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Post by Scylla on Jun 5, 2013 15:38:26 GMT -5
Don't most gay people these days hold the idea that it's from birth, though? If people can turn gay, then it suggests that there's some level of choice and that you could just as well turn straight later on.
Although, yeah, I don't at all believe that people can't be conditioned to things. I mean, what do we make of all the people who experiment for a while and then decide they're straight after all? And then some things seem like WAY too big of a coincidence. I mean, is it really pure coincidence that Anne Rice's son is gay? And I've come across straight people who are strangely obsessed with homosexuality, in the same way that weeaboos are obsessed with Japan, and then their kids (born after the obsession began) just so happen to end up being gay? I'm just too much of a skeptic to not think something fishy is going on in some rare cases. If you're born and raised in an environment where homosexuality is glorified to extremes and presented as being more normal than being straight, I wouldn't be surprised if you think "Well, okay, this is how I'm supposed to be". But then you get into the matter of are these people REALLY gay or not?
But some people would probably think I'm an asshole for not readily accepting each and every case.
Then there's bisexuality making matters more confusing. As misguided as it may be, I think a lot of people tend to consider a bisexual person straight if they happen to be in a heterosexual relationship or gay if they happen to be in a homosexual relationship. Like my fiance is good friends with a guy who feels like he's 99% gay but he just so happened to fall in love with a woman and marry her. Most of the outside world probably just sees him as a straight dude.
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Post by Ike on Jun 5, 2013 15:43:50 GMT -5
The problem here is that you guys are assuming that children start with a concept of sexuality or gender identity from birth. Nobody has those when they're born, the same way you have no concept of being a human being at all. There's no such thing as a 'gay' child any more than there is a 'straight' child. Those things develop on a wide spectrum over time and involve an interplay of genetic predisposition and environmental factors so complex that it really renders the idea of people "turning" gay meaningless, because what the hell did they turn from? Humanity's default is gradually working up an identity from something effectively null but that is influenced by brain structures and genetics. It's kind of like building a city on the native geography of a place - some hills will be demolished over time, others will be built up, some things have to be built around the geography like mountains and rivers.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 5, 2013 15:44:33 GMT -5
Yeah, exactly. It's sad, but I think a lot of the confusion just comes from the gay community's attempt to legitimatize their lifestyle in the eyes of bigots. That isn't to say that they're wrong for doing so. They've only come this far because of all that's happened up to this point. It just leads to a lot of confusion. Both with outsiders and people who are questioning their own sexuality.
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Post by Scylla on Jun 5, 2013 16:20:29 GMT -5
That's why I think it would be beneficial to look into the genetics of it more because then we can prove if it really is set in stone or not. You may have no clue what sexuality is as a baby but that doesn't mean your sexuality hasn't already been set, just waiting for a later point in time to surface as your body and mind develop. I mean, to pull a random, dumb example out of my ass, genetics can play a huge role in the size of a woman's bust, but she won't have any idea how things will turn out until she hits puberty. Right now, genetics research on humans is focusing on more worthwhile stuff, like seeing if we have genes that make us predisposed to certain illnesses, like all the stuff about Angelina Jolie in the news lately, but, who knows, maybe in the future parents will be able to find out if their child is likely to be gay as soon or he or she is born (granted, this information would be dangerous in the hands of people who have a problem with homosexuality, so it may be best left unknown).
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Post by dooz on Jun 5, 2013 16:55:29 GMT -5
All I know is that I never chose to be straight. Why would it be different for anyone else?
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Post by susanismyalias on Jun 5, 2013 17:09:05 GMT -5
It doesn't really matter how or why.
You are what you is
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Post by Ike on Jun 6, 2013 13:04:53 GMT -5
That's why I think it would be beneficial to look into the genetics of it more because then we can prove if it really is set in stone or not. You can't do that, though. There is no such thing as "set in stone" even with regard to most things that are genetic. Simply possessing a gene for something is no indicator that it will manifest in its possessor. Most things based in genetics are manifest in gradations depending on the number of copies of a gene that you possess, not just that you have it. Your sexuality is never 'set.' Human sexuality, like most human behavior, is contextual, fluid and varied along a spectrum. Technically speaking, there is no such thing as 'gay' or 'straight' except for the labels society puts on outward perception, same way how being 'white' and 'black' aren't actually things but are just based on surface appearances to break up the world into manageable chunks. There's simply preference, and that preference can form a very, very wide berth, and has a whole myriad of other trappings attached to it, paraphilia and the like. It's just like how you can't tell from looking at a child's genes whether he will enjoy the taste of mushrooms or not. He's still equipped with all of the same functions as any other person, mental and physical, but his environment influences that as he grows and his dietary tastes, just like his sexuality, are fluid and will shift over time. As for the bust size, genetics plays a role in it, but not nearly as large a one as you think. Her diet while growing up plays the biggest part, as well as other x-factors such as disease, both infectious and genetic like PCOS, the amount of exercise she gets, and the availability of what she can eat and on what time frame. Genetics may simply set a minimum and a maximum size for her, but there's a WHOLE lot of wiggle room in there - just like sexual preference. This is not a concern. It is not possible to tell if a child is going to grow up to be gay just by looking at his genes. It could, at the very most, tell you the potential risk. ("risk" being used here for "chance")
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Post by Allie on Jun 6, 2013 14:08:42 GMT -5
And even if somehow it COULD be locked genetically (which it isn't, wasn't, and won't be), what exactly would come of it? There's no switch you can flip that will suddenly cause everybody in the world (or even just everybody in the US, or even a single neighborhood, for that matter) to suddenly embrace "The LGBT(rest of the alphabet that they add these days too) Community" as an identity whole.
It's uncomfortable to examine the environmental (personal environment, not ecological) impact of what shapes and develops a person's sexuality (or desire to be classified as the opposite of their birth sex), because there are always going to be people who will take offense to that.
I still think that in the end it may be irrelevant and fruitless to try to pinpoint _why_ someone is of an 'alternate' (for lack of a better term) sexuality, though (at least on the individual level).
Maybe I'm having a hard time getting in sync with others here because it's difficult for me to look at this on the macro level as opposed to the micro level. Each individual person I know that would consider themselves LGBT to any extent, I honestly don't care why they are. That doesn't matter to me. I get along with the ones whose personalities I have some level of compatibility with, and I don't get along with the ones who've been total assholes to me.
Just like everybody else, really.
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Post by Colonel Kurtz on Jun 6, 2013 14:14:32 GMT -5
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Post by Deleted on Jun 6, 2013 15:31:50 GMT -5
Doesn't anybody remember Metal Gear Solid?
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Post by Ike on Jun 6, 2013 15:33:35 GMT -5
I remember Snake's butt
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Post by Scylla on Jun 6, 2013 18:46:55 GMT -5
My posts were simply jumping off from the starting point of the commonly held view among gay people and people who support gay people that it's something that people are born as and can't change, which silences all the people who have problems with homosexuality and believe that it's some sort of sinful choice that they could just as well choose not to do if they resisted temptation and put in the effort to be straight.
I'm not saying genes absolutely guarantee anything regarding this kind of stuff, but if people are really born gay, I think there would be a way to prove that. And if it's proven, I think it would help in terms of acceptance, since people will have to accept the fact that gay people really are as they are and they can't change that. Even if a gene could be found that only indicates that a child is more likely to grow up gay than the average person, but not guaranteed, it's still something.
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Post by Snarboo on Jun 6, 2013 20:42:27 GMT -5
There are other factors that might be at play than genetics, however. I believe hormones play a bigger part in terms of sexual identity and attraction than genetics do.
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Post by X-pert74 on Jun 7, 2013 2:02:17 GMT -5
Some trans people do report their sexuality changing after taking hormones for awhile. There are also trans people whose sexuality doesn't change whatsoever upon taking them though; it varies.
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Post by Jave on Jun 7, 2013 12:14:44 GMT -5
I think there's much more truth the idea of sexuality being both fluid, and variable on a series of smooth gradients rather than a series of boxes that one pledges allegiance to, but I have to admit, the idea of sexuality being set in stone from birth is very attractive, just because I wouldn't want to give so much as an inch to the scumbags of the world who would try to force everyone to conform to heterosexuality.
Anyway, I doubt any of you know or suspected this about me, but I self-identify as asexual.
It's complicated. Even at 30 I don't have it quite figured out, let's just say that I enjoy things that feel good, I'd probably prefer to do them with women than men, but in a broad sense, I don't really feel any, or at least very little, sexual attraction towards other people.
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