This discussion is really sort of pointless. The OP has presented no actual evidence in favour of revulsion being biological that cannot be explained by its being cultural. All his/her arguments boil down to “Well, it’s not impossible that it is, and that would explain why the revulsion exists.” But cultural factors do that quite adequately and more persuasively.
I mean, I could suggest that the noise outside my window is made by the rare Montreal honk beast; it’s certainly possible, and that would explain the noise. But there’s no reason to postulate such a thing, especially since the noise is adequately and persuasively explainable as a car alarm.
(I concede that non-universality is not proof against a biological basis.)
Indeed. Because a couple of comparatively tiny cultures have, for short periods, apparently accepted homosexuality, that is taken as proof positive that it must be nurture.
Having said that, whilst I’m convinced that the trait that causes people to be revolted by certain types of sex is useful in evolutionary terms there is no reason for rational people to take a view of what others may be up to in terms of consensual sex.
If the fact that I’m revolted by the idea of myself having sex with another man or a woman I find ugly makes you sad, well, there’s nothing I can do about that. I think you’re being overly sensitive about it though.
Hey, me too. Finding out that somebody I don’t desire - male, female, ugly or beautiful - wants to be with me doesn’t sicken me, it flatters me. I also feel a little bad that I can’t reciprocate their feelings. Believe me, I know that unrequited love/lust sucks.
I like knowing people of all stripes have found intimacy with someone and are happy with each other. I like knowing that same-sex couples are holding hands and kissing. I’m happy for them too!
I don’t do it intentionally in those real life situations - my mind just goes into “scene insertion” mode automatically, and I react.
Couldn’t agree more with this. I wouldn’t want gay couples to stop doing all the things any loving couple would do in public. My reaction to it is my problem, not theirs.
It is the anti-God system the devil has set up to stop/delay God’s children from coming home.
To me the world is against love, and puts restrictions on people getting together in a very close way, this goes for any form of love. People to find God has to follow the path of Love, by putting stigmas on it, if it is homosexuality or premarital sex or whatever it is designed to delay God’s children from find their way home. Some people, because of preconditioning, can only follow Love through homosexuality, if society stops them they will be stuck in a world without love.
So it’s spiritual, which can get into cultural and biological (generational curses)
Well, that concept isn’t original with me. In some forms it’s called the “gay uncle” (or “good uncle”) hypothesis; here’s one random recent piece on it, but the notion’s been around anthropological circles for years. You can find lots of other references, including counter-arguments.
Frankly, I think the researchers who have tried to investigate this are probably taking too narrow a view–looking at actual modern uncles strictly in family contexts, for example, rather than broader theories which would apply in small early human cultures, and which would include non-reproductive individuals in various roles, not necessarily all because of same-sex orientations. Unfortunately rigorous original research on social patterns in Sumer is pretty difficult these days.
Right. Your reaction is based, you said, on your imaginary insertion of yourself into somebody else’s intimacy; we might call it the porn response. If you could kick that, and get it into your head that other people being gay has nothing to do with you, it wouldn’t bother you.
I already know that other people being gay has nothing to do with me, so I don’t have to “get it into my head.” The “porn response” exists independently of that, happens for other situations too, and is a deeply ingrained behavior for me. Take a show like Fear Factor, where, say, a contestant has to eat a bowl of wriggling maggots. I can’t watch that either, because I can’t imagine myself eating maggots. Intellectually, I know I’ll probably never be in that position, but my mind just “puts me there” unbidden anyway, and I respond by looking away. It all happens in a split second. I don’t think there’s anything I can do about it, and I don’t see a great need to anyway.
Right…but your aversion to eating a bowl of wriggling maggots (major yucko, I agree) is cultural, not biological. After all, you have to realize that had you been brought up in a culture where eating maggots was nothing special, then any aversion you would have would be individual (sort of like my aversion to eating anything related to a vegetable). ETA: Sort of like how a lot of the world looks on the American/European relish for cheese and dairy products. It totally grosses a lot of them out.
If we mapped responses to the question “Are you revolted by gay sex?” in America, we’d have areas with high concentrations of “yes” and others with high concentrations of “no.” I’d bet my money that these reactions would correspond pretty well to cultural ideas about gay people.
I’d like to see a four colour map which showed in which areas responses to a secret poll coincided with responses to a poll where respondents had to state their answer to a researcher.
Well, I just used that as an example in my (hijack of a) discussion with spark240; it wasn’t really intended to be part of the nature vs. nurture discussion. I know I said earlier that my revulsion at the idea of myself having sex with a man is biological, but I’m not really taking a hard position on that. I certainly don’t remember being “indoctrinated” by anybody to feel this way, but I suppose it could have happened by “osmosis” from the general culture. I’ve always assumed that my revulsion at the idea of me having sex with a man was just the flip side of my natural attraction to women.
But you probably weren’t indoctrinated against eating maggots either. What it was, is you were brought up eating something else, so the thought of eating a bowl of maggots seems pretty disgusting. Conversely, someone brought up having maggots (or whatever) as part of the diet wouldn’t bat an eye at eating the things…but might consider some staple you eat normally to be disgusting, since they weren’t ever exposed to it.
Same with gay sex/gay relations. Assuming you were brought up in the US during the past…well, forever…you weren’t brought up with gay sex or gay relations as part of the mainstream. You didn’t see a lot of gay people kissing, holding hands or having relations as part of your normal, mainstream experience. You didn’t see it much at the movies…you didn’t see it much in advertising, or on TV shows, or anywhere else, at least not in a positive or even ‘normal’ light (i.e. as nothing special).
Going back some, my generation and the previous one had similar feelings about inter-racial relations. Consider how someone in the 50’s or 60’s in the South would look on a black/white relationship, for instance. Is this biological? No…it’s completely cultural. Today, the kids don’t even bat an eye when such a couple is strolling about, hand in hand, because they are used to it…it’s nothing special, nothing really unusual.
I have heard it frequently said that it is not the homosexual’s choice to be homosexual, its the way they are built. Perhaps the OP is asking if perhaps homophobes are compelled in the same way, its the way they are built.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that you haven’t studied a field of biology in any great depth. By this same logic, we should be revolted by masturbation. We are not.
Also, it should be pointed out that biological does not translate into “innate.” Your DNA, body, and brain are not a one-way street inflicting your will upon the world. Gene expression, how the brain and body develop etc. can all be influenced by your environment (some easy reading on the topic for those who may cry “cite!”). Despite what the popular press may lead you to believe, the brain is still a vast mystery. How it is influenced by your environment–hormonal, nutritional, cultural–is still largely undetermined.
A better word would be congenital. Is the revulsion some people feel at the sight of homosexuality present at birth? I sincerely doubt it, but hey, I bet you could find funding for a study on it if you liked. Until then, the fact that there have been and currently are societies where all men are expected to engage in homosexual behavior* makes it at least questionable.
It depends entirely on the gay guy. Some of us are turned off – or indeed “revolted” – by the sexualized presence of any woman. Others are neutral on the subject. Others can be aroused by straight (or indeed, lesbian) porn/erotica/depicted sex purely because it’s sexy, as opposed to being attracted to the participants.
I’ve known a few gay guys who really liked straight porn. Specifically, they liked cunnilingus scenes because a straight man being down on his knees or whatever, serving at the pleasure of someone else was erotic to them. Even if it involved licking a vulva. I haven’t personally known any gay guys who enjoyed lesbian porn, but there are a ton of lesbians who love gay porn so the reverse wouldn’t surprise me at all.
Here’s another thing–it’d be evolutionarily good for people to have a neutral or positive reaction to OTHERS having non-procreative sex, as it means they’re leaving the gene pool. That is, it’s to my evolutionary advantage for me to have hetero sex and you to have gay sex, because that means more for my kids and less for your (nonexistent) ones.
Add in the advantage of the already-mentioned “gay uncle” theory floating around, and I think the evolutionary/biological argument can can cut both ways.