On the contrary. Humans are simply one species of ape. We share a lot of genetic material and an awful lot of similar social interactions with various other groups that are identified as apes. Drawing an imaginary line to exclude humans from the rest of the animal kingdom only works for phenomena that are not natural. Once one appeals to how “natural” something is or how it should appear in “Nature,” then any reasonable analysis requires that we include comparisons to our natural cousins. While not using the word “natural” very much, nearly all your declarations about what “is” or what “should be” are based on an underlying assumption regarding what is natural, therefore, you do not get to exclude bonobos from the discussion.
The way I’ve seen “glitch” used includes the point that glitches also prevent the system from functioning as it has been designed, which, combined with having no benefit or purpose, renders them undesirable. So, to say that a particular belief or behavior is a glitch, to me, says that you think people who have those beliefs or behave that way are wrong somehow, and that you know why they’re wrong.
I don’t want to go off into a debate on Intelligent Design; I was just offended by the idea that you would plant a base idea on the table that you had some sort of inside information as to exactly how and why the human animal is built the way it is.
I don’t think anyone is using the words ‘natural’ in any ‘good’ sense (i.e, gay as ‘not natural’ or ‘abnormal’ shouldn’t carry the ‘negative/bad’ connotations).
I thought that the urge/desire to reproduce is evident in every animal species, including humans, and that urge was/is needed to ensure the survival of the species. If gays/lesbians are hard-wired without the urge to reproduce, well, that’s probably not ‘natural’, in the grand scheme of things. Certainly doesn’t make it wrong, or anything that needs to be ‘fixed’. No reason they should be denied the right of marriage, or any other basic human rights. Why the hell anyone should care what two people do in bed is beyond me.
I was captain of a gay hockey team for a while, and I can tell you there was nothing ‘abnormal’ about the relationships they were having. The arguments weren’t any different than arguments I could have with a gf. And many years ago, when I was with the airlines, I had a roommate offer to ‘change my world’ ( :eek: ). I personally am turned off by the thought of hot, hairy man-sex. . . but like a girl who gets hit on, I just took it as a compliment.
The problem is, who’s saying gays don’t want to reproduce? I personally know gay people who have been married, had children and 10, 15, 20 years later have decided they’re tired of “living” the lie, got divorced and lived a homosexual lifestyle.
They still however consider themselves mothers and fathers. They still wanted their children and some later decided they wanted more and either adopted or tried other means to reproduce.
I think we need to separate the desire to be with a member of the same sex and the ability or desire to reproduce, they aren’t the same thing…IMO.
Ah, but they do have the urge for children, just not the urge for the activity that normally results in them. As I said, that’s irrelevant in humans, since homosexual humans are smart enough that they don’t need such desires to have kids anyway. I’ve never heard of a study on the subject, but I wouldn’t be surprised if humans prooduce more gays than other animals for just that reason; it lacks the downsides that it has in creatures of lower intelligence. Therefore, there’s less evolutionary pressure against homosexuality in humans.
There’s a lot of power in the words you choose to use. What’s wrong with calling it “uncommon,” or “less common,” or maybe even “rare?”
Kids with very green eyes are rare. Uncommon. Surely you wouldn’t want everyone referring to your kid as “abnormal?” Why put the negative spin on it?
When young people, gay and straight, hear it referred to as “abnormal” they’re definitely getting the negative message. You’re deliberately choosing to reinforce that negative message.
A couple I know from church isn’t the ‘normal’ definition. He’s in his early 70’s with many health problems and wears a colostomy bag…She’s 68, weighs 330lbs and has lost a foot to diabetes…the thought of these two “beauts” going at it is really disgusting. But there’s so much more to human relationships than that. Everyone in our church thinks is WONDERFUL that these two have found each other. They planned their wedding with the support of the whole church. Everyone is so happy for them…their relatives, friends all came to the wedding and it was in the church bulletin. No one mentioned how gross it’d be to see them having sex, or that they couldn’t bear children.
I said ‘urge to reproduce’, not ‘have kids’. In other words - the urge to pass on your DNA, to replicate the species.
One argument I’ve heard against homosexuals being hard-wired at birth is that if they were born that way (i.e., without the desire to pass on their DNA), then wouldn’t homosexuality ultimately die out? Yet I’ve also read (I believe) that the percentage of homosexuality has apparently held fairly constant at around 10% for a long time, across a broad range of historical cultures.
What was your purpose in starting this thread? Did you want someone to say your honest amazement was okay? Fine. It’s okay.
I have my own opinions, though, all of them honest, few of them amazing.
Again the gene that controls sexual attraction may not be the same one that controls the desire for children i.e reproduction. So one may be a homosexual and still have the desire to reproduce…further when don’t know when homosexuality becomes “hard-wired”, which means it may be a random even, that ALL people have the possibility to chance upon, regardless of their parents sexual orientation.
In other words, if it was a matter of ‘passing on DNA’, then the children of homosexuals would in fact be homosexual themselves and as far as I know that’s not the case.
However, “hard-wired” does not necessarily mean the presence of a “gay gene.” There could be any number of factors that lead to sexual orientation, including, but not limited to, specific genetic factors, exposure to specific hormones (in specific doses) in the womb, specific events during gestation, birth, or infancy, or many combinations of the above. Having or lacking the specific combinations of (thus far unidentified) conditions might lead to specific sexual orientation. (Leaving aside, for the moment, that sexual orientation is distributed across a spectrum and is not a binary condition; a lot of people who are attracted to the same sex are also attracted to the opposite sex–or just to sex–so that a genetic condition could still be transported through multiple generations.)
And let us not forget that prior to the 1920s, only a minuscule number of children suffering Type I diabetes lived long enough to reproduce, yet we still had a lot of children born suffering diabetes, so a pure genetic argument is not going to work against homosexuality.
Same thing.
It could be the side effect of something else, or something evolution can’t handle like I said.
This is getting off topic, but - no way, I gotta disagree with ‘urge to reproduce/pass on one’s DNA’ being the same thing as homosexuals ‘wanting kids’. The urge to reproduce by definition involves wanting sex with a person of the opposite sex.
Why do humans adopt children that don’t belong to them genetically? Isn’t it possible to have protective, parental instincts that are separate from just “passing on your DNA?”
Then why do people have IVF?
The urge to reproduce has little to do with sex and more to do with just wanting to have kids, for whatever reason. Sex is merely the natural means of having kids; it’s by no means the only way nowadays.
I think you’re totally wrong. The parental instinct is entirely seperate from the sexual instinct, and both are expressed in a variety of ways. Some people, including gay people, want “their own” kids, from their own genes. Some people crave the experience of raising children, but do not think it’s important that the children be directly related to them. It’s not at all clear that these are two seperate impulses, and not expressions of the same impulse filtered through social expectations. One point of evidence in favor of the second viewpoint is that parents who want their own genetic kids, but are forced instead to adopt, generally find that they have no problem accepting the kid as their own. They find that their urge to have “their own kid” has been sated by adopting someone else’s. This suggest to me that it’s the same urge.
No, not necessarily. If there is a “homosexuality gene”, it could be gender-related. Hemophilia is an example. Hemophilia is far more common in males than in females, and until recent the 20th century, hemophiliacs rarely survived to adulthood and reproduced. Yet the trait kept passing down for centuries? Why? It is an X-linked recessive trait, meaning it occurs on the X-chromosomes. A woman carrying the defect on one of her X-chromosomes may not be affected by it, as the equivalent allele on her other chromosome should express itself to produce the necessary clotting factors. But men, who are made from an XY combination, would not have a matching clotting factor on the Y chromosome to override the recessive trait on the X chromosome. (The Y chromosome has no clotting factor.)
So, a healthy female can still be a carrier of the hemophilia trait, which would be expressed in about half of her male offspring (depending on which X chromosome she passed on to her son). Her male offspring, in times past, may never have lived long enough to reproduce, but about half of her daughters would be carriers of the trait.
Likewise, even the fact that most homosexual men do not reproduce would not necessarily “breed out” the trait, as long as the gay man’s sisters were carrying it onto the next generation.
Important Note here: A LOT of gay men never engage in anal intercourse. At least 20-50% never do it in the whole course of their lives. From Wikipedia:
So revulsion or even mere dislike of homosexual sex on the grounds (assumed by almost everyone and strongly reinforced by the media) that gay men always or usually engage in anal sex isn’t quite justifiable.
It doesn’t make sense because I very much doubt it ever really happened. Someone called you a bigot because you wouldn’t suck cock? I can’t help thinking that you are bullshitting us. Are you sure you’re not just trying to excuse yourself for feeling bigotted? I agree with John Mace when he writes:
And as for your question about “furries”, I think these people act a bit silly (but what’s wrong with that?), probably they’re also a little maladjusted (since that is socially contextual), but anyone who expresses outright revulsion towards them is a bigot in my opinion.
In any case, comparing furries with homosexuals shows an inclination toward bigotry.
“Glitch” my ass. Not only is it perfectly normal, it is almost certainly essential. I’ll explain below.
Virtually every single thing you wrote is wrong, by which I mean either contra-factual or unenlightened by modern scientific thinking.
Let’s start with last things first. You claim that “the purpose of sexuality is reproduction.” You couldn’t BE more mistaken! At the most basic level, sex is not about reproduction. There are a great many better ways to reproduce than sex. In fact, sex is probably the worst way. Asexual splitting or budding would be vastly preferable. No, sex is first and foremost about mixing up genes. I’m sure you understand why.
But you speak of “sexuality”. Yet in humans, sexuality is NOT about reproduction, it is about love. To speak more scientifically, it is about pair-bonding. Women are extremely different from most female animals in one important respect: they do not go into heat (or estrus). Why not? Evolutionary theory has the answer: because by being sexually available throughout the month, a woman is far more likely to maintain a pair-bond, i.e., keep a partner around. It would be pretty damned disastrous to the entire species if women went into heat and thus were only sexually available at certain times. Humans need at least one partner to survive, especially to raise children. Thus, the vast panoply of human sexual behavior evolved primarily to maintain partnerships with other adults. Whether they are of the same or opposite sex makes no difference. Long live rampant sexuality! Long live love!
It is virtually certain that the existence of homosexuality significantly assisted in the development of our species. It’s safe to say that Homo sapiens sapiens would not have reached it’s present position without homosexuals. Certainly our culture would be impoverished compared to our own.
First, consider the evolutionary, reproductive, and genetic aspects. The demands of living and parenting in our ancient hunter-gatherer groups were enormous and were too often unachievable. The hunt consumed an excessive amount of the father’s time and he was thus often unavailable. The gathering by the mother required the same or greater amount of time and effort for the same caloric value. The children of such parents would too often not live to reproduce, or if they did, their children would die young from insufficient parenting (lack of adequate food, protection, learning, etc.) What greater boon to such a family could there be than a related but unattached adult (probably a sibling of one of the parents) with no children of his/her own because they were homosexuals? If not a God-send, then certainly a gene-send!
This extra adult would be able to produce and/or keep more of the fruits of the hunt/gathering for themselves and their nephews and nieces rather than feed them to their own children (since they almost never had any), thus freeing more calories for their sibling’s children. Furthermore, they would provide additional protection as well as the lion’s share of the learning and culture. This represents a huge increase in evolutionary fitness for the children! And as anthropology has taught us, a great many of these homosexuals were revered figures within the culture, which provided the homosexuals with power and thus further means to enhance their nieces and nephews lives and reproductive fitness.
Evolutionary science tells us that one productive way of looking at why natural selection behaves as it does is from a gene’s point of view (see The Selfish Gene, by Richard Dawkins). From this perspective, it is not the humans that “want” to reproduce, it is their genes (which, of course, produces their brains and also much, if not most, of their psychology and behavior). From the genes’ points of view, the strategy of producing heterosexual humans to reproduce directly is NOT always the best bet! Sure, that’s usually a good strategy, but natural selection naturally found another, completely natural, good bet: produce homosexual aunts and uncles – who by definition share a great many of the same genes – thereby considerably increasing their related genes in the gene pool. That, my friend, is what evolution and natural selection are all about. No more and no less; merely increasing the frequency of related genes in the population.
So homosexuality is not only completely natural and normal, it is almost certainly essential. Not only might we not exist as a species if not for homosexuals, but it is beyond all doubt that our culture and civilization would be impoverished without us. Why? Partly because we have the time to spend on culture that many heterosexuals (at least those with children) do not. Partly because we’re more inclined to teach and help children (at least our nephews and nieces), thereby repeating the ancient genetic strategy. And partly because there must be associated genes that simply make us somewhat more inclined to pursue civilization-enhancing activities.
Ergo: (1) Homosexuality is NOT abnormal, in any sense of the word.
(2) Homosexuality is in no way, shape, or form a “glitch”. It is an excellent evolutionary strategy and holds so steady in incidence precisely for that reason.
(3) Animal homosexuality is doubtless similar in origin to human homosexuality, minus the huge fitness-enhancing benefit of teaching and cultural and other aids to related children.
(4) Homosexuality is highly beneficial and serves a vital purpose (if perhaps less so today than in our hunter-gatherer past).
(5) If humans were “designed”, a sufficiently intelligent designer would have produced homosexuals for just the same reasons natural selection did. And that is why natural selection hasn’t eliminated homosexuality: because it’s a damn good strategy.
(6) It is precisely because homosexuality is different from heterosexuality that homosexuality evolved and thrived. It’s a different strategy that’s been vital to human existence.
What do you say now?