[vyper]

[q] And when people start sprouting utter bull**** about their way of life it pisses me off quite a bit.[/q]

I'm questioning why they've survived the evolutionary process not whether they have a moral right to be what they are you know.

[Flipside]

Or, at the very least, a kind of self-defined spiritualism

I have some very good friends who are gay, one of them has been married, and divorced once before. they are two of the nicest people I know to be honest, and excellent musicians to boot They are also some of the most interesting people to talk to because they are far more tolerant of the fact that homophobics exist than Homophobics are of them.

The older of the two knew he was gay from about the age of 12, just as he entered puberty, when all of us find out about our sexuality. Alas, this was about 50 years ago and the only view society gave him of gay men was 'dirty old men in trench coats'. Oddly enough, that vision hasn't changed for many in the last 50 years. It wasn't till the Hippy Era in the 1960-70's that he got any measure of acceptance.

It was Society that drove gays into grimy clubs in alleys in the West End, it was Society that chased gays calling them perverts, setting light to buildings, whilst they were still in them, simply for a collection of assumptions and rumor, still the main information technique as far as gays are concerned.

Yet, despite this treatment, and worse, Gary is still a very patient, non-judgemental man. Despite all this, even today he can't hold hands with his partner when he is out because of 'repercussions'.

Personally, I think these people have earned the right to be themselves after so many years.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by vyper
[q]If a homosexual person wants to have children, there is no genetic barrier to it.[/q]

No genetic barrier no, but a practical one. Without medical intervention to create a child it's impossible since they have no motivation to copulate with a member of the opposite sex.

Simple - the drive to reproduce.  Look at, for example, gay couples who adopt or who have children via a donor (sperm for lesbians, in particular).  In the past there wasn;t the technology for the latter, and possibly not a system to allow the former, so it'd be achieved via a 'double life' or bisexuality.  i.e. sex for pleasure, and sex for procreation taking place under different instincts / urges.

Certainly, it's not unheard of for married men or women who already have had children via their heterosexual relationships,  to come out of the closet.

And there's an argument that social conditions contribute to this, by making homosexuals ashamed / discriminated against and thus forcing them to act out in a heterosexual relationship.

[Tiara]

Originally posted by Flipside

Personally, I think these people have earned the right to be themselves after so many years.

Also, as a sidenote, gay people have existed for thousands of years. Dating back to as far as the Roman Empire (or even before) where older men took pleasure in younger boys and only used women to have children. Hell, many parents would be glad to see their kid be taken by a rich guy full knowing what would happen in those times.

And Christian priests have been abusing boys for longer then you know all in 'the name of God'.

In other words; homosexuality has survived for millenia and can be considered somewhat a constant amongst Humanity. Only because we were blinded by prejudice for so long, it is only know that it has become public knowledge.

[vyper]

on a side note, i am in no way affiliated with the religious nut cases who would oppose homosexuality, I'm just a cold-hearted bastard who is examining this from a "benefit to our gene pool" point of view.

[Ford Prefect]

That's entirely understandable.

I think that when it comes to humans, the effects of natural selection are being dulled to a great extent because civilization (under normal operating conditions) permits all its individuals to survive. If homosexuality is in fact linked to heredity, it would seem to suggest that it's probably not as common among wild animals. (Homosexuals constitute an estimated 11% of the human population.)

With that said, I think it's possible that human sexuality is partially shaped by the way society interprets it. A person certainly doesn't choose to be gay, but I would hesitate to conclude that it's purely genetic.

[Flipside]

Or, it could be that the creative drive of our own homosexual element, a combination of masculine and feminine in a single person, is what pushed us out of the trees in the first place.

Maybe it is the higher proportion of Homosexuals that have distinguished mankind from other creatures?

[vyper]

No because without traditional intercourse and family units, man kind could not have built the civilization it has.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by vyper
No because without traditional intercourse and family units, man kind could not have built the civilization it has.

Well... throughout our history we have moved further and further from family units - delegating education, health and to an extent moral control to a government system (educational, hospital and polcie services).  In a modern society, the concept of having an entire group band together to care for young ala in 'native' tribes is almost entirely alien - and this has been a process that has taken place over many, many years.

and traditional intercouse is essentially simply a physical act.  It doesn't require heterosexuality per se, just the physical ability to perform.

I wouldn;t say homosexuality has been responsible for human development... I don;t think you could pigeonhole any individual genetic or behavioural factor to that, especially when we know so little about how we started and why.

But I would think that it has not been directly detrimental in such a way as to require its removal from the gene pool.

[Ford Prefect]

Or, it could be that the creative drive of our own homosexual element, a combination of masculine and feminine in a single person, is what pushed us out of the trees in the first place.

Well I can be pretty girly but I'm as straght as they come.

[vyper]

Taken from Lethal Weapon (sortof)

I'm a modern man, I cried in bed last night!

Who were you with?

I was alone, that's why I was crying!

[Flipside]

Well, look at it this way....

Straight couples achieve a kind of immortality through their children, gay couples do not. Maybe in primative man, the need to immortalise themselves when they could not transferred into cave painting. Possibly later on, this same need to preserve part of themselves went on to produce writing etc?

It's no sheer coincedence that homoesexuality is largely involved with the art and literature world.

Possibly it's because 10% of us had a need to immortalise ourselves through other means that the other 90% of us profited?

[Bobboau]

umm... unlikely...

[Flipside]

LOL To be honest, I just made it up as I typed it, but it's no less' valid' than any other theory when you get right down to it, just not as easily acceptable to our egos

[Bobboau]

well you've gone from saying gays are ok, to the sudgestion that the decision on wich orafus to use for sexual gratification somehow makes you a superior human.
to wich I say; unlikely

[Flipside]

And that's the problem Bobb, people seem to think being 'gay' is just about the sexual orifice, which isn't exactly true, theres a whole lot more to it than that, 'has sex with another of the same gender' is the dictionary term for gays, certainly, but theres a lot more to being gay than that.

As for the theory, it seems to me that if we are to entertain the theory that gays are some kind of genetic screwup in the human race, we may as well look at things from the other concievable side as well

Edit : After all, women can use that orifice too

[Bobboau]

no, being gay is nothing further than sexual preference, anything else is just someone trying to get attention. granted that socal preasures may cause a gay person to be signifigantly diferent than they otherwise would be, the only thing that being gay means is that you prefer someone of the same gender.

and the other point was how did they manage to survive when the behavior is inherantly counter productave were reproduction is concerned. the only thing I can think of is that socal preasures forced many to act in a manner not in line to thereinstincts, that's the only way a gay geniology could thrive as it does.

[Flipside]

Only if homosexuality is genetically transferred from one generation to another. Evidence suggests that homosexuality appears more or less randomly, there have been links found to certain DNA sequences etc, but I'm certainly not aware of any evidence to suggest that homosexuality is hereditary, like heart disease.

And as for being gay, there I have to disagree, we are not talking about a normal 'male' phsyche here, gays, particuarly one half of a gay relationship tend towards far more feminine thinking. Indeed, possibly the only 'feminine' point of view in some societies, even if at that stage of history, they may have had to hide the fact, though not so in Greek and Roman history.

Gays tend to be more artistic, more devious (sorry Tiara, but you know it's true) They can also be more vicious and self-motivated. Gays don't just act differently to straight people, they think slightly differently too.

[Bobboau]

can you prove any of that?
can you prove that you arn't just accepting some stereotype?
I'm a fairly artistic, manipulative person and I oftine find I think a whole lot more like women than other men, but when I see a guy I don't feel aroused, I feel threatened more than anyhting from a sexual point of view, I see them as competition.

[Flipside]

Exactly Bobb, when you see men, you do feel threatened, and when men see women, they feel the need to impress, it's perfectly normal behaviour, for straight people. For Gays, it's a different way entirely. I've spoken in-depth to gays about their lives, I'm not saying this out of any real belief that gays are superior to us in any way, as I say, but I do most certainly believe the world is viewed in a slightly different manner by gays, and I also believe that this different point of view has certainly helped us become who we are today.