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

[RedDeadFred]

Scarf sales would skyrocket.
The world would be quite different I'm sure. Certain gay geniuses from history would get to succeed while the straight ones might have been condemned.

 

[CrustyOatmeal]

Good god, that would be awful. Nice it doesn't happen today.

Fortunately for us, Hugh Hefners are extremely few and far between.

And you better not be implying that girly mags count as sexuality being thrown in our faces because you actually need to be looking for them in order to notice them.

Hugh Hefner is actually a pretty good/ important man in history. you should watch the documentary about his life. he was an avid supporter of the civil rights movement and he helped progress women's rights. its unfortunate people mainly see him as a man that exploits women

 

[JesterRaiin]

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?

No, we aren't ignoring it.

It all depends on time of "sexual revolution" - spontaneous change of sexual orienatation. If such an event were to occur, it would change the future history. Some wars would be waged, others - probably not. I guess that we could rule out small, local conflicts, a few civil wars. World Wars/Crusades were too massive in my opinion to not happen at all. Observe the reasons - wars are waged because of resources and that has very little or nothing to do with sexuality.

As for male/female gay war... No. I don't think it would happen. It may be me, but i don't see any plausible reason. I think that rather we could count on homosexual vs heterosexual conflicts, but i'm not sure about scale of such events.

If people were homosexual from the beginning, you can as well scrap all history and start from blank state.

Sorry to say but its a pointless topic.

No topic is pointless. It may not have practical application, but still, if it makes people think, do some research, gather information, extrapolate - excersise their grey matter - then it's not pointless at all. That's the deal with education.

 

[Ghengis John]

we were inspired by another project from a previous class about how society would view periods if men had them. the presentation talked about how periods would be openly discussed and men would even brag about it. the main point of our topic is not to imagine a world for the sake of imagination but to draw comparisons between the two and how different circumstances can drastically alter meaning

But you see... gay people are not dramatically different than anyone else. Switching the two positions around does nothing but make stereotypical generalizations of the kind seen in "White Man's Burden."

 

[Tanakh]

Fortunately for us, Hugh Hefners are extremely few and far between.

And you better not be implying that girly mags count as sexuality being thrown in our faces because you actually need to be looking for them in order to notice them.

Sadly yeah, most of the guys that try end up looking like this:

And there are a lot of them, or maybe i am just unlucky and meet a lot of them.

 

[WolfThomas]

A few people have mentioned the forever war, it's a great book most people should read. In that at one point in human history people are "quickened" in artificial wombs and raised in groups, heterosexuality is seen as a deviancy.

 

[bakan]

To maintain the small population, which you will have in such a society, you will see forced sexual intercourses and maybe that it is only allowed between strong individuals to have a higher possibility of a healthy offspring.

With our current scientific possibilities we could even see faster progress in genetics and maybe even attempts at human cloning which could easily lead to the demise of humans with less variation as the time goes on.

 

[CrustyOatmeal]

we were inspired by another project from a previous class about how society would view periods if men had them. the presentation talked about how periods would be openly discussed and men would even brag about it. the main point of our topic is not to imagine a world for the sake of imagination but to draw comparisons between the two and how different circumstances can drastically alter meaning

But you see... gay people are not dramatically different than anyone else. Switching the two positions around does nothing but make stereotypical generalizations of the kind seen in "White Man's Burden."

its not about differences between gays and straight but about societal changes that would occur in such a world. if the world was created with heterosexuals as the minority then their would be a natural split between lesbians and homosexuals. if people like Bill Clinton were straight in a gay world would he have become president? if he didnt become president then what changes would have occurred?

i guess another way to look at it is to imagine if certain famous historical people were gay in todays world, what would have changed? their would be oppression and stigmitization and this would inevitably lead to alterations in character. maybe the person never achieves what they were meant to do and maybe they achieve it in a completely different manor. that is what i am trying to discover, what are the ramifications for manipulating or eliminating important people throughout history?

 

[Gunner_Guardian]

The more I think about the more I realize you've just described spartan society. I haven't done too much research into this so take it with a grain of salt.

They were basically gay until they had to procreate. Most romances were between a younger spartan and an older one.

So ya you want a society where heterosexuality is the norm, look up Sparta, it'll give you a clear definition.

 

[Jimmybobjr]

There would be no Human race.

Its that simple. It really is.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

A few people have mentioned the forever war, it's a great book most people should read. In that at one point in human history people are "quickened" in artificial wombs and raised in groups, heterosexuality is seen as a deviancy.

Brave New World carried the same premise, except it was love that was seen as deviance, since birth control was freely available, and casual sex was an easy way to keep the people happy. Incidentally, Brave New World is a much more likely dystopian future than that of 1984; it's a question of taking away people's freedom but doing it in such a way that they don't even notice because they're so happy about the way things are going, versus a regime that is so oppressive that everyone hates it, but they can't do anything about it, because it's just that powerful. One of these would be facing a revolution quite quickly. In the other, the people would be too apathetic and content to bother.

 

[CrustyOatmeal]

The more I think about the more I realize you've just described spartan society. I haven't done too much research into this so take it with a grain of salt.

They were basically gay until they had to procreate. Most romances were between a younger spartan and an older one.

So ya you want a society where heterosexuality is the norm, look up Sparta, it'll give you a clear definition.

i actually looked into this and despite what alot of people think, gay relationships were frowned apon. gay sex was ok and man-on-man relations were accepted because they felt men were only able to intilectually be equal to each other but gay unions were not legal

To maintain the small population, which you will have in such a society, you will see forced sexual intercourses and maybe that it is only allowed between strong individuals to have a higher possibility of a healthy offspring.

With our current scientific possibilities we could even see faster progress in genetics and maybe even attempts at human cloning which could easily lead to the demise of humans with less variation as the time goes on.

thats is a clever perspective on the matter. this would be a great idea to present to the group if we wished to undergo a more biologically relative topic rather than a suspension of disbelief prompt we currently have. thank you for the idea

 

[sketch_zeppelin]

Off the top of my head...look up Fraude. His contribution to phycoligical medican changed how the field worked and most of his theories are based around sexuality. If gay we're the norm then he'd have had a verrry different view.

Example. Fraude claimed that every man, deep down wanted to marry his mother (or at least a woman who could take care of him like his mother.) In your world then it would likely be "every man wants to marry his father" and since fathers raise kids differntly than mothers that would effect the meaning of the statment.

 

[azukar]

Oh yes, this sort of thing happens all the time in Social Science classes.

I call BS on the premise.

 

[azukar]

its not about differences between gays and straight but about societal changes that would occur in such a world. if the world was created with heterosexuals as the minority then their would be a natural split between lesbians and homosexuals.

Erp. Also, lesbian = homosexual. Get your categories right.

 

[MidnightSt]

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.

(and YES, there IS a difference between a hypothetical and nonsensical question, and this one is from the latter cathegory)

 

[WolfThomas]

A few people have mentioned the forever war, it's a great book most people should read. In that at one point in human history people are "quickened" in artificial wombs and raised in groups, heterosexuality is seen as a deviancy.

Brave New World carried the same premise, except it was love that was seen as deviance, since birth control was freely available, and casual sex was an easy way to keep the people happy. Incidentally, Brave New World is a much more likely dystopian future than that of 1984; it's a question of taking away people's freedom but doing it in such a way that they don't even notice because they're so happy about the way things are going, versus a regime that is so oppressive that everyone hates it, but they can't do anything about it, because it's just that powerful. One of these would be facing a revolution quite quickly. In the other, the people would be too apathetic and content to bother.

Yeah I've read Brave New World and 1984. In Forever War that society was just one period of history the main character came back to, he was a soldier in a war against an Alien race and because of time dilation from traveling near to lightspeed many years passed when he was away fighting, when he first came back it was a dystopian society with overcrowding skyscraper cities,rampant umemployment, food shortages and street violence, the last timehe came back people had evolved into Man, a hive mind of perfect identical males and females compromised of all racial characteristics. It was very interesting.

Vonnegut's Player Piano is another interesting book about a dystopian society where machines and computers put everyone out of work and the feelings of hopelessness it imposes on people who either have to pass rigorous exams and many years of education for a job (for example you need to become a Doctor of Realty to sell houses) or do menial labour machines haven't replaced or join the army.

 

[klausaidon]

I would be straight.

 

[CrustyOatmeal]

its not about differences between gays and straight but about societal changes that would occur in such a world. if the world was created with heterosexuals as the minority then their would be a natural split between lesbians and homosexuals.

Erp. Also, lesbian = homosexual. Get your categories right.

you are correct but there is no term (that i or anybody i have asked) knows of that refers to man-on-man relations that doesnt actually mean same sex relations (IE gay or homosexual) but lesbian strictly refers to woman-on-woman relations. it is commonly accepted that both gay and homosexual refer to men; thats why its called LGBT, Lesbian Gay Bi and Transgender

 

[CrustyOatmeal]

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.

(and YES, there IS a difference between a hypothetical and nonsensical question, and this one is from the latter cathegory)

you missed the point. in this new world the roles are reversed. gays and lesbians can have children without having sex with members of the opposite sex (yes, i know this is a biological impossibility but its called suspension of disbelief) and how this alteration would effect the world. i am asking this question merely to draw correlations between this ridiculous society i have created and the one we live in. it allows people to observe how minute differences in time can dramatically alter entire societies