Darn it, let’s try that link again:
Church Group Offers Homosexual New Life In Closet
(Caution: The above joke-article contains naughty words.)
It occurs to me that “homicide” is not spelled with two Os.
Hopefully my error will be put off to having to write “homosexual” “goboy” and “homicide” in the same sentence, and nobody will make any rash accusations or snide comments.
That is exactly what I feel. If anyone cares to read Rev. Rembert Truluck’s “Recovery From Bible Abuse”, they can see someone’s opinion that Christianity is too legalistic for Jesus, and has turned away from His intention.
Sexuality is not black and white, it is fluid. And people are born as God made them - and born Gay. Let’s not mess with Big Daddy, 'kay?
It is my humble opinion, gained from having many a chat with professionals, reading many an article and meeting some homosexuals, that there are two definite reasons for homosexuality.
The first, and most common, is genetic. They are born that way. Simple, to the point and it answers a lot of questions. How many average men can get sexually stimulated by contemplating the hairy buttocks of another mature male? Not many. (We are ignoring prisoners here because the influences there are unlike any other in normal life.)
The second is mental. There are several forms of mental illness which can cause one to change gender taste for as long as one is ill.
This excludes transgenders who just like to dress up in woman’s clothing but remain heterosexual. This also excludes bisexuals.
If you are not attracted to someone’s sex, you cannot perform if you are male. It does not rise to the occasion. (Unless you’re real young, like very early 20s, and then a stiff breeze raises the Titanic.) Many men can actually become violently repulsed if confronted with a homosexual male hitting on them. This does not apply if the same men are confronted by a very feminine looking gay dressed in full drag and looking very much female, but when discovered, a normal male will usually react with revulsion.
Going there goes into sexual cues and fooling the psyche.
Scylla wrote:
So you answered his outlandish claim by invoking another?
I’m sorry I snapped, but I’ve heard this argument so many times - “Homosexuality is like alcoholism and can be overcome!” Well, murder infringes on another’s rights, period, so the comparison is faulty. Alcoholism medically endangers the user, but we still allow them to do so. However, alcoholism has the added benefit of possibly endangering others when the user loses control over his or her own actions. Here I’d maintain this is also a faulty comparison, as homosexuality does neither (although some would argue over spiritual well-being and/or the faulty argument of the spread of disease).
Esprix
PRISM02, I’m not sure whether to smack you silly for your interesting interpretation of fact, or to give you kudos for at least having an open mind. You wrote:
Doing research for a paper? Dabble in psych as a hobby?
Well, if you’d dug a little deeper, you’d see that it’s actually a complex combination of both genetic and environmental factors. There may be some genetic predisposition, but what triggers it is too complex to be understood (at least for now). And exactly what “mental illnesses” would turn someone temporarily gay? That’s a new one on me.
Patently untrue. Gay men have been marrying women to fit into society for centuries, and having children has never been an issue. Perhaps they fantasize about the pool boy, I don’t know, but they most certainly can perform. (And to use your own example, prison inmates certainly aren’t attracted to other men, but they can certainly perform sexually when they have no other options.)
Ah, the “homosexual panic” defense. What a buncha crap.
Interesting definition of “normal.” I’d call it “societal conditioning” myself. However, I would never condone someone presenting themselves falsely to another person.
I might point you to the 2 “Ask the Gay Guy” threads for some further reading material and sources.
Esprix
Esprix:
“So you answered his outlandish claim by invoking another?”
Yes. That shows the fallacy (unless you think homicidal impulses ought to be embraced becuase they are divinely inspired.)
It’s a pretty standard debating technique/argument.
No comparison is involved.
Sweet_Lotus wrote:
So that’s why there’s a big wet spot on the sheet afterward! (Ow! Stop hitting!)
Scylla, as I said, I understood the point you were trying to make, I just read it as a bit drastic. My apologies.
Kat wrote:
So you think changing the behavior is acceptable?
And I’m not sure what you mean by “finding it when you turn over a rock.” Could you explain?
Esprix
Ignore the sockpuppet, Esprix. The real Kat has been around since Mar '99 and has over 1800 posts. This is just a troll trying to get attention. ::sigh::
Well, I couldn’t sleep so I figured I’d play with the computer and I see I made the right decision.
Esprix
Neither. Just very curious and I spent a bit of time under the ministrations of a psychiatrist for severe depression. (I read all about that too, want to know something about it?)
You’re correct - to an extent because unless one is biologically cued or emotionally ill, one will not become aroused towards the same sex. Nature does not allow this generally. However, there are exceptions like with male children prior to puberty when they look feminine, which is when most molestation’s among them take place. Once the male child begins to hit puberty and hormones roughen his skin, hair him over, remove the baby fat, lengthen his bones and make him ‘gawky,’ the incidents drop dramatically.
Here we will drop the male child molesters because, again, they have a whole different psyche from the normal homosexual or bisexual. A man who molests male children can also have normal relations with a woman in many instances.
A homosexual grows up knowing they are different, virtually from the start. Pressures are applied to keep him ‘normal’ which can and has caused emotional problems. Still, the basic set is that he will respond to males rather than females. We will not go into the breakdown of sexual roles a homosexual will eventually accept.
If a homosexual can have sex with a woman, then he is bisexual. I assume that you are heterosexual. If so, consider having sex with some stud you have seen. Doesn’t work does it? A true homosexual feels the same about a woman. If you are bisexual, then you will be able to have sex with both men and women. (Interestingly enough, in this area, female bisexuality is so much more accepted than male bisexuality.)
Now, I apologize for not being able to give you page and verse, but various forms of emotional problems can cause a change in ones sexuality. Depression, very deep and very complex, can do this, if there is an underlying insecurity already present concerning the person’s sexuality or sense of identity. Various forms of psychosis can cause a change. So can certain forms of self destructive behavior and I would think that one of the many forms of schizophrenia would do this also.
Certain forms of depression combined with a schizoid personality can make a person function in sexual ways not normal to them.
Basically, though, in my opinion, homosexuality is genetic and as such, they cannot be ‘cured’ or changed and should be allowed to live their lives just like everyone else. The majority of the hostility, fear and problems directed towards them comes because of an interesting fact:
Female homosexuality is more accepted by all heterosexuals than is male homosexuality.
Many people whom have participated in discussions of homosexuality, both men and women, have stated that they find lesbians more acceptable, even often sexually stimulating than homosexuals. ‘Normal’ women who find lesbian acts stimulating have expressed disgust when given the opportunity to watch two men couple. Men, given the same situation, have expressed the same, though they have shown a much higher interest in the lesbians and were more violently opposed to the homosexuals.
I strongly suspect that much of the hostility directed towards homosexuals is male generated.
PRISM02 wrote:
I don’t know about nature “allowing” it, but so far we’re sticking with the 10% figure. I get my cites from the American Psychological Association, which says:
Where on earth did you get this rationale for child molestation? Is this your own pet theory or can you quote me a source?
Oh, no, let’s do. 
Tell me more of these “sexual roles” that are “eventually accepted.”
And this statement is flat-out wrong. Homosexual men have and can have sex with women. Nobody said anything about them liking it, but functionally, with enough stimulation, it can be done.
{BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!} Boy, you are new 'round these parts, ain’t ya?
Well, Dr. Boyfriend has been working out lately, but I’d consider him more “cute” than a “stud.” Either way, it works just fine for him and me. And do I find myself attracted to women? Not in the least. If somebody held a gun to my head and told me to have sex with one? Yeah, I’d probably be able to do it, but I’d hate myself in the morning. 
As Bob Smith once said, “I’ll admit that in college I experimented with heterosexuality - I slept with a straight guy. But I was really drunk…”
{BZZZZT!} Oh, sorry, wrong answer, but hey, thanks for playing! (This is really the wrong thing to say on the SDMB.)
Sorry, I ain’t buying it - I’ll need some sources on this. And even if it were true to a greater or lesser extent (I’m inclined to think that latent bi-, homo- or heterosexuality may be revealed by certain conditions), I think we both could agree this would be a statistically insignificant portion of the population.
Most reasonable people and medical professionals agree on the “cured and changed” part.
Interesting blanket statement, but I’m inclined to agree. My own pet theory (note I don’t speak in professorial tones or say it’s any kind of Universal Truth or accepted fact) is that has more to do with the historical role of women in society than anything else. Women are seen as emotional, so them holding hands with their best friend isn’t seen as “lesbian,” just as a “girl thing.” Men doing the same thing would probably get beaten up unless it were a child and his father. By extention, then, lesbianism is seen as “ok” whereas male homosexuality is not. Again, just my own thinking and observations.
I’ll assume here you mean “heterosexual women.”
I had my own experiment with two heterosexual female and one heterosexual male friend when I showed them gay porn. They could handle the sex, but none of them found it particularly stimulating. They all turned away in disgust, however, when two men kissed.
Gee, ya think? :rolleyes: Hey, maybe they have something to do with sexism, too!
Esprix
Esprix
No, I had not realized that you are homosexual.
I’m working on my own opinion here, gained from the reading and discussion of many articles and chats with some professional friends, including medical doctors as well as my own observations from homosexual acquaintances. You and I are discussing the same thing, but placing emphasis on different degrees of influence. I feel that homosexuality has to be biological in basis because nature gives us our sexual orientation. It is well known that during the fetal formation that we shift through both sexes. Once we polarize as male or female, the brain starts to respond to sexual cues. There are exceptions that switch the cues around.
Nature desires separate sexes to respond to each other for the propagation of the species while homosexuality and lesbianism prevent this.
Now, young men, due to the levels of testosterone, can become aroused quickly over almost anything sexual. Some young men can experiment with same sex partners, especially if a mood altering substance has been imbibed. (The old joke about a guy willing to ‘poke’ anything with a hole in it applies here.) It doesn’t make them bisexual or homosexual. Most, when they get older, will no longer find a same sex partner desirable even when in an altered state. (By the way, most such men doing this will be acting in the male role, not on the receiving end.)
A true homosexual is interested only in his own sex. If you can get aroused enough to have sex with a female, then, in my opinion, you are bisexual, even if you normally choose to fool with guys.
My own pet theory, which, I might say somewhat proudly, is being studied in certain circles. I failed to mention that it applies only to male children. The reason for the molestation for female children is obvious. (An interesting note here. Female children, once they enter puberty and have their periods, start sending out sexual cues. By their teens, both male and female children are at the highest intensity of their sexuality for their lives. Our society forbids sexual congress with children below the age of 18. In some societies, 14 is the acceptable age.)
Basically, the male and female roles.
Actually, we’re saying the same thing here. I did not state the percentages of sexual reversals caused by mental disorders but in your discussion, you state that many professionals agree that homosexuality is not only just genetic but can be caused by other factors. Mental problems can be the ‘other factors’. I have personally known some emotionally insecure women who, upon going through a nasty marriage or relationship, switched to being lesbians for a time, sometimes for years, until they ‘healed’ and switched back. Now, I have never known a man do this – they usually go off on a prolonged drunk.
However, I am aware of some serious cases where a man with emotional/mental problems has changed gender for a time.
You, being homosexual, do you feel you were born that way or somehow influenced into it?
I think I figured out the problem, Prism - you keep saying things like, “All homosexuals are…” or, “Nature does this…” or, “A person is because…” These are the statements of a professor teaching a class in his or her field of expertise, or an authority on a subject presenting his research. I dunno, makes me imagine you as rather an ignorant know-it-all. I’m getting the impression you’re neither an expert nor homosexual yourself, but then again, I could be wrong, and it might just be me.
Anywho, you wrote:
And again I’ll point you to the link in my sig line to the two “Ask the Gay Guy!” threads - ya might learn a thing or two. And, yes, I’m the Gay Guy.
OK, fair enough - thank you for at least pointing out it’s your own opinion, not fact. The APA has over 35 years of research going into their conclusions. (They also say you can’t change your inherent sexual orientation, despite changing your outward behavior.)
Actually, we’re not placing emphasis differently - I agree with you.
See, I agree with you, but statements like, “It is well known…” never sit well with me. I’d ask you to cite a reference, but it’s not that important.
Then you’ve been seducing the wrong straight guys. 
And some of them are well into their 30’s and 40’s. Some of them are even married, with kids, and still consider themselves completely gay, not bisexual. Funny that.
So every straight man who has ever experimented as a teenager with another man (“altered” or not) is bisexual? Every one of your “rebound lesbians” is bisexual? Puh-lease. The only woman who has ever aroused me was Sophia Loren, and if she ever trapped me in a room and seduced me I still don’t think it would work. So one woman makes me bisexual? I think not - I am 99.9999999999999999999999999% gay, but that’s only because I don’t believe in extremes. This hardly qualifies me as bisexual.
Not to me - please, expound. (And where’s Otto? He knows this stuff better than I do!)
You know, they have published psychological texts past Freud’s original texts - even past 1950! :rolleyes: As far as I know, Dr. Boyfriend and I are equal - neither of us is “male” or “female.”
So these women, are they heterosexual, then homosexual, then heterosexual? Are they now bisexual? And serious mental problems are, again, certainly not common, and certainly represent an insignificant sample. I’ve also known women like this, or men who have been confused about their sexual identity or orientation, but I fail to see what importance this transient homosexuality has to the OT. Does this excuse people attempting to change what you yourself call their inherent, biologically-determined sexual orientation? How harmful is it to create a behavior pattern that is contrary to this?
Born fabulous. If anything, everything in my life was trying to influence me to be *heterosexual. Didn’t work.
Esprix
Esprix, how weird—that’s such a beautiful sight.
Kimstu
(oversharing a little bit)
Kimstu wrote:
It certainly was an eye-opener to me at the time. Hot sweaty man-sex (and gay porn doesn’t exactly tone it down, either) was all well and good (well, they were kind of in a “eh, doesn’t really do it for me” kind of mindframe), but the first sign of intimacy - well, recoil in horror and run away screaming.
{SIGH}
What’s a liberal to do?
Esprix
My apologies. I’m used to, ah, being in a position of authority and I do have a tendency to ‘preach.’
Considering your statements of other influences conditioning a man to become homosexual, I happened to recall that I read an article, years back, in Psychology Today, that pointed out the increase in homosexuality and lesbianism tended to follow periods of mass over crowding and increased social pressures. They cited as partial example, something discovered in the famous ‘Rat City’ test of about 20 years ago. {That was where they created a huge rat city, populated it lightly and then, following society, over crowded it, restricted access to food, water, housing and space and discovered among other things, that a percentage of the rats turned homosexual. The rats developed most of the psychosis seen in human society.}
From my own observation, there seems to have been an increase in homosexuality since the 1970s, though I could be in error because most gays then remained in the closet.
Am I gay? No. Heterosexual, thank you.
I beg to differ – though I seduce no men, not being polarized in such a way. I have heard of what you say and, again, in my opinion, they are bisexual if they can have sex with the opposite sex. You cannot have sex with someone you do not find sexually appealing. It’s like trying to screw a guerrilla. That’s like a man cannot be ‘raped’ by a woman. If he gets ‘it’ up, he is willing.
BTW, I did not say ‘all,’ I said most. It is down in the annuals of psychiatry that most boys will have a homosexual experience before the age of 17. Now, usually, I understand, these experiences consist of mutual examination and exploration once they suddenly get the ability to climax, which I term as harmless sexual play and which today’s authorities would no doubt consider some form of molestation and shove the poor buggers into therapy for 10 years.
They are female. The boys are mostly molested when they have that female attribute. The girls seem to be molested when they develop attractive or ‘cute’ faces. {Here again, this is my opinion, based on what I have read and watched and discussed with others.}
I humbly apologize for my misconception.
[quote]
So these women, are they heterosexual, then homosexual, then heterosexual? Are they now bisexual? And serious mental problems are, again, certainly not common, and certainly represent an insignificant sample. I’ve also known women like this, or men who have been confused about their sexual identity or orientation, but I fail to see what importance this transient homosexuality has to the OT. Does this excuse people attempting to change what you yourself call their inherent, biologically determined sexual orientation? How harmful is it to create a behavior pattern that is contrary to this?
[quote]
Funny, I’d swearyou were trying to start an argument with me.
Those women were hetero to begin with and eventually returned to being so after their mental problems were cleared up. Again, this does not pertain to the large percentage of gays. This situation is transitory. A person deliberately trying to change their inherent, biologically determined sexual orientation has a problem right there. Any such change has to be natural, like you could not suddenly and easily decide to fool only with women. You would still be attracted to men. You could not, in my opinion, change. Trying to force such a change is not good and can be a sign of mental illness – though in the gay community it would be a sign of social pressure.
Sorry, but men can indeed be raped by women–not as easy as a man raping a woman, but it can be done. I recall an account of a man who was forced to achieve an erection at gunpoint, and was then raped (I think the reference to this is a book on trauma, rape and PTSD, but I can’t remember the name). Yes, the biggest sex organ may be the brain, but it ain’t the only one, and sexual arousal when you are with the sex you are not attracted to can be caused by simple friction or a really excellent fantasy life (or pure desperation). In prison, men may have sex with other men, but I think that those of them who consider themselves “straight” would not say that they find men sexually appealing; it’s just what’s available. I think your definition of bisexual is quite a bit broader than the usual definition; given sufficent social or emotional or sexual pressures, many people could probably be induced to give swinging the other way a try, and I think natural response to stimulation can result in arousal even if you’re not genuinely physically attracted to the person you’re with. Gay men who have sex with women may simply have a powerful enough imagination that they can pretend they’re with the pool boy, as Esprix noted.
People CAN have sex with anybody, hetero or homo. It’s possible for a lesbian to have sex with a man. It’s possible for a gay man to have sex with a women. But IMHO, there’s a huge huge huge difference between actually having it and WANTING it.
Another humble opinion is that’s the difference between bisexuality and just lying to yourself. If you are a man and you WANT sex with both men and women, you are bisexual. If you are a man and you can have sex with a woman and you’d rather not, then you are living some form of a lie.
So, I think that bisexuality is a matter of preference, not possiblity. If possibility was the factor, then everybody would technically be bisexual.
Well, I’ll tell you one thing. All this bull shit about gay being genetic is a bunch of crap. A simple question,“If two normal people mate and have a kid, how in the heck is it genetic that that the kids gay?” Care to explain? I’ll tell you what homosexuality is. Two things. 1)It’s a personal way of life. 2)It’s a nasty personal way of life. I personally don’t agree with homosexuality or bisexuality(it’s all the same to me.) But I do think that if a person is strong willed and determined, they can turn around and forget about their old ways, regardless of what they are. Hope I haven’t affended anyone…