Will homosexuality decline?

Great Debates
1

As homosexuality becomes more accepted, as is slowly happening now, will the percentage of homosexuals in the population decline?

Now, by accepted, I mean that a homosexual couple has the same rights as a straight couple, something that should happen, and hopefully will within the next 50 years. The other part of ‘accepted’ is that there is no social stigma on being gay, so that there is no fear in young men and women of being gay, and that locker room talks could start with “So, do you like boys or girls?”

Basically, there would be no difference between a straight or gay family except for one, reproduction.

While I’m not sure if it’s been fully proven, it appears that homosexualy is genetically linked and that it isn’t a defect or brain damage or confusion or demon posession. Actually, for this debate, and I’m sure someone will argue against this, it’s pretty safe to say that you are born a homosexual and set that way by your DNA.

Without the stigmas that make people fear being gay and pressing themselves into straight relationships and having families, it seems to me that there would be many fewer instances of the gay gene showing up into the reproduction pool. Because of this, would there eventually be a reduction in the percentage of homosexuality in the population?

Notes:

Of course, there will always be artificial incemination. It’s not a cheap procedure, however, and I would hope that until the number of unplaced children is much lower, adoption would be the preferred route for a gay couple to start their family. Also, any recessive gene will continue to show in a population, but having many blondes not reproduce would cause a general reduction in the number of blondes in the population.

Also, I didn’t say this would wipe out homosexuality, but if taken a bit more to the extreme, do you think someone could convince hate groups that maybe gay rights are good, using this logic? Sure, they’d think they were getting they want, but what’s it matter what they think, so long as it stops violence and gets equal rights for everyone? Well, maybe THAT wouldn’t work, but you have to start somewhere.

Unfortunatly, I’m starting this thread near the end of my shift at work, and will have limited time to check until monday, but I’ll try to stop back. I personally think that it could cause a reduction in the percentage of homosexuality, though nothing that would make Esprix hard up for a date on a saturday :wink:

I’m curious what the rest of the board thinks about this, as I don’t think this was discussed before.

2

While there is a likely a genetic component to homosexuality, it’s not clear that straight parents are any more likely to have homosexual children than gay parents. Since there have been gays around pretty much since recorded history, I don’t see any reason for them to decrease in numbers now.

3

Whether socially accepted or not, the actual quantifiable number of homosexually-oriented people in the world will, in fact, not change. The number of people who openly identify as such, however, ought to increase tremendously as social stigmas pass. Many people will confuse the two, but that’s ok - we’re here to help. :wink:

Esprix

4

I think the only reasonable way to respond to this is simply that there’s no way to know.

We know very little about homosexuality. We know that homosexual behavior exists among a certain minority of the population. We know it has occurred in many different cultures (perhaps all), and that some accepted it, while some have shunned it.

Yet we don’t know if the relative numbers of people who are ‘inherently’ gay rose and fell. We don’t even know with any certainty how many people are homosexual today. We don’t know what causes homosexuality, or how inherent or elective it is. It could be genetic. It could come about in utero. It could be a result of upbringing. It could simply be a form of behavior that people adopt, or avoid, because of cultural factors. We don’t understand fully the relationship between heterosexuality, bisexuality, and homosexuality, which I feel would be very important to have reliable numbers of any kind. We have particularly little knowledge of gay women and to what extent lesbianism was prevalent in history. (The records are simply silent on so many matters involving women.)

More research simply needs to be done. So much of what we ‘know’ is based on self-reporting and simple urban legend. I am yet to be convinced that homosexuality is a behavior that is hard-wired. (Please note: this is not because I disapprove or that I want to make life difficult for gay folks. I don’t, at all! I simply feel that it is the right of consenting adults to decide what they want to do in the bedroom, and no justifications need to be made to genetics.) Unfortunately, homosexuality seems to be a “trendy” topic that is avoided by serious researchers. We’re beginning to see more work done, but it’s slow going.

What I expect to learn is that our very labels are faulty. It’s simply not correct to define sexuality based on one factor (gender) and ignore all others. (We have a very culturally based idea of what gender is, and not all cultures agree.) The homosexuality of ancient Greece was very different from the homosexuality of the modern West – it was essentially only between older men and youths – yet we label it the same.

Human sexuality is just a big can of worms. If I were to predict, I would wager that homosexuality of the cultural type that we see today will decline, just as heterosexuality will, because the social norms will change. Specifically, if society proceeds as it is now, I predict we will see a decrease in promiscuity among gay men as society will come to pressure them – as society pressures others – towards serial monogamy. Today, long-term relationships between same-sex couples aren’t as common as they should be. If gay marriage and gay adoption become prevalent, I bet they will become comparable with heterosexual couples. That’s just a guess, though. It’s very possible that heterosexuality will radically change, too.

5

The quantifiable number actually could increase. Sure closeted gay people are reproducing right now, but as acceptance grows openly gay people will probably be more likely to settle down and get a family.

Our ideas of what things are will probably change much quicker than our population’s size so it will probably become a nonissue. For example right now it is technologically possible for two gay women to produce, and gay men only need a place for the fetus before they could.

6

Your logic does not follow - please explain.

Esprix

7

Since identical twins are not invariably both of the same sexual orientation, I find it hard to argue that one’s sexuality is entirely hardwired. Maybe DNA is 60% of the choice or 70%, but environmental factors (including in urtero) probably do have an effect.

Which is not to say those who are gay or bi or het “choose” what they are attracted to as a concious thing, or something they could change as an act of will.

Turkey basters can be obtained for under $10. I’d call that cheap.

Now, if you went to a doctor– yes, that’s expensive.

But, seriously, artificial insemination can be done on the cheap, and has been. And it can be done privately between consenting adults without oversight or interference from authorities.

Adoption, on the other hand, is an affair done with considerable oversight and interfernce by authorities, involving lawyers and fees, and occassionally meddling by outside, unrelated parties claiming to act “for the good of the children”. In fact, in many places homosexuals are categorically banned from adopting children for no reason other than they are homosexual.

8

Oh, and by the way (from [url="http://www.apa.org/pubinfo/answers.html#whatcauses"the APA):

Works for me.

Esprix

9

very interesting question. i have often wondered about something like this myself. just a wild-assed guess, but i would agree to a point with the OP, but i don’t think we will ever know…

10

I think we have to consider that old cliche of ‘not black and white but shades of grey’. I reckon everyone one has a little gay inside them (mine’s called Simon) and it’s down to upringing and environment whether that ‘gayness’ dominates or not.
Maybe predomintantly homosexual people are the result of a coming together of two recessive genes so it will never die out as there will always be straight people who are ‘carriers’, similar to a number of genetic diseases. (Not that homosexuality is a disease of course, but you know what I mean)

11

Forgive me if I can’t remember the historian’s name (I think it was Thompson), but I remember reading a study of Victorian England which claimed that 25% of males in London were actively homosexual, “because homosexuality was more acceptable during the period.” I’m not sure where this author was coming from (“More acceptable” in Victorian England? Oscar Wilde, anyone?) but his logic that, as homosexual behaviour becomes more acceptable, homosexuality becomes more prevalent, seems an interesting point of discussion.

My 2p anyway (5d. old money)

12

I don’t get it.

As gay becomes more accepted, why wouldn’t gay people choose to have a bio child? Lesbian aquaintences of mine have two bio children (they each have one) both conceived the traditional sex-with-a-man fashion (two different bio dads). They traded a a threesome for sperm - on the level, they told both Dads what they were up to and had him sign away any rights and responsbilities.

Gay men don’t have this option - but they do have bio kids - with surrogate mothers - often friends. And get this - sometimes there is no turkey baster involved!

As fertility techniques go AI is cheap - particularly if you have your own sperm.

Don’t underestimate the drive to have bio children. Plenty of infertile straight people spend billions every year in the attempt - and choose to remain childless over adopting.

13

Well, obviously this is a very wild guess, but those can lead to interesting discussions.

I think that the fact that we don’t know what causes homosexuality makes this a very hard guess. Also, the fact that there isn’t a set on or off, that you can be bi-sexual, or just like a few guys but mostly girls, makes it so it is impossible to really know.

However, as a discussion, it seems to me that while the number of ‘out’ people will increase, it is quite possible for the overall number to decrease.

While this is viable for a female couple, a male couple would have a much harder time using a turkey baster successfully :wink:

For a male couple to get a child through artificial incemination (why no, Mr. Spellcheck, I can’t use you), they would require a woman to still carry their child and give birth. Not something that is cheap, or reliable if you don’t have the authorities involved. There have been many cases where straight couples have gone through a sarragot mother and then had legal troubles getting the baby once it was born.

Until we know more, we can’t know, but it never hurts to discuss the possibilities.

14

Didn’t a man once successfully carry a child to term once? I was pretty sure Danny DeVito and Arnold Schwarzenneger made a movie about the event…