Actually, it’s about 50/50 now. There used to be far fewer female-to-male transsexuals requesting surgery, simply because the surgery has always been far more expensive, extensive and unsatisfactory. With surgical advances, the difference has evened out, making monkeys of people who used to claim transsexuality was a “social concept.”
I still don’t understand how we presume to know a person’s sexual orientation, and I don’t think it’s safe to assume this is always fixed for a person’s life.
We only know what people DO, not how they feel. And we have a certain amount of evidence that, throughout history, different societies have had very different ideas about gender roles.
Certainly, people who work with STDs have plenty of fun stories about people who absolutely, positively lie lie lie about their sex lives.
And I believe most doctors who prescribe drugs that pregnant women can’t take have had the exciting experience of a 16-year old “virgin” having a positive pregnancy test.
Way back in my Psych 101 class, the prof asked each of us what is the cause of homosexuality. The answers ran: Something went wrong with the genes, something went wrong in the womb, something went wrong in the environment, etc.
When it was my turn, I asked: Why are most people incapable of interacting sexually with someone of their own gender? Did something go wrong genetically? In the womb? In the environment?
Most of the kids thought I was just being a wise-ass, The prof knew I meant it.
panache45: In order for the human race to survive, there must be more hetrosexual babies than homosexual babies. This is why many believe that so called “normal” genes / environment / social conditioning produce hetrosexual offspring.
What makes you think most people are incapable of interacting sexually with someone of their own sex? (I know you said “gender,” but I’m going to assume you were talking about someone who has the same physical features in their special places.)
In some cultures, it’s not at all uncommon for nannies to use masturbation techniques to put children to sleep - to what extent does that count as interacting sexually? In other cultures, it’s common for men who would describe themselves at heterosexual to have sex or receive oral sex from young men. They say, “But I am fucking him, I am the man!” and yet, it seems to me as though they are interacting sexually with members of the same sex.
And if you want to take it to gender. I think everyone who reads this board probably knows of at least one heterosexual couple whose friends all agree “she wears the pants in that family.”
Listen, for various reasons, I’ve had sex with people who didn’t entirely do it for me sexually. Men my mom wanted me to go out with, men who pursued me so ardently I finally gave in from guilt, etc. etc. Many of the gay men I know had high school girlfriends (social pressure, general curiosity) so I don’t see why gay and lesbian people couldn’t have enough heterosexual sex to keep the species going.
What cultures? I’m interested.
I can’t speak for gay men or women, but I’d guess that most would not dream of having sex with a member of the opposite sex.
samarm
Why? The urge to reproduce isn’t the same as the urge for sexual release and romanticism. Gays want children like everyone else and reproduce almost 100% in cultures where marraige is still more for reproduction than love . Human beings are smart enought to figure out what’s to be done in order to reproduce, even the gay ones. In fact, if everyone was gay, all children would be wanted rather than byproducts of recreational lust. Heterosexuals are completely unnecessary.
And Panzerfaust, here’s a radical idea:
You don’t understand homosexuality…
…there. No off-the-cuff theories, just plain, silent, ignorance. Is it so hard to accept that you don’t understand why something is without forcing yourself to come up with offensively negative explanations? You don’t understand homosexuality, no reason to feel insecure about it, nobody really understands it. And there’s no need for unfounded speculation on your part, nobody’s really looking to you for the answer.
I applaud your greater open-mindedness than your classmates, but just because many people don’t have homosexual sex doesn’t mean anything is wrong. That’s making a judgment, I think: it assumes that perhaps we should do so or be able to do so.
Consider all of the above nullified if you were just attempting to make a point, in which case, bravo. 
Don’t diss recreational sex or lust, dude. In any event, I’m not sure what this has to do with anything. Are we straight-bashing?
I think you’re wavering too far in the other direction, pizzabrat. Humanity could survive if everybody was bisexual, which also seems to happen in animals. But saying heterosexuality is unnecessary isn’t quite accurate.
Bullroar.
Do you really think Gays and Lesbians slept during biology class?
I can whack off and my nice Lesbian neighbor can buy a turkey baster.
We can call dibs on who gets to raise the child in a totally loving family.
Not only that, but trust me…LOTS of Gay men and Lesbian women already are parents from a fleeting six-pack induced fling at heterosexual boom boom. Not to mention parents who “come out” later in life.
Having children is no great trick. Raising them to become free thinking non-bigots is the challenge.
You don’t need to take a biology class to learn how to fuck. I hope.
I don’t disagree with that one bit. I also don’t see how it makes heterosexuals unnecessary, since free thought and non-bigotry aren’t related to sexuality.
I know, I’ve heard of both happening.
I suppose the idea is that heterosexual sex, or at least the end result (sperm + egg) is necessary. If you think most people would rather do it the turkey baster way, you’re running with a not very fun crowd.
This strikes me as being just as dumb as the argument that homosexuality is biologically unnecessary. I guess the bare fact is that SEX is unnecessary, since we now have artificial insemination.
Guess that depends on your definition of “fun”.
I think a big difference is that Gay and Lesbian parents are not suprised or shocked or suicidal when their child grows up to be heterosexual.
Wouldn’t it be great if Hetero parents all felt the same way if their kids grew up to be Gay?
By the way…I don’t think heterosexuals are necessarily unnecessary. Lordknows we need people to actually pay money to have their homes decorated.
Of course it would. And yes, that is a big difference. I’m just attempting not to overgeneralize.
Your comment can be somewhat misleading to the unititiated, letting some people new to this topic to think homosexuals are more “tolerant”, and/or “accepting” of different lifestyles. They are not.
This has been discussed several times here, and in the past we have found quite a few homosexuals who discriminate against transgenders.
It has been commented on many times that Gay and Lesbian parents are not pleased/accepting when their child( or someone elses child) becomes transgender/transexual and tries to live intermingle/fit in with others.
It would be nice if everyone accepted everyone else, but it seems that most people(any group of people) want to discriminate against someone else, against some other group, and homosexuals/lesbians are also quite capable of finding a way to discriminate against other people.
I am struggling to deal with the distinct possibility that my daughter might grow up to be straight. I confess that I will likely be somewhat disappointed if she does.
The idea that all children sould be planned (as they would be in a majority homosexual society) is a dicey proposition, biologically speaking.
It seems responsible now, that infant mortality rates are down and unwanted children are a real societal problem, but a few hundred years ago, you’d be glad that you had all those extra products of lust laying around when the plague swept through town.
The biggest challenge to the idea that sexuality is biologically determined is the sexual practices of other cultures.
The classical world, for example, didn’t see humanity in terms of gay or straight, but rather the penetrated and the penetrating (Lesbian sex was something of a cypher to them). Whether a man preferred to penetrate men (well, boys) or women was almost as irrelevant as whether a man in our culture prefers blondes or brunettes. Their sexuality was not like ours, on any point along the Kinsey scale, yet their genes were the same. What’s up with that?
KellyM, do you have any reasons why you think you might feel that way? I admit to being very curious. If you would permit a WAG from a straight guy, I would guess that it would be a challenge having to raise a daughter to deal with relationships with boys when you (or any lesbian parent) would probably have less direct experience and advice to offer: the child going in a direction where the parent cannot offer much help. (I freely concede I’m probably wrong, too, but I’d love to hear an answer, if you have one.)
FISH
I think it’s a combination of projecting the queasiness I get at the idea of sex with a guy and the desire that she grow up to be like me. The former is abject prejudice on my part and I am working to control it. (It should be known that I have no problem with having relationships with men; it just the idea of having sex with one that squigs me out.) I think the latter is perfectly normal for any parent and not to be concerned about.
Um, cite, please? I’ve never found the LGBT community on the SDMB to be anything but accepting (except, perhaps, of intolerance).
Esprix
Not quite true. While it is true that Romans and Greeks viewed the world very bisexually, they did recognize people leaning one way or the other. Martial, I believe, wrote a letter to a friend who was sleeping with another man’s wife which said something to the effect of “your ass won’t save you if he finds out, because he only likes women”. Also, didn’t Plato write something in his Symposium about the subject? I’m just running off vague memories of an article I read a few months ago. I believe a few Arabic writers also mentioned the subject. I can’t look up the article right now because its summer and the book is in the school library.
Or differing opinion. But, of course, when a heterosexual implies that homosexuality is anything but The Most Wonderful Phenomenon Of All Existence, I guess that’s “intolerance”, huh?