271–280 of 495 posts
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I would think that being "gay" doesn't 100% prevent someone from fathering / mothering children.
This. In the past, there was a lot of prominent personalities who were suspected of being gay, but left progeny. Social pressure to have children, especially if there is a title / wealth / prestige to inherit, would certainly play a role.
Alternatively, some kind of meta-level mechanism to reduce competition over women in the community, ultimately improving its collective health and well-being.
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I agree that one shouldn't support the genetic predetermination theory of sexuality just as a defense for oppression. That's not how science should be done. That being said, I still doubt that people really have a choice over their sexuality. Otherwise there would be far more stories from people who have "successfully" turned straight or something, instead of stories from people who have tried to suppress their true…
You don't have a choice about anything you like. The closest you can get to choosing what you like is to decide that you want to like something, and expose yourself to it enough that it starts to grow on you (i.e. you find something in it you like and use that to reinterpret the rest that you were negative or indifferent towards.)
As for having no choice over, idk, beer vs wine, you can certainly live on beer your entire life even if you (continue to) prefer wine. But will it make you happy? Should a society of beer drinkers force it upon wine drinkers? Note that a partner is a core part of our lives, far more than which liquid you drink.
Gay males reproduce by having sex with males when they're younger.
You want to take a second crack at that? I'm not even sure what you're trying to say.
The meme itself is intended mostly to get a rise out of people. It would be wise to pay it no mind. But if anyone wants to earnestly defend this position, I'm all ears.
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> But you’re basically using the reasoning the OP found unhelpful, just swapping immutability instead of genetics. There are many things that are (practically) immutable that aren't rooted in genetics, so no, the distinction isn't unimportant. > It is just as wrong when it’s done to enforce narrow moral norms and a reactionary view of sexuality. Again, who cares, as long as both parties consent and nobody gets hurts?…
> There are many things that are (practically) immutable that aren't rooted in genetics, so no, the distinction isn't unimportant. Yet in this case it’s used for the same purpose, building an argument saying that people should not be punished for it because they can’t change it. It’s moving the goalposts and it is not productive in the long run. There are much better reasons to accept homosexuality. > "As long as bot…
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What we should respect it what is not harmful. Hate and homophobia are oppressive and destructive. People having sex is not. So some things deserve to be fought and limited whilst the other does not.
A group of people getting sex changes is arguably destructive if it's just due to a whim. Look at the suicide rates. In the real world where it's not a choice, I'd look to blame bigots for a lot of those suicide rates. In the world where it is completely a choice, I'd look to blame people who encouraged them along that path as the proximate cause. That's a pretty gross perspective to write out, and I don't really wan…
Yes. In the present world unfortunately I don’t think we have lots of data to say either way, though it’s probably a combination of both. We should be tolerant, and also accept that not wanting to conform to gender stereotypes does not necessarily means that one needs to change sex, though sometimes it does.
> But there's a perspective, and from what I casually observe, is a genuine concern among some more conservative leaning folks. People are concerned that young people are being pushed into harmful surgeries.
I think that’s a very valid concern, considering the irreversibility of it and the potential harm. Being conservative is not in itself a bad thing: you can be conservative, empathetic and tolerant. There is no such excuse for homophobia, though, when there is no harm done to anyone.
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If pedophilia turns out to be 26% determined by genetics, would the existence of pedophiles be more "justified" than the existence of homosexuals? The reason we should be tolerant of homosexuality is because it's as healthy and harmless as heterosexuality, not because it's some sort of handicap.
I do feel rather strongly that we should not persecute people suffering from pedophilia, especially as a lot of it seems to come from suffering from abuse as a kid. That doesn't make you an active child rapist. You may hate that about yourself. Well, at least I assume that to be the case. I can't say I'm familiar with it. The predictability of something isn't the issue though. It's whether or not something is actuall…
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You and I agree it’s a human right, and the reason why. I said its a human right because it's a "characteristic that cannot easily be changed." You said it's because "people who are LGBT emphatically cannot choose to 'convert' to some other sexual orientation or gender identity." If there's a difference between that phraseology, I don't mean it to be substantive--I agree with what you said. It's OP who rejects that p…
Even if it were an easily changeable characteristic, we should consider it wrong for any society to threaten harm or punishment or ostracization for this. That the characteristic is or isn’t easily changed is not relevant. It’s not a question of moral relativism. You’d have to argue that any behavior is a crime in order for it to be legitimate for perpetrators to suffer consequences. Otherwise, it is wrong that someo…
Okay, but there was a time when homosexuality was a crime in the majority of Western countries, and in some places around the world, it still is a crime. What then/there?
Moral reasoning based on current law is partially circular reasoning, and also tends to ossify current law/state of moral progress.
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Narrowing things down is easier when you control for one aspect instead of multiple ones. If, hypothetically, being trans inverted the expression of the gene for being gay, you'd have a harder time finding the gene until you accounted for it. By eliminating the possibility, you make it easier to find the gene you're looking for. If you can't find the gene in the smaller pool of subjects, you weren't going to find it…
> If, hypothetically, being trans inverted the expression of the gene for being gay That, although always possible, seems pretty far-fetched. > If you can't find the gene in the smaller pool of subjects, you weren't going to find it in the larger one. Except that here the larger one includes precisely the community of people that has the highest incidence of same-sex attraction. Imagine trying to determine the influe…
Sure, perhaps it is farfetched. But the point is trying to eliminate as many variations as possible to focus on a smaller set of people. Then once we have that, we can expand outward. Consider that instead of there being a "gay gene", there is a gene (or set of genes) that controls not homosexuality, but androphilia (sexual attraction to men/males/masculinity) and perhaps another that controls gynephilia (sexual attraction to women/females/femininity). [note 1] In that case, by looking at only one sex we could find such a gene. This is just an example of which there are many, but my intent is to show why looking at a smaller sample first could prove useful later.
Note 1: There is some precedent for this particular theory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Androphilia_and_gynephilia
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First, you're assuming those things are preferences. We don't actually have any real evidence that your statement is true for anyone, much less that it's true for everyone. Second, people are very drawn to having excuses for things, it's much more comfortable to say there's nothing that you can do as opposed to saying there's something you can do but you just didn't. Both of those things are more comfortable than agg…
The problem is that if you defend your actions (regarding all sorts of things, not just limited to where you stick your dick) with "because I f-ing feel like it and I'm an individual with free will" you will be inundated with people claiming you don't or shouldn't have free will or that it should be some entity's job to make the consequences of your preference so miserable that you choose something else. Pretending l…
That one works best when you're part of a community that's visibly willing to back you up on it - when it's evident to your interlocutor that, if they make you have to fight about it, at least you won't be fighting alone. That hasn't been the case for me as often as I'd have liked, but when it has been the case, I've found I rarely even need to say a word.
I came out as gay in a Catholic high school, and it actually went really well for me. But, one day right after Matthew Shepard's murder, our religion class hosted a speaker who wanted to talk about how it was a shame but really he brought it on himself, you know the drill. I didn't say a word because I couldn't, but it turned out I didn't have to, because everyone else in the class - all straight as far as I knew then and, with one exception, as far as I know now - they said everything I would have and more besides. Louder and more persistently than I would have, too. And yeah, in theory there was a power differential there, Authority vs. School Kids, but you know what? That woman turned out not even to have what it took to stand up to a room full of teenagers talking. She fled in disarray, and I have never in my life before or since felt more safe than I did at the end of that half hour. Or felt less alone.
That was the point of the original pride parades, maybe you know and maybe you don't. I was there - admittedly as a child, too young yet to really even understand what I was or start to wonder why, but I was there, marching up the middle of a small Mississippi town with my mom and a bunch of other grown-ups with whom I had something in common that I hadn't even realized yet. "We're here. We're queer. Get used to it."
And people did. Not always happily, and it wasn't always easy, but what it would've cost to shove all those people who marched back in the closet was more than anyone was willing to pay. Better put, it was more than everyone was willing to pay, because - as the march's primary purpose was to demonstrate - everyone was what it would've taken. So they got used to it, instead, and then it turned out never to have been such a big deal after all.
Sweet reason is wonderful, as far as it goes. But if it's going to work, you need the other guy to be willing to meet you in the middle. If he won't do that, you need something to fall back on, if for no other reason than to be able to protect yourself. What that "something" is, is power. Maybe you don't have to use it. Ideally, being seen to have it will be enough. But for even that much to happen, first you have to have it.
We used to understand that. I don't think we do any more.