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There are a number of posters here who oppose homosexuality for one reason or another. I'm wondering which best describes their position.
1. Homosexuality is an illness. Affected individuals must be cured through prayer and/or other means. Any person experiencing same-sex attractions must recognize that they're sick and get help accordingly.
2. There is no such thing as sexual orientation. Homosexuals simply choose to ignore their natural state, (heterosexuality is the only thing that naturally exists), and pervert themselves with strange flesh.
3. People may experience same-sex attractions and may even have a homosexual orientation. However, actually practicing this behavior is sinful and affected individuals must either remain celibate or have relations within an opposite-sex framework.
4. Any others?
Also, a couple of other questions:
5. Do you believe that any experiencing same-sex attractions who truly repents of them, even assuming they occur again, is truly forgiven and can be made right with God, the church, or conservative society?
6. Do you believe that it is okay for people to remain single for their lives, or is it everybody's duty in conservative society to marry and have children?
Jay, I'm not a scientist, but my major is biology. I'm not going to sit up here an pretend that makes me all that knowledgeable in the natural sciences of of chemistry, physics, and biology. But I would bet dollars to donuts that I have at minimum as much an understanding the physical (e.g., chemistry and physics) and life (e.g., biology and neuroscience) sciences as you. Given your proposition about handedness and an article related to a matter of psychology and behavior, that I actually understand more about these sciences than you do.
And while I'm not an historian nor a historian of science, I do know a little about the history of science. If we were back in the 1800s in an American court room you'd be believing the expert testimony of a scientist specializing in phrenology Phrenology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia about his opinion as to the predisposed character and personality of the defendant accused of murder.
And I'd bet you eugenics is referred to as a "pseudoscience science" even though like phrenology it was regarded and widely accepted by most scientists at the time as solidly good science. It's like historians rewriting history to call the Inquisition "pseudo-Catholicism."
But if eugenics is "pseudoscience" one might logically ask as to what that makes the proposition of the heritability of homosexuality? Given eugenics was grounded in biological determinism.
I actually once thought homosexuality was genetically heritable. It was not until I started studying biology in university that I came to the conclusion it is very unlikely it is. In fact, so unlikely, I'm willing to use language the science are shy and rare to do and say: it is not. (Science prefer to use phrases "likely" or not "likely" as their inductive method speaks to likelihood and rarely to certainty).
Homosexuality to me is a problem akin to heterosexuality, bisexuality, pedophilia, pederasty and attractions and fetishes in general. I think biology can play a role in bringing resolution to the puzzles investigated but I think the field of psychology is better suited to dealing with these puzzles. But some philosophers of science--for good reason I would say--either question how much a science psychology is or don't regard it as one of the sciences. Psychology has a history of using too many ad hoc hypotheses. A psychologist with a theory is therefore inclined to see what he or she wants to see.
As to whether homosexuality is immoral that is not a problem biology is capable of solving. As biology does not speak to morals. Murder, rape, violence, racism, promiscuity, infanticide, or pedophilia would all be amoral issues in biology. The fields of inquiry that investigate questions of morality are philosophy and theology. And theology is pretty much philosophy that presumes a certain number of dogmatic truths and works downward from there.
Though, I would be curious to find out if women that have and attraction to lesbian "studs" like the ones in the youtube video I posted, have some psychological correlations with gay men that have an attraction to what they call "twinks." [1] Or what used to be term pederasty during the days of famous French novelist Marcel Proust. And he was someone with an admitted attraction to teenage boys. Back then it was not viewed as the crime and "evil" it is today.
Or I wonder if those women attracted to "studs" have some psychological correlation to homosexual pedophiles given the women they like dressed as boys look like prepubescent boys. Some of them. Some of them look like teenage boys or even men.
And I used the term "discrimination" to mean essentially "selection." As in Sexual Selection [2] would construe selecting for certain traits explainable through evolutionary causes. Why might a grown woman select for a grown woman dressed as a boy that looks like a teenage boy or a 12 year old boy? Why might a pedophile priest or sports coach select for a 12 year old boy? Discriminating (selecting against) against an adult man and an adult woman respectively?
You'll find bio-mathematicians like Ian Stewart in his book The Mathematics of Life being condescending towards the notion of the genetic heritability of homosexuality.
And I had to read as a requirement in a philosophy of biology class a paper by a geneticist refuting the conclusions homosexuality is genetically heritable. We had to read papers concluding the opposite too (although I don't think any where actually the work of a geneticist).
My own personal view is that heterosexuals can become attracted to the same sex. Not just prison but a number of societies seem to evidence that. Spartan society, Samurai society, and one or more Amerindian societies where men were obligated to take a male lover beside their wives. But homosexual men marrying an impregnating women suggests this too. A man has to gain an erection and ejaculate to impregnate a woman. And gay men have achieved this with women.
But I'll have to admit whatever I learned about handedness I've forgotten. My mind is very foggy on that. So, maybe you have some point on the similarities or correlations. But sexual attractions are more complex than simply "homosexual" and "heterosexuality" because you have "twinks" and pedophilia. And a lot more than that.
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.
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.
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.
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: //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
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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.
Not all lesbians are attracted to "studs" just like not all hetero men are attracted to blondes with big boobs.
Attraction is something different to different PEOPLE. I am attracted to femms and more androg women, not butches, or studs, and I am a femme.
I think many of these people don't realise that they would pass lesbians and gay men on the street every day and wouldn't have a clue that they weren't straight. They only notice the ones who stand out as 'different', so tend to think of those gay men and lesbians as 'typical', when they aren't.
I think many of these people don't realise that they would pass lesbians and gay men on the street every day and wouldn't have a clue that they weren't straight. They only notice the ones who stand out as 'different', so tend to think of those gay men and lesbians as 'typical', when they aren't.
I know.
I look like any other soccer mom. People don't know I'm a lesbian unless I tell them.
@ blue highlight: I never suggested otherwise. Just as not all homosexual men have an attraction to "twinks." Not all heterosexual women have an attraction to "metro sexual" men.
And not to offend you, but your attraction to feminine women while at the same time you are a feminine woman makes no sense to me in terms of what people continually claim to be evolutionary reasons women are attracted to tall men (as opposed to shorter men), with high salaries, that look like men and not 12 year old boys.
And this is not just a question I have per se. As the question as to how and why homosexuals and lesbians exist, in evolutionary terms, was central to a philosophy of biology class I had. It's a question that has not been resolved by philosophers nor biologists. In fact, it seems to contradict the Theory of Evolution. Nonetheless, there are philosophers and biologists that try to reconcile it with, and explain it with evolutionary theory.
But consider that people opposed to extremely thin runway models often claim these women look less like "real women" and more like prepubescent boys. Resolve questions of any male's attraction to women like these as opposed to full figured women, and all in light of homosexual or bisexual males that are either attracted to teenage boys or younger prepubescent boys? Evolutionary reasons behind this? It's genetic heritability given a person inherits 1/2 their genes from their father and 1/2 from their mother?
And men that are attracted to 16 year old boys are not always attracted to 8 year old boys. [1]
So, I've had heterosexual ethnic Black-American women who's morality, view points, and pseudoscience they think is "science" get enraged at me for a number of my views including my views on homosexuality. And they selected for an openly gay black male who dates white men (not black women). They desired to marry him as they say. Similar to many of their selections for "studs."
I do not regard such choices as "holy," "scientific," or "right." I regard them simply as said hetero or lesbian woman's choice motivated from her own biases and prejudices.
So, in terms of addressing you and the OP I'm "opposed" to homosexuality and lesbianism (or hetero women's selection for gay men) in so much as I find it nonsensical. In evolutionary terms. In terms of logic (e.g., as logic is related to mathematics: 1 + 1 = 2).
Of course, I'm aware it's a cultural trait among American women that they detest being questioned or countered. Therefore, if they say something is right, if they say 1 + 1 = 3 then you better agree or they will outright hate you.
So, I'm aware my posts in this thread will win me no friends. But I can take strength from the religiously Third Order Franciscan Galileo Gallilei and say, "And yet it moves."
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?
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.
How do you explain that the majority of men who rape other men, are heterosexual?
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?
It's really difficult to answer this question based on the choices above. I guess, if I had to choose one it would be #1. I believe that homosexuality is caused by severe trauma of some kind. Whether it is a very difficult childhood or sexual abuse or some other matter (whether they are aware/conscious of it or not).
For some people homosexuality is much easier than dealing with members of the opposite sex. This seems particularly true of lesbians. Many, many lesbians have been married, had families and somewhere along the line make the conscious decision that having a female partner is much better than having to deal with. I worked with a lesbian woman many years ago to confided in me that, although she was still attracted to men, she chose to be with a woman because she could experience love, affection and companionship without having to put up with a mans "crap".
My opinion is that if a homosexual person was willing to get some serious therapy and discover their issues and heal them, that they could resolve their pain and return to a more "normally accepted" type of existence. However, most people do not want to open up the scars of a painful past and so they are content to life the life they have chosen to avoid the pain. I don't blame them for that. I have some behaviors myself that I use for avoidance. It is pretty natural and human to do that.
I don't have a problem with homosexuals as long as they keep their sexuality to themselves. I can't stand these "swishy" dudes who act that way as a huge put-on. I have seen the swishiest of men turn quite manly in the company of people who would kick their butts if they behaved gay. So I know it is an adaption and a totally fake demeanor.
20yrsinBranson
What you 'believe' is basically myths and misinformation.
Homosexuality is not caused by child sexual abuse or trauma.
Homosexuality is not something that can be 'cured' by 'therapy'
And the woman who was attracted to men but chose to be with a woman, was not a lesbian.
The main reason I'm posting it is because 1) I'm fairly certain that I'm on the gay side of the sexuality spectrum, and 2) I'm also very religious. Obviously this causes a lot of internal conflict of what I should do. I don't like ideas 1 or 2, but I'm kind of on the fence of idea 3 and could see it as an acceptable viewpoint. I don't think it's fair to hold everyone to that standard, but on the other hand, if living a gay lifestyle is going to be damaging for me, I don't think it's a good idea either.
Part of me also wants to understand what people who oppose homosexuality really want or expect from people who are as well.
I feel sad for you. It might help to find out the facts about homosexuality instead of myths and misinformation by religious groups.
I feel sad for you. It might help to find out the facts about homosexuality instead of myths and misinformation by religious groups.
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.
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