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Homosexuality: natural, nurture or just abnormal
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
Last weekend there was another successful Gay Pride parade in London. Over the last few decades, being gay and lesbian has changed from being a psychiatric illness to being very acceptable today. There's still homophobia, but liberal politicians have brought in civil partnerships and open public discrimination has been suppressed
Is homosexuality a natural sexual act, something learnt by socialization or do you still think it's wrong?
Is homosexuality a natural sexual act, something learnt by socialization or do you still think it's wrong?
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I met people who agree with you- camp men are a put off. The homosexual act is OK as it's in private in their home- nobody else's business
You obviously believe being gay and lesbian is abnormal. Should homosexual sex be actually outlawed?
When you say 'act' what exactly do you mean? Sexing? Kissing? Holding hands?
However, men who are overty gay (screemingly camp) or overty hetrosexual ('I've banged 1000 women and my cock is 2 foot long') are irritating and not people I want to socialise with. But they have every right to exist I suppose.
In total agreement with all of that - the problem being as soon as you publicly raise objections to screaming camp behaviour you're automatically 'homophobic' and the shutters go up - you can't even engage some people in debate.
But as for homosexuality - who cares? Why is it so divisive? Given a list of issues, I'd rather be more concerned about the recession than who is sticking what in where.
It's only ignorant, bigoted and/or powerful religious interests that make this 'unnatural' assertion in the face of such evidence. Thankfully, people who know something about human biology and development realise this, so that's why gender reassignment is available on the NHS.
'Sexuality' and 'Gender' (as budda alludes to) are best to be thought of on a sliding scale; one which includes heterosexuality, homoseuxality, bisexuality, transgender people.
Of course, the way in which people experience and live out their own gender identities, and those of others, is in large part conditioned by the societies in which they take place. So it isn't 'learned' in the sense of being picked up - individual behaviours that arise as a result of expressing gender or sexuality may be learned and have particular significance for particular social groups.
Personally, I agree with budda, but thats a personality issue - I don't like such behaviour because I find it an imposition that is domineering and overbearing - it's a power issue in social interactions, rather than there being anything 'wrong' with homosexuality.
To still conceive of gender outside of 'normative' heterosexual relations 'unnatural' is problematic without knowledge of the body of evidence to the contrary; when faced with it to still make such claims is willfully ignorant and hateful.
It makes no diference the sexual orientation- sex is a personal choice between consenting adults in the bedroom. Sex in public is outlawed as people here are aware- then the law used to ban homosexual sex and in some countries around the world gay sex is still illegal
If you're talking about Christianity there then you're a bit wide of the mark. The bible makes no distinction between gay and adulterous relationships. However if you're referring to any of the other faiths then you may well be right
But mixing the two is grossly unfair. One is a betrayl of trust and the other is a concenting sexual act - they are completely different.
No you're missing the point.
Homosexuality does not necessarily equate homosexual sex. The bible says nothing about being homosexual - only the act of sex itself and only because it's outside of marriage, as is an adulterous relationship.
Put simply, the bible disapproves of any sexual encounter outside of marriage. Whether it's between a gay or straight couple, it is viewed on the same level.
So someone who is homosexual is not disapproved of by the bible, regardless of what some militant hardcore fundamentalists will tell you.
It depends on who you mean by 'the church'.
So someone can be gay they just cant do anything about it, what a lovely compromise for them to come to. Religious dogma which is outdated, discriminatory and unpleasant - but then I suppose that can be said for a lot of it.
Having said that though of the few people who I have met who I would count as real christians they have been the nicest most forgiving and accepting people around.
I really cant understand how Christians can shun those who a gay, even if they dont agree with it, Christ hung around with whores and tax collectors!
To be fair I don't make the rules
I'm born-again but I don't consider myself as religious. I don't think I conform to any image of someone with faith, I'm just me. I answer only to Big J. Saying that though I don't know anyone else who has the stereotyped view of bigoted Christians - not saying there aren't any out there but I'd hazard a guess on them being the minority.
The problem is you only get to hear about the minority as they create the headlines (ie Westboro Baptist Church etc). The rest of us, who couldn't give 2 tosses about what people get up to in private are by and large ignored.
Of course, the media always likes a nut, rational voices aren't 'news'.
But the dogma is still very much there, personally I think there is a good argument for the church saying that now homosexuals can have long term legal relationships that the situation has changed. But that is their choice. After all Christians have done away with a lot of the nutty rules from the Old Testiment.
They are welcome to their opinion unless they use it as an excuse for discrimination.
Thing is I don't know who you mean when you say 'the church'. But there is a growing school of thought that suggests Jesus was more in favour of monogamous relationships but with no emphasis on gender. It might not be written in scripture but I don't have a problem with the notion that Jesus was in favour of committed and loyal relationships, regardless of either couple having whatever 'equipment'.
Sorry but that still doesn't make it any clearer.
From memory, the bible designed marriage to be a basis for family life so the whole 'gay sex' thing comes from the fact that it does not lead to reproduction (I could be wrong about the bible's view there, it's been a while since I did any studying on that).
To make it clear though the bible doesn't single out homosexual sex for treatment - as I mentioned earlier it places it on par with adulterous sex.
To be honest, I couldn't really care whether someone is gay or not. I have gay friends, and I treat them in exactly the same way I would anybody else (and vice versa).
The idea of gay sex (M/M or F/F) isn't something that repulses me in any particular way (unless it's two particularly ugly people)
The thing that does bother me is the massively skewed way that some people who are gay are "allowed" to behave.
I know/have known people in the past who will make outrageous statements about a member of the same sex, be hugely inappropriate (for a work environment, for example) and for it all to be laughed off because "he's gay" or "she's gay" and that's that.
Yet replace the two people in the scenario with a straight guy making the exact same comments about some woman, and the guy becomes a chauvanistic pig, or a creep, or a letch, or something along those lines.
I don't see why it's one rule for one and one for the other. I'm all for equality regardless of sexual orientation, but it should be exactly that.
But even if we entertain this idea that it's not natural, what difference would that make? It's as "unnatural" as music, but you don't see any campaigns to get rid of that on the grounds of it being unnatural. Similarly, the urge to be violent is one of the most natural instincts we possess, and pretty much everyone agrees to the huge resources we put into ridding society of it.
So we're left with the only question we have left: what harm does it cause? And nobody has ever answered this one, beyond the "harm" of being gay itself, and some horribly misinformed and usually completely hypocritical arguments about STDs.
Incidentally, homophobia is just as natural (generally caused by insecurity of sexuality in the person), but since it does cause harm, we try to rid the world of it.
I think that's more a case of being able to say things about men that would be frowned upon by women, than anything to do with sexuality. In the same way that grabbing a guys arse is a bit of fun, but grabbing a girls arse is sexual harrassment. It's double standard, but equally, it's reflective of stereotypical (and possibly accurate) power dynamics between men a women.
But there are still massive double standards. A gay kiss will still provoke a massively different reaction to a straight kiss. And of course anyone who complains will claim that they oppose PDAs in general, but the fact that a gay scene in a soap will get complaints when the equivalent straight scene wouldn't, proves that this is BS most of the time.