Although it doesn’t have quite as definitions as “natural”, the word “normal” has enough different meanings and connotations that I don’t think it’s really much more helpful in this sort of discussion.
Nature doesn’t design things to function in a particular way for a particular reason, though.
Since homosexuality is uncommon it is “not normal” in that sense, but in casual conversation it seems pretty harsh to say that something isn’t normal. When people say another person/trait/behavior is “not normal” they usually mean something like “crazy” or “perverse”. It is technically correct to say that something that differs from the norm is “not normal”, and in some contexts this is perfectly clear and appropriate. But in casual speech, other terms like “unusual” or “rare” express the same idea without seeming so critical or judgmental.
[QUOTE=lamia]
It is technically correct to say that something that differs from the norm is “not normal”, and in some contexts this is perfectly clear and appropriate.
[/QUOTE]
yes, but for something to be deemed “not normal”, wouldn’t you need a norm to compare it against? Homosexual relationships are the norm among homosexual individuals. They are not the norm among heterosexual individuals. If a person states that “homosexuality is not normal”, what are they referencing as the norm? The entire world population?
“I have cancer.”
“Well, that’s natural.”
“And I’ve started chemotherapy.”
“Which is unnatural.”
“But is it abnormal?”
“Well, most people aren’t doing it.”
Yeah, it would be pretty weird to claim that homosexuality isn’t normal for homosexuals. And when discussing how common homosexuality is in the general population, I don’t think saying it’s “not normal” is particularly clear or helpful even if it’s technically true. Even in a scholarly context I’d expect to see some other phrasing used to indicate that homosexuality is a minority sexual orientation.
I have sometimes heard people say things like “He’s a dwarf, but his parents are normal sized” or “My college has a great foreign language program, it offers all the normal languages like French and Spanish but also things like Farsi”. These speakers presumably did just mean that the parents were of about average height and that French and Spanish are among the most commonly offered foreign languages in the US, but I wouldn’t blame a dwarf or Farsi speaker for getting a bit annoyed or offended at being referred to as not normal. Being very short or speaking Farsi is normal for them.
Don’t you have to see a doctor for that sort of thing? Because I’ve heard it’s neither normal or natural to be a doctor. I mean, they’re certainly not *born *that way!
[QUOTE=lamia]
Yeah, it would be pretty weird to claim that homosexuality isn’t normal for homosexuals.
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and, when you say “weird”, do you mean not normal, not natural, not common, out of the ordinary?..and if its not common, it would therefore not be normal, relative to a specific population, right?
And when you say “pretty” do you mean “very”? and if so, do we need to quantify to what degree something is out of the ordinary? Is a thing either out of the ordinary or within the ordinary?
No because, well, you get a couple of gay guys alone together in a room and they’ll do what comes natural. Or so you’d think. :eek:
We’re talking about a kind of personal relationship that’s different from the norm in that department in order to accommodate a naturally-occurring–I’ll say it–abnormality. I think it abuses the term “unnatural” to use it in that context.
Uh, no, that’s not what I was talking about. Go back and look at the quote I copy-and-pasted and replied to:
“So while being born with a disability is not the same thing in terms of being severely undesirable and limiting, it could also be characterized as “natural but not normal” and one has to establish a different way of doing things in order to get closer to normal functioning.”
I didn’t think you weren’t talking about personal relationships there; I thought you were talking about someone who’s born with a natural disability – one that “occurs without artificial man-made intervention such as from culture or chemicals or technology” – adding that someone born with such a disability has to establish “a different way” of doing things to get closer to normal.
So, if I’m understanding you right: born with bad eyesight? That’s natural. Remedying it with glasses or laser surgery, or by going the white-cane route? Those are all unnatural. Asthma? Natural. Inhaler? Unnatural.
Is it alright if I say, “That’s what it’s there for”? :rolleyes:
What we’re all out there doing is tricking our bodies into thinking that we’re reproducing–and building relationships around that experience. Homosexuals are those whose sexual gender response is–unusually–switched around somehow. They’re still able to be functional having developed a “work-around”.
I’m saying you don’t become gay from drugs or surgery. But yes, using technology to remedy a… bodily anomaly is technically unnatural, but that just goes to show how trivial it is to call something “unnatural”. It’s just that gays and how they have sex aren’t even that, because they’re not using anything but their bodies.
This is a casual forum, though.* If you’re determined to refer to homosexuality as “not normal” then you are of course free to do so, but people are likely to take offense and you should be prepared to spend a lot of time explaining exactly what you mean by “not normal” and why you didn’t just say uncommon/unusual/rare in the first place.
*ETA: I mean, casual compared to an academic journal, a courtroom, a formal presentation, etc. It’s less casual than plenty of other spots on the Internet, but it’s still an online message board that’s open to everyone.
The most sophisticated answer you will find that rejects non-human animal conduct is that that human homosexuality (that is homosexual identity) is a different matter to homosexual behaviour. So one is not relevant to the other.
Oh, no, I agree; remember, I’m the Cancer Is Natural guy who thinks chemotherapy is wonderful – and I of course live in an artificial house instead of sleeping out in the open. And I live there with my wife, who would’ve naturally died if not for surviving childbirth via unnatural C-section.
So if “unnatural” means all of that – and everything else, back to our ancestors spearing animals before cooking 'em over a fire – then, hey, I’m all for it.
I think you’re appealing to sensitivity a bit here.
Of course it’s stupid to talk of “normal”–as opposed to popular–languages in a global context. But while I feel sorry for the dwarf, he’s going to have to face the fact that his shit’s fucked up. His parent’s heights fall within the normal range because they’re not suffering from an unusual condition that stunts their growth.
I’m reminded capital-D Deaf Culture whose members go so far as to say, “We aren’t people with broken ears, we’re just a different kind of person, ones who happen live in a world without sound”. Well obviously somewhere in their internal organs that detect sound, something is non-functional. They’re just trying to salvage some pride by defining their group in their own way.
Now with gays, we want to characterize homosexuality as simply one of two ways to be sexual in the same way that being left-handed is one of two ways of being handed. There’s got to be some acknowledgement that something in some way is amiss.
The way I would portray it is that in a gay man, a bit of software meant for the female has somehow gotten loaded into his instinctive programming. Now is that analogy completely out to lunch, or what?
Humans have a natural ability to act as they wish. Some humans with penises decide to put them inside anuses belonging to members of the same sex. If this is the definition of a homosexual act, then homosexuality is therefore natural.
Evolution is a harsh taskmaster. Homosexuality is probably “there for” a reason. One idea is that having non-reproducing relatives may be good for the survival of the reproducing relatives. A gay guy won’t have children, but he might promote the survival of his siblings’ children, and thus his DNA (shared with theirs) is preserved.
This hasn’t been proven…but if it is true, it would indicate that homosexuality is, in fact, not only natural, but helpful.
It is true the sex act’s natural doing is for procreation, but if one only went by that , then people who can’t perform because of some biological reason and the elderly people etc. were being unnatural too?
