Sorry. My bad. These threads are getting very difficult to follow. I appologize.
No, I understand that you can be homosexual even if you never have sex again. My question had more to do with lissener’s coming out at 11. My question has to do with how you come to understand such a thing at such a young age. Perhaps this is a subject for another thread, but I am having trouble getting my head wrapped around the notion that an 11 yr old can KNOW he is gay. I understand how a youth could have urges, or feelings that lean either way. But how do you decide short of experimenting?
I was going to try to defend my position, but after re reading my earlier post, I realized that “disapointed” is perhaps the wrong word. I only meant it in the sense that I expect him to be straight. And if he is not, then that expectation will have been shattered. I did not mean to pass a value judgement.
OK, but how “sexual” was this crush? I had a few very close relationships with male teachers while young. Does this mean I might be gay? I would suggest that it does not.
Once again, isn’t sexual exploration a little more complicated than this? I’ve spent years discovering what “works” (and I’m pretty sure I’m not done looking :D).
Right. I understand the homosexuality is not caused by homosexual sex. But does everyone KNOW from birth that they are gay or straight? If not, when do they decide? If everyone (or even most people) are SURE before they have had sex, then what is the criterion used to decide?
Please understand I am not pontificating or preaching. I truly don’t understand. My experience has been that teenagers are not sure about most things (even when they are sure;)). I’m just not sure how you can all be so certain that they can make this life choice with such conviction.
Also, I’m not trying to argue that homosexuality is really a choice or anything like that.
pervert, I’d be a lesbian even if I had never had sex. It’s who you are, not what you do.
While I personally didn’t figure out that I was a lesbian until I was considerably older (in part because I also have gender dysphoria), I know a lot of gay men and women who claim to have been aware that “they were different” as early as age six. Absent a repressive home environment, it seems to be the case that most gay youths figure out they are gay by their early teenage years. I did know that I was a lesbian long before I ever had a lesbian relationship.
OK, I understand that homosexuality can be considred seperately from gay sex.
But you see, I’ve always considered myself “different” as well. Never been attracted to men (not really anyway). But I have always considered myself different. The difference has changed over time.
I guess I would question the accuracy of any youth’s proclamation about his sexual proclivities. It simply does not seem to be something simple enough to decide at that age.
OK, but if it is not what you do, and there are no outwardly visible signs (or are there?), then how do you know? If I assume a child of mine declares homosexuality at such an early age, how can I help them be sure? I would not trust that any decision, taken at such an early age, as absolute simply on their say so.
Unless you can propose some test which would remove the doubt?
The emotional content of the crush was pretty much the same as the emotional content of my post-pubescent crushes and even relationships: I wanted to spend time with the objet d’crush, be near him, and so on. I took especial joy in his accomplishments simply because he had them. When I moved away I tried to keep in touch with him, though it didn’t work out that way. In my very puerile fashion, I could easily imagine a world where he and I wound up “seeing each other” within a few years; my evenings were often preoccupied with elaborate fantasies of winning his favor.
This was not a teacher or ‘star’ crush; this was a peer. (I have never had a teacher or ‘star’ crush in the first place, or if I had it was so far divorced from my experiences of actual attraction that it does not sensically go in the same category. My attractions have always been within-peer-group.) I beat him in a wrestling match at a friend’s ninth birthday party. Physical contact – yay! (Not an age period for snuggling, unfortunately, but I’d take what I could get.)
OK, I can agree that you had a significant crush at a very early age. My question is how did you identify with it at the time? I can very easily understand that people will mature at different rates. Therefore it should be possible for people to have feelings of attraction at all kinds of ages. So, I can easlily accept that a person can become, let’s say, 21 and decide he/she is gay. At which time, he might very well identify ealier relationships as childishly homosexual. But I still find it difficult to imagine a person at 11 being able to understand the concepts necessary to determine his own sexuality coherently. And absent this, I find I have a problem with kids identifying themselves as gay.
Once again, I’m really not trying to judge homosexuals or homosexuality. I’m just exploring my own ideas regarding the OP.
It was quoted from your own post. If you are withdrawing your statement, you might want to make that clearer. If you don’t like the logical consequences of a position, reconsider the opinion.
Other than that, your anger management issues are not my problem. I feel no particular obligation to respond as you direct to OPs which, by your own admission, are not meant to achieve anything, and are merely an excuse to add stigma to terms which you want to use as an insult.
From the Pit rules, but I imagine things aren’t a lot different here in GD.
Knock yourself out. Try to avoid the third Billy Goat Gruff.
In the closest I can approach my understanding of the time? I had evidence that I liked boys, or at least one boy in specific. (And again, this carries over into my adult sexuality; as a general rule I am attracted to very specific people, and not to people in general.) I had the cultural understanding that “liking boys” was the sort of thing that led to “relationships”, and the cultural understanding that the expectation was that “boys like girls” and “girls like boys”. I also had the understanding that admitting to “liking” someone was liable to open me up for abuse and teasing from my peers if I did so before I was older, for reasons I did not really comprehend.
I think I first heard of homosexuality when I was around nine or ten; the understanding I had of it was that sometimes “boys like boys” and “girls like girls”. Had I been male, with the experiences I’d had, my response to this concept would have been, “Ah! That’s me!” Otherwise, I would have carried on liking boys in the absence of knowledge that there was a common term for it, which is how the non-mainstream aspects of my sexuality persisted until I found terminology as an adult.
I think identifying a primary attraction type is not especially difficult for at least some people; I wish I understood the origin of the idea that children are some sort of sexless larvae that go through a chrysalis period at puberty and become completely different. Many young children masturbate; many young children form attractions; many young children’s early experiences and fantasies have very strong parallels with their adult orientations. Not all, but enough that the idea that it’s safe to assume that it’s impossible to know this sort of thing strikes me as indefensible.
Hmm… Trembling Before G-D… now where have I heard about that before? Hey, have you ever considered actually reading the thread, what with you being such a big ignorance fighter and all? Give it a shot.
Speaking of South Korea, what is the incidence of homosexuality in that country? Have any data on that, or do you just know where you hung out when you lived there? Here’s a chance for you to dispel some more ignorance.
And speaking of rational/irrational, the striking thing about this thread in that regard is how one sided this debate is - in my favor. I’ve given a rationale for believing that incidence is significantly lower, as well as a basis for allowing this possibility. Almost none of my many opponents here have even bothered to provide any rational basis for their insistence that incidence of homosexuality is the same in different cultures - it’s been all bluff and bluster and empty assertions that IzzyR is naive and out of touch with reality etc. (The only exception is has been those who have insisted that sexual orientation is not affected at all by any environmental factors, but this contradicts scientific consensus and common sense, as above.)
Shodan, the only item you keep returning to to object to is that I’m saying that only people who are willing to have homosexual sex, or who are not bothered by the imagery conjured up by homosexual sex, are not homophobes.
This has been addressed time after time after time. I, along with many others in this thread, have made a very clear distinction–time after time after time–between homosexuality and acts of homosexual sex. Nonetheless, you continue to ignore that distinction in order to have something outrageous to object to.
Whether I figure out how to use my ignore list or not, your insistant dishonesty on this topic has left you without a bloodsoaked shred of credibility. Just because you can type doesn’t mean that everything you say–or in your case, anything you say–is worthy of response.
Unless you acknowledge that you understand that this distinction has been made, and stop making things up to object to, you’re not longer a party in this debate as far as I am concerned.
And personally, though I won’t make this a dealbreaker, I think you should apologize to gobear for your egregious hypocrisy.
Zahava said, “Kalhoun-
You ask why religious people would worship a G-d so full of hate that they’d be asked to throw their own child away. But has anyone said that they believe that this is what is required of them? I may think my gay child should live celibate (just as I would if I had a straight child who never married), but that doesn’t mean I throw my child out on the street, disown them, or anything else implied by “throw my child away.” Hoping they live within a set of guidelines doesn’t mean I’m severing our relationship and never seeing them again; it just means that I have certain hopes as to how they will live.”
There are TONS of gays who have been thrown out of the house, disowned, shunned, beaten, and hated for coming out to their families. Some religions suggest that they be killed. There are people on these very boards who have been thrown away by their families. While you may not respond so harshly, it is hardly uncommon.
The origin of the idea is simply the fact that people grow constantly in their conceptual understanding of the universe (themselves included). I did not mean to suggest that people do not have sexual urges at different (and therefore sometimes young) ages. Only that the understanding of those urges at such an early age may not be sufficient to make such a long lasting decision as “sexual orientation”. I would make the same judgement if my 11 yr old came to me and said “I will marry person X or no one at all”. I would understand that such an impulse is a “crush” and not really long term love. As you say, it is quite parallel to adult love. But it is certainly not the same thing.
This is part of the reason I am having trouble understanding some points of this issue. I certainly liked boys and girls throughout my life. I still do. But that is not what is meant by the use of the quotes. That is like is not the same as “like”. The fact that we do not have a simple word for the difference is a testement to the fact that the difference is not simple.
Also, in relation to the OP, I think the fact that your earlier feelings were supported by the cultural norms certainly must have influenced your thoughts about them. My only point being that gay people must go through a serious “confusion” stage. Where they have urges, fantasies, emotions, etc. which they cannot easily place into the context of the world as they understand it. I’m not saying that their feelings are wrong, just that sexual feelings are complex at any age. And they are even more difficult to understand when society does not support them.
I suppose this is an assumption I am making. I do not have sufficient experience being gay to know.
Thanks for tracing that back. I’m only following these couple of threads as an aside, and they are getting quite long.
But perhaps you can help clear this up for me. I understand that sexual orientation does not derive from any particular sexual act. And I understand that a person can have some understanding of their interests at a very early age. But I seriously question how a youth can understand sexuality thouroughly enough to declare something like homosexuality.
Thr incidence is irrelevant. The Minister of Health said there were no Korean homosexuals, so it only takes one to prove him wrong. The incidence of homosexuality is likely the same as in the US, but the repressive social climate ensures that gay people are invisible in Korean society. From thegully.com:
Although there is an increasingly open gay presence in South Korea to a degree that was unimaginable a few years ago (here’s a list of gay resources in Seoul–when I lived there we had three lousy bars), gay people live lives of exclusion and oppression that make the US look like gay paradise.
[quote]
Almost none of my many opponents here have even bothered to provide any rational basis for their insistence that incidence of homosexuality is the same in different cultures - it’s been all bluff and bluster and empty assertions that IzzyR is naive and out of touch with reality etc.
[quote]
Sorry, Izzy, but you have yet to demonstrate that you know anything about homosexuality.
No, I’ve said it in multiple posts - this issue has been thrashed out at some length.
No the incidence is the only thing that is relevant, because that is what we happen to be discussing in this thread. I’ve never denied that there might be a tiny percentage of gays, and have said so in multiple posts, which again you have failed to read or absorb.
Undoubtedly you’ve had some divine revelation which has informed you of this likelihood. Can’t see any other basis.
aka bluff and bluster and empty assertions. More of same.
I think threads are getting confused, which might be part of the problem.
The only reference you have made to orientation vs. behavior in this thread was back on the first page, where you asserted that gays and their supporters would argue that orientation is inborn, whereas others would argue that it is a choice.
If it helps, I posted a response on the “Homophobia definition” thread where I made it as clear as I could that it is gay sex acts only that are officially objected to by those on the other side of the debate. No mainstream group that I am aware of teaches or believes that homosexual orientation is inherently sinful. They do teach that homosexual acts are sinful. And I do not believe that orientation is a choice. While I find the evidence of genetic causes to be equivocal, I would agree that people do not choose which sex to be attracted to. They do choose who to have sex with, or whether to have sex at all.
As far as I can tell, what you are objecting to most in this thread is that no one will give you the bigoted and hate-filled response you seem to be seeking so desperately. The only hateful response to date has come from you, with your “nailing his hands to the wall” and "brainwashing’ references.
IzzyR responded that he hoped it would not make him love his son the less, but that he would not change his opinions about homosex. And you immediately tried to force him to say that he would with emotional blackmail about suicide statistics.
You have made it rather clear that you are looking for someone on which to vent. God knows why. But it is more than a little unfair to get upset when other people don’t volunteer for your whipping boy.
No, I don’t think I will. gobear accused me of wanting to deny him the equal protection of the law. In a subsequent post, he made it clear that he meant that he wanted a change in the law, not the protection of existing law, or at least he wanted a major change and extension in the interpretation of existing law. This is, in my view, a very different matter.
Although I appreciate his clarification, I don’t agree that it is hypocritical to be a strict constructionist of the Constitution. And I reject the notion that I have ever advocated that laws against gay-bashing should not be enforced. If that is his implication.
Yes. This is certainly part of the problem. Many sexual issues cannot be discussed because of cultural squeamishness. And of course, this contirbutes to a lack of common ground for discussing such issues. Which, of course, leads to the confusion over terms that are used in these threads.
All of which would tend to support my opinion that the decision to recognize one’s homosexuality is not a simple thing. (I know, it can be interpreted the other way also.)
I don’t know if this will help, but perhaps I can ask my question from another angle. I’m trying to get at an understanding of the non sexual part of homosexuality. If a scholarship was meant only for homosexuals. “How would they know”? If you were administering the funds and suspected that a candidate were fibbing to get money, what sort of things would you do to make sure? I’m not sure, but I think the answers might be instructional for those straights among us who are considering what to say to a gay child.
Shodan, you have not objected to A SINGLE LEGITIMATE POINT.
Your three main objections are to the outrageous idea that only people who are willing to suck my dick are not homophobes; that I threatened to nail my child’s hands to the wall; and that I believe the only way to convert someone to christianity is through brainwashing.
The first point has been REPEATEDLY addressed; the second was OBVIOUSLY a joke, which has alse been repeatedly pointed out; and the third was A) transparent hyperbole, and B) not a blanket statement, but simply a reference to those conversions that ARE brainwashing, never suggesting that ALL conversions are brainwashing.
In the absence of any legitimate objections, I must assume that you are actually in my camp, which creeps me out just a bit. I also must reiterate that your accusing gobear of making shit up–whether he did so or not–is the rankest hypocrisy, as NO ONE is a greater offender of this than you are.