Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Goldilocks on July 10, 2011 at 11:28am

@ Smokey although my parents were atheists and I didn't go to church (except for at school at christmas) I experienced something similar as a child. When at primary school the kids used to play kissy catch like tag, but instead of tapping eachother kissing eachother as a 4yr old I used to kiss both the boys and girls seeing no difference between them, at the time everyone thought it was adorable and no one said anything. Then when I was 7 I moved to a different town and joined a bigger school and did this there and an older girl said , "Eurghh ur a lesbian!" At the time I had no idea what lesbian was, except it was bad, so I stopped playing kissy catch. Growing up I had sexual encounters with both boys and girls liking both, and when I fully realised what a lesbian was all that went through my head continuously for about 4yrs was "What if I'm a lesbian? I don't want to be a lesbian! Please don't let me be a lesbian!" Until I finally broke down and confessed to all to my father and asked him, "Am I lesbian?" To which he replied, "You might be!" Which wasn't very helpful and resulted in more tears. As I grew up I realised I'm actually bi and that there's nothing wrong with this, but even with atheist parents in a Church of England school where the G word wasn't mentioned I still knew it was evil, why, well I lay the blame firmly at religions door for saying it is in their holy books, as that is where the concept originated and dribbled down the ages from and permeated modern society with it's inherently evil ideology!

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Permalink Reply by Wesley on July 10, 2011 at 11:28am

Some thoughts to further the discussion.. Biologically.... a viable sperm will perform its function with a viable egg regardless of the sexual preference of their makers.(provided that you can get them together) My point being that sperm and egg can perform their biological heterosexual function.     Physiologically people can perform  sexually with either gender (or other gender in the case of those born with variations of sexual organs or none)

There are both biological and social pressures that weigh on us.  I'm sure we can all agree that there are cases where heterosexuals try sex with the same gender...and cases where homosexuals try sex with the opposite gender.  I would bet that competition plays a role both biologically and socially along with our basic drive to release semen.  (many of us don't think "Oh, I've got to make a baby.".. its more like.. "man I really want/need to have this release'. )

 

Lots of kids today..don't know what they are in this regard..  My son says that a lot of kids in his class are bi or at least they identifiy themselves that way.  Maybe they are...maybe they aren't... 

 

Religions stance on sexuality in general is horrid..   Heterosexual sex is at best a tolerated sin as long as its with one person and the main drive is procreation.   Religion has turned sex into such a huge awful monster that there's no wonder we are screwed up socially.

 

I think sexual repression and sexual frustration plays a role in society.  It causes compromises but  I don't think its the cause of homosexuality.  We ARE sexual creatures and social creatures.. We all have biological sexual drives.  In prisons there are heterosexuals having same gender sex...because its all thats available.  Do they come out of prison homosexuals?....No, but they may have social sexual conflictions because of their experiences.

We might all want the 'ideal' specimen....(according to our sexual preference) Lean, healthy, vigorous etc..but realistically settle for what we can get..(as our partners had to do.LOL)    This won't make us switch our gender preferences...but we might have sex with the same gender if they are the only option available to us...(like in prisons)

There may be social pressures that make some feel that the only option available to them is the same gender.....I don't know. I'd be curious to see some studies on it.

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Permalink Reply by Wesley on July 10, 2011 at 11:33am

I wanted to add..Many homosexuals feel forced to try and live a heterosexual life style..and they do it and have for ages.  They do it because of social pressures and the negative religious stigma associated with sex in general and homosexuality in particular.

 

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Permalink Reply by Kairan Nierde on July 11, 2011 at 1:25am

As to the prevalence of bisexuality among young people--either they're much more comfortable being out (great!!!)...or they see homosexuality as edgy, exotic, and rebellious, and want to be trendy by calling themselves bisexual(very likely).  Some straight women perform homoerotic displays (making out at parties) because of the expectations from pop and porn culture--and call themselves bisexual.  This pisses us actual bisexuals off to no end.

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Permalink Reply by Jean Clelland-Morin on July 10, 2011 at 4:31pm

I  was out drinking with an old friend, Lucy. She had brought a girlfriend with her. I really got interested in the conversation with Lucy's friend. I got up and said I had to take a pee and helped myself off the barstool by putting my hand on her shoulder. She put her hand on top of mine and a flash went through my body. I never saw her after that, but what I learned is that anyone can be attracted/seduced by anyone if the social rules that were shoved in your face are let down. Sometimes a little alcohol can drop those guards for you. So, I get tired of the discussion. It doesn't make any difference. A personal choice is a personal choice. And the only problem homosexuals have is the damaging narrative and the discriminatory voting of the holier-than-thou.

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Permalink Reply by Philip Jackson Armstrong on July 10, 2011 at 6:54pm

 

 I really don't care. I'd rather my son be gay than religious or Republican. Being conservative would be Ok at the same time, big difference.

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Permalink Reply by Kairan Nierde on July 10, 2011 at 9:56pm

The OP said:  I tend to support the psychological explanation of sexuality due to it being more parsimonious. Being "born" a homosexual doesn't immediately ring clear as a biological explanation requires a number of a priori assumptions of future state of the social environment as one grows up.  Only if you assume every member of the population is meant to reproduce.  Perhaps homosexuality provides another function in societies.  Have you read the research on gay monkeys acting as surrogate fathers to their nieces and nephews?  Two people of the same sex cannot biologically reproduce and thus face extinction.  (And?  People with any number of genetic variations cannot reproduce, yet those variations continue to show up throughout the human population.)  Becoming a homosexual through the psychosocial environment is to me a simpler explanation as this would imply it being either a learned behavior (But where and how is this behavior learned?  It's not very useful to describe an orientation as behavior either-since same sex attraction occurs before and independent of any behavior.  Back to the psychological environment...how does such an environment come to influence certain people but not others, if there is not already an inherent difference between them?), which may account for homosexual couples having a higher probability of raising a homosexual child, or as a response to other environmental factors such as sexual competition.  (Research shows there is a increased likelihood of that occurring.  But since it is not uncommon for children raised by LGB parents to share DNA with one parent, this could also be evidence of a biological factor.)

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Permalink Reply by Kairan Nierde on July 11, 2011 at 1:29am

LOL.  I gotta stop replying to OP's before reading the other replies.  Bad Kairan, bad!

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Permalink Reply by Derek on July 10, 2011 at 11:33pm

I agree with the psychological point of view. As a kid (9 to 14 yrs old) I initially liked girls only, but then gravitated towards boys and girls, now at 27 I'm back to females only again. How do you explain that biologically? I don't think you can, as you say: Occam's razor goes for a brain explanation.

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Permalink Reply by Sassan K. on July 11, 2011 at 4:10am

Now Arcus, I have one for you as I have always been interested in the answer, according to Darwin and natural selection, shouldn't homosexuality erode and disseminate over the aeons of time?

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Permalink Reply by Kairan Nierde on July 12, 2011 at 2:15am

This would be the case if homosexuality did not confer some benefit.  Perhaps it does.  Perhaps it does not.  Are you making a biased assumption?

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Permalink Reply by Sassan K. on July 12, 2011 at 2:19am

What benefit would it possibly have for reproduction and passing down genes onto future generations? Evolution is about having sex to pass genes on so that your genes survive into future generations.

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