A Thought on homosexuality...
 

Here is something I have been thinking about recently with all the hoop-la about sodomy and homosexual marriages recently in the news. Anywho in regards to evolution and preservation of the species it seems that homosexuals are at a disadvantage. Their seeds will not be passed on and their genes eliminated from the pool. Now I see that there are 3 possible explainations for all of this, two are related. 1. There is a genetic defect. It is a common arguement that homo's don't choose to be gay, they are "born that way". 2. Funny that homosexuality has exploded in the last century along with the worlds biggest known baby boom (by that I mean a world population of 7 billion). Is it possible it is a natural effect to perhaps lower the population? or 3. Hedonism in the parlence of our times? Perhaps it is a tell-tale sign of western civilizations decline. Rome was experiencing much of the same problems as it came to a fiery end. Perhaps homosexuality is one of many societal woes?

I have has always believed it to be number 3. Throughout history the way the best cut down on population was, natural disaster and war. I don't think that our genetics are changing in order to cut down on population, it would be unprecidented. If they will change it probable won't be till there are over 20 billion, because that is the number that the world can succesfully support.

Actually I think sex is sex. We have sex for pleasure and sex for reproducing. IF all you homophobes would just drop it and stop making a big deal out of it the world would be a better place.

Again, like I have said in other threads. IF it is a sin to your God, he will deal with it after death. For now, don't knock it til you try it. :)

How can you say the world would be a better place, how do you think the main way AIDs spreads

I prefer to think of human society (as a whole) as being capable of self-organizing behavior. Therefore, when populations increase to stretch the living conditions to a breaking point, society (not nature) will find ways to reduce the problem. The easy argument would be to say that if homosexuality is genetic, then nature is the culprit (a thinning of the herd action). However, I still maintain that if a human society faces enough duress, it can force physical changes to manifest in the population. For example, amphibians can undergo spontaneous sex changes if their populations are too tilted toward one gender.

On a related topic, would we all agree that humans who suffer from Down's Syndrome exhibit certain similar physical features? The extra chromosome obviously causes changes in facial characteristics that are similar throughout their population subset. I would also offer that anyone attending a women's basketball game would notice that several of the alternative lifestyle females in the crowd seem to exhibit similar facial features to each other.

No, not all lesbians look alike. Of course not. However, it seems plain to me that many, many lesbians do have remarkably similar facial characteristics, and this lends credence to the notion that homosexuality is a physical manifestation; i.e., not by choice.

The world would be a better place because there would be less judging each other and telling each other what is morally right and wrong.

AIDS is not a "gay" disease, as many of you seem to think. That was propaganda from the 80s. Anyone that has multiple partners can spread aids.

Bingo, we have a winner.

It had its beginning though through homosexual relations. Its rampant spread comes from both regular and homosexual contact. Both of which need to carefully examined, a plan needs to be made to cut down on its spread before everychild is an orphan.

Re: A Thought on homosexuality...
 

It's probably a mixture of nature and nurture.

Homosexuality has always been there. It was just supressed during Christanity was in power in the west.

Homosexuality was common before Rome started to decline. It had nothing to do with Rome's collapse.

Certain things are morally wrong and hurtful to a society, such as murder, sexual deviance. If you think there is moral wrongs and rights, i pity your employer, because you have nothing to determine what is right or wrong, good or bad other then whatever pops into your mind, as you make the decision.

AIDS wasn't spread primarily by homosexuality:

sportsrule101 where do you get your facts?

AIDS got its start from eating raw monkey meat.

Every child will not be an orphan either. Do to break throughs in medicine AIDS can be controlled and maintained. People are living long almost normal lives with AIDS. AIDS has been on the decrease the last couple of years. I predict we will have a cure in the next 15 years.

raw monkey meat huh, where exactly did you get that from. post link ?

A good sexual education programs at school is a great start. Abstincence only programs make the idiotic assumption that people are going to have sex anyways. A better program that will help stop the spread of AIDS, other STDs and teen pregnancy would give the students the facts they need to know to protect themselves when they're engaging in sexual relations.

Yes drug use, and blood transfusions help spead it.
But unprotected homosexual relations was also a part of it. I
What a person does in private is his business, i won't through him in jail for it. Will i discuss with him why he does it, of course.

Link
http://www.austinchronicle.com/issue...aboutaids.html

I can give you about 10 more links if you like.

http://www.avert.org/origins.htm The link I provided covers how the diseases could have spread from monkeys to humans.

Yes they help here in the USA both safe sex and abstincence programs, but other countries don't have a reliable, proven, repeatable way of doing this education yet. If you have a way, there are many people with open ears.

Google.

Use it, people.

-------------------------------------------------------

LINK

Aids origin 'discovered'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/265000...8_chimp300.jpg


The origin of the main HIV virus that causes Aids in humans has been discovered by an international team of scientists.

A chimpanzee named Marilyn enabled them to confirm that the Aids virus first passed into people from a particular sub-species of chimp in the Central African rainforest.

Infected chimps do not develop Aids and it may now be possible to learn why. This would greatly help efforts to prevent and treat the disease in humans.

Human infection occurred in the first half of the century as a result of people hunting and eating the chimps, the scientists believe. This practice continues today.

The team said that genetic tests show the main human virus, HIV-1, is closely related to a virus that infects chimps but does not make them sick.

Dr Beatrice Hahn of the University of Alabama and colleagues made the discovery when analysing frozen blood and tissue samples from a lab chimp named Marilyn which died in 1985. The genetic tests were not available at that time.

"She had never been used in Aids research and had not received human blood products after 1969," said Dr Hahn.

Dr. Sarah Nelson-Jones: "This is an exciting piece of research"
Her team, which will publish the results in the journal Nature, found in Marilyn a "grandparent" virus to the human one. Similar viruses had been seen before in four chimps but the latest research confirmed that only Marilyn's sub-species, Pan troglodytes troglodytes, carried the virus which infects humans.

In the early days of Aids research, dozens of chimps were deliberately infected with the HIV virus to see if they developed the disease. To the surprise of scientists, they did not, despite sharing 98% of their genetic material with humans.

Now that the specific sub-species of chimp has been identified, the scientists behind the latest study believe new treatments could be developed by studying why the chimps do not get Aids.

"This is an important finding with significant potential," said Dr Anthony Fauci of the US National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), which helped fund the study.

"This may allow us to study infected chimpanzees in the wild to find out why these animals don't get sick. This information that may help us better protect humans from developing Aids."

It is not yet known whether the chimps do not develop Aids because of their genetic differences with humans or because their immune systems deal better with the virus. The answer will determine whether studying the chimps could lead to better treatments or better vaccines for Aids.

Professor Paul Sharp at Nottingham University is one of the team members and told the BBC: "We now need to find out how common this virus is in the chimpanzees in the wild, but that could be difficult as the species is endangered."

The sub-species population is estimated at 80,000 but the annual number killed is thought to be thousands, putting these chimps on the "brink of extinction".

There is evidence that HIV may have transferred to humans throughout history, but only became an epidemic in the 20th century. The reasons for this are increased sexual promiscuity, civil unrest and movement of people to cities, according to Dr Hahn.

Last year, researchers said they had found the first known case of Aids - in a Bantu man who died in 1959 in the Belgian Congo, now the Democratic Republic of Congo and the home of the sub-species of chimps.

And it is also ignorance to say that homosexual conduct is the main spread of the disease.

The truth is that homosexual conduct in the late 70's and 80's was a major factor in the spread of the disease in North America as was poor blood screening procedures and intravenous drug use, however, the disease was and is mainly spread in Africa and the East by heterosexual contact.

As my sources clearly pointed out.

wtf are you talking about?

The monkey start is theory, it might prove to be correct, i didn't mean that the disease was started by humans, but it was transmitted especially early on by homo relations, along with other factors. That article is well written, but is by no means a definite athority. And in 20 years, there will more theories that might prove it right or wrong. As with any scientific data, the only way to prove it out is time, and more research.

Abstincence programs refuse to address proper ways to protect yourself from sex other than "just don't do it". Safe sex is not discussed.


What is your point?

The whole gaining knowledge of the world we live in, he can do what he wants as long as it doesn't cause harm to a society. this determination is made by somebody, and many will have differing opinion, just as many have different opinions on world peace, homosexuality, abortion and many other topics.

all this complaining from us in america aren't helping stop the spread of it.

Yes, homosexual relations did introduce AIDS into the U.S. but drug use and blood transfusions were crucial to it's fast spread.

I haven't seen you producing any alternate links or pointing out where the article is wrong. You must do those things if you wish to discredit my source.

That didn't make any sense. Please rephrase it.

Again, wtf are you talking about?

Should we start a new thread? The original question was about the "reason" behind Homosexuality, not the origin of AIDS. Both are interesting topics, worthy of descussion, but they are independant of each other.

BTW: I'm not complaining about the thread being "derailed", conversations always take new turns, but I think the origina question was not really paid much attention.

and sportsrule101, I think the rest of the posters would appreciate it, if you thought about what you are trying to say before posting. I'm not saying that you have nothing worthwhile to say, It seems that you do have a number of interesting points to make, but I think you would do yourself and others well, if you thought first of all, how best to compose your thoughts.

Well this is a fiery topic and no mistake!

Homphobes have there fear rooted in the fact that they dont want homosexuality 'promoted' to their children as an equal alternative to heterosexuality.

I have to agree with DarkBlack and say that everyone should just chill and live and let live . . . unfortunately there are sections of the homosexual 'community' who dont follow this example and actively 'campaign'. After many years of observing this I have reached the conclusion that homosexuals desire 'acceptance' more than anything else . . .a desire to be treated equally in the eyes of society.

Now maybe that desire for acceptance is a mask for their guilt on account that deep down they know their actions to be wrong . . . . or maybe that desire for acceptance is simply out of a genuine feeling of persecution? Whatevr reason . . . . it is a fact that society as a whole does NOT regard same-sex couples as equal to heterosexual couples. This is not out of narrow-mindedness or moral high ground but has its roots in the days of the industrial revolution when factory workers with families to support were accorded benefits and rights, becuase the hard-nosed factory bosses realised that these children were the future workforce.

It is becuase homosexuals do not contribute anything to society (by virtue of their homosexuality) that they are held in lower esteem than child producing heterosexuals.

Its all commercial . . . not moral or societal.

I'm not so sure that's its inappropriate in this thread. The original poster's #3 cause suggests that homosexuality is a soceital woe. If homosexuality is wrong because it spreads disease, then it would support #3.

However, homosexuality isn't anymore wrong than hetrosexuality as far as disease spreading goes. What is guilty of proliferating STDs is promiscuous homosexual sex and promiscuous hetrosexual sex.

Since I couldn't say it any better:
PsygnisFive (4:45:23 PM): thats so bullshit
PsygnisFive (4:45:50 PM): homosexuals DO add to society because they do not add the extra burden of children while providing labor and economic force

While homosexuals do not actually increase the population, they also do not strain schools system, etc. while contributing to soceity in the form of labor and putting money into the economy.

Wow! Thats a very interesting point, I had never thought of it in that way. I'm not sure how correct it is, but it's a possibility, that on a subconcious level, people hold these beliefs.

Although I wouldn't agree that they don't contribute to society, they work jobs and pay taxes like the rest of us!

My guess is that they are simply victims of "racial" prejudice. "They" are different from "us". Plus I think the church played a large role in reinforcing these attitudes, especially in America.

I would also ask that people on this board read all posts in the context of the discussion before throwing out accusations of homophobia (I'm not accusing anyone, this is premtive). People should be able to make their point without having to put the "politically-correct" sheen onto it. Read it, but make it your duty not to get offeneded by it.

For instance, I am absolutely not homophobic. I can say this without doubt, and would demand absolutely equal rights for all people of any sexuality. I would definatly not be of the opinion that homosexuality should be considered as a "disease"
That being said, from a purely naturalistic sense, being a homosexual is a defect. In nature, your sucess as an animal is based soley on your reproduction.

It poses a very interesting question about evolution: Since homosexuality is such a major disadvantage, why haven't we evolved more protective traits to "protect" us from it?

There is no evidence to suggest that homosexuality is genetic. Even when you think about it, it seems almost contradictory: Those people in whom the gene manisfested itself, would not pass on the gene. Hence it could only be passed on, if it were to lie dormant!

My guess is that it is an error in the embryonic development, at the stage when the embryo "decides" to be male or female. And instead of becoming purely "male" or purely "female" it takes on characteristics of both.
This seems to fit the evidence. Homosexual men tend to have soft, feminine facial features, and their personality also tends to be more feminine, as do their interests: fashion, art v.s beer and sport. This is perhaps why homosexual men often get on so well with women as "one of their own" (And yes I am WELL aware that I am making massive generalisations and sterotypes).
Homosexual women tend to have "butch" masculine features. They tend to be more well built, with larger muscles. (Again with the stereotypes).
This could also be the reasoning behind transvestitism and transsexualism.

So, in a way it could be similar to mental and physical handicaps...yes a "disease" of sorts:|.

But this still doesn't answer the question of why we haven't evolved a protection mechanism for this kind of "error" in embryonic development. It seems that it is quite a rampant "disease". Anyone have any statistics on this?

Again, I may have appeared to make some "offensive" remarks, but bear in mind the context in which they were said: A naturalistic context as opposed to a social or humanistic point of view, so please don't accuse me of being anything I'm not. I can't stand homophobia!

That being said, I welcome any criticisms/comments on my idea, and/or associated linkage.

I don't think duckznutz was implying that this was HIS opinion, or that it was even a rational opinion, rather that it is a deeply engrained prejudice of society (which often tend NOT to be rational).

well- here's a different take:

why is a person's reproductive capabilities such a large consideration in their sociological placement? if it is such a huge factor, why wouldn't adults who have chosen not to have children be as shunned as the gay community?

personally, i think that human evolution has passed the point of needing to continuously reproduce. there's a whole bunch of us now. we're straining the earth's limitations. why should we continue to double and triple our population until we have somewhere to put them (i.e. when we begin to settle space).

back on topic.
no- homosexuality is not a 'defect'. it is not a 'choice' any more then breathing is a 'choice'.
and no- i would not say that there is more homosexuality present in these times unless you are simply number crunching. there are more people then ever, therefore; there are more homosexuals then ever.

and i would not say that "many lesbians do have remarkably similar facial characteristics" anymore then i would say that many straight males happen to be around 5'9" and have brown hair. most of the similarity seen in the homosexual communities came from simple fashion choices.

watch any war movie and tell me that most men don't look alike when their heads are shaved and they wear the same uniform.

and hey! there have been some wonderfully thought out and open-minded posts on this board, and i would like to commend you all for them!

You acknowledge your reasons as being sweeping generalizations and you still hold onto the view depends on those reasons.

To the general idea of the rest of your post:
A person's default sexuality seems to be bisexual-whatever generates pleasure is okay. There's precedent for this in nature and in history. In greece, rome, etc., bisexuality was popular amoung men. Homosexuality also occurs in nature and Dolphins, the only known species to have sex for pleasure, also engages in homosexuality.

It, of course, is changed through nurture especially in our soceity where homosexuality is generally disaproved in.

There doesn't need to be a "homosexual gene". You've got a gene that tells you to like male or female. Sometimes they may just get mixed up.

Well . . have you not noticed that adults who do not have children ARE in fact considered to be 'lesser' than those who do?

How many mothers (and it is usually mothers!) constantly nag their unmarried children into 'settling down' (a euphemism for producing children) . . . . . . . . . and how many dinner parties have you attended where the couple with no children are constantly asked "so no plans to start a family then?"



I very carefully stated that homosexuals add nothing to society by virtue of their homosexuality . . . . we all pay taxes, we all contribute equally . . . heterosexuals (who produce children) ALSO extend the fabric and network of humanity into the future . . . . . . that is why they will ALWAYS be considered as 'superior' (cant think of a better word sorry!) to any other relationship.

Its not "Woman and children first!" for nothing.

Gay, straight, bi, childless . . whatever . . we all have the right to choose for ourselves how we wish to live our lives WITHOUT being judged by others.

My personal dislike is people (often self-righteous religious people, or indeed gay 'rights' people) who castigate others for their point of view, and dictate, persuade, or otherwise try to influence how another human being lives their life.

I think it is OK to have a private dissapproval of being gay . . . but keep it to yourself!

I think it is OK to be gay . . . but keep it to yourself!

And if you are gay . . . you must simply accept that other people have the right to disapprove of that lifestyle choice.

Interestingly . . now my thoughts are on this subject . . . I notice that a LOT of gays (and certainly the few gay friends and colleagues I have) . .are 'artistic' and 'wealthy'.

It strikes me as odd that the gay community have so many well-educated, well-off, usually in artistic or aesthetic professions! I conclude that it is in fact a 'lifestyle choice' invariably associated with a degree of decadence, and NOT genetic. It can be no coincidence that tolerance of alternative lifestyles is greatest in the most socially developed, culturally diverse and affluent areas of the world.

except when you take "overpopulation", public school expenses, etc. etc. into consideration.

Hey papermachesatan, I saw a website last year where a guy built a cool paper mache satan and documented the construction on his website. Are you that guy?

Yes they are generalizations. They are stereotypes. But stereotypes have reasons for being. The problem with stereotyping is that it leads to prejudice: The idea that an arbitrary gay person (or member of ANY other minority subject to stereotyping) would be assumed to cohere with these specific stereotypes.

To elaborate: I'm Irish. A stereotype exists of Irish people, most notably drinking habits (social) and red hair (genetic). Now you take your non-existent stereotype of an Irish person and I will laugh at it, and claim that it does NOT represent the essence of Irish people, not even the majority of people, let alone all Irish people.
That being said, comparison with other nations would lend support to the stereotype: There are more people with red hair living in Ireland (proportionately) than in say the U.S. That's not to say red hair is the majority, or even common, it is still relatively rare compared with black or brown. It would be slightly less common than blonde. But because the stereotype does not ring absolutely true, does not trivialise its importance: There are reasons why "Irish people have red hair", and those reasons are genetic.
Similarly, I know for a fact that I am not a raving drunken lunatic, but I will concede to that stereotype in that there is more alcohol abuse in Ireland than in many others. The reasons why "Irish people are drunken bastards" is not genetic, but social.

I am saying that homosexuals have a stereotype. A stereotype which is not representative of an arbitrary homosexual. It is not even representative of ANY specific homosexual. Rather it is a "caricature" of exaggerated characteristics to encapsulate homosexual people when juxtaposed with "normal people".
Again, think of a stereotypical "nerd". Now I know lots of nerds. But none I know who aligns perfectly with The Nerd, but certainly, when regarding the "community" as a whole certain characteristics emerge: Weird hair, poor fashion sense, poor hygiene (spots), a flair for mathematics and programming, poor social skills, strange humour etc.

Anyway, my original point, is that the stereotype of a homosexual male IS grounded in reality in this sense. To put it to you another way: Have you ever met a person and just know, intuitively, that that person was gay? I'm sure you have, and the reason for this is due to shared characteristics with the stereotype. On the other hand, have you ever met a person, and afterwards find out that they were gay and you had no idea? Also I'm sure the opposite is true: you meet a guy who you just "know" is gay, who turns out to be straight. This does not negate the usefulness of the stereotype for our purpose, where we're looking at the population as a whole.

Now you could claim that the stereotype of the Homosexual is in fact, purely a social construction, that gay people only fall in line with the stereotype as a subconscious effort to be accepted by this new "gay community" after being excluded from the "normal community". However, I don't believe that this is so. Have you ever “know” a person and known that they were gay, before they did? I know I have. A guy I went to primary school with, had a stereotypical homosexual personality and physical facial features. He didn't know he was gay, being too young to have realised his sexual feelings, but many people suspected it. It is only after he matured that he realised that he was in fact gay. He wasn't hiding his feeling for fear of ostracisation (not at first at least), he simply didn't know.
So don't try and tell me that there is nothing to stereotypes. The word is seen as inappropriate, as it is so open to abuse, due to people making judgements about INDIVIDUAL people based on the stereotype. ("Oh he's Irish, he must be a drunken bastard!" ;) )



Whatever generates pleasure is Ok. That seems fair enough in my book. However, that said, I know that I would not enjoy homosexual sex. The thought of engaging in it repulses me. I am not attracted to male people. Heterosexual sex, I enjoy. I AM attracted to females. I strongly believe that I am hard wired to be that way, and heterosexuality is not simply due to social conditioning.
In a similar way that a homosexual is "born that way", I too am born a heterosexual. There is definitely a biological prerequisite for sexuality. That being said, I have no doubt that society can reinforce certain attitudes. Many homosexuals live an unsatisfying heterosexual life due to an unconscious avoidance of being ostracised.
Most of the homosexuality that occurs in nature (not all) is down to the rarity of partners, often down to mankind’s intervention. Kind of like an all male prison, where the idea of "homosexual sex is better than no sex" is adopted. But this is not a natural environment.


That’s a tricky one to prove. But I would claim that they key is to look to history, when a time when homosexuality was not looked down upon. It was certainly more openly prevalent than today, but it was still not "the norm". Heterosexual sex still outnumbered homosexual sex.
I really think that you're over-playing the social influence card. It sounds to me like you are saying that a person’s sexuality is a life-style choice, and hence subject to change.

I agree that there can't be a homosexual gene. However, there equally can't be an "attracted to males" or "attracted to females" gene. Think briefly about the gentic mechanisms that would be behind it. My idea, is that homosexuality is not genetic, but is biologically hard-wired. Hence my reasoning of it being decided in the embryonic stage.

Why do men have nipples?

My suggestion is that the answer to this question is the same as the explanation for biological homosexuality. Both men and women follow the same initial embryonic recipe, but then the two begin to diverge* at a particular stage in the embryonic process. Homosexuality is due to a biological "confusion" at this divergence. In this sense homosexual/bisexual men are, at a biological level, partly female. Homosexual/bisexual women are ,at a biological level, partly male.
This theory appears to agree with the stereotype, which as I have illustrated above, is not without merit.

*Note: I am not saying that the divergence is discrete.

Interesting read.

Nope but that is where I got my name from. :)

Your entire perspective regarding sterotypes is taken from the position that you know very little about homoseuxals.

Female personality traits, the idea of feminine behavior, and their interests(fashion, art, etc.) are social. The only only genetic differences lies in whether they're attracted to the same or opposite sex.

Again, another quote coming from an AIM conversation:
PsygnisFive (3:44:31 PM): I beg to differ
PsygnisFive (3:44:43 PM): The homosexuals you NOTICE are like that[feminine behavior]
PsygnisFive (3:44:58 PM): you never notice the beer drinking sports loving queers because they dont stand out
PsygnisFive (3:45:10 PM): and then theres the fact that the majority of DRAG QUEENS are not gay


Your repulsion to homosexually is largely cultural(nurture as opposed to nature) while the attraction is genetic. You're generally expected to demonstrate 'male behavior'
Your being hard wired to be repulsed at homosexuality would conflict with all examples of primates and history itself. In Greece and Rome, homosexual activity was common. In sparta, the majority of males were bisexual.

You're telling me that there is NOTHING to be said for stereotypical homosexual traits? Where then, did the steroetype come from?

EDIT: BTW, great points! By far the most interesting debate I've had on this board! :)

Some believe men have nipples to act as 'dummy' teats to calm infants when the female is not available.

You are correct when you state that our sex is not determined at the moment of conception and that we all start off as neither male nor female . . . but i completely disagree that homosexuality is a hard-wired situation.

Males have differing levels of oestregen and females have differing levels of testosterone . . . . which may explain why some men are generally hornier than others (some women too!) and explain why females display male characteristics and vice versa but I believe this has NOTHING to do with homosexuality . . otherwise you would expect every male with a strong feminine side to be gay . . . and every female tomboy to be lesbian.

I am pretty convinced it is a life-style choice . . the prison scenario almost proves that. More interstng to me is the observation that in a gay relationship . . . one of the pair 'acts' like the female . . and in a lesbian relationship one of the pair takes the male role? Its kinda like they are playing at being heterosexual? Whats that all about then? Its like children playing doctors and nurses . . . . I cant understand why you dont see two lesbian females giggling their way around the shopping mall . . . . there is always one of them doing something 'male'. . . . and similarly you never see two gay guys woodworking together or building a brick wall, farting and drinking beer . . . they are much more likely to be found giggling their way around a shopping mall.

Hope that doesnt sound sterotypical and narrow-minded . . . . .

Sparta. A soceity where most of the men were bisexual or gay:

Spartan men were fierce warriors and engaged in homosexual activities but yet did not demonstrate any the behaviors you associate with the homosexual stereotype.

Papermachesatan . . I saw a tv programme about this on BBC2 about a year ago . . . . . . . . whilst they had a strong male bonding and the young males cared for the older warriors . . it was argued that this reflected the status of the males as against the vastly subservient and inferior women. There was no definate homosexual acts taking place. A bit like a modern male-only golf club where women are frowned upon and perhaps seen as second class . . . . . it does not follow that homosexuality is rife in such places . . .

Most women are one bottle of wine away from being lesbian!

I can't claim to know an awful lot about classical civilizations, but I put it to you that this apparently rapant homosexuality was due to social issues, and most importantly was not exclusive.

On genetic homosexuality. I am friends with a pair of identical twins .i.e. they have the same genetic code. One is a homosexual, the other is not. This sisuation is not unique. there are plenty of homo/hetro pairings of twins. This in itself should be evidence enough that homosexuality is not a genetically defined trait.
Your claim of having an "attracted to male" or "attracted to female", gene which "sometimes gets mixed up" is a mutation. No mutation could ever happen at a rate even close to 10% (?anyone have stats? What percentage of people are gay?)

Edit: I should also add that homosexual sex observed in primates was also non-exclusive. They were simply play-acting, in the same way that they "fight".

Also, what evidence is there for the spartan homosexuality? I'm not saying it didn't happen, I'm just wondering how we know? From what I understand of it, it is from drawings on pottery and from classical literature. Is this correct?

we all begin life as female. There is no question of this. Our bodies ( as men) then diverge. women continue on.

i dont think that there is a black or white situation here. Some gay men are born that way, some learn. I feel that societal conditioning plays a larger part in this than genetics.

Someone else on this board noted that a lot of gay people were "artistic" and "wealthy". I have also read that the smarter you are, the more you disregard societal conditioning, especially in sexual mores. Could it simply be that gay people ARE smarter on average than straight people??

that would put the wind up a lot of red necks eh? :D

Hmmm... what duckznutz has just posted seems to backs up my proposal that homosexuality was social, and was also non-exclusive. Except that he goes so far as to suggest that physical homosexual acts didn't even occur, that it was simply male-bonding.
Again, I can't claim to know one way or the other, which is why I would be interesteding in the evidence for and against.

I also wish to clarify a point I made earlier about my repulsion towards homosexual sex. I must emphasise that I am repulsed by homosexual sex involving me. I am not repulsed by the act of homosexual sex. If a male homosexual sex scene were to come on during a movie that I was watching, while I would not be sexually aroused, I would not be "grossed out".
I know that the same is not true for many people. For many people, the mere thought of male homosexual sex is disgusting. THIS I believe is where the social distortion comes into play. That the people who are disgusted by homosexual sex are the ones who are victims of cultural conditioning. I do however believe that an adversion to finding yourself in a homosexual situation is completely natural for a hetrosexual, in the same way that a predilection to finding yourself in a hetrosexual situation is natural.

I really doubt the accurracy of that. It could by all means be possible, but I doubt it. I don't think any child would be fooled! Why don't we have large breasts in order to add to the illusion?

You haven't noticed that babies and small children constantly suck on little bits of plastic + rubber 'pacifiers' or 'dummy teats'?

homosexuality cannot possibly be in any way inherited or hard-wired. Evolution is a slow and sometimes random process at the best of times . . . . . . . . what chance is there of a variant surviving where its modus operandi os NOT to reproduce? Makes no sense to me.

My money is on it being a 'lifestyle choice' of the wealthy, the educated, the 'enlightened', and those free from social pressures to conform to the norm.

The genetic or hard-wired argument perpetuates to mask the guilt of those who want to live the gay life but still feel it is morally wrong . . they put their hands up and say "I cant help it . . its genetic you know!". And the homophobes who cant accept that people would deliberately choose that way of life may also take comfort in the genetic hard-wired theory.

Everyone should live their lives as they please . . with pride . . . and without hurting others . . . . . . . . . no need to look for 'excuses' for the way we all choose to behave. Take responsibility for your own thoughts and actions and control your own destiny.

Re: A Thought on homosexuality...
 

It did not explode in the last century. It just came further into the western social horizon during the Victorian period and its twisted sense of puritanism and prudish morality.

Factually incorrect. Condemnation of Homosexuality in Roman Empire came about with serious force towards the end of the Empire and at the time of schism. It is important to note that the days of the Republic and the Empire of Ancient Greece were the real hey-days of Homosexuality.

Incidentally I would like to add that there may be a genetic factor, but to call it a defect is gross prejudice.

whether it started with monkeys or not, it doesn't change the fact that its just as easy to get aids through heterosexual sex as homosexual sex.

or, should i say, hetero relations.

personally i don't blame women that are homosexual. if i were a woman i would be too. the female body was put together sooo much better. it's like when God made woman he gave man this little extra piece of flesh and said heres the adaptor to use with this new creation of mine.

Interesting. I, for one, don't see the advantage in particular.
That's not to say I think them inferior in any way.