Does it really matter whether homosexuality is

[Cheung Mo]

Personally, I don't give a damn. Any society that can call itself free and just must protest the rights of sexual and gender minorities regardless of how they get to be that way.

[wtfm8lol]

A lot of things don't necessarily matter, but that doesn't stop people from being curious about them.

[Black Dagger]

Being gay is obviously not a choice, its observable across the animal kingdom - not just humans. As far as whether the search for the 'origins' of homosexuality matters, it does from a human knowledge point of view, but at the same time im incredibly suspicious of the motivations for this research, the way it is framed etc. given the current climate and the history of using 'science' or pseudo-science to attack and oppress gay peoples. The discovery of a 'gay gene', would after all, be a coup for heterosexists everywhere, 'at last we can screen em out~!'

[Vargha Poralli]

Being gay is obviously not a choice, its observable across the animal kingdom - not just humans.

I seriously doubht it. For animals the sole purpose of having sex is just to reproduce. They are driven by that instinct just like they eat when they are hungry. They do not particulary enjoy having sex like humans.


Personally, I don't give a damn. Any society that can call itself free and just must protest the rights of sexual and gender minorities regardless of how they get to be that way.

Agreed.

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by Black [email protected] 20, 2007 03:57 am
The discovery of a 'gay gene', would after all, be a coup for heterosexists everywhere, 'at last we can screen em out~!'
The idea of a "gay gene" poses some interesting questions...

There is a very well known phenomenon called "latent" or "repressed" homosexuality. How would those people test if a "gay gene test" was developed? If they tested positive, which seems common sence, wouldn't that turn the genetical screening useless? And if they tested negative, should scientists then go for the "repressed homosexual" gene?

My personal opinion (hope?) is that there is as much a "gay gene" as there is a "muslism gene".

Luís Henrique

[Dimentio]

Originally posted by [email protected] 20, 2007 12:08 pm

Being gay is obviously not a choice, its observable across the animal kingdom - not just humans.

I seriously doubht it. For animals the sole purpose of having sex is just to reproduce. They are driven by that instinct just like they eat when they are hungry. They do not particulary enjoy having sex like humans.


Personally, I don't give a damn. Any society that can call itself free and just must protest the rights of sexual and gender minorities regardless of how they get to be that way.

Agreed.
How could you prove that? Have you spoken with an animal? ^^

[Black Dagger]

Originally posted by gram+--> (gram)I seriously doubht it. For animals the sole purpose of having sex is just to reproduce. They are driven by that instinct just like they eat when they are hungry.[/b]

What do you 'seriously doubt'?

I dont understand what you're talking about (well, actually, why you're talking about it).


gram
They do not particulary enjoy having sex like humans.

Well they are not humans, so obviously they cant enjoy sex like a human, but im sure some animals enjoy their kind of 'sex'. They have sexual organs, states of arousal etc.

[Pawn Power]

Originally posted by Black Dagger+January 20, 2007 09:59 am--> (Black Dagger @ January 20, 2007 09:59 am)
Originally posted by [email protected]
I seriously doubht it. For animals the sole purpose of having sex is just to reproduce. They are driven by that instinct just like they eat when they are hungry.

What do you 'seriously doubt'?

I dont understand what you're talking about (well, actually, why you're talking about it).


gram
They do not particulary enjoy having sex like humans.

Well they are not humans, so obviously they cant enjoy sex like a human, but im sure some animals enjoy their kind of 'sex'. They have sexual organs, states of arousal etc.[/b]
Indeed. I think the example often used is the dolphin.

[SPK]

The so-called “scientific” research into whether a person’s homosexuality is genetically determined, a unconscious product of upbringing, or whatever – the very question of whether sexuality is a result of nature or nurture -- is problematic. These debates occur within an explicitly political framework in which only those sexual practices or identities which have been deemed “natural” have any legitimacy or validity. If those practices or identities are deemed “unnatural”, then the objective effect of these kind of research efforts would be to delegitimize or invalidate those sexualities, i.e. to permit violations of people’s basic right to do what they want with their own bodies.

This may not seem of immediate concern given the current majority opinion that homosexuality (or heterosexuality for that matter) is biologically-driven – this debate seems safe at the moment in terms of guaranteeing, or at least not threatening, political rights. However, gender object-choice is only one axis around which sexualities are organized. There are others. People can choose their partners based on other factors, like age; they can choose to have many serial partners – promiscuity versus monogamy; they can choose to have multiple partners at a given time – polyamory or open relationships versus traditional coupledom; they can choose to have sexual relations that are based on differing power principles – those of equality versus something like sado-masochism; they can choose sexual practices that are “real” versus those are that are more theatrical or a performance – such a role-playing; they can choose different places for sexual activity – public versus private; they can choose different fetish-objects – like rubber or leather; and so on.

While it may seem to us common to ask questions about the natural or biological role in determining gender-based sexualities (homo and hetero), what would happen if “scientists” decided to do similar research into these other aspects of sexuality? The queer movements over the years have, more or less, created space for the acceptance of LGBTIQ people and advanced the cause of equal rights – this was accomplished through political struggle. These other aspects of sexuality do not, at this point, have real political movements behind them and would be vulnerable if moralistic reactionaries decided to start dropping them into one box or the other – “natural” or “unnatural”.

This problem could be avoided, if we simply viewed people as having the basic right to freely choose their own sexual identities and practices, whatever those may be. And stopped worrying about diversions like nature-versus-nurture.

[SecurityManKillJoy]

This is probably a confusing and too long post, but it's just a different method on how to interpret scientific data on genes or for any question like the pre-determined-sexuality-question.

----------

I'd have to say that pinpointing everything onto 'nature' and 'instinct' is vague, and when it isn't vague, i.e. pointing to genes as something which pre-determines everything, we have mechanical materialist metaphysics.

Therefore I think no matter what the being is, human, or whatever (I use 'being' as a collective term for a user, and a user has subjective data of its own such as memories which other autonomous users of data cannot know themselves except relatively by its being communicated to them in some way, but of course the physical world is immediately accessible to every being in some way), the data they have is usually used in some way (but of course we can't say that it will be used or else we are using determinist ideas), such as to invent actions that are at least new to the individual, in humanity's case new ideas which can be used to invent new uses of how to use the body, etc.

Something like gayness, which is a set of actions and ideas which can be used differently by different humans who have different quantities of awareness in some sense, is not pre-determined; the genes, if any genes even exist like a 'gay gene' (the actions and ideas, of course, have to be invented first by the person as an individual and teaching can only aid by giving more data for the human to use, no matter how much every other 'inherently gay person' has used their body influences and teachings in the exact same way, and that's all 'inherent nature' is in this case: using body data to invent new ways to use the body which tend to be the same because they have all have relatively the same data), just give different data for the being to use (and use can referr to many terms such as invention of new ways to use things, creation, action-making, idea-making, communicating, etc.), no matter if the being only has that and that data alone to use according to us as autonomous other beings with our own subjectivity and senses and location in the physical world, etc. Data of any kind has to be used to have meaning, so none of it is really 'unconscious'.

I don't think it matters how the nature-nurture question is answered, for the being has data to use, no matter where it ultimately comes from, and non of it 'determines' the being because it's simply data and it has to be used first before it means anything. And use of data means invention of new ways to use the body, no matter if every other being has invented the exact same actions and in the exact same way, unless the memory of doing a certain action is inherited, and even then the data has to be used by the being, and thus may not be used at all. And I think this interpretation gets rid of mechanical materialism, determinism, and free-will methods, and we can call them all metaphysics in the Wittgenstein-like sense if we so wish to, but of course this method is only one method.

[black magick hustla]

it may not matter to you, but to the whole struggle for homosexual liberation it is a very important thing.

if homosexuality is really a choice, then reactionary motherfuckers would be able to advance their agenda against queers in a more convincing fashion because queers could simply choose not to be homosexuals. of course, the reasoning behind reactionary homophobes is fucking stupid but if we see things in the holistical sense, the belief that homosexuality is not a choice helps a lot the movement of queers.

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 20, 2007 03:03 pm
This problem could be avoided, if we simply viewed people as having the basic right to freely choose their own sexual identities and practices, whatever those may be. And stopped worrying about diversions like nature-versus-nurture.
Yeah, I agree. It's easy to get way too bogged down in the whole "is homosexuality a choice" argument. Just ask if anyone chooses to be heterosexual (don't think I did, specially) and move on.

Also: other species have sex with others of the same sex. And yes, seem to have sexual pleasure. That sexual pleasure is Darwin's way of ensuring reproduction occurs, so to speak. (That's a partial response to G.ram.)

"Homosexuality" and "heterosexuality" on the other hand, are social constructs begining in the 19th century. If you look at ancient Greece and Rome, for example, who you had sex with was often seen as merely a matter of taste.

Variation in sexual desire is problably "natural" and may have a genetic basis. The neat little categories are social.

[LSD]

This problem could be avoided, if we simply viewed people as having the basic right to freely choose their own sexual identities and practices, whatever those may be. And stopped worrying about diversions like nature-versus-nurture.

Perhaps, but there's a reason that this is as hotly debated a subject as it, and that's that conservatives are well aware that "choices" are much easier to control than "natures".

Liberal politics have an inherent bias towards "natural" identity groups as opposed to socially constructed ones. So as long as homophobes can keep homosexuality squarely in the "lifestyle" column, they can keep the gay rights movement weak.

How can you "love the sinner" if the "sin" is a fundamental part of who they are? The entire Christian heteronormative paradigm is premised on "alternative lifetyles" being optional.

Therefore anything that weakens that notion helps us in our efforts to purge society of the institutional heterosexism that currently plagues it.


given the current climate and the history of using 'science' or pseudo-science to attack and oppress gay peoples. The discovery of a 'gay gene', would after all, be a coup for heterosexists everywhere, 'at last we can screen em out~!'

That's irrelevent.

Eugenics could apply to any minority status. Your position is akin to saying that we should ignore the biological nature of sex because people may want to genetically eliminate all women.

Well...yeah, eugenics, even "liberal" eugenics can be dangerous, but that doesn't mean that we should ignore a valid and real biological identity so as to "hold off" the hordes of reprogeneticists waiting to wipe out the homosexuals.


Does it really matter whether homosexuality is, genetic or an unconcious choice?

Yes.

The problem with homosexuality being a "choice" is that it politically makes homosexuality just another "deviant" sexual "choice" and it eliminates homosexuality as a valid identity, especially from the perspective of the modern liberal state.

If gay people "choose" to be gay, then having gay relationships becomes legislatively no different from having "relationships" with a tree ...and accordingly, the bourgeois state is not obliged to recognize any deductive rights.

I'm not saying that's the way it "should be", but that's the way it is.

If homosexuality does turn out to be a choice (something which the evidence is more and more suggesting it's not), it would not mean that gay rights are not important. Unfortunately, however, it would mean that achieving them would be that much more difficult.

So politically, the more evidence that homosexuality is biological, the better for the gay rights movement.

[EwokUtopia]

Does nobody ever get the feeling that "Heterosexual" and "homosexual" are just words that were made up less than 200 years ago, and that there is no such thing as being "gay" or "straight"?

Currently, the sexual spectrum we think of is straight to gay, with polar opposites with no exceptions existing, but I just dont think thats true.

I think that the real spectrum is between sexual and asexual, with orientation being a prefference. Now, one may be severely inclined to the same sex or the opposite sex, but if that person lies on the sexual side of the spectrum, given the right extremes, that person would shirk the prefferences and go for the sex they arent usually attracted to. Think of straight people in jail for instance. Supposing you could segregate one homosexual with only members of the opposite sex, eventually you would have the same result.

Personally, I think the only way to get rid of sexual-prefference discrimination is to not differentiate between homosexual and heterosexual. These terms were essentially coined by the Victorians, and everyone has accepted them as being absolutes.

I believe that this is a falsehood.

[Dewolfemann]

and protect gender minorities

hehe, that would be men?

[An archist]

Originally posted by [email protected] 20, 2007 12:08 pm
I seriously doubht it. For animals the sole purpose of having sex is just to reproduce. They are driven by that instinct just like they eat when they are hungry. They do not particulary enjoy having sex like humans.

Even in my short life, I've seen male dogs humping other male dogs, female dogs humping male dogs and other female dogs.
I highly doubt they do that for reproduction purposes.

[RevMARKSman]

Originally posted by [email protected] 23, 2007 03:38 am
Does nobody ever get the feeling that "Heterosexual" and "homosexual" are just words that were made up less than 200 years ago, and that there is no such thing as being "gay" or "straight"?

Currently, the sexual spectrum we think of is straight to gay, with polar opposites with no exceptions existing, but I just dont think thats true.

I think that the real spectrum is between sexual and asexual, with orientation being a prefference. Now, one may be severely inclined to the same sex or the opposite sex, but if that person lies on the sexual side of the spectrum, given the right extremes, that person would shirk the prefferences and go for the sex they arent usually attracted to. Think of straight people in jail for instance. Supposing you could segregate one homosexual with only members of the opposite sex, eventually you would have the same result.

Personally, I think the only way to get rid of sexual-prefference discrimination is to not differentiate between homosexual and heterosexual. These terms were essentially coined by the Victorians, and everyone has accepted them as being absolutes.

I believe that this is a falsehood.
Well in pressure or extreme situations an asexual will start fucking for their own material interest. There are so many axes and spectra that define sexuality that it's extremely difficult to make a chart (all of them are inaccurate because you have many different sexual identities in one category, no matter which chart you use). If you'd like to make a "master chart", I don't envy you but I'd really want to see it.

[Severian]

Originally posted by An archist+January 23, 2007 04:08 pm--> (An archist @ January 23, 2007 04:08 pm)
[email protected] 20, 2007 12:08 pm
I seriously doubht it. For animals the sole purpose of having sex is just to reproduce. They are driven by that instinct just like they eat when they are hungry. They do not particulary enjoy having sex like humans.

Even in my short life, I've seen male dogs humping other male dogs, female dogs humping male dogs and other female dogs.
I highly doubt they do that for reproduction purposes. [/b]
With dogs, it's often about establishing dominance. Also when they try to hump your leg.

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by [email protected] 24, 2007 07:47 am
Also when they try to hump your leg.
Or Mrs. Thatcher's leg (in that case, it is easy to understand it cannot be considered "sexual", in any meaningful sence. ;) ).

Luís Henrique