Religion in Government

custard writes:

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Physical stimulation is physical stimulation and if you've learned to get off with members of your same sex, it's entirely possible you can learn to like it.

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Acutally, no, it isn't. That's what all the studies of "ex-gays" have found out. They never become heterosexual. They become physically capable of engaging in sex with the same sex, but they never achieve the same level of sexual enjoyment they do with members of the same sex. They are constantly fighting their attraction to members of the same sex. It never goes away. Their sexual activity with people of the opposite sex is a duty, a guilt-driven testament to their "choice to be free from sin" rather than an internal drive to achieve sexual pleasure.

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I think that can depend on the level of exposure you receive before your likes are 'set.'

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From everything that we have learned, that happens before you are three years old.How much exposure to homosexual sex do you think the average three-year-old has had?

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

riVeRraT writes:

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And there is a distinct possibility that there could only be one true God.

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Indeed.That does not mean that all descriptions of god are equivalent.2 + 2 has one true answer.That does not mean that all answers are right.The various religions describe god has having traits that are mutually exclusive. Ergo, they cannot be worshipping the same being.There may be one, true god, but that doesn't mean you've figured out which one.

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

riVeRraT responds to schrafinator:

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Maybe 75% of those "heterosexuals are closet homo's.
How could we ever know this?

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By looking at their sexual activity with other adults.It seems that when child molesters have sex with adults, they disproportionately have sex with people of the opposite sex.Thus, they're straight.

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

custard writes:

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If you had been raised in an environment that was welcoming and, in fact, promoted homosexual encounters how do you know you wouldn't have liked being with a boy just as much?

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Because every single gay person has been raised in an environment that was welcoming and, in fact, promoted heterosexual encounters.And yet the overwhelming response from gay people is that there was something about it that didn't feel right.Sexual desire just sorta creeps up on you. You have been running around with your schoolmates and suddenly you realize that when you look at people of a certain sex, your genitals start to tingle. Nobody told you that they should. They just do because your body has started producing hormones that rewire your brain to think in that way.And despite the fact that everything in our culture is pushing you to be straight, gay people still understand that there is something wrong with that arrangement.

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Gets back to our sample set problem. For example, in my experience has been such that I have observed that more gay men (and lets stick with men for the sake of simplicity) I know were either abused by another male or had their first sexual encounter with another male more than hetero men. So either case is an invalid sample set.

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Oh, heaven help me.Yes, I know you're trying to point out the problem of sample sizes and anecdotal evidence, but you cannot seriously be saying that there has never been a study of gay people in order to see if they are more likely to be victims of abuse than straights and whether that might contribute to the etiology of their sexual orientation, are you?Have you never heard of Dr. Evelyn Hooker? She pioneered this study back in 1953 when she received a NIMH grant to study "the adjustment of nonclinical homosexual men and a comparable group of heterosexual men." She published in 1957 showing that clinicians were incapable of distinguishing between gay and straight men nor were there any differences in adjustment scores.There's a reason that the APA removed homosexuality as a psychiatric disorder in 1973: All the evidence showed that gay people were not psychologically damaged. They were not abused as children.

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If you were blindfolded and someone gave you oral sex would you still enjoy it?

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You say that like you can't tell the sex of the person giving oral sex.Does the word "stubble" mean anything to you?Sex is, at its most clinical and fundamental, a reflex action. You stimulate a nerve system and a nervous reaction results. That's why you can induce erections in a comatose patient through the appropriate application of stimulation.To completely divorce the brain from the concept of sexual orientation, however, is to be disingenuous at best.

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If an individual was raised in an environment where sex and physical love between members of the same gender was considered natural and 'cute,' do you really believe more people wouldn't try it?

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You're missing the point.Every single gay person was raised in an environment where sex and physical love between members of opposite sex was considered natural and "cute."And despite every waking moment leading them toward heterosexuality, they managed to shake it off and come out the other end gay.

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I am restricting my point to gay men because it is too confusing to continue to include both men and women in the same argument.

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Why?

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

Actually yes it is. Physical stimulation is physical stimulation and has nothing to do with the gender of the individual providing it.How do we know this? If we performed a double blind test on men where we told all of the men they would be receiving oral sex from a beautiful porn star, then blindfolded them and had a gay man perform oral sex on half of them and the star on the other half, do you honestly think the men who received oral sex from the man wouldn't get aroused?The revulsion or disinterest that heterosexuals feels towards sex with other men is mental, not physical. But that can be just as compelling.Are you really arguing that our sexual appetites are hardwired by genetics? If so, how do you explain people who enjoy S&M? Is that genetic? Did they always know they liked S&M? Or did they try it and discover they liked it? What about people who only enjoy sex with the lights off? Is that genetic? Or did they discover they were more comfortable with the lights off?Why is this different for gender preference? How do you explain bi-sexuals who switch back and forth between genders? Is that genetic too? We have a gay gene, a bi gene, and a hetero gene?So I've got my S&M gene, my lights off gene, and my gender preference gene. Lots of genes to determine my sexual activity.Isn't it more likely that we just have a sex drive gene capable of going in all directions which are then shaped by our environment?If gender preference isn't genetic, then doesn't it have to be developmental. If it's developmental, it's a result of environment. Actually that's not true either. If it were, people wouldn't ever be able to change or grow. Three-year-olds are much more sociopathic than an adult who is thirty-years-old. Why is that? Because the adult continues to accumulate experiences that shape his personality as he grows older.It's only some core personality traits that psychologists speculate are set by the age of three (or five depending on your source). So doesn't it seem to make much more sense that sexual preferences, including gender preference, is shaped by environment?If it isn't, why do some countries and cultures have higher incidents of homosexuality than others? Because they are more predisposed to gay genes? That's a bit of a stretch.

custard responds to me:

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They're still having sex with a man, however. If they truly found it that bad, then no, they wouldn't do it.

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My point is that women may find the idea of oral sex repulsive at first, but after performing it, or participating in it, they may grow to actually enjoy it.

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You're missing my point: [I][B]IF THEY TRULY FOUND IT THAT BAD[/I][/B], then no, they wouldn't do it.Gay people tend to find sex with someone of the opposite sex truly that bad. That's why they're gay.

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Yes, but you are assuming that most people only want chicken or liver

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Incorrect.I am pointing out that your assumption that every single person can learn to like both to some degree isn't true.There really are people who detest even merely the idea of sex with someone of the inappropriate sex.I grant you every single bisexual, no matter how rare the attraction.Will you grant me the gays and the straights?

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I am arguing that there might be more people trying and enjoying both, or all of the items offered by the buffet but they don't because they are raised to believe everything but the liver is bad for them.

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You're still missing the point.Gay people grew up in that environment. Every moment of every day they were bombarded with images of heterosexuality, constantly pushed to find someone of the opposite sex.And despite the constant influence, they still managed to know from the moment they started to think about sex that it wasn't right.We already live in that society you are only hypothetically talking about.

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I don't see any evidence that sexual proclivity or orientation is genetic any more than most of the other aspects of an individual's personality are genetic.

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You are confusing "unable to be changed" with "genetic." There are more biological influences upon a person than simple genetics.

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I certainly think that experience and environment have a great deal of impact on an individual's personality, and that includes his/her sexual desires.

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If that were the case, then highly motivated gay people should be able to become straight.They can't.All evidence indicates that sexual orientation is set before age three.How many three-year-olds were exposed to homosexuality?

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

Data? But what causes your brain to 'think that way?' Exposure to environment. And of course people tell you your genitals should tingle (if not in so many words); you grow up with your parents telling how cute the little girls in your class are, you grow up seeing mom and dad interact with each other, you see man/woman relationships everyday - including things like kissing, touching, etc. And people also tell you when your genitals shouldn't tingle. They tell you it's bad or immoral or disgusting if your genitals tingle when you look at a boy instead of a girl.You don't think your mind is being shaped at every turn? Please. Yeah, it's called trial and error. They try the hetero lifestyle and find it doesn't work for them. How many heteros try the gay lifestyle? Hardly any unless they have a gay friend. My point is not that there should be less gays and bisexuals, but that there should be more and the only thing holding them back is environment. No I haven't, but I particularly enjoy the arrogant manner in which you present this evidence. I think I'm really beginning to enjoy that. Wonder if I'm genetically predisposed?Seriously, do you have any data for anything in the last twenty years? 1953? Please. Sure, the word electrolysis mean anything to you? The word Asian mean anything to you? The word eighteen-year-old mean anything to you? That's a great point, but you'll also admit that even though you and I lived in the same general environment (USA, Brady Bunch, Star Wars, Electric Company) we still have experiences that are extremely dissimilar, and those, as much as our similar experiences, have just as much impact on our individual development.That's why siblings raised in the same households have different personalities and behaviors even when they are only a few years apart.The fact that we are constantly exposed to heterosexual 'norms' growing up does nothing to weaken my argument that more hetero men would engage in gay sex if they were exposed to less heterosexual norms.

You know, it's not like data comes with an expiry date, or that statistical methods have changed much in the past 50 years.How often do we have to double-check the Pythagorean theorem? Do we have to run the Michelson-Morley experiment every 10 years just to make sure that there's still no luminous ether?It's fairly disingenuous to reject a study simply because it's old. Do you have a more recent, contradictory study? Do you believe that the nature of human sexuality has changed fundamentally since the 50's?

custard responds to me:

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Acutally, no, it isn't. That's what all the studies of "ex-gays" have found out. They never become heterosexual.

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Actually yes it is. Physical stimulation is physical stimulation and has nothing to do with the gender of the individual providing it.

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(*blink!*)You did not just say that, did you?You're confusing the reflex action of stimulating a nerve bundle in order to produce a reaction with the psychological processes involved in the desire to get a specific person to do the stimulating in the first place.You're absolutely right that a comatose person can be given an erection simply by stimulating him. But do you really call that a sexual response? It's nothing more than what happens when you hit your knee at the right spot and your leg jerks.Sexuality is more than just rubbing your naughty bits against something.

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If we performed a double blind test on men where we told all of the men they would be receiving oral sex from a beautiful porn star, then blindfolded them and had a gay man perform oral sex on half of them and the star on the other half, do you honestly think the men who received oral sex from the man wouldn't get aroused?

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Yes.Again, you seem to think that a person cannot tell the sex of the person giving oral sex.Does the word "stubble" mean anything to you?You are confusing the mechanics of sexual response with sexuality.

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Are you really arguing that our sexual appetites are hardwired by genetics?

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No.I am arguing that our sexual appetites are hardwired. How they get that way is yet to be determined, but it seems to happen before three years of age.And since we live in a society where every moment of every day is punctuated with heterosexual imagery, the fact that we still produce gay people who instinctively know that heterosexuality is wrong indicates that it cannot be a socio-cultural artifact. It may not be genetics, but neither are your fingerprints and you can't change them, either, nor are they the result of cultural pressure to have whorls.

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If so, how do you explain people who enjoy S&M?

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What's to explain? They're no different than people who like rollercoasters, like to jump out of airplanes, prefer blonds, or achieve any other intense gratification from a certain set of physical characteristics.You seem to be stuck on the idea that "biological" and "unchangeable" equals "genetic." I'll be skipping many of your comments for they are simply variations on that misconception.

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If gender preference isn't genetic, then doesn't it have to be developmental. If it's developmental, it's a result of environment.

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Incorrect.If sexual orientation isn't genetic, that does not make it developmental or environmental. It simply means that it is a non-genetic biological reaction.The evidence is clearly pointing away from environmental factors. That doesn't mean genes, but it does mean biology.

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From everything that we have learned, that happens before you are three years old.

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Actually that's not true either. If it were, people wouldn't ever be able to change or grow.

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Logical error: Equivocation.I was not referring to every aspect of personality. I was referring specifically to sexual orientation. From everything that we have learned, sexual orientation is determined before you are three years old.That is why the very next sentence...you know, the one you cut out in your response...was the following: Now tell me...what made you think I was talking about something other than sexual orientation if the only example I made the entire time was about sexual orientation?

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It's only some core personality traits that psychologists speculate are set by the age of three

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One of those core traits is sexual orientation. If being gay were a matter of culture or will, then there would be no such thing as unwilling gay people. Our culture does nothing but beat the drum of heterosexuality. There is no shortage of highly motivated gay people desperate to become straight.And yet, we still manage to produce gay people and are absolutely impotent when it comes to changing gay people into straight.That doesn't mean it's genetic. But it absolutely means that it isn't cultural or psychological.

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So doesn't it seem to make much more sense that sexual preferences, including gender preference, is shaped by environment?

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Not at all. In fact, it shows the opposite. Since it becomes fixated long before there is any exposure to anything except heterosexuality, that is tremendous evidence for it being biological in origin.

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If it isn't, why do some countries and cultures have higher incidents of homosexuality than others? Because they are more predisposed to gay genes? That's a bit of a stretch.

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Only if one is obsessed that biological etiology necessarily means genetics.Identical twins have identical genes (essentially) and yet they always have different fingerprints.Are you claiming that fingerprints are determined by culture?Or might it possibly be that there are biological processes that aren't genetically determined?

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

I contest that claim. If that were true, how have all of these closeted gay men managed to procreate? How does that explain bi-sexuals? It doesn't. Yes, I must be missing your point because I don't see the distinction. Of course someone can find a sexual act distasteful or even repulsive and then later, after trying it, find they like it or grow to like it.If you refer to gay men who are so repulsed by the thought of sex with a woman that they won't even try it, I would say you are mistaken. I have yet to meet a single gay person my age who did not experiment with heterosexual sex. Anecdotal, but it also doesn't agree with the numbers gay men who have and continue to have sex with women because they are closeted.It also doesn't address men who try gay sex and discover they enjoy being with both men and women.I agree with you that there are people who detest the idea of sex with certain genders and I maintain this has nothing to do with genetics. People can be hardwired for or against something without it being in their DNA.I don't agree that bisexuality is rare, in fact, if you look at NORC or other studies it is as prevalent or moreso than 100% prefence for same sex. It's possible. What other biological influences do you think impact sexual preference? Not necessarily. If our environment has a strong bias towards heterosexual behavior, then it's no stretch to think that only the individuals who break out of that sexual paradigm are those who find sex with the opposite gender extremely unfulfilling or distasteful.This message has been edited by custard, 06-18-2004 05:11 AM

(*SIGH*)OK then, rather than arguing about why sexual orientation is not genetic and not environmental, why don't you actually present your position as to which biological reactions you think determine sexual orientation and why?Simply presenting that argument with some corroborating data could have saved a great deal of time. Let's hear it. I'm all ears.This message has been edited by custard, 06-18-2004 05:12 AM

Agreed, but we aren't talking about a mathmatical equation, we are talking about sociological and psychological determinants and the data has changed dramatically over the years. Look what has happened to Freudian or Jungian psychology since 1950. The nature of human sexuality? No. The way the studies were conducted and the likelihood of participants to truthfully self-identify their behaviors? Yes, certainly.Again, unlike mathmatics or physics, it's much harder to gather objective data concerning extremely subjective subjects such as human sexuality and personality development. It's even harder to present an objective analysis of that data. Then take into consideration that the social and cultural climes do change, paradigms do shift, so you are gathering data in a changing environment. 2+2=4 doesn't change, but environments that affect human behavior do.If Rrhain can actually show that behavior is determined by biological factors, then you are correct and the culture change should have less impact, but until he can show this, then, yes, all fifty year old data can really tell us is what people were like fifty years ago.This message has been edited by custard, 06-18-2004 05:36 AM

custard responds to me:

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And yet the overwhelming response from gay people is that there was something about it that didn't feel right.

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Data?

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Oh, heaven help me.Seriously. Have you never heard of Dr. Evelyn Hooker?

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But what causes your brain to 'think that way?' Exposure to environment.

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Incorrect.Hormones cause your brain to think that way.In some very famous experiments, trying to justify the hypothesis that gay men were suffering from hormone imbalances, gay men were injected with estrogen.It didn't turn them straight. It did, however, kill their sex drive.So the contrary hypothesis was tested and they were injected with testosterone.It still didn't turn them straight. It did, however, make them even more randy for gay sex.You start to think about sex because your sex hormones make you start to think about sex.

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And of course people tell you your genitals should tingle (if not in so many words); you grow up with your parents telling how cute the little girls in your class are, you grow up seeing mom and dad interact with each other, you see man/woman relationships everyday - including things like kissing, touching, etc. And people also tell you when your genitals shouldn't tingle. They tell you it's bad or immoral or disgusting if your genitals tingle when you look at a boy instead of a girl.

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So why is there even a single gay person with the entire culture telling every single person to be straight?That's my entire point, custard: The fact that our culture does tell every single person at every single turn to be straight and yet there are still gay people is definitive evidence that it is not cultural or psychological.

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You don't think your mind is being shaped at every turn? Please.

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Then explain the existence of gay people. Since every single attempt to shape a person's mind in this culture is to mold them into straights, how could there possibly be gay people?

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And despite the fact that everything in our culture is pushing you to be straight, gay people still understand that there is something wrong with that arrangement.

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Yeah, it's called trial and error.

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Incorrect.They know instinctively that it isn't right. It is precisely because they are constantly told that they are supposed to be feeling "special" about members of the opposite sex and they aren't that they know that there's something wrong. They don't have to have sex with someone of the same sex to know that they're not straight. They merely need to see that they do not have any characteristics that come with being straight.

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Have you never heard of Dr. Evelyn Hooker? She pioneered this study back in 1953

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No I haven't, but I particularly enjoy the arrogant manner in which you present this evidence.

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Please try to understand my frustration.What would you think if you came across someone who is trying to dismiss evolution who claims to have never heard of Darwin? Never mind about having read Origin of Species, I'm talking about simply never having heard of the name "Darwin" and knowing that he might have something to do with evolutionary theory.What would you think of a person who, when trying to discuss kinematics, claims to have never heard of Newton? And yet insists that his claims, which directly contradict Newton, are well thought out and researched?That is the position that I am in. You are engaging in a conversation where you don't know the person who literally started the entire discussion in the first place? If we were discussing gravity and I mentioned Newton's Laws, would you not blink at someone who demanded that you derived it from scratch while behaving as if he had engaged in serious study of the subject?How does one get that far in competence in a subject without coming across the most significant names and concepts along the way?And along the same lines, could you come up with fundamental datasets and experimental procedures required to justify Newtonian mechanics? I studied physics and I only barely remember the process by which you can calculate the strength of the force of gravitational field. It has to do with a really big pendulum swinging in very tiny arcs.It's like having a discussion about the meaning of Hamlet and being asked to justify why the alphabet is in that order. It's a legitimate question, but it requires having to back up to such a basic level that it comes as a shock.

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Seriously, do you have any data for anything in the last twenty years? 1953? Please.

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Yeah, 1953. Strange how we still think that DNA is a double-helix despite the fact that it was discovered back in 1953.

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And despite every waking moment leading them toward heterosexuality, they managed to shake it off and come out the other end gay.

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That's a great point, but you'll also admit that even though you and I lived in the same general environment (USA, Brady Bunch, Star Wars, Electric Company) we still have experiences that are extremely dissimilar, and those, as much as our similar experiences, have just as much impact on our individual development.

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Non sequitur.Come back to the issue: If sexuality were a cultural artifact, how could there ever be any gay people when the entire culture tells people to be straight?Amazing how children raised in environments where people speak only English always seem to manage to learn only English.And yet, despite being raised in environments where people speak only heterosexuality, we get a significant number of people who have no concept of it means to be straight.

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That's why siblings raised in the same households have different personalities and behaviors even when they are only a few years apart.

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But twins raised apart are still much more likely to share the same sexual orientation than fraternal twins or non-twin siblings.If it were environmental, how could there ever be a gay person?

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The fact that we are constantly exposed to heterosexual 'norms' growing up does nothing to weaken my argument that more hetero men would engage in gay sex if they were exposed to less heterosexual norms.

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Non sequitur.Nobody denies that if being gay were no more unusual culturally than being straight, I agree with you wholeheartedly that there would be more incidences of same-sex sex than we currently see.We might even see more incidences of people who spend their entire lives having sex with people of the same sex.That doesn't mean we'd get any more gay people. Being gay is about who you want to have sex with, not whom you happen to have sex with. If it were simply a matter of who you happen to have sex with, then people in prison would have to be declared "gay" since they are only having sex with other people of the same sex. Such a definition is ridiculous on its face.I am not saying that environmental factors have absolutely no effect on sexual expression. To go back to the prison example, many men who have been incarcerated for extended periods of time often find it difficult to have sex with women once they get out. The problem is not that they are now attracted to men. It's that they do not know how to behave around women. They are still attracted to women and do not seek out other men. However, they find that their habitual methods of sexual expression are learned from the specific environmental conditioning of prison.In a more mundane example, culture will teach you how to court somebody and it will become so ingrained that finding other methods of courtship will feel unnatural.But what culture has never been able to manage is teach you who you'd like to court in the first place in the most fundamental aspect: A man or a woman. While it is true that culture affects our perceptions of beauty, it is also still true that certain faces are considerd beautiful across cultures.There is a biological basis to attraction and it appears that the fundamental question of male/female is overwhelmingly biological in origin. We have never found a way to change it and despite constant training and reinforcement to be straight, we still get gay people.

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

custard responds to me:

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Gay people tend to find sex with someone of the opposite sex truly that bad.

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I contest that claim. If that were true, how have all of these closeted gay men managed to procreate?

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Lots of reasons. One is that the alternative is worse (the gay person who marries and has children because he is panicked over the idea that someone might find out). One is that they were so motivated to have a child that they bore the brunt.Once again, you're trying to inject to most extreme possibilities, to the point of invoking psychological neurosis on the persons, when we're really dealing with the average case.What do gay people do when they're not being tormented?

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IF THEY TRULY FOUND IT THAT BAD, then no, they wouldn't do it.

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Yes, I must be missing your point because I don't see the distinction. Of course someone can find a sexual act distasteful or even repulsive and then later, after trying it, find they like it or grow to like it.

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No, not that they "find they like it."

IF THEY TRULY FOUND IT THAT BAD

What part of "truly" don't you understand?To use a personal example, you are trying to compare my disgust of liver with my general dislike of lamb. My mother was Greek. She had an absolutely horrendous time trying to cook for me because, as a Greek person, she grew up on lamb. Her sophistication with lamb was such that she could tell the difference between lamb and mutton and even sometimes where it came from just by tasting it.And here comes her little boy turning his nose up at every single lamb dish she had.But she finally figured it out: Stop trying to dress it up. The problem was not the lamb...it was the herbs and cinnamon that was the problem. As soon as she figured out that all she need to do was braise it with garlic, I was all over it.And she figured it out by looking at the way I eat food in general: I don't like what I call "pretentious" food...food where it seems like the chef's goal was to include something weird for the sake of including something weird.But while I merely didn't like the lamb, I absolutely detested the liver. I could eat the lamb, but I didn't like it. I literally vomited on the floor from eating a tiny piece of liver.

IT TRULY IS THAT BAD

Oh, I suppose if you managed to completely disguise the texture and flavor of liver with something else, I could probably eat it, but that's only because you would have disguised everything about liver that makes it liver.This was extremely problematic when I had to do a play where my character prepares a liver dish. The smell was atrocious from my point of view and if you watched my performance, it was obvious that I was having difficulty with the scene.There is simply no way that I will ever come to enjoy liver. It truly is that bad.

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I have yet to meet a single gay person my age who did not experiment with heterosexual sex.

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This is hardly surprising given the literal forcing of people to be straight in our culture.But the thing is, the gay people know even before they have sex that it isn't right. They have been told about what sex is supposed to be like and how it's supposed to feel and they report that it just isn't there. They go on with it, waiting for the switches to flip, but it never, ever comes. And the moment they have sex with someone of the same sex, it's like the clouds part and everything that they heard was supposed to come from being with someone of the opposite sex comes bursting through and even more.That's how we get people who lead heterosexual lives for so long and only belatedly come about acknowledging the fact that they're gay. They have been so ingrained to be straight that they sublimate that feeling that it isn't nearly all it's cracked up to be. And since they have nothing to compare it against, they conclude that that's just the way they are. The feeling that it is wrong is there but with no way to express that dissatisfaction (and nothing in society allowing you to indicate that there is dissatisfaction), it becomes extremely difficult to process what you're feeling.But again, as soon as they have sex with someone of the same sex, the difference is astronomical and it becomes crystal clear that their less-than-impressive response to sex with the opposite sex was because they weren't straight!

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People can be hardwired for or against something without it being in their DNA.

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Nice try, but that's my argument to you.Now fill out the other side: People can be hardwired for or against something without it being DNA or environmental.

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What other biological influences do you think impact sexual preference?

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"Orientation." "Preference" implies a choice and there is no evidence that sexuality is a choice and every evidence that it is something hardwired.There are many possibilities from hormonal effects (and I doubt it is anything as simplistic as a single hormone level) to emergent behaviour. It may be that if your neurons physically arrange themselves in a certain way, you end up gay. That might explain why there seems to be a bit of a continuum in orientation: The pattern of neural connections might be a factor.We have found physical differences between gay people and straight people (from the controversial findings of LeVay to the more recent findings regarding finger length and eardrum clicks). But just because it is physical doesn't mean it's genetic.

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If that were the case, then highly motivated gay people should be able to become straight.

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Not necessarily.

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Yes, necessarily. If it were so heavily influence by culture and will and with such a tremendous reward system in place for those who express the desired behaviour (and positive reinforcement is the most powerful training method), then highly motivated gay people should be able to become straight.And they can't.

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If our environment has a strong bias towards heterosexual behavior, then it's no stretch to think that only the individuals who break out of that sexual paradigm are those who find sex with the opposite gender extremely unfulfilling or distasteful.

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But that would prove the lie that environment has a strong influence on sexual behaviour. The only way to break out of it would be to have a biological imperative.But that would mean that the environment doesn't have the influence.

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

custard responds to me:

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OK then, rather than arguing about why sexual orientation is not genetic and not environmental, why don't you actually present your position as to which biological reactions you think determine sexual orientation and why?

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Because we don't know yet.

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Simply presenting that argument with some corroborating data could have saved a great deal of time.

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And now you understand my frustration. It's such an obvious, such a fundamental concept that I have a hard time thinking outside that concept.I learned to read when I was three years old. That means I literally do not have a single memory where I was incapable of reading. I cannot comprehend of what it must be like to be illiterate. Even though there are plenty of writing systems I do not understand, I am familiar with the mental process of reading: I know what it's supposed to feel like.So please excuse me if I seem testy.

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Simply presenting that argument with some corroborating data could have saved a great deal of time.

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But that's just it: We don't know.But before you respond with, "So it could be environmental!" remember that we don't need to be able to show what something is in order to know what it is not. I do not need to show you that 2 + 2 = 4 in order to know that 2 + 2 != 5. Oh, that's a really good way of showing 5 is the wrong answer, but I don't have to.If we take the environmental hypothesis as valid, then it should require certain outcomes. We do not find those outcomes, thus we logically conclude that it isn't really environmental.

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!