Serious Questions for the straight guys..

[B_Nick8]

But Gay men have been knocking women up for ever - so?

Yeah, how else do you think we spawn, er, I mean, recruit?!

 

[D_Tim McGnaw]

OK, here I made the presumption that in a social group with high child death rates every sexual opportunity taken affects procreation rates.

Ultimately women can only have so many children in a lifetime, even factoring in prenatal mortality rates of a higher level than in developed modern societies, and what matters more is that the available fertile females have access to as many fertile male partners as they are able to procreate with. How much sex men have with women is not important. Whether fertile women who are not already pregnant and who are ovulating can find a male partner with whom to procreate is far more important to the success of a group of humans being able to increase their number. Homosexuality need play no role whatsoever, no matter how prevalent it is, in whether or not these basic requirements can be fulfilled.

At the very least homosexuality is a distraction. If there is no pressure on gay men to marry (a woman) and have children a proportion would not do so.

"Go forth and multiply"

This is again based on our faulty assumptions regarding the basic requirements of groups of humans to procreate and increase their numbers. Firstly marriage is totally unnecessary, and secondly males and females do not need to be constantly having sex with one another to insure conception. Only fertile males and unpregnant females who are actually ovulating need to be having sex with one another at all, this leaves an extremely large part of the time available for recreational sex with whom ever these males and females wish to have sex with.

 

[Drifterwood]

...I'm not sure you got what I said. No individual applies judgemental criteria. He may have been brought up to feel that certain types of people are an outgroup. Once he recognises someone as being of that type he will automatically feel animosity. (particularly if he is innately conservative, and not much if he is innately liberal).

My poor english. Gareth Thomas, 6'3 220llbs warrior of the international rugby stage has just come out. He was married.

As far as I know, Gay men don't have to wear pink crosses, so I was asking how you are suppoesd to revile a group that you can't identify. Does Gareth now go from masculine idol to figure of revulsion? I don't think so.

As far as I am aware the term homosexual is 19thC and the option of a fully gay lifestyle 20thC. Before this time homosexual activity has vered from being perfectly normal (actually the height of sophistication), to being damned by the pulpit. My point is that Gay Men as an identifiable group is a relatively recent thing and so any hereditary or genetic repulsion is not possible.

The only thing that you could try to assess would be revulsion at homosexual acts. This would be a behavioural study and attitudes to behaviour are almost certainly cultural. When I was a kid, we used to eat brawn, tongue and scouse. If you offered that to a kid today, they would probably puke. Have their genes done this?

Furthermore IMO, you have to separate the private act as it were from the imaginary scenario wherein you, the str8 man, are having to engage in that act. I don't damn those for whom it is normal to eat dog, but I don't want either to eat it myself nor to watch them.

 

[Astrate]

Essentially all this study proves is that some people in Australia are homophobic and that generally age does not seem to predict if they will be homophobic or not and that heterosexual men men tend to be less favourably disposed to homosexuality than women or homosexuals.

This does not prove that homophobia, or aversion to homosex is innate to humanity.

Yes it does. You have overlooked that these are twin studies. The attitudes of the subjects is compared with their twin.

Identical twins share 100% of their genes, non-identical twins share only 50%, adoptive siblings share 0% of their genetic variation. Identical twins raised together share genes and environment, identical twins separated at birth and raised apart share only their genes. By looking at the differences in correlation between each of a twin pair it’s just maths to work out the effect of genes and effect of environment on the average difference (variance) in attitude.

If the attitude was purely environmental you would expect the same variance between ID twins, non-ID twins and adoptive siblings raised in the same home, school etc – on average. You would ID twins raised apart to differ as much as non-ID twins raised apart or any unrelated pair; - their attitude would totally depend on where they were raised.

This study shows pretty conclusively that there is a huge genetic influence on attitude towards homosexuality.

If I was betting on the truth I would need to see pretty conclusive evidence for the opposite view to change my bet.

If this were the case then the discrepancy between men and women being homophobic would make no sense since both would have been born of equally homophobic parents into a presumably equally heritable homophobia.

For one thing many hereditary traits can find stronger expression in males than females and vice versa, eg height, aggression. (But I think there are also other factors accounting for the discrepancy).


Face it: Human nature has a strong flavour even without the sauce of nurture.

 

[Drifterwood]

Yeah, how else do you think we spawn, er, I mean, recruit?!

I thought you were delivered from the A&F catalogue

 

[D_Tim McGnaw]

Yes it does. You have overlooked that these are twin studies. The attitudes of the subjects is compared with their twin.

Identical twins share 100% of their genes, non-identical twins share only 50%, adoptive siblings share 0% of their genetic variation. Identical twins raised together share genes and environment, identical twins separated at birth and raised apart share only their genes. By looking at the differences in correlation between each of a twin pair it’s just maths to work out the effect of genes and effect of environment on the average difference (variance) in attitude.

If the attitude was purely environmental you would expect the same variance between ID twins, non-ID twins and adoptive siblings raised in the same home, school etc – on average. You would ID twins raised apart to differ as much as non-ID twins raised apart or any unrelated pair; - their attitude would totally depend on where they were raised.

This study shows pretty conclusively that there is a huge genetic influence on attitude towards homosexuality.

Again no it doesn't. This twin study shows the attitudes prevalent in one part of the world at one particular time, at best it is a snapshot. It does not show that humanity has a genetic propensity to hold a specific view regarding homosexuality. History and anthropology completely contradict this view in any case therefore at best these studies show an anomaly that must be investigated but it does not show a conclusive pattern which proves your point.

For one thing many hereditary traits can find stronger expression in males than females and vice versa, eg height, aggression. (But I think there are also other factors accounting for the discrepancy).


Face it: Human nature has a strong flavour even without the sauce of nurture.

Again, height and aggression are necessary genetic traits which exist in differentiation between the sexes for the purposes of survival, culturally inculcated attitudes which make an individual successful within the societies which inculcate the attitudes are not comparable, this is exactly why the comparison between them and the attempt to assimilate them to one another by the research you are such a fan of is specious and frankly pointless.

Your last point indeed the overall tone of your last few posts encapsulate the basis of a defense to murder or assualt charges which would claim that natural aversion to homosexuals, homosexuality or homosex was "innate" and hereditary therefore at least partially absolving the individual charged of responsibility for having attacked a gay person. Even if there is some validity to the research you are so conviced by there is no moral value to it.

 

[B_Nick8]

I thought you were delivered from the A&F catalogue

More buy it, actually. :tongue:

 

[Astrate]

Your last point indeed the overall tone of your last few posts encapsulate the basis of a defense to murder or assualt charges which would claim that natural aversion to homosexuals, homosexuality or homosex was "innate" and hereditary therefore at least partially absolving the individual charged of responsibility for having attacked a gay person. Even if there is some validity to the research you are so conviced by there is no moral value to it

That's absurd. Everyone is responsible for their behaviour. A date-rapist is not excused by his innate desire for sex, a thief is not excused because he was hungry, innate impulsivity does not get you off the hook for a road rage attack, a psychopath is not exused his murder because of his innate inablity to empathise etc. etc.

There is nothing moral about discovery itself, however the application of knowledge is definitely moral issue.

Again no it doesn't. This twin study shows the attitudes prevalent in one part of the world at one particular time, at best it is a snapshot. It does not show that humanity has a genetic propensity to hold a specific view regarding homosexuality. History and anthropology completely contradict this view in any case therefore at best these studies show an anomaly that must be investigated but it does not show a conclusive pattern which proves your point.

Fair comment. However, Australian society is similar to W. European and American societies. And similar twin studies were done in the UK and US with similar results. And we are talking about human nature here and now.

But how would such a study play out in another culture? The environmental component is unmasked in this study because there is sufficient gradation in attitude across the environment to be able to compare differences in enviroment whilst controlling for genes using the twins, whilst comparing the effect of genes whilst controlling for enviroment using the same family.

In societies where attitudes are uniform, say becuase of a powerful cultural effect that regarded homosexuality as normal, not only would any innate aversion be more effectively desensitised, and any remaining variance would be 100% due to genes. Similarly in a uniformly culturally induced homophobic society any remaining variance would be 100% due to genes. You'd have to do the study.

In fact I don't believe human nature throughout history has changed and variance in attitude across time is mostly due to culture.


Stronzo was making the point that media entertainment portrayals that are bias against gay sex perpetuate the cultural effect of that bias in the audience which, in turn, the media seek to satisfy, in a vicious cycle, which is true. I merely wished to point out an underlying factor. The evidence is out there, whether I point it out or not.

 

[D_Tim McGnaw]

That's absurd. Everyone is responsible for their behaviour. A date-rapist is not excused by his innate desire for sex, a thief is not excused because he was hungry, innate impulsivity does not get you off the hook for a road rage attack, a psychopath is not exused his murder because of his innate inablity to empathise etc. etc.

There is nothing moral about discovery itself, however the application of knowledge is definitely moral issue.

Fair comment. However, Australian society is similar to W. European and American societies. And similar twin studies were done in the UK and US with similar results. And we are talking about human nature here and now.

But how would such a study play out in another culture? The environmental component is unmasked in this study because there is sufficient gradation in attitude across the environment to be able to compare differences in enviroment whilst controlling for genes using the twins, whilst comparing the effect of genes whilst controlling for enviroment using the same family.

In societies where attitudes are uniform, say becuase of a powerful cultural effect that regarded homosexuality as normal, not only would any innate aversion be more effectively desensitised, and any remaining variance would be 100% due to genes. Similarly in a uniformly culturally induced homophobic society any remaining variance would be 100% due to genes. You'd have to do the study.

In fact I don't believe human nature throughout history has changed and variance in attitude across time is mostly due to culture.


Stronzo was making the point that media entertainment portrayals that are bias against gay sex perpetuate the cultural effect of that bias in the audience which, in turn, the media seek to satisfy, in a vicious cycle, which is true. I merely wished to point out an underlying factor. The evidence is out there, whether I point it out or not.

And I am merely making the point that apart from a handful of extremely dubious studies which use highly questionable methods to prove extremely contestable theories based on the flimsiest and most superficial presumptions, you have nothing to disprove the weight of archeaological, historical, sociological and anthropological evidence which shows no probability that the kinds of bias you say are innate are anything other than a comparitively modern and entirely cultural and entirely culturally discrete phenomenon. Ancient humanity, that is humanity for hundreds of thousands of years before the development of settled civilisations, shows no propensity to have been the kind of homosex averse spcies you suggest.

On the contrary evidence for this kind of aversion only appears long after the foundation of the first settled societies and then only in a few of these societies. These societies were able to pass on these biases and aversions to later cultures capable of transmiting them via their own economic and political and cultural dominance and hence we see the wide scale and seemingly dispersed and extremely acute aversions and distastes evinced in the popular culture of developed societies. The fact that they are self perpetuating has much to do with Stronzo's ideas regarding the control of sexuality excerside by men, who for a variety of reasons have been psychologically unwilling to divest themselves of a variety of areas of control, not least sexuality. The causes of this sex-culture in which faux-lesbianism is hot and two men kissing is not are psycho-sexual and about power and control, not about heredity and frankly highly suspicious ideas about cultural predetermination.

 

[Lex]

My poor english. Gareth Thomas, 6'3 220llbs warrior of the international rugby stage has just come out. He was married.

As was I. I am 6'2" and 203 (currently). I've got two kids. My husband has three. Thanks for mentioning this (his coming out).

As far as I know, Gay men don't have to wear pink crosses, so I was asking how you are suppoesd to revile a group that you can't identify.

This is the rub. Most homosexuals hide in plain site as they are not stereotypically gay (effeminate, campy, etc.). Great point, BTW.

The only thing that you could try to assess would be revulsion at homosexual acts. This would be a behavioural study and attitudes to behaviour are almost certainly cultural.

Yes. Also, humans' self-reports of sexual behavior are always skewed as people as far from truthful in this regard. And what exactly is a homosexual act (not directed at you, DW).

One man's wrestling match is another man's foreplay.