Too Awesome for Aardvarks
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Firstly, i would like to point out i subscribe to the genetics point of view when looking at behaviour, and my opinions are based upon the idea that your genes want to replicate (which i will ramble on about another time no dobut), not any sociological hoo-ha that some people may want to attribute to me, and have a bitch about.
Homosexuality is the genetic equivilant of throwing oneself off a cliff onto lots of pointy sharp rocks, far away from anyone to help. Thinking that it is a method of population control is also incorrect.
Population control is external factors influencing the survival of the induviduals e.g. famine, disease, overcrowding e.t.c. There is no methodology to it, just trial and error, unless one happens to believe in divine control.
Saying it is biologically based is also a misdirection, by definition all behaviour is biologically based, you don't have a personality because the universe just happened to fancy doing something interesting. You have a personality because of the way your brain is wired up.
If your brain is wired up wrong (from a standard point of view) it will be due to one of two reasons. Firstly your genes are faulty for whatever reason. Secondly, your development has caused your brain to wire itself in such a way as to deviate from the norm.
When looking at homosexuality, there is evidence of a genetic trait in some parts of the population, a mutation that arises because of X, Y and Z (no pun intended). If the person choses to become homosexual, the odds are the gene will eliminate itself within the generation. Siblings may be carriers of a faulty gene, so the actual propencity towards homosexuality may be carried down the generations.
The interesting thing to it is whether we will see a reduction in the genetic anomolies that cause homosexuality. With more people chosing to follow their desires, and society becoming more acceptive, will those genes find themselves extinguished before they can spread? It follows the same factors of a genetic disease propogating through the population if all the fully affected decide not to reproduce, with carriers and afflicted.
The human body is pretty much the same in male and female, infact we all start off as females in the womb, developing into our respective sexes during pregnancy (hence the clitoris in females, and nipples in men, both throwbacks to a comman divergence). Minor differences lead to the sexes, so it doesn't take at all much tinkering by whatever to change the way our brains respond to input from the same sex.
That is a highly simplified view, there are many many different genetic factors that can cause one to deviate from whatever set norm, so its kinda hard to comment without doing a phD in the subject.
Now, if we move onto behaviour, which is really where things start to mess about. The human body is designed by genes, genes work by pulling strings, which pull other strings, which pull more strings and so on and so on until we finally get to our puppet.
We are essentially cavemen at heart, or mind as it would be, so the brain is only built to coding, which causes it to respond to inputs.
Lets say our inputs, for a happy induvidual, is love, a healthy amount of sexual pleasure, companionship, and whatever else we fancy throwing in. All of those cause hormonal responses in the body.
Love releases endorphins, oxytocin (sp), seratonin, dopamine and a horde of other happy drugs. The brain sees it is getting happy drugs, and continues with that behaviour.
With sex, pretty simple really, sex is fun because you are more likely to have babies if you have lots of sex just by playing the numbers game. Sex input releases more happy hormones, which is what your brain is looking for.
It goes on and on with all kinds of behaviours. Your brain is wired to direct your actions depending on the feedback it gets. It doesn't have a clue if your getting those feedbacks from someone of the opposite sex, or someone of the same sex. Your are considerably more disposed to respond to the members of the opposite sex (e.g. men find large breasts and curved hips attractive because of the signs of fertility, the gait in the female walk is because of a larger pelvis, which is better for childbirth, all interesting stuff when seeing the design of sexuality), but behaviour can be overriden, modified, its what has allowed us to adapt so well to our surroundings and flourish as a species.
Homosexuality is so fascinating because of the fact humans are so basic in our behaviour, still governed primarily by our genes, that having such a poor choice of mental development (from a genetic reproduction point of view) as homosexuality in the population is such an anomoly. Like i said before, the interesting bits come when we factor in how society views being gay, how in the future it will most likely become far more accepted.
Will this lead to rises in the percentage population of homosexuals, will it lead to a decrease or will we just all end up liking pink?
But anyways, i've just rambled on for hours, and my brain hurts from biology exams all day, i'm going to bed. Please excuse any completly odd stuff, i'll have a read through and edit tomorrow.
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