The basic life track of growing up, learning a trade, marrying someone of the opposite sex and cranking out the babies, teach the kids to do the same, grow old and die, has been derailed.
I believe they’re operating from the basic assumption that The World Used To Be a Better Place. Something happened to change the way our society is functioning. One of these things is a whole set of stuff associated with homosexuality–that gay people exist, first of all; that they’re not going to go straight; that they’re going to want to marry and live together and all sorts of stuff that Never Happened Before (irony meter… broken… :rolleyes: ).
Anyway. These arguments are used by the same sort of people who were anti-suffrage, or who didn’t want blacks to vote, or who didn’t want sex education in the schools.
“You’ve got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know… morons.”
Well, I’m going to stick my two cents in here. I personally find the sight of two men kissing/making love/whatever revolting. I would tend to avoid any occasion or occurence where that was likely to occur. That’s not to say I’m damaged by it or in some way changed by it - I just don’t like being subjected to it.
While I don’t like being subjected to homosexual behaviors, I’m not in support of any law which would tend to treat them differently from any other group of people. In other words, it would be wrong to ban homosexual behavior in a public place if at the same time heterosexual behavior was tolerated. So while I have a personal distaste for the act, that does not extend to wishing to change others’ behavior in a forcible way.
Regarding the opposition to gays on the grounds that it devalues heterosexual marriages, the more sophisticated arguments go something like this (and is usually against gay marriage, not gays in particular):
Right now, marriage is typically a man-woman thing. By allowing gays to marry, that breaks the restriction of marriage being explicitly a union between a man and a woman, and allows a union between any two people. Once this barrier has been broken down, then there will be less resistence to further changes in what a marriage can be, and it may not be long until we see a change in marriage to accomodate unions of 3 or more people, as well. And that is a legitimate concern to the sanctity of traditional families, if it can be demonstrated that the bonds between two people in a “normal” marriage are weaker than those between X people in an “abnormal” marriage (which, I think, could be pretty successfully argued).
The other criticisms I’ve seen of gays is that they tend to be promiscuous, and they tend to forge less serious relationships (which would tie into the promiscuity thing). Living near San Francisco, my own experiences are that this criticism would hold some validity, but I couldn’t say if it’s necessarily a gay thing, or just a SF thing - I’d be tempted to guess the latter. At any rate, this isn’t so much a criticism of gayness per se, as it is a criticism of the choices that gays make.
I’ve never really seen a credible argument against gays as a people that didn’t involve some sort of appeal to religion - if you can call that credible.
Jeff
For the record, I’ll kind of second Eddie’s comment. I don’t find two men kissing to be revolting, but I do find it… icky. Not offensive, nothing that makes me upset, it’s just something that seems kind of gross to me. It’s the same feeling I get when I see my wife slather Miracle Whip all over her broccoli. I don’t love her less, I don’t think less of her, and I would never ask her to quit, but… ew. And yes, I know a lot of people like me. People who have nothing against gay people, but don’t like watching them… er… be gay together.
Jeff
Well, I wasn’t planning on inviting you into my bedroom to watch and doubt anyone else was either, so this shouldn’t be too much of a problem. BUT do you kiss your heterosexual partner in public? You wouldn’t expect me to be any less revolted, would you?
Interesting… considering the majority of prison rapes are committed by heterosexuals on a power trip, looking for a weaker, unwilling person with a hole to invade. As for Stitch’s second statement (not quoted here), I don’t think I’ll even take the time to dignify it with a response.
El Jeffe said, "The other criticisms I’ve seen of gays is that they tend to be promiscuous, and they tend to forge less serious relationships (which would tie into the promiscuity thing). "
Hokey Smokes! I hope no one was watching me traipse around through my teens and twenties! They might think me GAY! My ex would screw a snake if he could hold it still long enough. Promiscuity is not reserved for gays. And frivolous relationships were my middle name for many years. I think a quick, informal poll would probably show that many dopers experienced the same thing. It just ain’t accurate!
Whhaaaaat??? Where did you hear this bit of propaganda. Without doubt power and the desire to be cruel to another living being is a factor in the motivation of prison rapes. But to suggest that these are otherwise straight males who are merely using their penises as weapons without attaining any sexual arousal out of the homosexual contact is simply untrue.
As a researcher who conducts psychological research with a jail population, at least I have never found any evidence to support this statement.
I’ve often thought that people who say homosexuals and homosexuality are “disgusting” are really saying that the idea of anal sex and the feces which may/may not make a presence is what they find objectionable.
These are often the same people who have sex missionary style only, typically suburban, and don’t have anal sex with their opposite sex significant others.
There are many people who would object to the notion that anal sex between a husband and wife is verboten - some people enjoy anal sex. I’ve also found that women who enjoy being receptive during anal sex are most open to the idea that a man would be, too.
Me, I’ve got no problem with two men kissing, as long as they’re both cute. And the spouse would probably feel that two people kissing who have an equal chance of giving each other “beard burn” is a much fairer arrangement.
Oh, and what research exactly are you basing this upon? First I want to make it clear that gay men are in no way more prone to rape behavior than heterosexual male. But I think also we typically understand that not everyone fits so neatly into little boxes (gay vs. straight). If, by your reply you mean to suggest that men who commit prison rapes may have leanings in both homosexual and heterosexual directions, I would agree with you…in the sense that many of these individuals have very poor filters regarding whom they choose to have sex with. If, as the previous poster stated, you are meaning to say that it is strictly “heterosexual” males committing these rapes…meaning men who only feel sexual arousal toward women, then you are simply wrong.
this goes back to the old “Rape is about power, not sex” idea which (while still receiving some press) has largely been discarded among serious researchers. Numerous studies have examined the penile tumescence response of men who commit homosexual rapes, and find that they become sexual aroused (using a penile plethesmograph) at depictions of homosexual rape…in some studies equally aroused as by depictions of consensual intercourse (with both males and females) and in some studies more aroused than by depictions of consensual intercourse. While not meaning to imply that power as a motive is irrelevant, it clearly points out that sexual arousal is an important motivator in rape also. So as these individuals demonstrate clear and consistent arousal responses to depictions of violent (and in many cases non-violent) homosexual intercourse, they do not (in my mind) fit the description “heterosexual.” Are these individuals representative of the average gay or biosexual male, of course not. But it is categorically untrue to suggest that the majority of prison rapes are committed by “heterosexual” males
Though I don’t find homosexuality morally wrong, I would say that it is a bad thing to have for the following reason: the human brain is hard-wired for heterosexuality–even, for the most part, the homosexual brain. Homosexuality seems to be related to a malformation of a very small area of the brain. Human psychology, as we’re finding out, is not some concatenation of the ether twixt your ears; it is, rather, frighteningly dependent on the inherited wiring. So here you’ve got a machine designed to run Windows XP being told by one little circuit to act as an iMac. That inevitably leads to operating errors, such as depression, schizophrenia, pedophilia, suicide…all of which are measurably more common among gays than heteros. Of course, ACT UP will tell you that these pathologies are a result of social stigmatization, but you would get the same situation if you established a homosexual colony somewhere. Therefore, I can say with a straight face that I would like to eliminate homosexuality from the human species. Notice I didn’t say living homosexuals. I would also like to eliminate near-sightedness from the human condition, but that doesn’t mean I wish those who wear spectacles ill. (Which would be particularly stupid, since I wear them.) Why won’t any in the gay community support my ramblings here? Simply because in America self-affirmation is more important than doing what’s right for later generations of the human race.
Oh, and where does the repugnance for homosexuality among most straights come from? It’s not educated into us. Nope–natural selection put it there for a purpose. And don’t get on a soapbox about all those supposed “gay” species out there. If homosexuality exists in nature, it is there either as an adaptation or an aberration, and I haven’t heard anyone ever satisfactorily explain how might usually be the former.
----And yes, I know a lot of people like me. People who have nothing against gay people, but don’t like watching them… er… be gay together.—
If you care to (that it’s particularly important), I generally find that it’s surprisingly easy to stop feelings like this: feelings of finding this or that thing “icky.” These feelings are usually pretty shallow taste habits, held up by tissue thin motives of habit and self-consistency rather than by any hard-wired preference for or against seeing/smelling/hearing particular things. The old saying that goes something like “I don’t like broccoli, because if I liked it, I’d eat it, and I hate it” pretty much sums up things like this. Making yourself particularly interested in something, or involuntarily like it, is much harder, but distastes are usually pretty easy to banish.
—Of course, ACT UP will tell you that these pathologies are a result of social stigmatization, but you would get the same situation if you established a homosexual colony somewhere.—
How would you know this?
Even more importantly: how do you go from aggregate statistics to a case on principle? Males have higher suicide rates than females: should they be doen away with as well? Black males, because of their higher crime rates? Are you really prepared to extend this sort of sloppy argument to all its logical conclusions?
—Simply because in America self-affirmation is more important than doing what’s right for later generations of the human race.—
Well, don’t forget that people might not share your enlightened view of “what’s right.” Not everyone falls for the genetic fallacy, whereby we use some perception of what’s natural (even a painfully flawed perception) to go to a “should.”
—And don’t get on a soapbox about all those supposed “gay” species out there. If homosexuality exists in nature, it is there either as an adaptation or an aberration, and I haven’t heard anyone ever satisfactorily explain how might usually be the former.—
If it’s an abberation, how has it survived to exist today in so many different species that have been around for very different lengths of time?
The here’s two possible plausible adaptive advantage explanations: one, that it’s kin selection at work: homosexuals tend to have a higher rate of empathy and social support, so kin groups with homosexuals then have some members who don’t waste time competing for the one choice female (or male), but who can use their energy to help out the kin group. The fact that homosexuality in mammals seems to be more and more common with more social animals seems to bear this out. That the homosexuals themselves don’t reproduce directly is beside the point: their kin are more likely to survive than animals with non-homosexual kin: so the recessive genes stay in place in the surviving kin.
Second of all: homosexuals can still reproduce, just like homosexuals today can. Sure, they have to go through hetero-sex… but in the animal kingdom, that often really isn’t as big of a deal. So the hypothetical “homosexual” breeding strategy is to balance out the not competing in the destructive zero-sum game for the absolute tip-top best survival genes with all the time and energy saved and danger avoided.
As I mentioned this idea is an old idea, as are the majority of your cites. I invite you to look into some more recent work such as that by Thornhill and Palmer (1999), as well work by Salekin (all within the recent 1990s or 2000s), work by LaLumiere (just read a 2001 article on this), and Daly and Wilson.
Social theory of course, goes through fads. Oftentimes, researchers fit data to meet with a preexisting theory.
I think too that some folks are suggesting that acknowledging homosexual urges among prison rapists somehow reflects badly on homosexuals as a group…but that is patently untrue.
Also we do get into some problems with methodology…many of the studies you cite rely on how perpetrators of homosexual rape state that they “prefer” heterosexual contact. Hmmm…do prisoners ever lie, falsly report, attempt to appear super masculine or simply function as poor historians. Again, this line of thinking has been discredited through other lines of research. Wish I could remember the cites for those penile plethesmograph studies, but at the moment I can’t
BUT do you kiss your heterosexual partner in public? You wouldn’t expect me to be any less revolted, would you?
Where did you hear this bit of propaganda. Without doubt power and the desire to be cruel to another living being is a factor in the motivation of prison rapes. But to suggest that these are otherwise straight males who are merely using their penises as weapons without attaining any sexual arousal out of the homosexual contact is simply untrue.