Register | Sign In


Understanding through Discussion


EvC Forum active members: 65 (9162 total)
3 online now:
Newest Member: popoi
Post Volume: Total: 915,815 Year: 3,072/9,624 Month: 917/1,588 Week: 100/223 Day: 11/17 Hour: 0/0


Thread  Details

Email This Thread
Newer Topic | Older Topic
  
Author Topic:   First Gay marriage, then Polygamy (its happening!)
Silent H
Member (Idle past 5819 days)
Posts: 7405
From: satellite of love
Joined: 12-11-2002


Message 57 of 94 (250868)
10-11-2005 4:26 PM
Reply to: Message 56 by Lizard Breath
10-11-2005 3:35 PM


Re: what's the problem
I am neither a Nazi or a member of the Klan.
It was an analogy lizard brain.
It was to point out that you say things like this...
I am not a believer in races. All I see is people with different levels of melenin expresses in their outer skin layers.
and this...
I reject Darwin's pioneering work that divided the human population into seperate spieces with whites on top and polynesians, blacks and aboriginees on the bottom of the group as far as development.
only to then say something like this...
I see Jews as people charged by God with the responsibility to be an example to the rest of the world of what a relationship with the Creator looks like.
and not realize there is hypocrisy inherently wedged into your position.
So to repeat, listening to you is LIKE listening to a Klansman try to convince someone that the Nazis are bad and we should fight them together. You are BOTH a threat. And if you can't figure out who the Nazi is to your Klan, just look back to your post.

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 56 by Lizard Breath, posted 10-11-2005 3:35 PM Lizard Breath has not replied

  
Silent H
Member (Idle past 5819 days)
Posts: 7405
From: satellite of love
Joined: 12-11-2002


Message 62 of 94 (251031)
10-12-2005 4:25 AM
Reply to: Message 58 by crashfrog
10-11-2005 6:13 PM


Re: what's the problem
If there's no indication that there's a time when a gay person "becomes" gay, then its pretty obvious to me that the reasonable conclusion is that they were born that way.
That would be wrong. That is an argument from incredulity.
As it stands I guess I should have been clearer, though I thought I was clear enough here and in the other thread where this was discussed. The problem is not that there is no evidence at all, the problem is that there is conflicting evidence. No one has found a direct relation between anything and homosexual orientation, including early sexual behaior.
Genetics has pretty well been ruled out as a sole arbiter of orientation and so no one can be "born" gay, because of that. Perhaps gestational environment can heavily influence this, and so be born with a general guide to preference, but culture and experience will still shape you.
We don't balk at this construction for straight people, so I don't see a reason to deny it for gay people.
Who is "we"? I am repeatedly discouraged by how you claim to form your outlook based on science, yet reject it at most turns. That is at best a "common knowledge" claim based on nothing.
Yes for those that claim such things, it would make sense to allow it for gays. People should not make such claims.
Were that true, there would be no gay people - our society has, for many many generations, done all it could do to prevent homosexuality in people. Yet, there have been gay people for as long as there have been people.
Life is funny that way, it eludes capture and control. You will note that we have been trying to prevent theft, rape, murder, and even communism for some time... yet people end up feeling attracted to such behaviors.
That does not make people "born" that way. Given that our closest relative is "born" pansexual (that is they have no boundaries), is a strong argument that perhaps our prefs are born from environment more than strictly "nature".
Like what people?
I've already been over this. Homosexuality can become expressed when same sex populations are isolated for a period of time, even though being quite heterosexual. Though many revert after return to hetero community, some do not and some are bisexual.
In addition you will find cultures that allowed homosexual behavior, and in some cases expected homosexual behavior. They had more homosexuality within their communities. This would not be possible if you were born that way.
Here's an experiment you can run. Stop having sex with females and masturbating to female images. Try hanging out in exclusively male, and perhaps homosexual environments. I give you two months at most before you are tempted to try it, perhaps 6 before you totally give in. If you enjoy it, you will want to continue from time to time, even if your primary urge remains for women.
LB's comments alone should have been enough to indicate that it was spiritual or moral weakness to which LB was referring.
My mistake, though I am not sure that changes things. If you are designed to be weaker then you are not necessarily lesser. Though I agree at that point the reasoning is rather shifty.

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 58 by crashfrog, posted 10-11-2005 6:13 PM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 64 by crashfrog, posted 10-12-2005 8:05 AM Silent H has replied

  
Silent H
Member (Idle past 5819 days)
Posts: 7405
From: satellite of love
Joined: 12-11-2002


Message 66 of 94 (251103)
10-12-2005 10:42 AM
Reply to: Message 64 by crashfrog
10-12-2005 8:05 AM


Re: what's the problem
No, Holmes, that's called "looking at the evidence and coming to a conclusion." You know, what people do when they're approaching something rationally.
Your first sentence is correct and your second is incorrect. You cannot just look at evidence and draw a conclusion. There needs to be a logical connection between the two to make it rational.
You said that if we have no evidence one way or the other, it is rational to draw a conclusion. That simply is not true. That is a logical fallacy.
And, yet I repeat, there's no coherent model, no known influence that is a reliable predictor of future homosexuality.
The problem with your theory is that there is conflicting evidence. Not simply no evidence for being born gay but conflicting evidence. You asked me for it, I gave it to you, you totally skipped over it in this reply in order to reassert your claim. If this is how you want to proceed, then we might as well end it here.
So, what you're saying is that (for instance) prisons make people gay? The phenomenon is known as "situational homosexuality" and contrary to your assertion, there's little evidence that persons who engage in same-sex activity in such a situation continue it after the situation changes.
Little evidence? I already stated what you will find. There is evidence that most will NOT continue engaging in homosexual activity, but some will. One is enough.
And you need to think about this a little bit more. Why would it be that in an oppressive hetero culture, people that enter a homosexual environment engage in homosexual activity and then when returned to the oppressive hetero culture, mostly return? Think maybe this is indicative of something.
The fact that you can admit there is such a thing as "situational homosexuality" and still hold on to your theory that people are born gay is a bit surprising. That inherently means there are other ways than "nature" to become gay.
Again, you didn't even address cultures where men are expected to engage in homosexual activity and so have a higher rate.
if you're weaker in one area, and only equal in all the others, then by simple addition, you're the lesser one.
Technically that isn't true. Again it depends on what the measurement of higher/lesser is based on. Now I have no clue what God uses as that measure, but it appears LB does.

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 64 by crashfrog, posted 10-12-2005 8:05 AM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 67 by crashfrog, posted 10-12-2005 4:42 PM Silent H has replied

  
Silent H
Member (Idle past 5819 days)
Posts: 7405
From: satellite of love
Joined: 12-11-2002


Message 68 of 94 (251259)
10-12-2005 6:17 PM
Reply to: Message 67 by crashfrog
10-12-2005 4:42 PM


generally not born fixed
We have abundant evidence on one side, and a lack of evidence on the other.
I am very angry and disappointed. I apologize if any of that comes across in what I am about to write. This is serious and so I am going to try and keep this very clean. Please read what I write, including the quotes.
You make the above statement, despite the fact that we already had a thread essentially on this topic which disproved the above statement. Rather than go back through everything I am simply going to cut to the chase, and show you a thankfully well bundled version at Wiki on Homosexuality...
What science says...
Various psychologists, anthropologists and sociologists, including Sigmund Freud, Margaret Mead, and Michael Foucault have held that all humans by nature are bisexual. In the same vein, writer Gore Vidal once remarked that "there is no such thing as a homosexual or heterosexual person. There are only homo- or heterosexual acts. Most people are a mixture of impulses if not practices, and what anyone does with a willing partner is of no social or cosmic significance"
Many modern studies, most notably the Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948) and the Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953) by Alfred Kinsey have found that the majority of humans have had homosexual experiences or sensations and are bisexual. Only a minority of people were found (5-10%) to be exclusively heterosexual or homosexual. Conversely, an even smaller minority of people appear to have had equal sexual experiences with both genders indicating an attraction scale or continuum...
...his idea of a sexuality continuum still enjoys broad acceptance today and is supported by findings in the human and animal kingdoms including biological studies of structural brain differences between those belonging to different sexual orientations. His notable finding that four percent of humans are homosexual was replicated during the 2000 US elections in which four percent of voters identified as homosexual.
So let's start with this. General scientific findings suggest that human sexuality does not actually have easy boxes but is instead a continuum. There may be some who are exclusive hetero or homo, but they are the anomolies in the vast minority.
This suggests why culture plays a large role in shaping sexual practices we see. In the west where homosexuality has been repressed for ages, it was limited and you would get "situational homosexuality", which in actuality is reversion to natural state, before returning to normalized cultural expression. Yet in say some African societies you can have extensive homosexual practices as they are normalized OVER hetero acts.
With this in mind the idea that sexuality is fixed is already in trouble, but let's look at what is being sought as explanations for orientation...
Considerable debate exists over what biological and/or psychological factors produce sexual orientation in humans. Candidates include genes and the exposure of fetuses to certain hormones (or levels thereof). Freud and many others psychologists, particularly in psychoanalytic or developmental traditions, speculate that formative childhood experiences help produced sexual orientation. Other scientists and medical professionals, particularly those in biology-oriented disciplines, tend to believe that in-born factors”whether genetic or acquired in utero”produce characteristically homosexual childhood experiences (such as atypical gender behavior experiences), or at the least significantly contribute to them.
Got it? No abundant evidence. Even those that are pushing hormonal and genetic agents do not suggest "born gay" but rather recognize they can drive experiences which might then shape/determine general orientation.
But that is not all...
Most specialists, in any case, follow the general conclusion of Alfred Kinsey regarding the sexual continuum, according to which a minority of humans are exclusively homosexual or heterosexual, and that the majority are bisexual. The consensus of psychologists is that sexual orientation, in most individuals, is shaped at an early age; and is not voluntarily changeable.
Kinsey himself”along with current queer activist groups” focus on the historicity and fluidity of sexual orientation. Kinsey's studies consistently found sexual orientation to be something that evolves in many directions over a person's lifetime; rarely, but not necessarily, including forming attractions to a new gender. Rarely do individuals radically reorient their sexualities rapidly”and still less do they do so volitionally”but often sexualities expand, shift, and absorb new elements over decades.
This squares exactly with what I was trying to tell you about our state of knowledge. Personally I believe best evidence at this point, indicates that hormonal environment in utero, is a major factor in driving someone toward homosexuality. That would be pretty damn close to saying "born gay" in that it places some major influences before birth, yet that is still not clear and is undercut as solely important (the only factor) by clear evidence of cultural influence.
As shown above people can change, though it is slow going.
The fact that some animals can even change sex given purely post birth environmental factors, ought to give you a clue change of sexual pref might be possible in humans.
Situational homosexuality. Cultural pressure makes people do things that they wouldn't otherwise choose to do based on their own preferences.
Or is it that it opens up possibilities to do things which one could not have done elsewhere, gives one exposure to it and you find you do in fact have a preference? You see you are looking at this with an assumption that culture didn't do anything in the first place.
From the above scientific data it seems more likely that what Western culture is experiencing, if we are to take your definition of "situational", is situational heterosexuality. People normally desiring a continuum are forced to pick and choose one orientation alone, with emphasis on hetero.
In any case, whether temporary or not, the desire is most certainly there. Yes, you can kiss someone and not feel anything at all, but (barring some bizarre rape scenario or intoxication) there is no way that you go through full sexual acts to completion without some desire for that act.
Situational homosexuality is the same thing as homosexuality for my position. It is only a problem if I held your position.
If human sexual preference is environmental and not congenital, why are the strongest predictors for eventual homosexuality physical and not situational or experiential?
Well this is not exactly true. Check through the cultural breakdown on homosexuality. You will discover that situational certainly does play a part in homosexual expression and activity. If one looks outside the immediate West, one finds vastly different ways homosexuality is conducted.
As far as a strict lifetime one sexual preference only (hetero or homo), my guess is hormonal influences on the brain make a minority of people susceptible to a particular kind of bonding early on. Thus what makes one solely gay or straight may even be the same chemical, with the outcome set by early childhood experiences. Kind of a stubborness or exclusivity streak.
In the West homosexuality will likely be matched more to hormonal issues, since less people are going to practice homosexuality in general, due to cultural oppression, leaving mainly those with the absolute strongest urges.
Please tell me that you understand and agree with what is being said here.

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 67 by crashfrog, posted 10-12-2005 4:42 PM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 69 by crashfrog, posted 10-12-2005 7:59 PM Silent H has replied
 Message 71 by Scaryfish, posted 10-13-2005 1:24 AM Silent H has replied

  
Silent H
Member (Idle past 5819 days)
Posts: 7405
From: satellite of love
Joined: 12-11-2002


Message 72 of 94 (251365)
10-13-2005 4:07 AM
Reply to: Message 69 by crashfrog
10-12-2005 7:59 PM


Re: generally not born fixed
That's your scientific evidence? Gore Vidal? Color me not impressed.
The quote was that the opinions of scientists regarding human sexuality was mirrored by a statement that Gore Vidal had made, not that Gore Vidal was a scientist. You should have read that more carefully.
No, it is exactly true.
Physical characteristics are significant predictors where? In societies which have restrictive anti-homosexual behavior mores? In societies where this is not the case such indicators are USELESS. That is why I asked you to read the section on cultures.
And I will add that you are once again confusing correlation with causation. Let's take finger length for example. Finger length may be associated (we'll pretend for this example) certain hormonal environments during gestation. That may have many different effects including what hormones you put out or other indicators with which people are going to react to you. That may then result in more culturally feminine responses which drive you toward a feminine role which could make you homosexual.
We have already shown that genetics or genetic history is really way down if not off the list so I have no idea why you even mentioned it. If it was genetics based then homosexuality would be found using genetic models of inheritance and spread which it clearly does not. And this statement...
why is it that the most accurate predictors can be assessed long before environment has had a chance to operate?
is just ridiculous when one can state that in certain cultures homosexuality WILL be practiced, long before and in spite of lacking physical predictors that might be considered "indicative" in other cultures.
But its clear that the most significant influences are congenital, and I'm guilty of nothing more than oversimplifcation to assert to LB that people are born gay.
Given your overheated response to my simple statement of clarification, this is not true. And you still seem to be missing the greater point. I think it is clear and now we both are on the same wavelength that certainly there are some strong prenatal factors which help guide our sexual development.
But we have not cleared at all how they do so, and how they work with culture to form one's prevalent sexual makeup. Right now we are primarily learning how early chemical environments end up driving sexuality within our culture, which is pretty dramatic in its dogma and enforcement of stiff sexual roles/stereotypes.
The evidence is that barely anyone is actually gay at all, which is to say exclusive to same sex attraction. Just as barely anyone is heterosexual at all, which is to say exclusive to opposite sex attraction. Thus factors we are seeing may be factors of exclusivity, or as I put it "stubborness", which are rare. And certainly may have no meaning to any entity before birth.
I should have refuted LB's erroneous assertion with the complicated truth, not the simple generalization.
You could have been short and accurate. That's why I told you in my first reply I was correcting you. It is just as simple to say sexual orientation is beyond our ability to choose.
Whether before or after birth is irrelevant to the question of how much we can control what we are.
I hope you'll agree that my basic point stands - claims that gay sex is "unnatural" are incoherent; nothing is more natural than people having the sex that they enjoy and want to have.
Heheheh... of course I agree with that, and I thought I was suggesting that all along. I started by saying how laughable LB's position was. Almost all sexual orientations and acts are natural, and one would be hardpressed to find any that are unnatural (maybe PVC fetishes?).
One caveat, Xians can use another sense of the word "natural" that we generally would not use and then they would be correct. This is sort of complex, and yes it is semantics, though it is 100% correct. The problem of course is that Xians usually equivocate.

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 69 by crashfrog, posted 10-12-2005 7:59 PM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 74 by crashfrog, posted 10-13-2005 7:29 AM Silent H has not replied

  
Silent H
Member (Idle past 5819 days)
Posts: 7405
From: satellite of love
Joined: 12-11-2002


Message 73 of 94 (251371)
10-13-2005 4:48 AM
Reply to: Message 71 by Scaryfish
10-13-2005 1:24 AM


Re: generally not born fixed
True, but I believe that more recently opinion has changed somewhat. There are several studies suggesting that, with men at least, sexual orientation is largely bimodal - ie. most men self-report as exclusively hetero or homosexual.
It is true that opinions have changed somewhat, but not exactly as you are suggesting, and if it was then we are moving in a wrong direction. Let me explain...
In the citation I gave, the idea that we are truly bisexual was pretty well shown to be an older idea. The more prevalent idea is that we are a continuum. Our practices would be bisexual, but our preferences would usually have a degree of certainty toward one or the other. That would make sense anyway as whose chemical or social environments which would influence our drive could be so even.
The idea of "bi-modality" is purely an artifact of culture and rather poor study design. In the West people are forced to think of themselves as one or the other. In other cultures and certainly in the past such an idea, and such questions, would have been met with a curious look.
If forced to answer a question on who I am then I would have to say "hetero". I am well aware that my greater attraction is to women. Indeed the difference in the way that I am attracted is significant to me (I only find specific portion's of men's bodies attractive, rather than the general whole body of women). However, that label would be wholly artificial, an artifact of having to choose to fit our culture's expectations that people are "modal".
I have sex with men and I do enjoy it. Frankly I wish I were farther along the continuum toward attraction to men as Amsterdam is a freaking unbelievable sex paradise for gay sex and I'd have a bit more fun here. But that just goes to show that a continuum, while undercutting concepts of bimodal, does not free us to choose at whim.
has suggested that even when men do report as bisexual on the Kinsey scale, the majority of the time they are still only physically aroused by one gender or the other.
Just to let you know, your link to a study was empty, so I cannot respond to that study in specific. I do not see the above findings conflicting with the idea of a continuum, though I would wonder how relevant such studies could be anyway without a very wide scope (many different cultures).
First, even for heterosexual or homosexual individuals their level of arousal was greater for images of the non-arousing sex than for the arousing sex. However, their arousal in response to the arousing sex was significantly greater.
This appears to be contradictory. A mistatement?
I also think the distincions used in this study may be useful:
I'm not sure if they are useful, though we can certainly make them useful for discussion. I worry that there is still an artificiality about this, which can disguise what is happening. How do you differentiate orientation from identity in a self-report? Even measurements of physical arousal may be hampered by inhibitions, and desires not to be found outside one's cultural norms. Of course being willing to be hooked up to a penile plethysmograph may already be moving outside norms.
As it is, arousal as indicative of sexual orientation is even being rejected in some quarters, heheheh simply to avoid cultural repercussions the findings may have.
Another most important reason not to make diagnoses or predictions based solely on arousal measurement data is that it appears that arousal responses to deviant stimuli are not limited to sex offenders. As Dr. Pithers states "... there appear to be people in society who do have disordered arousal patterns who, to the best of my knowledge, have never sexually offended."
Intriguingly that is the very assumption being made in the hetero-homo question, now that we can comfortably label homosexuality as "nondeviant" or a "sexual offense". Heheheh, I love the above statement. We cannot consider that the results of our studies show that a deviation is not really a deviation, and we want to, therefore we must use something else!

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 71 by Scaryfish, posted 10-13-2005 1:24 AM Scaryfish has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 76 by Scaryfish, posted 10-13-2005 4:23 PM Silent H has not replied

  
Silent H
Member (Idle past 5819 days)
Posts: 7405
From: satellite of love
Joined: 12-11-2002


Message 79 of 94 (253497)
10-20-2005 6:48 PM
Reply to: Message 78 by coffee_addict
10-20-2005 5:53 PM


You kidding?
Not sure whether epiphany was kidding, but the poster was right. The literal wording in the Bible is polygamous positive. Only some limited and specific statements (iirc restricted to the New Testament) can be read to prefer monogamy, but never in a way that wholly denies polygamy.
Of course religion is what you make of it. Fundie Xians are generally antipolygamy due to the history of their changing interpretations. Its just sort of ironic that they claim to demand absolute literalism, and yet ignore that rather obvious literal position.

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 78 by coffee_addict, posted 10-20-2005 5:53 PM coffee_addict has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 80 by Chiroptera, posted 10-20-2005 6:57 PM Silent H has not replied

  
Silent H
Member (Idle past 5819 days)
Posts: 7405
From: satellite of love
Joined: 12-11-2002


Message 84 of 94 (253613)
10-21-2005 6:51 AM
Reply to: Message 81 by HaggisnNeeps
10-21-2005 12:19 AM


Re: I've never really got my head round the objections
In short, they believe that secular gov't should reflect cultural values which to their mind is fundie Xian in the US. Of course they miss the point that a secular gov't, even if allowing for cultural values, should not support purely religious values. And further they miss that secular gov't shouldn't really even be handling cultural values.
They like to bypass the fact that we have a Bill of Rights to concentrate on a few laws which sound similar to a few items in the 10 commandments in order to support their argument.

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 81 by HaggisnNeeps, posted 10-21-2005 12:19 AM HaggisnNeeps has not replied

  
Silent H
Member (Idle past 5819 days)
Posts: 7405
From: satellite of love
Joined: 12-11-2002


Message 87 of 94 (253721)
10-21-2005 3:10 PM
Reply to: Message 86 by Epiphany7
10-21-2005 8:20 AM


Re: I've never really got my head round the objections
Even they cannot explain why other "sins," such as fornication are more acceptable to them though.
To be fair many believe it is also unacceptable and are fighting it tooth an nail. They simply find homosexuality to be one of the signs of extreme loss of morality... it's a place to start.

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 86 by Epiphany7, posted 10-21-2005 8:20 AM Epiphany7 has not replied

  
Silent H
Member (Idle past 5819 days)
Posts: 7405
From: satellite of love
Joined: 12-11-2002


Message 91 of 94 (254707)
10-25-2005 12:35 PM
Reply to: Message 88 by Coragyps
10-24-2005 7:32 PM


Re: This just in.......
Heheheh... pretty please with sugar on top. I would like Texas to surpass Florida in stupidity.

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 88 by Coragyps, posted 10-24-2005 7:32 PM Coragyps has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 92 by Coragyps, posted 10-25-2005 4:18 PM Silent H has not replied

  
Silent H
Member (Idle past 5819 days)
Posts: 7405
From: satellite of love
Joined: 12-11-2002


Message 94 of 94 (254872)
10-26-2005 9:04 AM
Reply to: Message 93 by coffee_addict
10-26-2005 1:31 AM


Re: This just in.......
You know this'll be great to watch all the "strict constructionists" like Bush and Scalia suddenly do a back bend and then a pretzel twist to argue that we know what it means in spite of what it says.

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 93 by coffee_addict, posted 10-26-2005 1:31 AM coffee_addict has not replied

  
Newer Topic | Older Topic
Jump to:


Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved

™ Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024