help me with my project: what if gay were the norm and heterosexuality were taboo?

[The_root_of_all_evil]

How can you ignore the biological factor when it is certainly the biggest aspect?

How can you ignore the physical aspect of Groundhog Day?

Erm, what? I don't understand the reason for this, or the point you're attempting to make.

Groundhog Day was a film about one day lived repeatedly. There was no explanation offered during the film as to how. I think when most people watch it, it never occurs to anyone to ask, because it's irrelevant to the story.

You're on a gaming forum, surely you can think of devices in stories that aren't rationalised.

Logic Fail. The device is rationalised by the story. It's a "Act of God" that forces him to repeat the day until he learns not to waste the day. It then uses a second "Act of God" to restore him to his normal state without going into spasm the first time something changes. It can be just "A wizard did it" or "Welcome to the Twilight Zone".

In this example, the biological change "Homo being the Norm" throws up a myriad of sub-problems from that, which stretch forward and backward so that every reason you put in creates another reason for change, so that the end result is so radical that it's incompatible with our world at the moment.

For Bill Murray living a day again, the rationalisation is in the sentence. For Humanity being totally homo, you've actually altered what Humanity is and what Homo actually is.

That's a logic fail.

 

[Jakub324]

1. Everything would be FABULOUS!
2. No kids, human race is dead with first generation.
3. Have a look into Greek history, bisexuality was the norm then, so it might be of help.

I dunno... Artificial kids might become an industry. Imagine that: "Buy the Harry Mk. IV today for only £8,000!"

 

[Liandar]

Ok, first of all, this the most stupid idea for a project I have ever heard. Secondly, being homosexual doesn't change how you act. The world wouldn't have changed if major historical figures (who were straight) were gay and vice versa. Everything would have been the same. Choose a new topic for your project

 

[Togs]

Im sorry but this has got to be one of the daftest things Ive read on the Escapist- the biological aspect cannot just be ignored or handwaved, if it is men and women would go through divergent evolution and become different species, inevitably leading to conflict.

To be honest it sounds like someones got a massive axe to grind and didnt quite think this thing through.

 

[rob_simple]

I'm sorry, but you should really learn the difference between effect and affect if this is a project for school, that's my only bit of advice.

 

[Terminal Blue]

snip

Look, you've picked an incredibly difficult topic because you need to decide what elements of homosexuality you think are innate and what is 'cultural', once you come down on that line you're in serious danger of being offensive in one way or another.

Also, this is a huge anachronism. Homosexuality (and by extension heterosexuality) has only existed for 200 years. Yes, I mean that. It's a medical term which people made up in the 19th century to describe a particular class of people, before that any idea of separating 'gay' and 'straight' would have been ultimately meaningless. The 'abominable vice of buggery' was an act, not a way of being, and before that there is practically nothing. We have no evidence that enormous numbers of men and women weren't fucking one another without describing themselves as 'gay' or 'lesbian' or purporting to have an exclusive sexuality.

So yeah, you know this makes no sense (and not for the vomit wrenching reason everyone else is saying, because most gay people are perfectly capable of reproducing and a significant number have already done so at the time they come out).

If we're going to just roll with this concept and forget all the niggling practical details, then we would probably not have any idea of gender role segregation in families. Families may well be hypergamous, with a more established and successful partner keeping their job and providing for a less successful partner to take on a more caring role in order to ensure sufficient reproductive labour.

Outside of the family, I don't see significamt difference though. Would gays and lesbians fight each other.. seriously, why would you even assume that? It's highly possible that without an idea of sex complementarity we wouldn't consider biological sex very important or significant at all, since it's the only thing which makes it so in our society. This means we probably wouldn't be having rabid arguments about whether heterosexuality was right or natural, so you can drop that one right off the curb.

Finally.. why would 'extremely sexual' media figures still be heterosexual? The average gay man in the 70s was more promiscuous than most of those people, that doesn't make them any gayer than a monogamous gay couple with a civil partnership and two children. A lot of these people (women in particular, since successful men are a little more 'standard') are also iconic to gays and lesbians because of their style, sex appeal or resistance to traditional sexual norms like compulsory marriage.

Male sexuality is often based on opportunity. Look at a man you think is really sexually successful, I will now use my psychic powers to determine that the man you are thinking of is almost certainly affluent, famous or both. In a society which wasn't set up around the idea that a small number of men demonstrate their elite status by fucking lots of passive women while the rest of us look on and find some sense of perverse security in this, would that be the case? Almost certainly not.

 

[Vault101]

another topic i see being ignored is how this alteration in history would effect wars. if the world consisted mainly of lesbians and homosexuals then wouldnt their be a natural divide between the two? would wars have changed in meaning? would WWII be fought over homosexual superiority over lesbians? would new wars occurred or historical wars not have occurred?

I dont really see why one gender would feel the need to dominate the other, I belie ther eowuld be alot of "batering" and such over reproduction

 

[DanielDeFig]

This is an impossible project.

As others ahve pointed out, the homosexual 'norm' would become a minority within a few generations, as the heterosexuals would reproduce, while homosexuals wouldn't. Can homosexuals reproduce? Yes! But if heterosexuality was as taboo as homosexuality, most ppl wouldn't, as it would be considered 'hetero' by others. Then maybe it's accepted, just for reproducing? Then heterosexuality would quickly stop being taboo, or at lest never as bad as homosexuality currently is.

Ignore that? How would society work ? However it would, no-one famous from history would be alive, as too much has been changed, all of history would be completely altered. You can't look at how famous/influential ppl from history would be different, as they probably wouldn't even exist. You can't look at how art/culture "changed" , a it would be the very evolution of culture, art, and even the borders of countries, would be completely unrecognisable. Sexuality as a whole, has always had an impact on our history, and you can't simply "ignore" biology, as it has a far more powerful impact on our actions.

The only way I can see this work is if homosexuality wasn't a 'norm' but it wouldn't be taboo. Even then you would have to pick a point in history at which everyone's mind is suddenly changed, and within the 20th century, otherwise too much would be changed even from that.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

I'm terribly sorry for saying this, but this project of yours is rather unrealistic and frankly, a little silly. I'll explain.

As everyone else has pointed out, the human race would've petered out by now. A species couldn't possibly survive if the norm involves same-sex intercourse. On a purely biological level, being gay is against Nature. That, however, doesn't stop Mother Nature from devising models for homosexual behavior outside of our species. Bonobo chimpanzees have some pretty randy games between males, if you catch my drift. It might be fun, it might be another form of socialization and down the line, it might not be as bad as all the right-wingers and homophobes make it sound - but it's absolutely not in line with how our "plumbing" works. Fact of life.

Even our most permissive societies used to consider homosexuality as some sort of alternative - never as the norm. The Spartans were still savvy enough in their machismo to recognize that women have to, at the very least, occupy the roles of caregiver and child-rearer. Modern society's a lot less stuck up, thank God, so women have a more diverse set of roles to choose from - but these two will always and forever be needed.

The Romans were slightly more progressive towards a similar stance, in that Roman society simply didn't *bother* with the idea of gender preference. The norm involved heterosexuality, but most slave-owning families kept a "puer delicatus" around. These are young boys sold into slavery who'd receive what we'd consider to be equal to our Classical education, with a slightly bigger and more overt emphasis on Sex Ed. The puer delicatus would be kept around until its teenager years, at which point it would either integrate the rest of the house's staff, or be sold off to another house.

Christianity caused a sharp decline in openly professed homosexuality, and society spent several centuries viewing it as a sinful act. We're only just now starting to free ourselves from that antiquated perception, but social sciences projects like this could potentially upset people. The initial hypothesis suggests that this would form some sort of new and genuine social model, but you just have to look to Rome and amplify that a few times over to see what this would involve.

Biologically speaking, it's a disaster, and I don't think any serious study could just dismiss biology, seeing as it's nearly always informed culture and taboos on some level. One of the reasons people still tend to frown on girls lezzing it up or on really overt gays is because they're transgressing a taboo that's practically glued to our genes and undone only by a few thousand years of history and of Man attempting to get his jollies in new and interesting ways.

Remember: Western society has indeed evolved to the point where being gay will no longer get you killed - which is awesome - but there's parts of the world where if you're caught trying to re-enact Brokeback Mountain with your buddy Ahmed, you'll get stoned and quite possibly burned alive.

Finally, would it honestly change anything? I doubt that. Society would rebalance itself between the caregivers and the workers, no matter if both pairs of a couple have boobs or a wang.

 

[BlackWidower]

I can't say for certain, but it's likely a lot of the really great gay artists (William Shakespere for example) would not have been as great because they would not have had as many problems in their lives. Because they were gay, and discriminated against, or had to hide it and lie to themselves, it made them better artists. That kind of work doesn't come from nowhere.

 

[slackbheep]

The tables would simply be turned one hundred eighty degrees. We would be having the arguments for heterosexual marriage now instead of the inverse. Far more interesting in my opinion would be the question of sexual equality and the relationship between the sexes. Would they mimic historical race relations?

 

[LiftYourSkinnyFists]

Human race would NOT last long..

 

[Char-Nobyl]

in my social science class me and my group have decided to take a look at how the world would have changed if heterosexuality were taboo and being gay were the norm. seeing as how it is impossible to analyses this entire topic within a single semester, our group is concentrating on how America would change (with and emphasis on California since that is where we go to school).

Ugh. Dude, I'll tell you right now: there's no way this is going to end well.

the project is going along pretty well thus far but i have hit a snag. i am trying to dig up historical people that were drastically effected by their sexuality to such a degree that if this "gay being the norm" thing occurred it would have altered history. I'm basically looking for the Americans (men or women) who were know for being extremely sexual. my idea is, if say Washington was known as being a Casanova, then in this alternate reality he would still be straight but he would try and hide it; how would this change in character effected him? would he be too shy to attempt to be an American president?

Aaaaaaand that's one reason right there. You're making exceptions to the 'world populated by gays' thing at random. Why are certain famous historical figures still heterosexual?

what if the world started off with men only loving men and women only loving women (i know the biology would be hard to explain but just roll with me on this).

No. I won't. Because that's a massive, massive thing.

how would the world be different. would the emergence of heterosexuality be more or less accepted?

"Emergence of heterosexuality"? What? So I guess mankind has been growing at a nice, steady rate despite open hatred and persecution against people who reproduce?

how would culture/ music/ art be different?

Well, it's probably be "Romeo and Julius," for one thing.

would their be a great divide between lesbians and gays (either by city or by nation)?

*facepalm* So not only is the only means of reproduction reviled by society, but you're wondering if men would outright live separately from women? The amount of assumptions required for any part of this scenario is too high to count.

would wars like WWII be fought over completely different reasons (gay or lesbian superiority)?

...yeah, because ultimately, anything gays do is motivated by being gay. Did 'race' vanished from this bizzare world, too?

how would metro-sexuality change? would transgender people be accepted?

If you're asking these questions, it means you've run out of things to talk about.

EDIT: please try and avoid stereotypes like saying the world would be more flamboyant and covered in glitter; that is an element of current gay culture but in this alternate reality it could just as easily be apart of heterosexual culture

No, it isn't. It's not an alternate reality. That phrase assumes that there aren't logical black-holes littering every second of human history.

EDIT#2: ok, so i have heard some people saying they are insulted so i am adding this to hopefully straighten up this topic.

Anyone else catch the hilariously unfortunate word choice?

i am not saying that being gay effect your choices, what i am trying to do is view how history can be changed through minor events. in this prompt i am viewing gay as a sliding scale (yes i understand it does not work this way but i am adding this alteration to highlight changes in history that may have occurred if the historical people we know today were oppress the way gays were in that time- would Washington have made different choices in life if he were worried about being killed because of his sexuality).

Putting aside the countless issues with this question, I'm still wondering why you think George Washington has some sort of protective barrier that prevents him from falling into the roughly 90%
of people you've retroactively turned gay.

through this sliding scale, very heterosexual individuals (those known for their sexual exploits as well as their historical significance- IE Clinton) would only be moderately heterosexual but they would be living in a world where that would be taboo. how would this change in character change history?

...wait, what? Just when I thought this question couldn't get more insane, you manage to do it. Everyone gets a certain amount of gay, and if their heterosexuality...I don't know, shield is strong enough, they stay straight? And Clinton didn't spark controversy because he went on a sex-rampage and boned every female member of the White House staff. He got head from a secretary. How does that render him any more heterosexual than the majority of men who aren't aroused by other men?

Use the Comic Litmus test: if the world you're envisioning for a school project is more outlandish than the Marvel or DC universe, you probably shouldn't use it. And in DC (a universe where aliens evolved to look exactly like humans without any prior contact, mind you), the existence of an island of Amazons is actually given reason for not dying out: there's another island filled with dudes in a similar situation, and they get together every so often and make babies because they're not going to pretend that a purely mono-gendered human society can reproduce.

 

[jonoortrev]

well, if everyone started out gay, then (hetersexual) sex by that logic would become a 'well we kinda have to', so logically from the stand point alone that both gay men and women would have to cooperate to simply survive would probably mean several things:

1. Sex and all the issues that have evolved with it would not change. People would still be objectified, degraded, raped etc

2. stemming from point one, Hetersexual sex would become a comodity. It would be traded like oil, food land etc. It also means forced sex would quite literally be a norm in society (at least for some point), most likely men would have to be drugged with viagra (or other) to even be able to copulate.

3. following on from point 2, when the technological development would eventually come along, then sperm bank/artificial empregnation would then become the known norm.

4. At this point, this is where hetersexual sex would become a real taboo, when men and women don't have to have sex to keep the race surviving. To keep in mind the biological significance, women would most likely be dominant in this society. Simply because males would have to coersed simply to be erect, which would make them out of the 2 parties, most likely the submissive 'partner'. Whilst women themselves would be uncomfortable during the act, they physically don't have to change to be able to have sex.

5. carrying on from point 4, in consentual hetersexual sex, the female would be seen as the perverse party, and the male being the abused victim. It would be assumed from dogmatic points that the woman misled and tricked the male to become her sexual partner.

this next bit I can't do in precise points, its too complicated to easily break down and has too many contradictions. There will be cities where men and women coexist peacefully and will as happilly as you be during mandatory sex. (read nineteen eighty four, where couples are encouraged to have sex 'for the country' and not for pleasure. However here plesurable sex would still exist and hetersexual sex would be less dictated). Also on that point there would be the opposite, where they'll be constant tension between countries/cities of men, and then the cities/countries of women. As said before sex would be a commodity tied to survival, so treaties between same sex only land masses would have to be drawn to ensure survival. The tensions would however be played both ways, if the male society thought the female society were holding back or even killing male young, then they would most likely withhold males for sex. Also the reverse can happen, if for some reason males decided to power play to get the upper hand by stop sending males for sex, the any male born infants would be held to ransome in return for men to have sex with.
As you may have realised at this point, this is only working on the assumption that males and females would evolve as equals. More likely as said earlier, since females would most likely be the dominant out of the two genders, males could become a slave species. This I'm really not even going to go into mainly as I can't even figure out the complications it would bring, there would be too many to consider. You would also have to consider how the human species first evolved to be homosexual, and then how the species itself would figure out it needs hetersexual sex to let the race survive.

 

[Char-Nobyl]

I'm terribly sorry for saying this, but this project of yours is rather unrealistic and frankly, a little silly. I'll explain.

Oh, thank God. Another sane perspective. I was starting to lose it.

Even our most permissive societies used to consider homosexuality as some sort of alternative - never as the norm. The Spartans were still savvy enough in their machismo to recognize that women have to, at the very least, occupy the roles of caregiver and child-rearer. Modern society's a lot less stuck up, thank God, so women have a more diverse set of roles to choose from - but these two will always and forever be needed.

Don't forget their marriage ritual: shaving the bride's head and putting her in baggy clothes in a dark room in case the groom wasn't very keen on the idea of his new partner not being a guy. It wasn't even an issue of caregiving and whatnot: the Spartans had enough common sense to know that men couldn't make babies themselves, and if they wanted their society to continue, they were going to have to bite the bullet and have sex with ladies every so often.

 

[Benkin Manfish]

I think that the entire premise is flawed. Almost all Non western cultures lacked the taboo of that we attach to homosexuality. As such i think that it would be silly to look at homosexual repression as a primary factor in world history. Especialy when even someone like oscar wilde could have a long and successful careers while being openly homosexual. All in all, stupid premise, a shallow understanding of history and a waste of time.

 

[stefman]

in my social science class me and my group have decided to take a look at how the world would have changed if heterosexuality were taboo and being gay were the norm. seeing as how it is impossible to analyses this entire topic within a single semester, our group is concentrating on how America would change (with and emphasis on California since that is where we go to school).

the project is going along pretty well thus far but i have hit a snag. i am trying to dig up historical people that were drastically effected by their sexuality to such a degree that if this "gay being the norm" thing occurred it would have altered history. I'm basically looking for the Americans (men or women) who were know for being extremely sexual. my idea is, if say Washington was known as being a Casanova, then in this alternate reality he would still be straight but he would try and hide it; how would this change in character effected him? would he be too shy to attempt to be an American president?

here is our groups actual prompt. feel free to discuss your interpretations and ideas, i would love to hear your responses

what if the world started off with men only loving men and women only loving women (i know the biology would be hard to explain but just roll with me on this). how would the world be different. would the emergence of heterosexuality be more or less accepted? how would culture/ music/ art be different? would their be a great divide between lesbians and gays (either by city or by nation)? would wars like WWII be fought over completely different reasons (gay or lesbian superiority)? how would metro-sexuality change? would transgender people be accepted?

EDIT: please try and avoid stereotypes like saying the world would be more flamboyant and covered in glitter; that is an element of current gay culture but in this alternate reality it could just as easily be apart of heterosexual culture

EDIT#2: ok, so i have heard some people saying they are insulted so i am adding this to hopefully straighten up this topic. i am not saying that being gay effect your choices, what i am trying to do is view how history can be changed through minor events. in this prompt i am viewing gay as a sliding scale (yes i understand it does not work this way but i am adding this alteration to highlight changes in history that may have occurred if the historical people we know today were oppress the way gays were in that time- would Washington have made different choices in life if he were worried about being killed because of his sexuality). through this sliding scale, very heterosexual individuals (those known for their sexual exploits as well as their historical significance- IE Clinton) would only be moderately heterosexual but they would be living in a world where that would be taboo. how would this change in character change history?

think if hitler was gay, he may not have gone on his crazy rampage which did involve killing homosexuals. then again he might have been secretly gay and killed homosexual people to try to cover up his true sexual preference. You never know i suppose, but it's a really interesting topic. i hope it turns out well!

 

[Haratu]

One of the largest issues with homosexuality affecting history would be inheritance of monarchy and leadership.

Homosexuality puts women further up in leadership circles since as a leader in history you are expected to produce future leaders, men can not do that. Then there is the issue of illegitemacy since any offspring would be a result of a taboo relationship. This wouöd naturally result in wars.
While such wars occur in heterosexual world history, those in a homosexual history would be more common due to no legitamate heir in each generation. In fact, empires such as china, asian nations, england, african nations, and S.american nations would collapse within a lifetime of being founded instead of the five or more lifetimes expected.

Basically the taboo of heterosexuality would have to be dropped for leaders in order to maintain stability... And if that occured then it would not be long before heterosexuality was norm and homosexuality is taboo.

Pretty much the whole concept is ridiculous since heterosexuality and the tradition of monogamy (irrelevant of the practice being true to tradition) is an adptation to maintain a stable society. Even nations where homosexuality was common in history supported heterosexual marriage because of the stability it brought.

There is an exception to this rule... Presuming heterosexuality was ritualised then nomadic peoples could employ such a system based on matriachial inheritance. This is because it is a small groupthat can more easily settle disputes.

 

[stefman]

I think that the entire premise is flawed. Almost all Non western cultures lacked the taboo of that we attach to homosexuality. As such i think that it would be silly to look at homosexual repression as a primary factor in world history. Especialy when even someone like oscar wilde could have a long and successful careers while being openly homosexual. All in all, stupid premise, a shallow understanding of history and a waste of time.

Discrimination toward homosexuals still exists! It may be much less open but it still exists just like racism still exists. Granted we have taken great strides toward acceptance of other cultures/lifestyles but don't believe for a second that other cultures don't have a bias, however small compared to some of the much less tolerant locations, against homosexuality. Also I would agree it is Predominantly in Western culture but it still exists worldwide.

 

[Sporky111]

Maybe you should look into something like gender roles. In a homosexual society, would gender roles as we know them ever have developed? Maybe with men-woman pairings uncommon, women would never have been the caretakers and men would never have been the providers.

Politics could have changed drastically, perhaps not in America, but anywhere arranged marriages were common. Instead of princes and princesses being married to each other, maybe kings would marry kings and the nations would thrive together.

More recently, consider the Civil Movement. Would the gender equality have ever been an issue? Feminism might never have existed. Would the gay liberation movement have become the straight liberation movement?

hmm, the problem is that society will never make a taboo of anything that helps to preserve society.

all the taboos are created because the tabooed thing is (by someone powerful or the majority of the society) percieved as harmful/dangerous to society (or their/its power).

so asking even a hypothetical question like yours just points to complete lack of understanding what "taboo" is, how it works, and what's its point, imho.

I wouldn't agree with that. Something taboo isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it is typically something that interferes with the order that is already established. Look at how arts and sciences were viewed prior to the Renaissance, and indeed how sciences were viewed and prosecuted long after.

Besides, what you're saying is that homosexuality is something harmful and dangerous, which it is neither. It is simply frowned upon because it was used throughout history as a scapegoat by many peoples, and the stigma is only just being overcome.