Are homosexuals born with this disorder or acquired?

Discussion in 'Biology & Genetics' started by Mind Over Matter, Aug 7, 2011.

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  1. Mutawintji Registered Member

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    Evolution follows the rule of the most fit for the current environment at the resource level being accessed.


    If compassion and nurture are beneficial then they become fit for that species and will be selected for. The coalition of the weak.

    If killing is beneficial for that species then it becomes selected for. The rule of the strong.

    'Natural' is dynamic, changing. To judge behaviour the time frame of sampling must cover, at the minimum the lifetime of a species not an individual.

    Your question was ... is biology or programming responsible for homosexual or bi-sexual behaviour. As this behaviour is inherent in mammals ... then the answer must be biology .... its a behaviour of a species or a taxon.

    Mutawintji
     
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  3. wellwisher Banned Banned

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    In the animal world, is homosexual behavior mutual affection or more like rape? For example, using gay for dominance may not be be the same for the bottom dog who has no choice; pain or death.

    In some prisons, gay behavior is way higher than averages. One explanation is firmware anomaliy similarities between gays and criminals. That is to too simple. The other is gay rape causes the numbers to get higher than normal. Maybe homophobic behavior evolved in humans to fend off lingering gay ape rape. It is just a theory. The bottom animal is not always choosing this.

    If a dog humps your leg that does not mean you are into bestiality. That only means you are sort of a victim. But science would count you.

    In the bible, the bad name given to gay behavior (but not lesbian), was connected to bands of preditor males who would gang bang anything. (Sodom). They preferred males, but would do females in a bind. The homophobe of that day as anyone not in the gang, since they all had something real to fear. The modern gay is more gentle and not like that. There is no rational fear, but there still appears to be a defensive instinct in some. It is a theory for natural homophobes.

    If we came from apes, and apes do the homosexual thing, since the percent of homosexaliy in humans is smaller, there needed to be an evolutionary mechanism to lower the percent; homophobes.
     
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  5. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    There is no such thing in the animal world. Sex without consent in the human realm is rape. There is no consent in the animal world, hence no rape.

    Or it evolved because hatred is an unfortunate but inevitable result of fear - and fear does have its uses (like keeping people away from the grizzly bear's cave.) Even hate has its uses; in a world of limited resources, killing those who are not like yourself is a good way to increase your share of the resources while preserving those genetically similar to yourself.

    Nowadays, of course, such behavior will land you in prison for life (at best) so we are gradually losing that level of hate.

    Uh, no, it wouldn't.

    Are you claiming that two homosexual men would ordinarily reproduce if there were no homophobes? If so, I think there are some very basic biological facts you are missing.
     
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  7. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    There is no homosexuality in the animal world. It only exists in humans.
     
  8. Mutawintji Registered Member

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    .
    Aggressive and submissive behavior is still all part of the Natural Selection process ?

    If you are seeking some form of 'just' behaviour ... then you will not find it in Evolution. Evolution has no prevision ... no programmed purpose, just continuity.

    .
    Your questioning from an anthropic standpoint ... as well, your using quasi-historical sources as evidence and placing an interpretation upon them from your current worldview .... this is not relevant from a species viewpoint

    .
    I don't know how you arrive at these percentages for different species within the primate branch. But if it is so, because it is so, then this is just natural selection in action.

    Mutawintji
     
    Last edited: Aug 8, 2011
  9. Mutawintji Registered Member

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    .
    Do you mean that it does not occur ... or that it occurs but only humans label it 'homosexuality ?

    Mutawintji
     
  10. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    That's how Winston Churchill, and most other Englishmen of his class, was raised. http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/churchill/images/wc0015s.jpg

    It didn't work. They somehow grew up to lust after women, except for the gay ones, who lusted after men.

    Or you could try the American standard blue collar boy upbringing, with sports equipment and toughness exhortations during childhood, maybe a gun and a car upon maturity. That's how most gay men in the US were raised. A lot of them went into the military.

    And it won't work when you do it either. It's a silly idea, based essentially on misogyny - and homophobia.
     
  11. chimpkin C'mon, get happy! Registered Senior Member

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    Lori, you apparently completely ignored the article I linked in post # 53...research dating back to 1991 found that there seems to be strong evidence for genetic influence on gayness...the study said anywhere from 30% to 70%...here it is again:

    http://www.nytimes.com/1991/12/17/science/gay-men-in-twin-study.html

    Later studies seem to not come up with as clear a genetic condordance.
    I am linking the wikipedia entry:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biology_and_sexual_orientation

    (And these quotes are from said entry)

    So there is genetic and environmental factors, but there is clear evidence that the attraction is hardwired.

    The only reason it's "dysfunctional" is because society disapproves of homosexuality. If society did not stigmatize it, then it would not be an issue.

    So basically the reason gay people commit suicide more often, have more problems and are generally less happy?

    It's because of people like Mind Over Matter, telling us we are sick and disordered, attaching a stigma to what is innate behavior to us.

    So who has the problem, eh?

    Edited to add: Spidergoat, et al : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexual_behavior_in_animals

     
  12. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    There are same sex pairings in animals that bond in this way, but it's only when heterosexual coupling is restricted or unavailable. There is also same-sex sex without pair bonding (chimps, bonobos, dogs). No animals form long term same sex pair bonding when other options are available.
     
  13. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    From the kind folks over at Wikipedia:

    =======================
    Homosexual behavior in animals refers to the documented evidence of homosexual and bisexual behavior non-human species. Such behaviors include sex, courtship, affection, pair bonding, and parenting among same sex animals. A 1999 review by researcher Bruce Bagemihl shows that homosexual behavior has been observed in close to 1,500 species, ranging from primates to gut worms, and is well documented for 500 of them. Animal sexual behavior takes many different forms, even within the same species. The motivations for and implications of these behaviors have yet to be fully understood, since most species have yet to be fully studied. According to Bagemihl, "the animal kingdom [does] it with much greater sexual diversity — including homosexual, bisexual and nonreproductive sex — than the scientific community and society at large have previously been willing to accept." Current research indicates that various forms of same-sex sexual behavior are found throughout the animal kingdom. A new review made in 2009 of existing research showed that same-sex behavior is a nearly universal phenomenon in the animal kingdom, common across species.
    =================================================
     
  14. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    See my post above, none of this mirrors the human behavior of falling in love with a same sex partner.
     
  15. chimpkin C'mon, get happy! Registered Senior Member

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    http://www.livescience.com/11125-birds-gay.html
     
  16. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    I've been lambasted for banning trolls on other people's boards so I'm not going to do it again. But I'm really surprised that you're still here.

    Anyway, there is a third option that a mind as narrow as yours simply couldn't find room for: There is some evidence that it may be determined by conditions in utero.
    I regard it as a club for people who are interested in science and scholarship. Not for trolls who wouldn't recognize the scientific method if it fell on their head.
    James can give you a better answer, but basically we work for a group of people who have told us that they want us to change it back into the place of science and scholarship that it was when it was first launched.
    Our membership includes a number of gay people, most likely roughly equivalent to their proportion in society as a whole.

    Like all of our members, they are not to be insulted. Telling someone that a basic, important component of who he is is nothing but a "disorder," based upon some crackpot research by a guy who is apparently as ignorant as Mind Over Matter himself but doesn't share the excuse of being an uneducated child, is an insult.

    We can get away with treating religionists that way if we don't overdo it.
    It's quite similar. A crackpot hypothesis based on not just flawed science but fraudulent science, by people who are well enough educated to know better, in order to mislead those who trust them and promote an evil agenda.
    It's only since the invention of the technologies of farming and animal husbandry 12,000 years ago that the human population began to grow steadily. Agriculture created a food surplus so starvation wasn't always one bad season away, and permanent dwellings allowed women to have more children since they didn't have to carry them on hunting and gathering expeditions. It's reasonable to postulate that our instincts are those of a species desperate to maintain its numbers.
    Jung suggests that even religion is natural, the manifestation of some weird instincts passed down through a genetic bottleneck. He calls it a collection of archetypes.
    Dogs do not actually perform copulation during their dominance ritual. You must not know much about dogs or you'd know that even females hump. Their musculature doesn't have the range of motion ours has, so they're very limited in the kinds of behaviors they can perform. They can hump because it's necessary for reproduction, so they use that posture for other purposes too.
    As I said, humping has nothing to do with sex unless the humpee is a female in estrus.
    We did not "come from apes." We are apes. We're right there in the clade with the other Great Apes (gorillas, chimpanzees and orangutans), and only one fork away from the Lesser Apes (gibbons).
    Not all species. Bonobos, our closest cousins, are like us in that their females are capable of copulation when they're not in estrus, so they use intercourse as a tribal bonding ritual, and they've expanded it to twosomes, threesomes and gangbangs without regard for gender or even age. I am quite certain that gorillas, who have a much different social organization than chimps or humans, do not do this. Orangutans are not even a social species; they only pair off and copulate to procreate. I don't know much about the various species of gibbons.
    IIRC, there have been sightings of pairs of male chimpanzees who seem to have established a relationship similar to mates. But these are very rare. I don't think there's any question that there is an immensely higher percentage of homosexuality in humans than in any other species of ape. Perhaps any other species period. Dolphins also use sex for social bonding, but I've seen no reports of male-male sexual activity in those species.
    As I noted, it may exist in our closest relatives, the bonobos and the "true" chimpanzees.

    In captivity, psittacine (parrot) females have been observed bonding when there are no males around. They perform their courtship behavior (a lot of regurgitation to show what a great parent you'd be). Female birds can lay infertile eggs without copulating (that's why we have chicken eggs available for breakfast) and the two females build a nest and incubate them until it's obvious that they're not going to hatch.

    But this behavior is not "natural." It's the result of being in captivity. Sort of a "Stockholm Syndrome" for birds.

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  17. Me-Ki-Gal Banned Banned

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    Homosexuality is a natural phenomena in the human race . My evidence : unDisputable evidence:

    There are Homosexuals .

    Get over it and except it Heterosexuals .

    A guys got to wonder how stupid the world really is ?


    I was raped by a dog once . I think I was 5 . No fun at all . All the parents and aunts were laughing to beat the band . I cried my eyes out . So that is my proof that dogs do it with other males even when there not there own species.
    It was traumatic. German Shepard.
    O.K. Frag maybe the dog didn't make penetration so it don't count as a full fledged rape . I was still traumatized while all the parents stood laughed and watched my horror unfold
     
  18. Mutawintji Registered Member

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    I feel that you are painting yourself into a corner. This is a purely perceptional difference and a very limited definition of Homosexuality.

    You may as well say that no other animal falls in love. A philosophical as opposed to a scientific view.

    Mutawintji
     
  19. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    Well, if you want to use those standards, there are no animal equivalents of the human tendency to fall in love with a differently sexed partner. After all, we can't ask them if they're really in love.

    However, in every externally visible category (sex, protection, cohabitation, building nests, raising young) animal behavior does indeed mirror human homosexuality.

    From NatGeo:
    ====================
    . . .
    But, actually, some same-sex birds do do it. So do beetles, sheep, fruit bats, dolphins, and orangutans. Zoologists are discovering that homosexual and bisexual activity is not unknown within the animal kingdom.

    Roy and Silo, two male chinstrap penguins at New York's Central Park Zoo have been inseparable for six years now. They display classic pair-bonding behavior—entwining of necks, mutual preening, flipper flapping, and the rest. They also have sex, while ignoring potential female mates.

    Wild birds exhibit similar behavior. There are male ostriches that only court their own gender, and pairs of male flamingos that mate, build nests, and even raise foster chicks.

    Filmmakers recently went in search of homosexual wild animals as part of a National Geographic Ultimate Explorer documentary about the female's role in the mating game. (The film, Girl Power, will be screened in the U.S this Saturday at 8 p.m. ET, 5 p.m PT on MSNBC TV.)

    The team caught female Japanese macaques engaged in intimate acts which, if observed in humans, would be in the X-rated category.

    . . .

    The bonobo, an African ape closely related to humans, has an even bigger sexual appetite. Studies suggest 75 percent of bonobo sex is nonreproductive and that nearly all bonobos are bisexual. Frans de Waal, author of Bonobo: The Forgotten Ape, calls the species a "make love, not war" primate. He believes bonobos use sex to resolve conflicts between individuals.

    . . .

    "There was a lot of hiding of what was going on, I think, because people were maybe afraid that they would get into trouble by talking about it," notes de Waal. Whether it's a good idea or not, it's hard not make comparisons between humans and other animals, especially primates. The fact that homosexuality does, after all, exist in the natural world is bound to be used against people who insist such behavior is unnatural.
    ===============================================
     
  20. Big Chiller Registered Senior Member

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    Homosexuality is not a disorder and neither is heterosexuality. However one can have problems with sexuality just as with many other things. It depends on the social norm whether homosexuality or heterosexuality is accepted. It's said that homosexuality is genetic therefore one who is homosexual did not choose to be one but one can be genetically inclined to violence or drinking alcohol and that doesn't make those okay in our society.
     
  21. phlogistician Banned Banned

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    Au contraire. One of our family businesses, is a clothing retailer with gay men as it's demographic. We are capitalists and homosexual friendly.

    When you have more worldly experience you'll come to realise such things are not only possible, but happening all around you.
     
  22. phlogistician Banned Banned

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    Au contraire. One of our family businesses, is a clothing retailer with gay men as it's demographic. We are capitalists and homosexual friendly.

    When you have more worldly experience you'll come to realise such things are not only possible, but happening all around you.
     
  23. Joe Green Banned Banned

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    Well considering many animals in the kingdoms exhibit homosexual tendancies, you can't get much more natural than that.
     
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