Nature, Nurture, or Choice?
- Thread starter karrie
- Start date
Love the video!
Folks do have a way of contradicting themselves when questions are flipped around on them don't they? Maybe if they just put a little thought into the question before giving an answer.
Folks do have a way of contradicting themselves when questions are flipped around on them don't they? Maybe if they just put a little thought into the question before giving an answer.
I hear you Karrie.
It's ridiculous to assume that our environment doesn't play a role in how we develop, of course it does. But essentially, in my pov, we are who we are.
Accepting ourselves and others is the most important part.imho
I think its a mixture. Ive heard that i was born like that.... I heard some say they were born like that, and ive heard one fella say that the kids picked on him and said he was gay to the point were he accepted the fact that he was gay. Which i thought of as weird. Id say its a mixture or different influences... Ive also known of some people who thought they were gay and then couldnt get it up when it came to game time.... Id say its how the person interprets their surroundings and how they want to fit in with the world around them... Id say mixture but my examples may point more to choice... I didnt watch the video, internet sucks where iam at...
Being gay is not a choice, but it's also not natural. There are mitigating factors which cause an individual to stray from their natural path to procreation. I know that will piss off the activists, but pretending it isn't true doesn't make it untrue.
We have heard over the last number of decades of a happily married man or woman - with teenagers suddenly come out. They were just repressing the way they are because of societies so called values at that time. I believe it is the way you were meant to be. God made you that way and who am I to argue with God, I do at times but not about this, and oh yes science as well has shown my point.
Mixture, but I'd say largely it's in our nature; like the colours we like, the flavours we like, etc. I say mixture because there are unfortunate circumstances, like boys who were sexually molested by male pedophiles and the tendency to associate this as their sexual norms.
The high concordance amongst monozygotic twins lends itself to nature...
The high concordance amongst monozygotic twins lends itself to nature...
I read a study which discusses the species benefit to non-breeding members of a community (ie., gay), and shows that they do actually serve an evolutionary benefit to the species. I'll have to go hunting and see if I can find it for you. The main point anyway was that non-breeding caregivers are a pretty common portion of primate populations, serve a species-wide function, and are therefore, not 'unnatural' just becausee we have a mistaken view of evolution occuring solely on an individual level and thus attribute procreative drive wrongly as applying to everyone.
I don't think the question is relevant. You could ask the same question to anybody who has a preference for anything. Me, for example, I like my coffee black with no sugar. Did I choose black? Did I sit down and decide I wasn't going to like cream and sugar? Nope, I just don't like them. I had black and didn't go back.
Oh, I dunno about that. I searched with Google for "evolution and homosexuality," got over 6.5 million hits, and a quick scan of the first few pages turned up this as the most interesting to me, though there's a lot of other references that seem to be making pretty much the same point: The evolution of homosexuality: Gender bending | The Economist
The essential point is that for homosexuality to continue to exist, against the ruthless pruning of natural selection operating on differential reproductive success, it must confer some survival advantages, not necessarily to the people who are gay themselves, but to people with many of the same genes. That's really where natural selection operates, it's about the differential survival of alleles. In other words, being gay is as natural as being straight.
Or who cares. I look at the persons character, their sexual orientation is of no freaking concern to me
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When did you get to decide what is a normal sexual relationship? All the gays and lesbians I know consider their sexual relations to be normal.
Interesting study, but the conclusion you draw is somewhat subjective. This is where I'll draw all sorts of fire, not because of science, but because of activism so I'll preface it with a quick disclaimer. I believe that gay people should be afforded the same rights and protections as their straight counterparts. I have had a few gay friends in my lifetime and have educated my own kids not to be homophobic and accepting of others.
Okay, now that the disclaimer part is done I will say what I said before. The human body is essentially a machine that has a number of functions and needs. Taking God completely out of the context of this discussion I would say that it is fair to say that we are here to procreate. However, sometimes children are born with genital defects, sometimes with both male and female productive organs. Some children are born with learning disabilities and some develop mental disorders later in life. So, when you look at the male or female body and look at its design it is impossible to dispute that as a race we are here to procreate.
Those that are not equipped to procreate, those who are not wired to procreate, those who cannot do to genetics or other issues are not the norm. We can dress that up and say that it's perfectly natural, but it isn't. Just like cancer is not perfectly natural. Just like epilepsy is not perfectly natural or any other issue that deviates from the core of what the human body is designed for.
Now I can see all the hand wringers ready to pounce with the "how dare you'" and all I can say is take a look at paragraph one of this post and understand that I am simply stating a fact. We love to dress it up as perfectly natural, but it isn't. Many gay people struggle with it, some even end their lives over it. While we should always be inclusive and treat people with respect, we should not gloss over the truth to make people feel better.