RadioRaheem84
29th September 2013, 18:02
http://socialinqueery.com/2013/03/18/no-one-is-born-gay-or-straight-here-are-5-reasons-why/
This is a very interesting article. It basically says that sexual orientation is always being confused with gender in bias scientific studies.
Yes, its true that straight people are more tolerant when they believe that lesbian and gay people have no choice in the matter. If homosexual desire is hardwired, then we cannot change it; we must live with this condition, and it would be unfair to judge us for that which we cannot change. By implication, if we could choose, of course we would choose to be heterosexual. Any sane person would choose heterosexuality (not so. see here). And when homophobic people come to the opposite conclusionthat homosexual desire is something we can choosethen they want to help us make the right choice, the heterosexual choice. And they are willing to offer this help in the form of violent shock therapy and other conversion techniques. So I can absolutely understand why it feels much, much safer to believe that we are born this way, and then to circulate this idea like our lives depend on it (because, for some people, this really is a matter of life and death). Indeed, most progressive straight people and most gay and bi peopleincluding Lady Gaga herselfhold the conviction that our sexual orientation is innate. They have taken their lead from the mainstream gay and lesbian movement, which has powerfully advocated for this view.
But the fact that the born this way hypothesis has resulted in greater political returns for gay and lesbian people doesnt have anything to do with whether it is true. Maybe, as gay people, we want to get together and pretend it is true because it is politically strategic. That would be interesting. But still, it wouldnt make the idea true.
The bottom line is that ideas about sexual desire are so bound up with misconceptions about gender and with the presumption that heterosexuality is natures default, that science has yet to approach this subject in an objective way. For a comprehensive examination of the flaws in the most widely cited research on sexual orientation, see Rebecca Jordan-Youngs brilliant book Brain Storm: The Flaws in the Science of Sex Differences (Harvard University Press, 2011).
An even greater problem with the science of sexual orientation is that it seeks to find the genetic causes of gayness, as if we all agree about what gayness is. To say that being gay is genetic is to engage in science that hinges on a very historically recent and specifically European-American understanding of what being gay means. In Ancient Greece, sex between men was normative and widespread; it was considered the most praise-worthy, substantive and Godly form of love (whereas sex between a man and a woman was, for all intents and purposes, sex between a man and his slave). If men having frequent and sincere sex with one another is what we mean by gay, then do we really believe that something so fundamentally different was happening in the Ancient Athenian gene pool? Wow! How did Platos ancestors later develop all of those heterosexual genes? And what about native cultures in which all boys engage in homosexual rites of passage? Do we imagine that we could identify some genetic evidence of propensity to ingest sperm as part of a cultural initiation into manhood? What about all of the cultures around the globe in which male homosexual sex does not signal gayness except for under certain specific circumstances (e.g., you are only gay if you are the receptive sexual partner, or if you are feminine)? And while I am on this subject, what about the fact the United States is precisely one of those cultures? When young college women lick each others boobs at frat parties, or when young college men stick their fingers in each others butts while being hazed by their frat brothers, we dont call this gaywe call this girls (and boys) gone wild. My point here is that a lot of people engage in homosexual behavior, but somehow we talk about the genetic origins of homosexuality as if we are clear about who is gay and who is not, and as if its also clear that gay genes are possessed only by people who are culturally and politically gay (you know, the people who are seriously gay). This is a bit arbitrary, dont you think?
Any thoughts?
This is a very interesting article. It basically says that sexual orientation is always being confused with gender in bias scientific studies.
Yes, its true that straight people are more tolerant when they believe that lesbian and gay people have no choice in the matter. If homosexual desire is hardwired, then we cannot change it; we must live with this condition, and it would be unfair to judge us for that which we cannot change. By implication, if we could choose, of course we would choose to be heterosexual. Any sane person would choose heterosexuality (not so. see here). And when homophobic people come to the opposite conclusionthat homosexual desire is something we can choosethen they want to help us make the right choice, the heterosexual choice. And they are willing to offer this help in the form of violent shock therapy and other conversion techniques. So I can absolutely understand why it feels much, much safer to believe that we are born this way, and then to circulate this idea like our lives depend on it (because, for some people, this really is a matter of life and death). Indeed, most progressive straight people and most gay and bi peopleincluding Lady Gaga herselfhold the conviction that our sexual orientation is innate. They have taken their lead from the mainstream gay and lesbian movement, which has powerfully advocated for this view.
But the fact that the born this way hypothesis has resulted in greater political returns for gay and lesbian people doesnt have anything to do with whether it is true. Maybe, as gay people, we want to get together and pretend it is true because it is politically strategic. That would be interesting. But still, it wouldnt make the idea true.
The bottom line is that ideas about sexual desire are so bound up with misconceptions about gender and with the presumption that heterosexuality is natures default, that science has yet to approach this subject in an objective way. For a comprehensive examination of the flaws in the most widely cited research on sexual orientation, see Rebecca Jordan-Youngs brilliant book Brain Storm: The Flaws in the Science of Sex Differences (Harvard University Press, 2011).
An even greater problem with the science of sexual orientation is that it seeks to find the genetic causes of gayness, as if we all agree about what gayness is. To say that being gay is genetic is to engage in science that hinges on a very historically recent and specifically European-American understanding of what being gay means. In Ancient Greece, sex between men was normative and widespread; it was considered the most praise-worthy, substantive and Godly form of love (whereas sex between a man and a woman was, for all intents and purposes, sex between a man and his slave). If men having frequent and sincere sex with one another is what we mean by gay, then do we really believe that something so fundamentally different was happening in the Ancient Athenian gene pool? Wow! How did Platos ancestors later develop all of those heterosexual genes? And what about native cultures in which all boys engage in homosexual rites of passage? Do we imagine that we could identify some genetic evidence of propensity to ingest sperm as part of a cultural initiation into manhood? What about all of the cultures around the globe in which male homosexual sex does not signal gayness except for under certain specific circumstances (e.g., you are only gay if you are the receptive sexual partner, or if you are feminine)? And while I am on this subject, what about the fact the United States is precisely one of those cultures? When young college women lick each others boobs at frat parties, or when young college men stick their fingers in each others butts while being hazed by their frat brothers, we dont call this gaywe call this girls (and boys) gone wild. My point here is that a lot of people engage in homosexual behavior, but somehow we talk about the genetic origins of homosexuality as if we are clear about who is gay and who is not, and as if its also clear that gay genes are possessed only by people who are culturally and politically gay (you know, the people who are seriously gay). This is a bit arbitrary, dont you think?
Any thoughts?