Nature, Nurture, or Choice?
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But does that make it not natural? By your definition, I guess it does.
What's with the conflation of normal and natural? Homosexuality is natural, JLM even made reference to the prevalence in the population, which is absolutely true for many traits, be they behaviours or quantifiable traits like height.
Besides, all of this comparisons to what happens in animals and defining normal is a fool's errand. Statutory rape would be normal in animals, as is murder, and even incest. That doesn't mean we should treat them as acceptable behaviours...
But as far as the point of this thread, homosexuality is a natural trait. Five year old kids don't choose if they're going to like a boy or girl.
Well, yes, and quite honestly, if we're looking at biology and reproduction as for what defines normal, we should be making sure that girls have sex as soon as they start menstruating. Maybe Bountiful has things correct. From a natural, propogate the species point of view, that's a good way to go.
It's a choice (just as heterosexual appeal is) even if it appears completely instinctual on the face of it.
Who said anything about choice? Not me. You guys are over thinking what I wrote.
It was the way our species acted at one time. Some still do.
I cannot figure out how you come to that conclusion. By your own posts, having sex with any girl who has started menstruating would be natural and normal, since she would be ready to reproduce. How can you define it as not normal or natural?
Which suddenly contradicts your suggestion that homosexuality or being infertile is not normal or natural, because it doesn't lead to reproduction.
Please explain how you draw that conclusion.
Ummmmmmmm, maybe five year olds but when I was 6 years old in grade one, I was absolutely mesmerized and obsessed with a girl in grade two until she finally moved out of the area. She was beautiful but I was shy with girls at the time and she probably never even noticed me! :lol:
Homosexuality = not natural, because it doesn't lead to reproduction, even though our current society doesn't care.
Sex with young girls = not natural, because although it does lead to reproduction, our current society frowns on it.
Pretty consistent reasoning there.
Before I make my lengthy point, let me just state clearly that I take your word that you don't morally condemn homosexuality. I'm just interested, like you, in having an honest discussion.
You seem to base your view of the ''unnaturalness'' of homosexuality on our supposed ''natural path to procreation''. While I don't pretend to be an expert in biological evolutionary mechanisms, I see a flaw in that reasoning in the sense that you overemphasize the importance of the individual over the species as a whole.
Take honey bees for example. A very large majority of females are non-reproducing. Does this make them unnatural? Surely it doesn't. They play an essential role in the survival of the species as a whole. A worker bee simply has no natural path to procreation as an individual. It's only as a member of the species that it has reproductive value. This example at least shows that in nature, not all individuals have a natural path to procreation. The selfish gene theory only works to a certain extent. From a biological point of view, a worker bee doesn't have the capacity to transmit her own genes. But she does very strongly contribute to the transmission of her mother's genes, which are almost similar to hers. In a sense she is as important as her mother in the transmission of the latter's genes. The point here being that one's capacity to reproduce can't necessarily be a factor in judging one's so-called naturalness.
Now clearly, humans and bees function very differently. Technically, all humans can reproduce (in their period of fertility). While some people are infertile, it is the common understanding that a normally functioning human body ought to be able to reproduce. But remember that nearly all homosexuals are fertile in the first place. Their fertility is simply not fulfilled. So one could argue that the ''abnormality'' of homosexuality lies not in its biological deviation from reproduction but rather in its behavioural deviation. And this is precisely where the ''nurture vs. nature'' debate comes into play. How much of our behaviour is implicit in our genes?
I am of the opinion that both nature and nurture play a role in homosexuality. And I quite frankly hope the issue won't be settled for a while because both options give some twisted people (you are NOT one of those!) reasons to think that homosexuality ought to be corrected or avoided. If it's natural, one could argue that we ought to avoid it with genetic manipulation or selection. If homosexuality's cause is ''nurture'' then one could argue that we ought to nurture kids in a way to avoid homosexuality. Both options seem negative to me in the sense that I don't see anything wrong whatsoever with homosexuality. Humans clearly don't have fertility problems so I don't see how homosexuality could be a nuisance to our species. I rather welcome it as just one more token of human diversity. But that is just my personal opinion.
As was already pointed out, it is rather odd to say something isn't natural while it is already existent. If it wasn't natural, it wouldn't have happened in the first place. In a very strict way of seeing things, anything at all that exists is natural whether we like it or not. That being said, there are a lot of semantics in play. When you give the example of the boy you knew with a missing hand, we all understand what you mean when you say that a one-handed human is not quite natural because we all have (more or less) the same conception of what a natural human body ought to be like. From a human point of view, we would pretty much all agree that a baby born with no legs clearly has some form of ''defect''.
But what defect does a homosexual have that would justify labelling homosexuality as unnatural? Clearly it's not lack of fertility. Because gay men can very well reproduce from a biological point of view. Yet most of them don't. Is that a defect in itself? I don't think so. They contribute to humanity as much as anybody else. If homosexuality was strictly natural, one would think they would be extinct by now right? Or that it's just a question of time! But somehow that doesn't seem to work out. If homosexuality is natural, it is most probably a very complex set of genetic factors that contribute to a predisposition towards homosexuality. And if that's the case, my brother's ''gay genes'' could very well be transmitted by myself to my children because clearly, my heterosexual parents transmitted them to my brother... And if that's the case, homosexuality is still around because it doesn't cause any significant evolutionary disadvantage from a species point of view. It's all a very complex affair, but to sum up my opinion, I'd say that there is nothing in homosexuality that can be considered a defect.
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On a more personal note, when I look at my gay brother, I'm strongly tempted to say he was born that way. We pretty much both had the same upbringing and he's gay while I'm not. But then when I look at my lesbian friend, I see how it's possible that she eventually became lesbian. She was adopted and has already told me how as a child she used to fantasize about meeting her real mother. She imagined her as being perfect and beautiful and her ideal of beauty quickly crystallized into something that was a largely feminine affair. Is that why she is a lesbian? I don't have a clue, but it's food for thought.
Another one of my lesbian friends distinctly remembers her father cutting a snake's head with a machete. She remembers feeling great disgust at both her father and the snake at that precise moment. Freud would have a blast with that one. Now is this why she's a lesbian? Probably not, but when we discuss the nature-nurture issue, she often brings that up so somehow it seems to have imprinted her psyche in some way... She loves her father dearly but there is something about aggressive masculinity that turns her off sexually. She finds men attractive but she tends to prefer men with a soft, gentle and more ''feminine'' attitude. She considers herself bisexual with a preference for women.
All this to say that it's already misleading to divide humanity into two clear cut groups of heteros and homos. It's clearly more complex than that. And it's even more complex to clearly establish exactly how sexual preference develops. But why do we care in the end? Is homosexuality a threat to humanity's future? I think not.
Like my grandma says : ''some people like ketchup, some people like mustard, some like both.... Who gives a ****?!''
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I've met oodles of women through my gay brother that I could have easily boinked. Far more than I did through having sisters. That seriously ups the odds of me spreading my genes which are the same as my brother's around. BTW he does hook-up with a gal from time to time as do many gays and their really close lady friends.
That is a definite advantage for a family to prosper.
That is a definite advantage for a family to prosper.
At the animal level I guess it is the norm. Occasionally animals eat their young as well.
I will not abandon that concept. It is the function of the body to reproduce, while a child's menstrual cycle may start at an early stage they are not equipped mentally to have kids. They could have kids. It's a normal part of their biology, but has the rest of the equipment caught up to the physical?
You can try and entrap me by comparing what I am saying to something as disgusting as pedophilia, but your just being dishonest by doing so. The only reason I'm not being called a homophobic is because I've been pretty consistent that I support gay rights and believe that a person does not choose to be gay.
Chip away all you want.
A JW once came to my door wanting to talk about how homosexuality was against god's law. I said homosexuality was one of nature's ways of trying to control over population. That ended that conversation.
With our current understanding of the human psyche, it is hard to come to a clear understanding of the mechanisms at play. We have barely scratched the surface of human understanding. Suffice it to say that it has been part of every known civilization in human history so it must be natural to at least human civilization, particularly in crowded city settings.
As a side note: I wonder how many men who claim that homosexuality does not bother them and feel very tolerant of that lifestyle, how they would react if a gay man aggressively pressured them to have sex with them? Just wondering how that might affect their attitudes.
Most adults I know act childishly often enough to have their adult status taken away.
With our current understanding of the human psyche, it is hard to come to a clear understanding of the mechanisms at play. We have barely scratched the surface of human understanding. Suffice it to say that it has been part of every known civilization in human history so it must be natural to at least human civilization, particularly in crowded city settings.
As a side note: I wonder how many men who claim that homosexuality does not bother them and feel very tolerant of that lifestyle, how they would react if a gay man aggressively pressured them to have sex with them? Just wondering how that might affect their attitudes.
Up until the last 100 years or so, most girls on this planet were married off at puberty. It was considered the natural transition from childhood to adulthood. How did it come to be that now we consider a girl a child until she is 16?
Most adults I know act childishly often enough to have their adult status taken away.
How does a woman feel when a man aggressively pressures them for sex? They feel cornered, victimized, some lash out out. Some develop a fear of men. It's not unfair to assume a straight male would react in a similar way.
You could really go a bunch of ways with this thought. If you drop a white guy into a crime invested neighborhood that is predominantly black, he could develop an attitude about a race.
Same applies to the reverse.
I think I covered this earlier. So I'll ask you, "Do you think it's okay to have sex with a girl under 16?" I'm guessing your answer is, "No."
Do I really have to ask you why?
Most 16 year olds aren't equipped mentally to raise kids.
How does a man feel when a woman aggressively pressures him for sex? If there is a difference, why?