and that sounds about as boring as anything could possibly be.