Actually I’m a victim of posting too quickly. I meant to say “a “homosexual” type of person, who is inherently attracted predominately to members of the same sex”. My apologies.
The same way there are serial killers and pedophiles in ours. People frequently have a hard time acting in accordance with their long term best interests when their desires are driving them to do otherwise.
I don’t know what exact label you would apply. It could vary, and makes no difference. I would imagine something descriptive of the fact that this person is predominately or exclusively attracted to same sex people.
I am not talking about social categories - only sexual attraction. I thought I made this clear in my previous post.
Again, I’m not talking about behavior - homosexual behavior (i.e. acts) is well documented from ancient times. I’m talking about whether the existence of a type of person who is predisposed to homosexuality was recognized.
That’s exactly my point. It is precisely because homosexual activity was discussed in these sources, we can use them to get a sense of the manner in which homosexuality was perceived in those times. I’m not sure of what your point was with this.
The question is how likely society is to not recognize such a concept. If there are numerous people around who are attracted to same gender people and are far less attracted to opposite gender people, the existence of such people is a fact and it is difficult for me to understand how a society might miss out on this (whatever term they might use for it). This is analogous to saying that a society has failed to grasp the “concept” of some people preferring chocolate and some vanilla. By contrast, feminism and your other examples are abstract ideas that a society might not recognize or relate to.
I’m not sure if this is true. What I gather from Maeglin’s and Lamia’s posts is that this is currently the subject of some research and debate.
It doesn’t. There is merely an admonition (to all men) not to have sex with other men.
Well, this is GD and we are discussing a “Gay” issue. So it follows that we must argue.
Hiya Izzy! Sorry I didn’t have time yesterday to reply. I’ve got a couple of minutes today, and then I’m gone for a week. I’m gonna leave you with a few thoughts and check back upon my return. Let me know if you want to continue then.
I’ve decided that some background might help. I read a very interesting book recently that spent a great deal of time discussing the drastic changes in world-view and reference-points that have occurred over the last half-millenium, and how very difficult (if not impossible) it is for modern humans to truly understand the concepts of ancient cultures, because our perspective is so different (even when we think it is the same). The book was in reference to religious traditions and mythologies, but I think the principles apply here. That’s the angle I’m working from.
Really? Leviticus 18:22 & 20:13. Almost all the translations I’ve read state an admonition that men must not lie with other men as with women. (KJV is the only one that I know that actually uses the word ‘homosexuality’.) Is your translation different?
This could be merely descriptive phrasing…I’ll get back to that in a moment. Or it could just as easily be an example of the conflation of gender roles with (homo)sexual activity, which seems to be pretty common in many cultures. Admonitions for men to not act like women in any way, including sexual, are fairly common in many cultures (including our own, although less so recently). If a culture identifies the ‘problem behavior’ as one of gender role ‘misbehavior’ rather than homosexual ‘misbehavior’, then they will probably not identify a ‘homosexual’ type of person. This lack of the ‘homosexual type’ concept doesn’t necessarily mean that there weren’t any individuals whom you would consider as belonging to your ‘homosexual type’ (=inherently attracted predominately to members of the same sex).
A while back you said “And that evidence of ancient people performing homosexual acts is not evidence of ancient homosexuality.” What evidence would you accept? Is there any evidence showing that NONE of these ‘people performing homosexual acts’ are primarily same-sex oriented, or are you just assuming that to be the case because the sources don’t say either way? (Per previous discussions of ancient culture as well as real life, the fact that these men may have had wives and children says nothing whatsoever about their primary sexual orientation.)
Ok, let me try this again, because I’m apparently not communicating this very well.
If a culture does not have the concept of a ‘homosexual type’ of person, then they won’t identify individuals as belonging to that type. They might well recognize that individuals exist who are predominately attracted to their own sex, but without putting them into a separate category with a specific label. Or they might categorize and label them due to their behavior, but with a category/label that you don’t recognize as matching YOUR category/label of ‘homosexual type’. The concept of homosexuality is hard to miss in our culture. That does NOT mean that it is so obvious to other cultures. The fact that you don’t understand this is or don’t think it possible to not have this concept may well say more about your cultural background than it does about the cultures you are studying.
If a person lives somewhere that they are required to eat vanilla ice cream daily and where they can only get their hands on chocolate occasionally, and where there are a fair number of people who also like the occasional chocolate cone, how obvious would it be (short of them screaming from the mountain top) if that person and a few friends really didn’t care much for vanilla, but only ate it because they had to? (Okay, that may have stretched that analogy to breakpoint. :))
Question: your sources have many references to homosexual acts. The sources I’ve seen from that background (Judaic and Christian) generally refer to homosexual behavior as “men lying with men as with women” or “wo/men acting unnaturally” or something similar. You also know Hebrew, which is more than I can say ;). Is there a label (word or phrase) in ancient Hebrew that means specifically and only “homosexual acts” or “homosexual behavior”, or do they rely on descriptive phrasing such as that I’m familiar with? (Told you I’d get back to this.) Labels do matter, at least as indicators (by existence/nonexistence and connotation) of cultural concepts.
Did ancient Hebrew have a word for “gravitation” (i.e., the force of attraction between all masses in the universe)? If not, does that mean that they didn’t realize that things fall when you drop them? Gravity is a pretty dern concrete phenomenon, constantly acting on us and everything around us. But many cultures never separated, categorized and labeled it - no need for that. It simply was.
I’m curious - have you conceded that exclusive homosexuality was prohibited in ancient culture due to reproductive obligations and social structures, and therefore that you can’t show a causal link between the modern ‘homosexual identity’ and the prevalence of homosexual behavior (because any such causality is overwhelmed by other factors)? You haven’t really responded to that. (Or maybe I’ve missed it - I’ve been reading through really quickly trying to catch points I wanted to make.) Thanks.
No, no, no, you are discussing a ‘gay’ issue. I am discussing sociological issues.
OK, I think that’s it for now. I do still have some work to do today, and this always takes longer than I think it will. Later, kids!
You are preaching to the choir on that issue. I have observed a similar phenomenon in reading depictions of contemporary Orthodox Jewish life and society in the media, and in works by sociologists and anthropologists. Frequently these accounts miss the boat, and one of the main reasons is a tendency to misunderstands concepts that have no direct parallel in contemporary Western secular culture. These tend to be interpreted in terms of the closest Western concept to which it bears a superficial similarity. This tends to make me very suspicious when reading accounts of other cultures. And certainly other eras. (OTOH, it is possible that scholars and writers are simply caught off guard when writing about Orthodox Jewish society, which they don’t expect to differ much, and are more careful when researching cultures that are obviously radically different).
This issue also underscores the debate that Lamia linked to a while back.
OTOH, this does not imply that there are not certain conditions that can be expected to manifest themselves in any culture.
I may have misunderstood you. I thought you were asking how the Bible describes the type of person known as a homosexual. It doesn’t. It bans the act of one man having sex with another man.
You seem to be speculating that the Bible banned homosexual sex because this would put one (or both?) of the men in a female gender role (correct me if I’ve misunderstood you). I don’t think there is any support for this from the words “as with women”. The Bible is most likely clarifying the meaning of “lay with a man” to mean “have sex with a man”. “Lay with a woman” is a recognizable euphemism for sex. So the Bible is saying don’t “lay” with a man in the manner of “laying” that one does with a woman, i.e. sex.
Evidence that there existed some people who were inclined towards homosexual sex as compared to heterosexual sex. As opposed to little or no evidence of homosexual sex as being anything other than the type of thing that any person might engage in if the mood, opportunity and circumstances were right.
No evidence, but I do think the absence of evidence is evidence of absence, though again, not conclusive evidence.
I don’t know what exact label you would apply. It could vary, and makes no difference. I would imagine something descriptive of the fact that this person is predominately or exclusively attracted to same sex people.
Exactly. So I would look for evidence that they recognized that such individuals existed.
I would think discussing the problem of getting people to keep the vanilla laws might include the fact the problem is especially severe with certain people who just can’t go along with it, not just the fact that all-purpose scofflaws are also breaking this law as well. (Also, there were some cultures that had no strictures against homosexuality).
The latter.
I would think this point goes in the exact opposite direction. Though ancient Hebrew did not have a specific term for gravitation, the concept manifested itself in numerous ways. Someone seeking to deny that gravity existed in ancient times would be buried under a mountain of insurmountable evidence. Conditions that exist will affect society, and will manifest themselves in the literature produced by that society, whether that society recognizes the nuances of the phenomenon or not. I would expect that the same would hold true for homosexuality.
I am not a scholar of ancient cultures, so I don’t know for sure that it was prohibited in all of them (it certainly was prohibited in some). If you say so, I’ll take your word for it. Nonetheless, I would expect that a disproportionate percentage of homosexual sex should have been engaged in by a small percentage of the population who were predisposed to it. And in cultures that banned such acts outright, the matter should have been seen as something which certain people were predisposed to, not as something which all-purpose sinners engaged in.
You can interpret The Iliad a couple of different ways. Achilles was ummmm, kinda close to Patroclus(sp?).
One interpretation is that they were lovers, another is that Patroclus and Achilles are really two aspects of the same person with Patroclus representing Achilles better nature.
There’s probably truth in both.
I beleive there’s some pictures on Egyptian urns that are suggestive as well.
I don’t know the slightest thing about the Illiad, so I can’t say anything definitive. But in general I would note that there is a tendency to retroactively turn close friendships into sexual ones, even if they were anything but that. An example is the suggestion (put forward in this thread by dangerosa) that David and Jonathan had a homosexual relationship. There is not the slightest shred of evidence for this in the Biblical account of their friendship.
In addition to the difficulty in deciphering the mindset of people who lived in different era, which has previously been noted in this thread, it is also dangerous to imbue actions and relationships from different eras with the meaning that they would have if they were done, or existed, today. Those claiming that Abraham Lincoln was gay have made use of the fact that he shared a bed with his friend and partner, Josh Speed. However, historians claim that this was not uncommon for heterosexuals of that era, though it is today.
I think the tendency to interpret historical close emotional relationships as homosexual ones (e.g. Alexander Hamilton and somebody whose name I don’t recall) may be a product of this phenomenon. It is possible that heterosexual men do not tend to have such relationships today, but that they once did. Possibly this too is the result of the increased emphasis on sexual identity that has become part of our culture - straight men might shy away from something that might make them seem or feel like gays.
(I can tell you in this regard that in Orthodox Jewish circles - where sexual identity is very muted and homosexuality is not an issue - it is not uncommon for men to kiss other men. Most commonly on the occasion of engagements and weddings it is customary for close friends and relatives to kiss the groom or his father etc., but even in other circumstances it is not unheard of. I don’t think this is the case with the larger American society - correct me if I am wrong in this).
Again, I don’t know anything about the Illiad, and am not asserting that this is the case here. I am keying off your second sentence.
IzzyR: *And in cultures that banned such acts outright, the matter should have been seen as something which certain people were predisposed to, not as something which all-purpose sinners engaged in. *
This doesn’t sound very convincing to me: after all, very few major “sins” or “crimes” are actually committed by the broad cross-section of the population that I assume you refer to as “all-purpose sinners”. For example, it seems likely that only a very small percentage of the population in ancient Israel or in other ancient societies committed murder. But the ancient laws against murder, AFAIK, don’t somehow distinguish “people with murderous tendencies” as a special group, they just prohibit the act of murder. Does that mean that there were no homicidal sociopaths in ancient societies, because they were not legally distinguished from “situational murderers”, as it were? I don’t think that’s a justifiable conclusion. Similarly, I doubt that we can conclude that ancient societies didn’t have people that we would now describe as “homosexually oriented”, just because their laws and social codes didn’t consider them in a separate category from heterosexuals occasionally indulging in homosexual activities.
(By the way, ancient Indian society classified gender for human beings, as well as grammatically, into three categories: “pumsa-prakrti”, “male nature”, “stri-prakrti”, “female nature”, and “trtiya-prakrti”, “third nature”. Judging from references in the texts, “trtiya-prakrti” seemed to cover a wide variety of types of what we would now describe as “homosexuality” and “transgendering”. The usual Victorian translation as “eunuch” is not really appropriate because there wasn’t a social tradition of genital castration. So it seems reasonable to say that the notion of homosexual orientation or preference was recognized in this society, although of course it’s not exactly the same as our modern definition of it.)
I think there is a difference between saying that very few major crimes such as murder are committed by a large percentage of the population (which is true) and saying that they are not committed by a broad cross-section of the population of sinners, distinguished primarily by their being bad enough to be committing major crimes (not true).
Good analogy. I’m not 100% sure exactly what you mean by “homocidal sociopaths” but if you mean a direct parallel to our homosexual scenario - people who are not predisposed to commit crimes in general but are strangely attracted to murder (i.e. serial killers), then I am with you. I would agree that the evidence (that I’ve seen) suggests that the vast majority of ancient murders were committed by all-purpose evil people & thugs, and that “homocidal sociopaths” committed a small fraction of these. Much as it is today, in fact. Which does indeed suggest that homocidal sociopaths are an extremely small percentage of the population.
(Regarding the"trtiya-prakrti", are you saying that it describes sexual attraction as opposed to gender roles? This distinction has been made previously in this thread. As another example, I’ve been told (by posters in a previous thread) that cross-dressers are frequently or mostly heterosexuals).
IR: *Regarding the “trtiya-prakrti”, are you saying that it describes sexual attraction as opposed to gender roles? *
It seems to include both, AFAICT: “trtiya-prakrti” appears to cover a wide variety of sexual orientations and practices including what we might now call “effeminate” homosexuals (described as transvestite), “masculine” homosexuals, asexuals, hermaphrodites, lesbians, heterosexual women who are sexually aggressive in particular ways, etc. etc. etc. All these categories have specific identifications, some of them may overlap, and some are more socially acceptable than others; but the “third-nature” designation seems to make it clear that they are considered manifestations of sexuality that is fundamentally different from the commoner “first-nature” (heterosexual male) and “second-nature” (heterosexual female) types. They aren’t just sinful or criminal practices that “first-nature” and “second-nature” people might indulge in.
I think it does represent a fundamentally more complicated idea of human sexuality than the Torah’s. I think you’re right that the Bible in general maintains a completely heterosexist view: i.e., there are males, who are meant to have sex with females, and there are females, who are meant to have sex with males, and sometimes some of these people do the funky stuff instead and G-d is not happy about it. But I don’t think we can conclude from that that “homosexual orientation” is therefore just a modern invention (even if we overlooked other ancient texts such as the Indian ones that suggest it’s not).
After all, many ancient law codes and social conventions reflected views of human nature that we don’t necessarily accept as having been factually true even in their own day. No major ancient civilization that I know of allotted the same civic rights to females as to males, for example, and this was almost universally acknowledged to be in recognition of fundamental female inferiority. I don’t think most of us would assume from that that the brains of ancient women were really greatly and intrinsically different from those of men and that the degree of cognitive similarity between the sexes acknowledged today is therefore merely a “modern invention”.
Actually, I think this is a good example, but with a detail change. What if you’d never knowingly met a person of a different religion, or rather, everyone you meet calls themselves “Roman Catholic” because, after all, that’s what everyone is, right? But the ones who don’t believe in transubstantiation, or the Trinity, or whatever, don’t talk about it. You wouldn’t even know these “heretics” existed unless you stumbled across it somehow–they would keep quiet at the very least because they know their beliefs don’t match the prevailing ones–but they still call themselves Catholic. And if you found one out, you’d think they were one aberration, but wouldn’t neccesarily infer the existence of other faiths from a few neighbors’ heresies. Today, of course, people with these beliefs wouldn’t be RC–they’d have a choice of Protestant denominations to belong to.
As for the existence of sexual orientation being blindingly obvious–it’s not. Converse with the proverbial man on the street, and you’ll find that many of those opposed to homosexuality (and that’s quite a number of folks, unfortunately) firmly believe that gays and lesbians are people who were born heterosexual, but for some reason have chosen to engage in “perverted” behavior. It’s part of the idea that you can “cure” homosexuality. Hell, my parents and siblings believe this, and they’re not dummies. For these people, the action determines the label, not consideration of one’s orientation. As far as they’re concerned there’s only one orientation, and any actions that subvert or contradict it are either willful acts against normality, or the result of some sort of psychological flaw. One of many conversations I’ve had with such folks went like this:
**Cow-orker: ** Well, but what do you think the Church should do about gay priests? Me: Nothing. What does being gay have to do with being a priest? Cow-orker: But priests take a vow of celibacy, right? Or are you saying that sex with men is okay for priests?
**Me:**A priest can be gay and take a vow of celibacy, just like a straight priest.
**Cow-orker:**But then he’s not gay, because he’s not having sex with men.
It took me about five minutes to explain the concept of sexual orientation, and another five to explain that homosexuality was not the same as pedophilia. This guy wasn’t in danger of breaking any IQ records, but he wasn’t an idiot, either. He was, in fact, a pretty average guy. I hope I left him at least more thoughtful on the subject, but he was only one of many.
You seem to be making the same point as ultrafilter and redtail, which has been discussed at length. But I will address your specific example of female inferiority.
IMHO, anyone who would say that people failed to recognize a phenomenon that actually existed in their times is facing an uphill battle. In keeping with this, I think it is very likely that females in those days actually were inferior, mentally. The significant part of your words is “that the brains of ancient women were really greatly and intrinsically different from those of men”. IOW the difference was actually there, just that very fact that people believed the difference to be intrinsic and therefore failed to educate women, was the major contributing factor. So the only thing that the ancients failed to realize was that the observed difference was not an intrinsic one. This is not hard to imagine. By contrast, if we accept that homosexuality as it exists today represents an inherent phenomenon, then it should have been present in ancient times, and manifestations of this should have been present at the time.
I shall try to look up more about the “trtiya-prakrti” - thanks!
This would be a valid point if ancient societies had succeded in completely suppressing homosexual activity. This is far from the case, as has been discussed. And in fact, many did not disaprove at all, as noted.
What we are discussing here is not a society failing to recognize the existence of phenomenon that was successfully kept hidden, but rather the possiblity of a society failing to understand a phenomenon that was not successfully hidden.
(BTW, your gay priest thing is interesting. Is there really opposition to celibate gay priests? Perhaps you should start a new thread).
And alexander the great’s army had alot of gay soldiers, which is one of the reasons why they were so formidable. I don’t know what book or what site it’s on, but i’m sure it’s around somewhere.
That’s kind of my point. The phenomenon isn’t always successfully hidden, but most people won’t run across it. And when they do, they can only classify it according to the social conventions they have. So even if someone stood up during mass and declared the Trinity was a fraud, people wouldn’t say to themselves, “Gee, this person isn’t really Catholic! There must be other religions!” They’d say, “What’s wrong with this heretic?” It’s the same with homosexuality. The community sees a man who’s attracted to another man, and they don’t think, “Wow, he has a different sexual orientation!” They think, “That’s sick! Why does he decide to do something like that!?” Because as far as they know, the Supreme Being made everyone straight. The idea of different religions, or sexual orientations, is only obvious if you live in a society that already recognizes the possibility. It takes time for that to happen, the values and beliefs of a society have to change. Just because an observation “some people have sex with others of the same gender”–is obvious, the interpretation–“They’re willfully perverting God’s design!” or “Gosh, they have a different sexual orientation!”–is not.
Well, I haven’t run into opposition to celibate gay priests. What I’ve run into is the belief that gay=having sex with men, so a priest can’t keep his vow of celibacy and be gay. It stems from the belief that homosexuality is something you decide to do, not something you are. This is one of the reasons that people who argue that God made them the way they are, so why should She condemn them for being what She made them, don’t make any headway. The people you’re arguing with don’t believe in the existence of sexual orientation. Many of them are otherwise smart people. They see the behavior, but the interpretation is different. The behavior is obvious, the interpretation is not.
I don’t understand this. Being a “heretic” or a member of another religion is the same thing. (Well, maybe there’s some difference as to whether the guy claims to be a member of the same religion.) But I think they will understand the heretic’s position quite well indeed, however they may chose to label it.
It now seems that you are looking at things in a moral context - “different category” = acceptable, “same category but still different” = unacceptable. I think morality is not a part of this discussion. I can’t think of anything else that you might mean, but if I’ve missed your point, fill me in.
Thinking that something is sick does not preclude the possibility that someone is attracted to it. If they met numerous such people and continued to believe that “the Supreme Being made everyone straight” then they are morons. (Let’s agree that eating feces is “sick”. If there were numerous people around who had a compunction to do this, I think it would penetrate our skulls that yes some people are attracted to it. And this is true even if we were to continue to consider it sick).
I would question this. They may simply be calling people “gay” who actually have sex with men, and not otherwise. This has nothing to do with your issue. Of course, I haven’t met the people you refer to, so I can’t say what they meant, but I would suggest that you reassess this.
I disagree with you here. These people understand that the gays are gay. What they are suggesting is that they became gay by conscious choice (or by circumstance), and are not inherently gay. This is a theoretical question that people might get wrong. If you could find people who believe that gays are not actually gay - that they don’t actually feel attracted predominantly to same gender people you would have a valid example. But few if any such people exist.
It’s the label that’s important, because the label tells you how the labeler is categorizing things. Different labels indicate different understandings, all of which are subjective. Once again, the heretic’s declaration is obvious. The heretic’s motivations and intentions are not obvious–maybe he wants to found a new church, maybe he’s just a shit disturber, maybe he’s psychotic, maybe he wants to reform the church, and even if he tells you what his motivations are, you only have his word for it. The family sitting next to him in the pew may easily say to themselves and their neighbors, “Well, he says he really believes that nonsense, but we all know he just likes to make trouble.” From this perspective, if a hundred people stand up and declare heretical beliefs, it doesn’t prove that other religions exist, it just proves that there are lots of troublemakers in the parish.
I think you’ve missed my point. Judgements about behavior nearly always involve morality, and it’s hard to come up with a good example that doesn’t involve it. My point is, behavior is obvious. Motivation, intention, and interpretation are not. “Some people have sex with others of the same gender” is obvious. “They do it because they’re actually attracted to others of the same gender” is not.
No, they’re not. They just don’t take the declaration of attraction at face value. If you believe that the Supreme Being made everyone straight, then numerous people who act gay are obviously behaving in a way contrary to God’s intentions for them. Numbers don’t mean anything except possibly that there’s something wrong with society. Once again, the behaviors are obvious. The numbers might be countable. But what the behaviors and the numbers mean are open to subjective interpretation, and that interpretation is going to be strongly influenced by one’s previous beliefs. It is not obvious at all.
Maybe some people are attracted to it. Then again, maybe they’re saying they’re attracted to it just to shock—maybe their desire to shock is so strong, and their performance so convincing, that they’ve deluded themselves into thinking they actually enjoy it. Maybe others eat feces out of some compulsion that has nothing to do with attraction or enjoyment. And then, of course, you get into the question of the origin of mental illness. Even though today it’s generally known that mental illnesses have a biological origin, that wasn’t widely believed until quite recently, and even today that statement can cause some controversy. So depending on what beliefs you start with, you can either conclude that some people actually enjoy eating feces, or you can conclude that there are a lot of troublemakers around who get some kind of perverse psychological satisfaction out of grossing people out. Neither conclusion is obvious. The only thing that’s obvious here is that there are numerous people who eat feces.
This has everything to do with my issue. Under this definition, if a man doesn’t have sex with men, he’s “not gay.” So every man starts out “not gay.” Some decide to have sex with other men, at which point they become gay. If they stop, they’re not gay anymore. That much is clear. Why do they “become gay”? Because they’re truly, physically attracted to other men? Because they want to offend their parents? Because they hate women? Who knows? If you’ve started out with the belief that no-one could actually be physically attracted to the same gender, the first option is obviously, from your point of view, not correct. In order for it to be obviously correct, you have to change your premise, and sheer numbers aren’t enough for that. And in fact, the person I was talking to believed that since he found the idea of sex with another man so repulsive, no other man could possibly really, truly, want to do it. Every man, he believed, couldn’t help but be attracted to women, because that’s just how men are. He firmly believed that gay men were just trying to shock or rebel, or that they hated or feared women. Once they realized this, and stopped their offensive behavior, they were no longer gay. It wasn’t a question of orientation, because as far as he was concerned there was only one orientation. He’s not the only person I’ve run across who believed this.
In order to believe in a spectrum of orientations, or even just two, you have to believe that someone could actually enjoy homosexual sex and desire a person of the same gender in the same way a heterosexual enjoys sex with and desires a person of the opposite gender. If you don’t believe that’s possible—if you believe gays don’t truly love or desire one another, they just delude themselves that they do in order to shock and hurt people—you won’t find the idea of different orientations obvious at all, and “gay” will be defined not by some orientation you don’t believe in, but by behavior.
I assure you, I didn’t misunderstand the person I was talking to. Nor did I misunderstand the person who told me the reason gays were pedophiles was because little boys, not being sexually developed, were “girlish.” Or the person who told me that men who wore scraggly beards must be gay, because they were trying to turn on their boyfriends by making their mouths resemble female genitalia.
I disagree with you here. These people understand that the gays are gay. What they are suggesting is that they became gay by conscious choice (or by circumstance), and are not inherently gay.
This is a theoretical question that people might get wrong.**
[/quote]
Exactly. If you believe that gays aren’t inherently gay, but are acting as they do for some other reason, you throw into question the nature of their attraction. That’s why so many homosexuals and their friends and loved ones insist so often and so vehemently that they were, in fact, born that way.
And the existence of orientation is also a “theoretical question that people might get wrong.” I would even suggest it isn’t particularly helpful in describing sexual desire or behavior. Imagining sexuality as being described by a number on the Kinsey Scale seems too static, too rigid to me. I personally believe that sexuality is more a process, something that changes and grows over the course of your life, depending on who you are, who you’re with, and where you find yourself. What you act on depends on opportunity and your ideas of right and wrong. Sort of like food—sometimes tastes change, sometimes you crave something particular in a given situation, there are things you just don’t like and things you always love, and sometimes things you won’t eat for some personal moral reason even though you like them. I don’t like olives, I’ve tried them several times, because I know my tastes change occasionally, and never liked them, but no one’s interested in my Olive Orientation—it’s never been obvious that such a thing might exist.
Would it were so. If there are only a few of them, why are they all concentrated in my family and my workplaces? Obviously, I can only give anecdotal information, and not hard numbers, and I would be interested in the results of a well done study that asked the right questions.
I’ve been fortunate enough to work with people of varying education and religion, from different social groups, in settings where people were able to discuss such issues in a friendly fashion, and felt comfortable asking more questions. I truly hope I’m just living in a freak concentration of such people, but I do doubt it—and I also hope that those friendly discussions have reduced the number, even by a little.
I’m reading through this thread. I just got to the post by Redtail23 that begins, “IzzyR, I would tend to agree with you. (Take a deep breath, it will be all right.)”
Wow Redtail23! That’s a very good essay. I think you’ve got it right.
Still reading… Redtail! Please tell us the title/author of the book you describe thusly: “I read a very interesting book recently that spent a great deal of time discussing the drastic changes in world-view and reference-points that have occurred over the last half-millenium, and how very difficult (if not impossible) it is for modern humans to truly understand the concepts of ancient cultures, because our perspective is so different (even when we think it is the same). The book was in reference to religious traditions and mythologies, but I think the principles apply here.”
OK, I think I see where you are coming from, and hence, where you are going wrong :D. I think there are actually three categories that you are lumping nto two, clouding the issue.
Say a person does X. There are three possiblities:
[list=A]
[li] He is genetically programmed to get some satisfaction out of doing X.[/li][li] He has come to enjoy (or think he enjoys) X because of some arbitrary reason.[/li][li] He actually does not enjoy X at all and knows this, but does it for some ulterior motive.[/li][/list=A]
It would appear to me that you are combining B and C,and contrasting them to A. In your example of a heretic, you seem to be describing the possiblity (of people mistakenly thinking) that someone is not actually a member of a different religion and knows it, but is deliberately pretending to be one in order to annoy people. In your example of gay people, you seem to be describing the idea that someone is not genetically programmed to be gay but has convinced himself that he is “in order to shock and hurt people”. (I can’t imagine even people in your circle thinking that gay people are actually having sex and thinking “Gosh, this is unbearably disgusting, but I must be strong and persevere in order to shock and hurt people”). Same goes for the example of eating feces.
What exactly it is that makes people be gay is not fully understood by anyone. Most likely there are both genetic and environmental factors, as with so much else about our personalities. I myself have suggested earlier in this thread “that perhaps sexual psychology is also not isolate from socio-cultural influence, whether ancient time’s or our own’s”, a point which in fact underscores the entire OP. So yes, I fully agree that it is possible for people to get wrong what causes people to be attracted primarily to people of the same gender, and in some cases they may attribute it to bizarre causes. But what you (and others in this thread) are suggesting is that people failed to realize the actual fact of this attraction. This is something that I consider highly unlikely.
No, I’m saying that unlike behavior, which is obvious and observable, motivation is something we can’t see or measure, and “attraction” is a motivation, not a behavior. If I conclude that some person behaves a certain way for reason A, I’m not reporting something I’ve observed --I’m making a conclusion based on both my observation of that person’s behavior, and my own ideas about the nature of the world. Someone with different experiences and different ideas may easily come to a different conclusion.
No, I was trying to describe the possibility that the same action can be interpreted several ways. Here’s a question for you. Is Lutheranism the same religion as Roman Catholicism? The answer depends on how you categorize religions. Some people would say yes, because they’re both Christian. Some would say no, because there isn’t complete agreement between the two churches. Neither answer is provably incorrect—perfectly intelligent people answer this question differently. And as a result, those people would interpret the “heretic” differently.
You’re missing my point. I’m trying to describe the idea that a person observing homosexual behavior may come to that conclusion.
Well, you can’t choose your family. As for cow-orkers and acquaintances, as I said before, I usually try to at least suggest different ways of looking at the question. My hope is that considering a possibility that may not have seriously occurred to them before may help broaden their views. I can’t think of anyone I consider a close friend who holds such views—the mindset is too different from mine to make me comfortable.
I’m not saying that it’s possible for people to get wrong what causes people to be attracted to something (although I’m sure it is)-- I’m saying it’s possible to get wrong what causes people to do something.
You’re making the mistake of assuming that “attraction” is observable. Actions are observable. Attraction or repulsion is not. The conclusion that someone is attracted to something is just that—a conclusion, not an observable fact.
Let’s try it this way.
I’m smiling. You can see that I’m smiling. You can take a photo of me smiling, and show it to other people, “See? She’s smiling!”
It’s obvious that I’m happy, right? Well, not really. People do smile for different reasons, that’s true. But the main reason it’s not actually obvious that I’m happy is that you can not possibly observe my state of mind. You can observe my actions, you can compare my behavior with others who have smiled, you can imagine how you’d be feeling if you were smiling, you can refer to ideas you have formed about smiling and its relationship to happiness. You can even ask me why I’m smiling. But my answer may be untrue–you have no way to determine this objectively. You have to look at what’s obvious (my smiling now, my behavior in the past) and then draw conclusions based on what ideas you already have about me and about smiling and about happiness. I could give you a very long list of reasons I might be smiling that don’t include happiness. None of them are relevant. The conclusion you consider obvious is only obvious to people who share your ideas about me and about smiling.
Understand, I’m not trying to say one shouldn’t try to draw such conclusions–only that any such conclusion is absolutely subject to one’s own prejudices–because unlike the obvious, physical evidence that I’m smiling, my reason for it is invisible and can only be the subject of speculation, no matter how well informed. If you don’t know me well, you’re more likely to draw the wrong conclusion, but you’re not stupid. You’re just working with the information and beliefs you have. You may think your conclusion is obvious, it may be so self evident to you that you mistake it for objective, observable fact. Your attitudes and beliefs may be so ingrained that hardly a nanosecond passes between observing my smile and concluding that I’m happy. But the fact remains that you only observed the smile–my happiness is something you inferred from the smile, and may or may not actually exist. Your conclusion that homosexual behavior is evidence of sexual attraction is a conclusion, not an observable fact. I’d certainly agree with you that it seems likely the two are connected, but when I say so I am also making a conclusion. If I lived in a different society, or a different time, and had read different things (or not had access to reading at all), had a different understanding of psychology, etc, I might easily come to a different conclusion.
In a nutshell–your conclusion that homosuxual sex is the result of homosexual attraction is so automatic for you that you confound the two. “Having sex with men” is something one does, a behavior. “Being attracted to men” is a state of mind, a motivation. They are not the same thing
