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Roderick

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I'd rather let someone with a better grasp of history do it, but in very broad strokes: if the Aztecs hadn't been taken over by Catholics, or ancient Greece by Rome and subsequently the Roman religion substituted by Christianity, and Muslims hadn't done their thing, etc, then the majority of the world would not be ruled by conventions of decency dictated by these three major religions. Perhaps we'd still have human sacrifices in Tenochtitlán, Southern Europe would be rampant with buggery, and homosexuality would not be illegal in Muslim areas.

Colonialist people have been imposing their beliefs and conventions on their conquered peoples for thousands of years, and after a while that tends to homogenize things to an extent.

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Are you suggesting that some cultural traits could be traced by to "Adam and Eve" (so to speak)?

Also, how is what you're saying not the same as suggesting that gay people are made gay by their culture?

Well, so to speak, I am actually suggesting that. The most primitive form of human culture that we know of is stone tools and that predates our species. Later, when Homo Sapiens started to spread from Africa it's likely they already had what we recognize as culture, at least the technology (tools) they needed to survive and spread and language (symbolic tools) to direct others and themselves. This means that there is some cultural common ground, though I'm not suggesting that it would be possible to separate those elements from modern cultures.

But the main point is that you cannot reduce human behaviour to its biological and cultural components. From the very beginning, we live in culture and it changes us. We literally couldn't think in a directed manner without first being directed through language and later learning to direct ourselves (this is getting pretty deep into sociocultural theory). We couldn't think about what we are like in relation to others without language and thus culture. The interplay between our biological and cultural qualities is chaotic. Both play into everything we do and are.

Sexuality is a cultural construct. If we attribute terms of human sexuality to animals (hetero-, homosexual etc.) that's a human distinction and smacks of undue anthropomorphism. Animals cannot control or think about who or what they copulate with, they just do it whenever they get the impulse. Penguins apparently regularly copulate with corpses of other penguins because the position of the corpse sometimes triggers the impulse. That doesn't make them necrophiliacs. But we make names for our sexuality and tell ourselves what it's okay for us to do or not. Again, I don't mean that we have free reign to choose our sexuality, I mean that our sexuality emerges in an environment where we cannot tell the difference between biological and cultural influences. So, yes, gay people are gay because of cultural influence and because of biological influence as well, but that applies for all categories for sexuality we have invented. There is no clear causality we can point to (gay gene) or a choice in the matter.

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Not to derail anyone or anything, and I hope this isn't misinterpreted as me trying to stir shit up; it's just too good not to post:

2012-07-02.gif

Sinfest has been doing a lot of feminism related strips lately, with some nice "patriarchy-as-the-matrix" and resistance fighter metaphors.

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@DanJW

Damn it was just about to post that one myself! (particularly love the little "nice guy" touch)

It's been a really interesting run of comics to follow as he seems to be genuinely trying to get to grips with what is a incredibly slippery subject ,while also being aware that he by definition may never quite get it. It's been very hit & miss but when its scroed a hit with strips like that one, or this one, it's been great comedy (in other words it made me think & laugh).

I think the form he's working in (daily comic strips) has worked to the benefit of Ishida as he tried to approach this, it lets him iterate quickly just throwing ideas out and see what works. To have the freedom to be able to mentally work through a issue in your work is a wonderful luxury to have, but I get the impression (perhaps wrongly) its not the sort of thing that traditional video game production typically allows its creators to engage in.

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Sexuality is a cultural construct. If we attribute terms of human sexuality to animals (hetero-, homosexual etc.) that's a human distinction and smacks of undue anthropomorphism. Animals cannot control or think about who or what they copulate with, they just do it whenever they get the impulse. Penguins apparently regularly copulate with corpses of other penguins because the position of the corpse sometimes triggers the impulse. That doesn't make them necrophiliacs. But we make names for our sexuality and tell ourselves what it's okay for us to do or not. Again, I don't mean that we have free reign to choose our sexuality, I mean that our sexuality emerges in an environment where we cannot tell the difference between biological and cultural influences. So, yes, gay people are gay because of cultural influence and because of biological influence as well, but that applies for all categories for sexuality we have invented. There is no clear causality we can point to (gay gene) or a choice in the matter.

I've tried to only post things here that come from recognized science (or rather, my layman understanding from articles I've read). Any opinions I've posted I've tried to label as clearly as being just that. What you've posted here is quite fringe, and very bold. I assume it's your opinion, rather than you claiming that this is accepted science. FYI: There are such things as gay animals, there's been many studies about them. Also, regarding the human gay gene, the article I posted earlier may be of interest to you.

(Hopefully) needless to say, mainstream science does not hold with your idea that people "choose" to be gay. In fact, a lot of people find that argument very offensive, even with your caveat that biology might have played some part. Someone may choose to engage in homosexual activities, but that doesn't mean they're gay (an example of this would be reported behaviour of otherwise straight men in prison -- with no access to the opposite sex).

Science doesn't invent, it discovers. Sexuality has been discovered, not invented.

Here's the link again:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/12/why-are-there-gay-men_n_1590501.html

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(Hopefully) needless to say, mainstream science does not hold with your idea that people "choose" to be gay.

Very needless. That's not what I said.

It's late, I'll try to reply to the rest tomorrow. Although I will say that we very recently had a What Science Is discussion in another thread and I don't think it would benefit this thread if we reiterated it.

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It would be far too easily thought to assume that if being gay is dependent on cultural/nurturing aspects, that equates to 'choosing' to be gay. Something doesn't have to be genetic to be involuntary. 'Nurture' works in pervasive and invasive ways, nurture is not about choice.

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It would be far too easily thought to assume that if being gay is dependent on cultural/nurturing aspects, that equates to 'choosing' to be gay. Something doesn't have to be genetic to be involuntary. 'Nurture' works in pervasive and invasive ways, nurture is not about choice.

But surely you're treading a very fine line? What you (and brkl) seem to be implying is that someone can be "turned" gay, which also means that someone can be "turned" straight. If the influence is purely external, or even partially external, then society could control how many gay people there are.

That leads straight into the argument that gays can be "de-programmed". It also leads into the argument that children need to be shielded from gay influences, lest they turn gay, too.

Like I say, this seems like a pretty controversial postion to take.

Here's a good explanation of "nurture": http://www.simplypsy...rg/bandura.html

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Huh, first you say sociocultural theory is "fringe" (though I don't claim every bit of how I applied it in this thread would be uncontroversial), then you refer to Bandura's way outdated theories from the same field. SLT is way too simple to describe human activity in a meaningful way -- which is why it leads to the argument you mentioned. Bandura's theory was useful in showing that human behaviour can be changed in other ways than the behaviourist conditioning, but doesn't go very much further than "people also learn my mimicry". "Gay influences" are not what make people gay. There's an interplay between human biology and contact with the surrounding culture (life history) that leads to the development of human personality in an unpredictable fashion. Human personality is emergent, hah. That's actually a word that comes up often in these theories and it's used very similarly to how we use it when discussing video games.

Nurture implies predictability and direction, so I wouldn't really use it here.

As for de-programming, I think it's possible after a fashion. Basically you can cause severe emotional trauma to a person in order to deaden his original instincts. There's no point to it and it would just wreck the subject's (more like object's...) emotional well-being. I don't think it's a controversial claim that it's possible to manipulate people through indoctrination and other manipulative techniques.

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Goodness how did we get here.

Another thing to add to this discussion: sexuality isn't binary, it is fluid. COMPLETELY straight and COMPLETELY gay are not the only two options, in animals as well as humans. A bisexual man who leans towards straight in a homophobic society or "encouragingly straight" society will most probably exclusively date women.

There is also such a thing as bisexual but hetero-romantic, when one is sexually attracted to both sexes but can only have actual romantic relationships with the opposite sex.

Sexuality has been discovered but it hasn't been explored very much. The G-spot got actually physically discovered REALLY recently, for example, back in April. Hysteria was still a 'condition' until about 1920. Alfred Kinsey did a whole bunch of research in 1947 but it was so loose with its science rules that the data was deemed much too compromised and it is now referenced mostly in unscholarly ways.

My point is that extreme fringe behaviors may not actually be that 'fringe', even if they are extreme by the standards we are taught by our gay/straight cis mainstream society. Yes homosexuals are a very small percentage of the population (what the exact percentage is would be nearly impossible to find out, particularly in Muslim countries), but you cannot discount them as deviations from what evolution has made us; they are not going to ever be natural-selected out. Same with women who love sex / are promiscuous; maybe you just don't know they're there, because very few go around announcing it, but I reeeaally think they're way more numerous than homosexuals.

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A bi person can easily choose to ignore half of their impulses. The sensation can concievably be that of chosing to be gay. Maybe the notion of western macho straightness as cartoonily manifested in bar-fighting douchbag bros could be a culturally-mandated supression of some relatively vague homosexual baseline. We could all be open to it under correct cultural circumstances, only the culture around us falls into crazy absolutes and histrionics on either side of the spectrum.

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Just throwing in my two crappy cents before running to the airport: there are also known cases of people who 'turn gay' in their older years. Isn't there some theory that there are three stages of sexuality in someones life or something? Anyway yeah, I read a couple of cases of women who had families and husbands and never had a homosexual urge in their life... until they turned 40-ish and then they became completely gay. I think the point of the article was that sexuality is an area which needs more research and discovery because these women knew their own sexualities but most people brushed off their stories as 'oh you must always have been gay but just not realised it.' Because our current thinking is, you're either born gay or straight or a mixture of both.

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There is also such a thing as bisexual but hetero-romantic, when one is sexually attracted to both sexes but can only have actual romantic relationships with the opposite sex.

That's intriguing if true. I haven't heard that claim made before, can you provide/direct me to more information?

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Aye, I believe Kinsey first made the assertion that sexuality can change as you grow. Just because you're straight now, doesn't mean you will be in 10 year's time!

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A bi person can easily choose to ignore half of their impulses. The sensation can concievably be that of chosing to be gay.

That's not quite the same as a straight person choosing to be gay, though.

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That's not quite the same as a straight person choosing to be gay, though.

Who's to say what straight means in this context?

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That's intriguing if true. I haven't heard that claim made before, can you provide/direct me to more information?

Sure! It is generally used in the context of asexuality, since asexuals have no sexual preference (or rather prefer not to have sex at all) but sometimes fall in love with only one gender, or both. http://en.wikipedia....nal_orientation

This is... somewhat related, if horrible in its improper use of "their": http://www.tandfonli...0/J082v11n01_10

There isn't much in the way of scholarly articles about it outside of asexuality, but basically "bisexual heteroromantic" describes a person who finds both men and women sexually attractive, to varying degrees, but only really falls in love with the opposite gender. You also have bisexual homoromantics, and bisexual biromantics. These terms are not necessarily interchangeable with "bi-curious," which implies a satiable amount of curiosity as opposed to an ongoing thing, but the first can mean the same thing as "heteroflexible."

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Alfred Kinsey did a whole bunch of research in 1947 but it was so loose with its science rules that the data was deemed much too compromised and it is now referenced mostly in unscholarly ways.

That's hilarious, because the only reason I know of Kinsey is because my older brother, who converted to Islam, has talked about him and his research whenever he talks about how bad homosexuality is and that masturbation is bad for your health.

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But surely you're treading a very fine line? What you (and brkl) seem to be implying is that someone can be "turned" gay, which also means that someone can be "turned" straight. If the influence is purely external, or even partially external, then society could control how many gay people there are.

That leads straight into the argument that gays can be "de-programmed". It also leads into the argument that children need to be shielded from gay influences, lest they turn gay, too.

Like I say, this seems like a pretty controversial postion to take.

While I understand uneasiness around this incredibly touchy subject, I'm not sure I find your response much less unsettling. Specifically, the implication that homosexuality is only acceptable in as much as it's biologically inevitable doesn't sit well with me; furthermore, the idea of protecting children from homosexuality very heavily implies that it's an undesirable path. As far as I'm concerned, the origin point of homosexuality has no bearing on its legitimacy. I'm not accusing you of thinking otherwise; just cautioning that your line of argument could lead to what I consider some quite dodgy places.

All this said, I should clarify that I don't claim to know where sexual leaning is determined. Perhaps homosexuality can be "de-programmed", perhaps it can't. Even if it is possible, there's no reason to actually do it.

Besides, I thought the reason the question of nature versus nurture came up was not to determine why gay people are gay, but to determine why some gay men act in a particular way (with regard to promiscuity and the anecdotal blow job line and all that). Even if homosexuality itself is entirely biologically determined, the behaviour of gay men is still subject to cultural conditioning, which may tell them they're expected to be promiscuous.

Anyway, sorry for continuing the tangent.

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That's intriguing if true. I haven't heard that claim made before, can you provide/direct me to more information?

I know a lady who is exactly this. She is sexually attracted to both sexes, but only deeply falls in love with/wants to have long-term relationships with men. She's been this way her whole life and is in her 30s now, and seems to know her own mind pretty well. Sexuality is fascinating.

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Oh, well, in his opinion homosexuality is a type of neurotic disorder. According to him, all the numbers on homosexuality are based on his research and Kinsey was a homosexual himself and chose his test subjects from prisoners, therefor his research was not objective at all. *shrug*

Family, whatcha gonna do, hu?

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