This is it in a nutshell. People are complex. Grasping that is key to understanding and compassion.
Hearing the crap that pours out of (insert base-placating politician name) makes my hair burn.
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So, youâre saying if you raise genetically homosexual children in an exclusively heterosexual environment, then their genetic predilections mean effectively squat? HmmâŚ
You know, most of the gay folks I know have exactly that background, as I suspect many if not most people who self identify as gay do, and somehow their genetic predilections won out.
Somehow I think if you take two identical (gay) children and raise them in diametrically opposite environments, one where being gay is on the spectrum of ânormalâ and accepted, with no cultural or social stigma, and the other in a conservative religious environment where gay is considered the epitome of evil, I suspect youâll still have two gay people. The difference is that one will be out and happy, with as ânormalâ a life as anyone can have, and the other will be highly closeted, fundamentally unhappy, and likely saddled with numerous psychological issues. Yeah, their exhibited behaviors may be different, but not by choice, rather by forceful imposition of values on the part of the kid raised in the conservative religious culture.
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[quote=âBobo, post:42, topic:34304â]
You know, most of the gay folks I know have exactly that backgroundâŚ[/quote]
No, they actually donât. All of âthe gay folks you knowâ live in the single most homosexuality accepting culture of this size and influence history has ever seen.
When I say an âexclusively heterosexualâ environment, I mean exclusively - as in, actively excluding opposing behaviors completely. It wasnât that long ago you would be hanged for homosexual acts - and this in such forward thinking places as early 19th century Britain, where they had already abolished slavery.
Of course, even then there was a relative degree of tolerance. There are plenty of accounts which tell us that the authorities turned a blind eye to buggery and sodomy when and where possible - the British Navy would have been a ghost of its historical self if they hadnât restricted enforcement of their laws to only the most blatant occurances. The general military doctrine of âDonât Ask, Donât Tellâ is a compromise between religious moral impositions and the need to maximize manpower for fighting forces.
No, Iâm talking total intolerance. Not a weak taboo, not something that can be overlooked or excused or otherwise smoothed over in all but the most obvious and egregious cases, but a strong taboo, like we have for things like cannibalism. Iâm talking Medieval levels of intolerance, where mere suspicion of an act was likely the end of your life.
Really though, my point is rooted more deeply in what someone accepts. Your example of two (somehow inherently) âgay childrenâ is flawed not only in that it treats a predilection as a certainty, but also in the fact that it assumes that other behaviors are even conceived of.
If someone lives their entire life without the mere possibility of a homosexual act ever even occuring to them - if the concept is utterly and entirely alien and foreign to them - what difference does it make what their genetic predilection is? If they do not even know there is another option, how can they possibly have a preference?
You frame your entire argument from such a narrow point of view. You fail to understand that there can exist situations in which there is no such thing as being âoutâ or being âclosetedâ because those are not concepts that exist for the people in those scenarios! You seem to assume that everyone views the world the same way, and has the same understandings of reality as you do, and that is simply not the case.
None of those things have ever stopped people being gay though.
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You say oh so knowingly.
Quick question - if someone with a genetic predilection toward homosexuality never expressed homosexual tendencies because their cultural values against it were the stronger influence in their personality and tastes, how would you know?
Put another way, how do you know that people who donât exhibit homosexual tendencies lack the genetics which ought to predispose them toward those tendencies?
You make a very absolute claim of culture having never stopped anyone ever from being gay - which is something you not only couldnât possibly know, but that you also couldnât possibly differentiate from someone who merely lacked the genetic predilections in the first place.
Yet you confidently assert that every single instance of someone ânot being gayâ was entirely the result of their lacking a genetic predilection toward homosexuality, when you canât possibly tell the difference between that and culture being the deciding influence? Thatâs absurd, and Iâll demonstrate how.
Iâm going to posit that somewhere in the mess that is our genetics, there is something which predisposes certain individuals to cannibalism, analagous to a genetic predispostion toward homosexuality.
If we apply your argumentation, one presupposes that people are âbornâ cannibals and that mere culture cannot stop someone from craving human flesh - they will always intrinsically desire to consume it, and the fact that they live in a culture where it is treated as a completely abhorent behavior barely suffered even to be contemplated will not matter.
Worse still, they will instantly and inevitably be âhighly closeted, fundamentally unhappy, and likely saddled with numerous psychological issuesâ because of the disconnect between their cultural values and their inborn nature.
This is utter nonsense. Surely untold numbers in our society must carry genes that would predispose them to cannibalism, yet the cultural restrictions we impose against the behavior are so strict - it is seen as so incredibly offensive and wrong and âevilâ to us - that these genetic predilections can have no real chance of developing.
Itâs like planting a seed. The potential for growth is there, but only if the conditions are favorable. A seed in fertile soil will grow easily and readily. A seed in poor soil may still take root, but it may struggle to survive, and ultimately it may live or die dependant on how tenacious it is and how hostile the environment. And a seed in barren soil will not grow at all.
donât give him any ideas!!!
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Right now, itâs looking like Perryâs clone is going to get voted in, unless Wendy Davis can close a 12 to 15 point gap.
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And if the conditions change midway through life, the seed might grow one way in a certain set of conditions but another way in a different set of conditions. Add to the seed volition, and the seed/plant itself changes its own conditions and therefore its growth. Now we have a human.
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Can Austin secede and move to a sensible state?
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âIâm Rick Perry, BITCH!â
(Alcohol is a helluva drug.)
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Indeed. Well put.
We start as merely our genetics, but our formative years shape how we develop from that encoding. Even afterwards, we can choose to embrace or reject aspects of our basic foundation, rebuilding as we choose, working against both genetic predispositions and cultural indoctrinations through sheer willpower.
Being âcodedâ for higher alcoholism by your genetics doesnât mean you are doomed to alcoholism - nor does being the child of an alcoholic, or living among peers who drink heavily or abusively. You can choose to not drink, or to drink in moderation, aware of your gene-granted susceptibility and your inability to hold your liquor, or aware of the pressures society around you puts upon you to behave a certain way.
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This just in: Rick Perry thinks gay men do kegstands. On each other.
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Exactly, alcoholism has an inherent lack of control, among other characteristics, while homosexuality does not (though some people opposed to gay rights would say otherwise). Even if I believe homosexuality and alcoholism are both forms of libertinism, which I donât but for the sake of argument Iâll say I do, I would still be foolish to impart that homosexualityâs nonheteronormative characteristics carry with them alcoholismâs lack of self control.
However I would also like to joke that:
Sexual behavior resulting from both/either heterosexuality and/or homosexuality can lead to catching STDs. Therefore homosexuality can lead to catching STDs. Hahaha.
@Brainspore [quote=âBrainspore, post:21, topic:34304, full:trueâ]
If only there was a way that society could encourage gay men to enter into committed monogamous relationships!
[/quote]
Brainsporeâs statement needs more likes. I had a good chuckle.
@1vw2go [quote=â1vw2go, post:28, topic:34304â]
Guess what; âLicentiousâ people with their unprotected/anonymous sex probably account for the majority of STD transmission since the start of when people knew WHERE diseases came from.
[/quote]
Itâs hard to argue against the suggestion homosexual promiscuity spreads disease when you argue promiscuity spreads disease. =p
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Hereâs hoping these pols are just as good as the ones Eric Cantor was looking at a couple weeks ago. 
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Iâm not sure what you describe are such situations, though. Itâs hard to imagine how a society could have a taboo against something that is never even conceived of, but I suppose there could be under the general category of hating things they donât know about.
But it doesnât really require much imagination to find yourself attracted to something unexpected. Few question that when Tarzan sees a human woman for the first time he might immediately start having new feelings, although it would be understandable if he had no idea how to act on them.
Isnât that what most people take homosexuality as meaning, being attracted to other people of the same gender? Whether youâre out or closeted is a less a concept you need to have as a description of whether anyone knows, whether you understand what your blood and hormones are doing when you see the right people. But itâs hard to see how culture would prevent it from coming up at all.
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I wasnât mentioning a lack of conception in reference of taboo, but rather in addition to it.
Definitely. There is no way to know how reliable these numbers are. They say margin of error +/- x points, which can overlap, depending on the day.
@Lexicat I never said anyone was bad. I simply showed that there is information linking homosexuality in males to increased disagnoses of HIV. It is peer-reviewed scientific data used by both the CDC and The AIDS Institute. Itâs cute how you opted to wave your hands and yell âVariables!â but didnât really have anything to counter the common knowledge that anal sex has increased rates of HIV transfer. I loved that.
@mewyn Yeah, I pretty much meant it as a joke not so much as lampooning one group or baiting another but in that, even if one accepts the logical fallacy of unifying a form of behavior and form of attraction or what have you, Iâm really only talking about men and thatâs a common failing. Thereâs CDC information about HIV rates in women and homosexual transfer isnât even listed, which leads me to believe itâs near nonexistent. The only instance where âotherâ is sizable is in Stage 3 HIV (full blown AIDS) at 13-19 years old so unless infant girls engage in high risk homosexual behavior those cases are probably perinatal.
The issue is that anal sex increases HIV transfer be it homosexual or heterosexual anal sex. But thereâs some bizarre, ethereal correlation between gay men and anal sex.
I wasnât arguing with your data (try reading for content next time), I was taking argument with your tacit linking of âuntreated homosexualityâ (your selected quote) with a particular prevalence statistic about HIV. Go back and reread my post, I am sure you will get it, eventually.
Nor was I âhand wavingâ but presenting digestible chunks of epidemiologic theory for someone who is manifestly not an epidemiologist (I am one, and I train others to be).
The only hand waving here is your attempt to back off the way your were presenting HIV prevalence by MSM and tacitly linking it to the concept âharmâ via your selected quote.
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