Originally Posted by ImmortalPig
Being attracted to men or women is not functionally different from being attracted to leather or rubber. I believe there's even a debate over which paraphilia should be regarded as disorders ("homosexuality is a disease" - ring any bells?).
On a personal level sexual identity is just a collection of sexual preferences.That said, the concept of grouping people based on sexual preference is questionable at best as attraction is a little more nuanced than 'same gender therefore I want to have sex' (two 'homosexuals' of the same gender won't necessarily be attracted to the same person).
I'm not certain that homosexuality is not in any way different from any other fetish. The only reason that some people treat it differently is because some sects of some religions don't like it. The same situation exists with some fetishes (beastiality, exhibitionism, hebephilia, etc) but not with others (S&M, scat, asphyxiophilia, etc), the divide of morality runs along the line of religion.
God... just what? Do you not understand the definiton of fetish?
a form of sexual desire in which gratification is linked to an abnormal degree to a particular object, item of clothing, part of the body, etc.
An entire fucking gender is not a fetish.
Fetishes are also something you can dismiss, you cannot dismiss being gay. And saying that you can choose to be this one day, and that the next is just fucking dumb. Gay people aren't one day going to say, "Oh, today I like women". They were 'born' (or grew up) this way, and it's not something you can just change.
I still think you are born gay, but even if you weren't, who the fuck cares? Gay people don't cause any sort of possible harm to others, so what is the big fucking deal?
Kyure, I'm afraid you just missed the entire point of his post. In fact, I'm not 100% sure you actually read his post. ggwp
From what I've read, this issue is much more nuanced and convoluted than simply being a multiple choice question that we don't know the answer to ( a.) born gay b.) influenced by environment etc. etc.). The only thing I can really say with any certainty in good conscience is that is most certainly is not a conscious choice.
For example. I like the colour green. Actually, I like the colour green a lot - it's my favourite colour. It's not that I suddenly decided one day that I'd make green my favourite colour... it's something I noticed about myself. It's simply me being cognizant of a preexisting state.
Whiiiiich brings me to the actual discussion at hand. How did that state come to be? Well there's a lot of research on a lot of different sides, and I do think a lot on any side of the issue has some merit. I'll list out a couple of statistics here.
I.) In the case of twins, if one twin is gay there is a 20-50% chance of the other twin being gay. from an article linked in this thread previously.
II.) It is estimated that ~5% of the US population is gay. from very brief searches via google. ~ notates "approximately."
If you look just at I, you'll notice that it isn't 100%. This almost without a doubt shows that DNA isn't the only factor. However, I don't really know a lot about the main subject of the article I pulled that from (linked earlier in the thread) so I'll just leave that in the air. However, If you look at I and II together, you'll notice that 5% isn't included in the range for I. Assuming DNA had nothing to do with sexuality, you should see the range including significantly lower values.
It should be considered that twins would be exposed to much of the same environment growing up, which in all honesty would bump up the chance they both grow up to be homosexual instead of just one, and while I can't say this without falling prey to speculation, I don't know if that would truly, all on its own bump a 5% chance to a 20-50% chance. Although twins and born and raised together at home, nobody can be certain the environment they experience besides that are identical to each other, of how similar their environments are.
Now, I know earlier that I said green is my favourite colour, but there are some honorable mentions. Quite recently, I've taken a very strong liking to the colours purple and pink. which is uh... pretty damn obvious if you /dl and /lp me (Pouffywall) ingame. However, why would my colour preferences change if I were born with them? I mean, I'm almost 17. I'm not developing at the rate kids do, and green has been my favourite colour for my entire life. Why, praytell, would certain shades of pink and purple begin to contest my love for green so late in my life (relatively speaking) if it was so simple as "I was born with it" or "It developed as a small child."
Food for thought.
And in case drawing a parallel between colour preferences and sexuality is offensive and unconvincing to some people, I'm also becoming a lot more liberal in my sexual preferences. Sexuality isn't static.
From what I've read, this issue is much more nuanced and convoluted than simply being a multiple choice question that we don't know the answer to ( a.) born gay b.) influenced by environment etc. etc.). The only thing I can really say with any certainty in good conscience is that is most certainly is not a conscious choice.
For example. I like the colour green. Actually, I like the colour green a lot - it's my favourite colour. It's not that I suddenly decided one day that I'd make green my favourite colour... it's something I noticed about myself. It's simply me being cognizant of a preexisting state.
Whiiiiich brings me to the actual discussion at hand. How did that state come to be? Well there's a lot of research on a lot of different sides, and I do think a lot on any side of the issue has some merit. I'll list out a couple of statistics here.
I.) In the case of twins, if one twin is gay there is a 20-50% chance of the other twin being gay. from an article linked in this thread previously.
II.) It is estimated that ~5% of the US population is gay. from very brief searches via google. ~ notates "approximately."
If you look just at I, you'll notice that it isn't 100%. This almost without a doubt shows that DNA isn't the only factor. However, I don't really know a lot about the main subject of the article I pulled that from (linked earlier in the thread) so I'll just leave that in the air. However, If you look at I and II together, you'll notice that 5% isn't included in the range for I. Assuming DNA had nothing to do with sexuality, you should see the range including significantly lower values.
It should be considered that twins would be exposed to much of the same environment growing up, which in all honesty would bump up the chance they both grow up to be homosexual instead of just one, and while I can't say this without falling prey to speculation, I don't know if that would truly, all on its own bump a 5% chance to a 20-50% chance. Although twins and born and raised together at home, nobody can be certain the environment they experience besides that are identical to each other, of how similar their environments are.
Now, I know earlier that I said green is my favourite colour, but there are some honorable mentions. Quite recently, I've taken a very strong liking to the colours purple and pink. which is uh... pretty damn obvious if you /dl and /lp me (Pouffywall) ingame. However, why would my colour preferences change if I were born with them? I mean, I'm almost 17. I'm not developing at the rate kids do, and green has been my favourite colour for my entire life. Why, praytell, would certain shades of pink and purple begin to contest my love for green so late in my life (relatively speaking) if it was so simple as "I was born with it" or "It developed as a small child."
Food for thought.
And in case drawing a parallel between colour preferences and sexuality is offensive and unconvincing to some people, I'm also becoming a lot more liberal in my sexual preferences. Sexuality isn't static.
Originally Posted by Kyure
God... just what? Do you not understand the definiton of fetish?
a form of sexual desire in which gratification is linked to an abnormal degree to a particular object, item of clothing, part of the body, etc.
An entire fucking gender is not a fetish.
Fetishes are also something you can dismiss, you cannot dismiss being gay. And saying that you can choose to be this one day, and that the next is just fucking dumb. Gay people aren't one day going to say, "Oh, today I like women". They were 'born' (or grew up) this way, and it's not something you can just change.
I still think you are born gay, but even if you weren't, who the fuck cares? Gay people don't cause any sort of possible harm to others, so what is the big fucking deal?
I don't think you understand what a fetish is exactly.
They come in varying degrees, and some people just can't get off unless they're rubbing a hard-boiled egg. It's otherwise impossible for them.
Let's use the biggest fetish out there. I'd be willing to bet there are more people with a foot fetish out there than there are gay people. It isn't a stretch to say that many of those people simply can't get off otherwise.
And regarding "harm to others", it really depends on what you consider to be harm. One of the oldest arguments against homosexuality is that it inhibits the growth of a particular population. Is that harmful in the context of our society? Not at all. Is it harmful to a society that needs more people to survive? Very much.
Don't quote me on this, but if memory serves, there was a country in the mid 1900s(I think it was Spain) that had a relatively high population of gays, and due to great concern for the countrie's future, provided great incentives for them to get married and have children.
In short, it really depends. It's all about survivability.
Hoss.
Originally Posted by Kyure
God... just what? Do you not understand the definiton of fetish?
a form of sexual desire in which gratification is linked to an abnormal degree to a particular object, item of clothing, part of the body, etc.
An entire fucking gender is not a fetish.
Fetishes are also something you can dismiss, you cannot dismiss being gay. And saying that you can choose to be this one day, and that the next is just fucking dumb. Gay people aren't one day going to say, "Oh, today I like women". They were 'born' (or grew up) this way, and it's not something you can just change.
Morality aside, you have a tentative understanding of both fetishes and sexual orientation. I believe you even directly quoted wikipedia (without attribution no less!). I suggest you google paraphilia and learn a bit (yes, even wiki is acceptable for you), and a bit about current theories of sexual orientation. I'd also suggest that you look up what a "straw man" is, you are clearly very familiar with the concept, but I'm not sure if you are conciously spewing fallacy or not.
I won't respond to your post this time, but please re-read my post and attempt to conform with discussion rule E. If you want to post again I'll reply, but I'd appreciate if you put some thought into your post beforehand!
Originally Posted by Scissor414
I'm also becoming a lot more liberal in my sexual preferences. Sexuality isn't static.
This is an important point. What is homosexuality in the first place? What qualifies you to be a homosexual? Firstly, a homosexual isn't simply attracted to all members of the same sex, they still have their own preferences and tastes. If someone finds a single member of their sex attractive are they at least in part homosexual? Is someone a homosexual if they are attracted to a member of their sex dressed as the other sex? How about the opposite?
Trying to lock down something as vast as "sexual preference" or "romantic preference" is basically impossible, which is why 101 extra "sexual orientations" have been spawned, including pansexual, demisexual, polyamory, gray asexual, etc. The color analogy is a good one, there are fundamentally an infinite number of colors (and some that aren't actually colors at all) - take your example of pink, what kind of pink? Hot pink? Watermelon? Fuscia? Blush? Maybe you like magenta but with slightly more yellow and a little lighter, not light enough to be hot pink, but what do we call that? Do we invent a new name? What's more, what the hell is pink in the first place? Pink is a combination of blue and red, the color spectrum starts at purple and goes up to red, pink has more red in it than purple, it exists on the portion of the color wheel that doesn't exist in the color spectrum. As a color, pink doesn't really exist, it's just a handy name for a combination of colors. Now colors are just a single dimension spectrum (or 2 dimension if you want to count luminosity), how many dimensions does sexual orientation have? It's a futile and pointless exercise!
Homosexuality isn't a special case, it's a normal manifestation of sexual preference.
Last edited by ImmortalPig; Feb 21, 2016 at 09:35 AM.
<Faint> the rules have been stated quite clearly 3 times now from high staff
, but I can't. Being gay or straight or whatever the fuck is your brain and penis/lady parts liking what they want to like. There are "asexual"(not literally they can't reproduce on their own) people(usually women?) who have no desire to have sex at all. It's just one of those things that gets gambled when you scramble those chromosomes.(I can't prove that but there isn't a concrete study to disprove the randomness) Although I do think you can force yourself to like the opposite gender, it will probably come at the cost of horrible depression if you are forces to keep your true preference to yourself.
