"Disorder?"
Are homosexuals born with this disorder or acquired?
- Thread starter Mind Over Matter
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"Disorder?"
Mind Over Matter:
You keep referring to homosexuality as a "disorder". If you wish to keep using that term, I suggest you present some kind of argument showing how and why it is a "disorder".
You are, after all, talking about as much as maybe 12.5% of the population.
wellwisher:
This reads like the sort of pop-psychology nonsense you'd see on Oprah.
Men are from Mars; women are from Venus? Men are intellectual; women are moody and emotional? Really, that's just nonsense. And patronising.
You keep referring to homosexuality as a "disorder". If you wish to keep using that term, I suggest you present some kind of argument showing how and why it is a "disorder".
You are, after all, talking about as much as maybe 12.5% of the population.
wellwisher:
This reads like the sort of pop-psychology nonsense you'd see on Oprah.
Men are from Mars; women are from Venus? Men are intellectual; women are moody and emotional? Really, that's just nonsense. And patronising.
Fraggle Rocker
Staff member
This is nothing remarkable. It's well known that human behavior can be changed by intensive and intrusive psychological techniques. This is true for many people, perhaps even the majority of us; I've never seen a study that attempted to determine the percentage who are vulnerable to it. We call it "brainwashing." Perhaps you've encountered the term in your extensive reading during your psychology course in graduate school, which qualifies you to pontificate on such a sensitive and controversial subject in such an obnoxious and insulting way?
Look at how perfectly nice people who would never even spank their dog can be turned into paid professional killers by the mind control known euphemistically as "basic training" in the armed forces. (You're not the only one who can be obnoxious and insulting, and soldiers have caused a lot more damage to civilization than homosexuals.)
How about phenomena like Jonestown, an entire village that was brainwashed into committing suicide?
For that matter, look at Stockholm Syndrome. That isn't even done deliberately! Apparently our minds are so vulnerable to control that it can happen by accident after extended exposure. Oh wait we already knew that: how many of us have bought something that was advertised on TV and kicked ourselves for doing it the next day?
You're disingenuously overlooking the possibility that brainwashing itself may cause psychological damage. These people go around performing the acts they were programmed to perform, while bits of their own personality are walled off by artificial barriers and going slowly crazy until some day they find a way to break out and take revenge.
So the fact that this asshole, Spitzer, has found a way to make gay men want to have sex with women instead of men doesn't prove that being gay is an illness that needs to be cured. All it proves is that he is, indeed, an asshole. I hope when all the personalities he damaged with his fraudulent "therapy" break down their barriers and come out looking for somebody to get even with, that they find him. And that one of them thinks to bring a video camera!
Yeah sure. I'll put it right on the list with the Bible, Mein Kampf and The Communist Manifesto. Some things are just to evil too read. They make me throw up.
You are insulting quite a few of our members by insisting that they have a disorder. Insulting other members is an offense for which you can be banned. Please take this disgusting crap off our our website and crawl back under your rock.
But first let me congratulate you for your monumental achievement. You've managed to find an example of crackpot pseudoscience that is even more offensive than creationism.
If homosexuality is inherited, and I believe this is true for a majority of them, then it is people like you who are responsible for its persistence. The only reason this "disease" as you call it is still circulating around our gene pool is because radical purists used to persecute and kill those who practiced it. Gays do not procreate, but if you coerce those indivisuals through violence and stigma (like suggesting they are diseased), most will fall in line and never "come out of the closet". They'll get married, have children and pass their genetics along simply because they were forced to live a lie in order to make a life for themselves (as Spitzer's study confirms). If homosexuals were always allowed to live their lives in peace then, quite possibility, there would be far fewer of them today. That moment has long passed.
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Western society is much more tolerant today than it had been in the past. It should be no suprise that the gay community seems to be growing faster today than it was yesteryear. But the simple truth is, they can finally come out from the shadows knowing that we are behind them. Well, not in a gay way, they just have more support
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be banned. Please take this disgusting crap off our our website and crawl back under your rock.
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I am curious about the ___ phrase our website ____
To whom this website belongs ?
Are you implying the website belongs to pink panthers ?
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But first let me congratulate you for your monumental achievement. You've managed to find an example of crackpot pseudoscience that is even more offensive than creationism.[/QUOTE]
Don't you think that you bringing in creationism into this argument is out of place .
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
I am curious about the ___ phrase our website ____
To whom this website belongs ?
Are you implying the website belongs to pink panthers ?
/////////////////////
But first let me congratulate you for your monumental achievement. You've managed to find an example of crackpot pseudoscience that is even more offensive than creationism.[/QUOTE]
Don't you think that you bringing in creationism into this argument is out of place .
Google "sickle cell anemia." You may learn something about genetics.
I don't know why he refuses to answer the question, it's not that hard.
disorder /dis·or·der/ (dis-or´der) a derangement or abnormality of function; a morbid physical or mental state.
http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/_/dict.aspx?word=disorder
An abnormality of function. Homosexuality is a deviation from the norm. It is, therefore abnormal. Thus a person who engages in homosexual activity is engaged in an abnormality of his or her sexual function.
You could say the same for being left handed. To take the argument even further, both conditions are thought to carry a decreased life expectancy*
*Up to nine years for left handedness according to one study (which is, I admit, controversial) and up to twenty years for homosexuality (although that study was from 1997 and the situation has probably improved since then.
Do you think homosexuality is a "derangement" and/or a "morbid state"? Clearly you think it is "abnormal".
Is homosexuality a function? Is sexuality in general a function?
Who made heterosexuality "the norm"? Have you considered that, just maybe, homosexuality is quite "normal" for homosexual people, in the same way that being left-handed is "normal" for left-handed people?
Homosexuality is not a pathology. There's nothing unhealthy about homosexuality. Homosexuality doesn't prevent people from living rich, fulfilled lives.
It seems to me that homosexuality is part of the normal spectrum of behavioural variance among healthy human beings. What do you think?
I haven't read the links, but I'm assuming the reduction in life expectancy is not due to innate characteristics, but due to the social and societal impacts on individuals with those characteristics. In which case, society is to blame, not the "abnormality".
Any characteristic that only a minority of the population possesses is abnormal, that doesn't necessarily mean it's morbid or deranged.
God, nature, statistics? Take your pick.
Of course it is. You might as well say that being a cat is normal for a cat. That doesn't have any impact on what is normal in the population as a whole.
.Did I say otherwise? Well, except for the decreased lifespan, of course.
some of the reduction for lefties is believed to be due to innate problems perhaps caused by the same insult that may have caused the individual to be left handed in the first place. The rest has to do with the fact that the entire world is designed for the right handed which makes lefties more accident prone. For homosexuality, I assume it's mostly HIV.
madanthonywayne:
So you'll agree that having blond hair is abnormal. Having white skin is abnormal. Being taller than 6 feet is abnormal. Having an IQ of over 110 is abnormal.
Insult. Hmm... interesting term. You don't consider left-handedness to be in the "normal" range of human variance?
You seem to have very rigid standards of what is "normal" for human beings.
So you'll agree that having blond hair is abnormal. Having white skin is abnormal. Being taller than 6 feet is abnormal. Having an IQ of over 110 is abnormal.
Insult. Hmm... interesting term. You don't consider left-handedness to be in the "normal" range of human variance?
You seem to have very rigid standards of what is "normal" for human beings.
Regarding the OP's question:
http://www.nytimes.com/1991/12/17/science/gay-men-in-twin-study.html
Note the article dates to '91, the year I graduated high school...things have changed a lot socially, haven't they?
Something else: speaking as a bisexual/pansexual...who married someone with the same set of naughty bits...in my case it really was a choice.
If I chose not to date her and eventually marry her I would have chosen not to be happy. In effect, I would have decided that other people's opinion of my life meant more than my own happiness.
Nope.
http://www.nytimes.com/1991/12/17/science/gay-men-in-twin-study.html
Note the article dates to '91, the year I graduated high school...things have changed a lot socially, haven't they?
Something else: speaking as a bisexual/pansexual...who married someone with the same set of naughty bits...in my case it really was a choice.
If I chose not to date her and eventually marry her I would have chosen not to be happy. In effect, I would have decided that other people's opinion of my life meant more than my own happiness.
Nope.
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Mind Over Matter
Registered Senior Member
If 'disorder' is not a nice sounding word and you don't want to label homosexuals as such, therefore I consider changing it with whatever term you would be more comfortable. I didn't mean to insult homosexuals.
Let me rephrase the question. Are homosexuals genetic or is formed in early childhood?
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Here is an interesting observation. Among gay men, there is the man and women (top man bottom man) so to speak. Some gay men are more traditional feminine than others. Does this variety mean there are degrees of gay and/or degrees of homosexuality? The question becomes, how is this scale fined tuned; biology or programming or both?
Traditionally and naturally, males tend to be more permiscuous compared to females. If gays males are defined as, males on the outside and female on the inside, why is the inside motivation, permiscous like expected of an inner male? It would make more sense if gay men, or the women inside, was more passive. This seems to indicate programming that is not fully complete, with natural still bleeding through and not fully deprogrammed.
Traditionally and naturally, males tend to be more permiscuous compared to females. If gays males are defined as, males on the outside and female on the inside, why is the inside motivation, permiscous like expected of an inner male? It would make more sense if gay men, or the women inside, was more passive. This seems to indicate programming that is not fully complete, with natural still bleeding through and not fully deprogrammed.
You're confusing an awful lot of stuff here.
First, dominant and submissive roles are not dependent on sexual orientation or sex - and those roles may vary depending on the situation (sexual, life decisions, day to day decisionmaking.) Thus the term "inner male" doesn't make much sense.
Secondly, none of us has complete programming. We have basic drives that we act on, or decide not to act on, or sublimate. You cannot control your basic drives BUT you can control how you express them.
Thirdly, all those basic drives are natural. We don't have a way to reprogram (or add) basic drives, although we have gotten very good at teaching people to manage them.
Well, in the same way that scientists are engaged in an abnormality of their mental function, since most people are not scientists. But most people would laugh at you if you tried to use such a bizarre definition.
Yes, you could. And again, most people would think you pretty bizarre if you referred to left handed people (or black people, or native americans) as having an "abnormality of function."
bottom line people...there's no "gay gene". so whether you think the behavior is abnormal or normal, or right or wrong, who fucking cares? this isn't the ethics forum; this is the biology and genetics forum. there is no "gay gene". thread over.
Well, it depends upon then population one is considering. In thle US, having white skin is certainly not abnormal. The other factors, sure. A person can be abnormally tall or abnormally smart. Although I wouldn't say six feet is beyond the range of normal (the average in the US is 5'10).
Some sort of insult to the brain has long been hypothesized as a cause of at least some cases of left handedness. I recall being told that there are more geniuses who are left handed, but that lefties are also more prone to learning disabilities and various diseases ( not to mention accidents).
Jumping all over someone for using the term "disorder" for what listed as a mental illness by the World Health Organization until 1993 and by the US Pentagon until 2006 seems a bit excessive. Not only did you jump all over the guy, you acted as though the idea of homosexuality as a disorder was some foreign concept you'd never heard of.
1) Homosexuality is normal in human societies. A human society with little or no homosexual behavior would be very unusual - possibly unprecedented. If there have been any major ones, they haven't survived let alone flourished.madanthony said:
2) Some deviations from any norm are perfectly normal. We derive the concept of a "norm" by compiling and assessing variations.
So some degree of variation in the expression of homosexual leanings or preferences would be normal for individuals and larger societies, but not a complete absence or even an extreme of scarcity.
An interesting consideration are the so called homophobes. Is this behavior natural or programmed?
If programmed, this compelling behaviot shows tha is is possible to program a strong irrational compulsion that is not always under control. The term homophobe, sort of describes a pathology that is as compelling as homosexual itself. If it is natural, then the term homophobe would be there more for a PC manipulation effect.
I will now use the PC science template to make homophobe sound better.
There is are two primary directives for social animals, survivial of the individual and survivial of the species. The purpose of sex, at the ground level, is reproduction. As life evolved, other effects were added to get the mind/brain more involved on the way to this goal, such as pleasure, rituals, etc.
Homosexuality on a small scale, poses no problem to the species since there is still plenty of genes for reproduction. But taken to the limit, it will violate one the prime directives.The homophobes become active in response to the surival of the species, acting as balancing agents, to maintain an do-able level of homosexality.
The effect is sort of like deer and wolves. If we had no preditors, the deer could to over populate, putting the entire herd is at risk. By by introducing the wolf, nature maintains a better balance, upfront. Instead of PC or politically correct (lie and spin) this is more RC or rationally correct. Once PC gets involved lie and spin will be added with science following suit out of fear of boycott.
If programmed, this compelling behaviot shows tha is is possible to program a strong irrational compulsion that is not always under control. The term homophobe, sort of describes a pathology that is as compelling as homosexual itself. If it is natural, then the term homophobe would be there more for a PC manipulation effect.
I will now use the PC science template to make homophobe sound better.
There is are two primary directives for social animals, survivial of the individual and survivial of the species. The purpose of sex, at the ground level, is reproduction. As life evolved, other effects were added to get the mind/brain more involved on the way to this goal, such as pleasure, rituals, etc.
Homosexuality on a small scale, poses no problem to the species since there is still plenty of genes for reproduction. But taken to the limit, it will violate one the prime directives.The homophobes become active in response to the surival of the species, acting as balancing agents, to maintain an do-able level of homosexality.
The effect is sort of like deer and wolves. If we had no preditors, the deer could to over populate, putting the entire herd is at risk. By by introducing the wolf, nature maintains a better balance, upfront. Instead of PC or politically correct (lie and spin) this is more RC or rationally correct. Once PC gets involved lie and spin will be added with science following suit out of fear of boycott.
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