The Energon Pub

YouFearGalvatron wrote:prove me wrong.

Simple test that proves homosexuality and heterosexuality is not choice for many people.

Take two men; one homo and one hetero who both like and respond to pornography.
Show the two men erotic images of both men and women, seperately.

The gay man will respond to the images of men, and the straight man will respond to images of women.

If you tell the straight man to try to be aroused by pictures of men, he can't because he just doesn't find them attractive.
And if you tell the gay man to try to be aroused by the women, same thing.

Lycanthropictendencies wrote:

YouFearGalvatron wrote:prove me wrong.

Simple test that proves homosexuality and heterosexuality is not choice for many people.

Take two men; one homo and one hetero who both like and respond to pornography.
Show the two men erotic images of both men and women, seperately.

The gay man will respond to the images of men, and the straight man will respond to images of women.

If you tell the straight man to try to be aroused by pictures of men, he can't because he just doesn't find them attractive.
And if you tell the gay man to try to be aroused by the women, same thing.

On a side note, in experiments with with electrodes, they found a significant most, if not all, males have some sexual stimulation looking at gay porn. Just goes to show we're all a little homoerotic, despite other claims. I'll try and find the source.

The Avatar of Man wrote:On a side note, in experiments with with electrodes, they found a significant most, if not all, males have some sexual stimulation looking at gay porn. Just goes to show we're all a little homoerotic, despite other claims. I'll try and find the source.

I knew someone who believed we were all bi-sexual and he mentioned that too.

If I recall correctly, this is where it becomes just like every other scientific experiment, with different people looking at the same results and drawing different conclusions.

If I'm not mistaken, some take this to mean we're all bi, others that the people are stimulated by knowing they're looking at something they normally consider taboo, concept over content, and I'm pretty sure I remember some saying these stimulations were low level and were also detected before those hooked up looked at anything.

And of course there are those that point out some tests have none of this and others who claim their prescence invalidates all tests.

I wouldn't be surprised if we are all a little bisexual. While I wouldn't say I've ever been sexually attracted to a chap, I can say when a male is good-looking. Will there ever be a way to fully prove one way or another? Who knows?

Leonardo wrote:I wouldn't be surprised if we are all a little bisexual. While I wouldn't say I've ever been sexually attracted to a chap, I can say when a male is good-looking. Will there ever be a way to fully prove one way or another? Who knows?

The "all people are a little bisexual" thing makes more sense than people who claim they are born gay.

Hundreds leave, and joing the other team every day.

So I see the evidence before me, it makes more sense.

Also, claiming someone of the same gender to be attractive, or, dare I say "beautiful" does not imply one way or another if someone is gay. I can say something like "Damn. That is one good-looking Camaro." But, in all reality, I would never want one, and have no drive to own one. I prefer Porsche.

YouFearGalvatron wrote:The "all people are a little bisexual" thing makes more sense than people who claim they are born gay.

Hundreds leave, and joing the other team every day.

So I see the evidence before me, it makes more sense.

Also, claiming someone of the same gender to be attractive, or, dare I say "beautiful" does not imply one way or another if someone is gay.

I didn't mean to imply that! I just was using it as an example to suggest that there being a latent homosexuality within me is not a far stretch in terms of plausibility.

If you're willing to accept that a person, or people, can be born bisexual, why do you struggle to accept that one could be born gay? Surely, if we are all a little bisexual, then we are all a little gay, as well? I mean, if we are born with an inclination towards both the same and opposite sexes, then part of that is an inclination towards the same sex.

Leonardo wrote:

YouFearGalvatron wrote:The "all people are a little bisexual" thing makes more sense than people who claim they are born gay.

Hundreds leave, and joing the other team every day.

So I see the evidence before me, it makes more sense.

Also, claiming someone of the same gender to be attractive, or, dare I say "beautiful" does not imply one way or another if someone is gay.

I didn't mean to imply that! I just was using it as an example to suggest that there being a latent homosexuality within me is not a far stretch in terms of plausibility.

If you're willing to accept that a person, or people, can be born bisexual, why do you struggle to accept that one could be born gay? Surely, if we are all a little bisexual, then we are all a little gay, as well? I mean, if we are born with an inclination towards both the same and opposite sexes, then part of that is an inclination towards the same sex.

The whole all or nothing view just does not pass muster with me.

Here is why:

I live near Austin, a well-known "gay" city.

That being the case, here are many self-professing homosexuals. Yet this does not stop many of them from switching sides almost at will, and baging a hot blonde, or someone of the opposite sex.

Then, they revert back to their supposed "true" self, the homosexual.

It happens all the time.

I witness it, and the many who leave the lifestyle for good. These examples are ignored all-too-often. Or, they are labeled as people "fighting who they are"? Well then, if they are fighting who they are, according to [the speaker], then who isn't in a position of enough authority to say that YOU, the homosexual, are "fighting who YOU are"? Funny how the media likes tospin it one way and not the other. Not very "objective" journalists we have here in the U.S., if you ask me.

A little food for thought.

That is not how I operate but hey, whatever floats your/their/everyone's boat.

So long as I don't have to see it.

Especially when I am eating.

But maybe those people that switch are simply bisexual. If they're sleeping with both sexes, then it seems to me that's what they are. I still don't think that means they choose who they're attracted to, or that their sexuality is a choice. People choose who they sleep with, but not who they want to sleep with, if you follow me.

Leonardo wrote:But maybe those people that switch are simply bisexual. If they're sleeping with both sexes, then it seems to me that's what they are. I still don't think that means they choose who they're attracted to, or that their sexuality is a choice. People choose who they sleep with, but not who they want to sleep with, if you follow me.

I follow you, and I agree.

However, for whatever reason, be it physical, psychological, emotional, whatever...some people switch teams...on a regular basis.

It is for this reason, above all others that I call shenanigans on the who "born that way" argument.

If it was people STAYING on one side or the other, it would add up.

But seeing no scientific evidence, I must, again suspend belief in a supposed gay "gene", or other such non-proven nonsense.

if this is so blatantly obvious, why can't anyone prove it one way or the other? Surely you have a large enough pool of homosexuals from which to take DNA samples and sequence their DNA. Hell we completed the Human Genome Project.

Just show me the gene.

Until such a time, it is as if no such gene exists.

Yes, that's fair enough. I've never seen the scientific evidence myself, though I've heard stories! However, that doesn't necessarily mean it's a choice, either.

Here's a question: if I can only get an erection from looking at women, but my only sexual experiences are letting men perform anal sex on me (for money, say), does that make me gay? Am I homosexual for actually only having sex with men, or am I heterosexual for only being aroused by women?

Wouldn't the 'gay gene' eventually be weeded out over time? If the people who have it don't naturally want to get with the opposite sex as that is required to pass it on, wouldn't it eventually go extinct? I know some gay men manage to get married and have kids before they discover they're "gay," and now some of them use surrogates to have a child, but before all this came about why didn't the supposed "gay gene" go away? Maybe because it doesn't exist. At the risk of being politically incorrect, nature would have weeded it out long ago. Nature is ruthless. A gene that had the potential of making you attracted to the same gender instead of the opposite one may make your genetic line go extinct, because instead of putting that energy into sexual relations with the oposite gender and potentially having an offspring, you are putting in all that energy with someone whom it is impossible to reproduce with.

A gay person may have other things that can turn him gay, but one of them is NOT coming from a gene.

Just out of curiosity, how many of you have studied genetics?

As to the whole "I don't want to see it" thing, is there ANY sex that you want to see in public?

Zombie Starscream wrote:Wouldn't the 'gay gene' eventually be weeded out over time? If the people who have it don't naturally want to get with the opposite sex as that is required to pass it on, wouldn't it eventually go extinct? I know some gay men manage to get married and have kids before they discover they're "gay," and now some of them use surrogates to have a child, but before all this came about why didn't the supposed "gay gene" go away? Maybe because it doesn't exist. At the risk of being politically incorrect, nature would have weeded it out long ago. Nature is ruthless. A gene that had the potential of making you attracted to the same gender instead of the opposite one may make your genetic line go extinct, because instead of putting that energy into sexual relations with the oposite gender and potentially having an offspring, you are putting in all that energy with someone whom it is impossible to reproduce with.

A gay person may have other things that can turn him gay, but one of them is NOT coming from a gene.

You're assuming then that the 'gay gene' is not a natural response to the development of an unhealthy or undesirable set of genes in utero. I'm not saying that 'gay' is natural selection at work, but by your argument, it could be. Also, remember we are living in an era of unprecedented human expansion and healthcare. What might have been weeded out in nature 2000 years ago is now protected by society and medicine. And, just as a counterpoint, what is to prevent nature from changing the breed imperative to offset over-population?

As to whether humans are 'born' or 'choose' to be gay, the answer is: both. There are tons of people who make the choice, for experimentation, lifestyle, and status. The people who make these type of choices do not generally suffer the same type of emotional and psychological trauma of 'outing'. For them, gender based sex is a non-issue.

But, from personal observation, (no scientific data) I have witnessed three examples of homosexual preference repressed until sexual maturity. One of these observations is from a neighbor's kid, whom I have known since he was born. Based on his behavior, choices, mannerisms, as far back as age 4, this child exhibited the signs that his sexual preference would not include women. It in not a lifestyle choice for him. He lives in a rural, highly religious, Southern town. There is no 'gay subculture' subverting him to their cause. He just is that way.

The other story is from one of my best friend's back in middle school. He was staying over at my house, and I had secretly raided my dad's stash of Playboys. I think we were in 6th grade at the time...old enough to know that girls and their boobies were neat, but not what you really did with them. Or I thought they were neat, anyway. I was fascinated. My friend wasn't. He looked at a couple pictures and put the magazine down. I was sorta stunned, but I didn't say anything about it. We played Metroid instead, no big deal. But we were 11.
6 years later, and you guessed it, he came out of the closet 2 months before senior prom. He took a trophy date, who tried to 'cure' him. It didn't work.

There are plenty of people who make the choice and plenty of people who have that choice made for them.

Interestingly enough, some article in a recent scientific magazine (it had another section on the genius of crows and the processing of the human eye if anyone knows it) suggests that homosexuality in many people (men at least) can be due to chemical conditioning in the uterus, generally due to the male receiving too little testosterone and other sex-defining chemicals, sometimes caused by the mother slowly growing immune to the male chemicals needed for her son's development, literally attacking them more and more the for every males she produces. The chance of being gay supposedly rises 13% in statistics per older brother a man has.

In other words, it actually can be all the mother's fault...

The Avatar of Man wrote:Interestingly enough, some article in a recent scientific magazine (it had another section on the genius of crows and the processing of the human eye if anyone knows it) suggests that homosexuality in many people (men at least) can be due to chemical conditioning in the uterus, generally due to the male receiving too little testosterone and other sex-defining chemicals, sometimes caused by the mother slowly growing immune to the male chemicals needed for her son's development, literally attacking them more and more the for every males she produces. The chance of being gay supposedly rises 13% in statistics per older brother a man has.

In other words, it actually can be all the mother's fault...

Now that is interesting. Every gay guy I know is the youngest brother in a family of at least one other male sibling.

Makes me wonder about the time-worn traditions of primogeniture...maybe they knew something we're just finding out.

YouFearGalvatron wrote:Kind of like how one choses to STILL collect action figures at 25 years of age (myself)?

I know I'm chiming in late here, but this is a very, very bad analogy. There is a distinct difference between a hobby and a biological inclination, or a hobby and a sexual outlook.

YouFearGalvatron wrote:"I am sorry if I offend you", hell, no I am not. Being American does NOT grant anyone the right NOT to be offended!

One-sided much? If this is your philosophy, then accept the fact that there are gays in the world and stop arguing the point. If it offends, then refer to your own quote.

YouFearGalvatron wrote:Instead of mouthing off, be polite and prove me wrong.

Your logic here is also flawed. Not the politeness part, but sticking to an assertion with the convenience of "Prove me wrong."(In the field of Logic, this is referred to as an "Appeal to Ignorance".) The same works with the God argument...the burden of proof falls on the person who asserts the existence of god, not the skeptic. You are shifting the focus from the soundness of your own argument to the opposition, instead of actually trying to come to an understanding. And, somehow I think that, even if it were to be proved beyond all doubt that homosexuality is perfectly natural, you'd still be against it. You'd just change your "impeccable logic" to "I'm entitled to my opinion(even though there is absolutely nothing to back it up)", like ever other person who thinks that they have some monopoly on logic.

Now to my personal question, why does homosexuality have to be deterministic for people to accept it? I wouldn't care if it is a choice. It wouldn't change my opinion at all...people have a right to be homosexual, whether they want to be, or can't help it. Either is morally acceptable, just so long as no one else's rights are violated.

In America, we have the precedent that rights against discrimination apply specifically to invidious distinctions, that is, to discrimination based on inherent traits of the individual. Race and sex are the primary examples. Thus, gay rights activists find themselves nearly compelled to frame their arguments in terms of stable sexual identities produced by gay genes or other biological causes.

The law does a poor job at understanding that sexuality could be something other than simply a choice yet also not innately biological and in some degree of flux. Read the Kinsey report and you'll find an argument that all people feel varying degrees of attraction for more than one sex, with only a few on the extreme end of only desiring one, yet most people identify as gay or straight.

Menbailee wrote:In America, we have the precedent that rights against discrimination apply specifically to invidious distinctions, that is, to discrimination based on inherent traits of the individual. Race and sex are the primary examples. Thus, gay rights activists find themselves nearly compelled to frame their arguments in terms of stable sexual identities produced by gay genes or other biological causes.

The law does a poor job at understanding that sexuality could be something other than simply a choice yet also not innately biological and in some degree of flux. Read the Kinsey report and you'll find an argument that all people feel varying degrees of attraction for more than one sex, with only a few on the extreme end of only desiring one, yet most people identify as gay or straight.

I think that someone can have the "inclination" to be attracted to the same sex and this may not be a choice, but at the same time it is a choice to feed and water it and make it grow. This inclination probably starts out small, but the person might choose to nuture it, by looking at gay porn, visiting gay bars, letting himself (or herself) think of homoerotic gay acts that stimulate sexual arousal. Nobody forces the person to do this stuff. They do it willingly. What they are doing is reinforcing and making what is there, stronger. If they did not do this the "inclination" may end up staying weak as it may always be there, but there will not be the learned behaviors and thoughts that enable it to grow.

Zombie Starscream wrote: I think that someone can have the "inclination" to be attracted to the same sex and this may not be a choice, but at the same time it is a choice to feed and water it and make it grow. This inclination probably starts out small, but the person might choose to nuture it, by looking at gay porn, visiting gay bars, letting himself (or herself) think of homoerotic gay acts that stimulate sexual arousal. Nobody forces the person to do this stuff. They do it willingly. What they are doing is reinforcing and making what is there, stronger. If they did not do this the "inclination" may end up staying weak as it may always be there, but there will not be the learned behaviors and thoughts that enable it to grow.

Your argument seems to indicate that (you believe) it is ultimately a choice to reinforce aberrant behavior. But what if isn't? My friend in the above example did not respond to heterosexual stimuli. He didn't 'choose' not to get aroused; it was a physical improbability. Girl parts didn't interest him. And he struggled with this issue for a long time before finally coming out. At the time, I didn't understand it, and I tried to talk to him about it on multiple occasions, but it was never a discussion about 'I get along better with other guys' or 'it would be cool to be gay'. It was always a very painful, self-doubting conversation. Also, this occurred in a 800 person high-school in Alabama 15 years ago, before there was any thought of gay being mildly acceptable.

I have known people (men and women) who have made the choice to be homosexual, I have known people who are unconditionally bisexual, but you can't convince me that anyone would chose to become a social pariah in a southern town, to be run out of their house and family, only after struggling with the matter privately for years, not knowing what was "wrong" with himself. If it is so much easier to 'choose' heterosexuality, then why not just do it? Because he couldn't.

General Magnus wrote:I found out that a friends of mine wich i have a long crush on, is lesbian. she does not know that i know about that. I am extremly pissed off, but i cannot blame her for chossing that option. should i talk to her?

Fella, I know exactly where you're coming from. It's gonna stick in your throat for a while, depending on how fast you get over it. On the one hand you can let her know anyway, on the other you can try and forget about it. I've done both in separate situations (yeah, my friends occasionally call me The One, for those of you who have watched the Clerks animated series) and I couldn't tell you which way is better, other than to base the choice on the girl's demeanor.

Of course, there are upsides. I have a couple of female friends I can go girl watching with.

Asderiphel wrote:
Now that is interesting. Every gay guy I know is the youngest brother in a family of at least one other male sibling.

Makes me wonder about the time-worn traditions of primogeniture...maybe they knew something we're just finding out.

I know what you mean. Four of my friends through high school are gay, and all of them are the youngest of the family. Perhaps a natural way of thinning out the recurrence of particular genes in a particular geographic area? We may never know.

Leonardo wrote:But maybe those people that switch are simply bisexual. If they're sleeping with both sexes, then it seems to me that's what they are. I still don't think that means they choose who they're attracted to, or that their sexuality is a choice. People choose who they sleep with, but not who they want to sleep with, if you follow me.

Excellent point.

However, this is more of a scientific "show me the proof" angle, than your more philisophical "what if..." angle.

And yes, I know what forum this is under.

This is about evidence, not presupposition.

Undate: The article is from 'Scientific American,' though I'm not sure the issue.

There is a possibility that I might be bisexual, but the thought doesn't keep me up at night. Not because I am into the whole gay rights thing or anything, but the idea just doesn't bother me. I live in a religious area, and I have some family members who might be possible homiphobes, but the issue is not a contention in my mind enough that these latter things don't bother me. I do not act on these feelings, nor have I ever, and I will not entertain lustful thoughts about women.

BTW, not entertaining the thoughts doesn't mean never having them, what it means is not letting yourself dwell and think on them.