Homosexuality: Nature or Nurture?

[Varya]

The first one is kind of obvious, height is purely based on genetics, no argument

Uh... I think scientists would disagree with that.

Malnutrition, disease etc. effect height, as well as other factors that may or may not.

Ok, purely might be an exaggeration, but the fact that identical twins are you know, largely identical, kind of makes my point. We have a height decided by our genes, it CAN be affected, but it's not the same as personality. Yes, our genes give us a few guidelines, but it's shaped and defined by our experiences. But this kind of makes my point stronger, if we can be manipulated enough by the environment to change our height, why couldn't our sexual preferences be affected.

 

[Keith K]

I am not homosexual and am therefore unqualified to comment.

 

[Cheshire Cat]

I've always considered it as a strange fetish like those people that like children, having hot wax dribbled across themselves and being whipped, furries or machines... It may not be the most politically correct way to look at it, but it's better than one of my friends who thinks of it as a mental disorder like schizophrenia or Attention Deficit Disorder.

 

[Saippua]

Its genetic. I've read about a study that claimed that its caused by hormones while in the uterus.

 

[rapidoud]

Apparently in can be an evolutionary reaction to perceiving your environment as overpopulated.

So there you go...

 

[DanDanikov]

I wasn't suggesting it was a choice. Homosexuals prefer the same sex - they don't choose to, but they do.

I myself am pansexual, so preference isn't a problem for me XD

Wikipedia say "Sexual orientation, for example, is no longer considered a sexual preference." In fact, the sexual orientation page linked there is a good starting place for the current thinking on the matter.

I still maintain that we retain the ability to change our orientation to some degree or another- even if it comes to mucking around with genes and hormones and restructuring our own brains (if not now, sooner or later). This goes for pretty much anything- so ultimately choice should be able to overcome anything nature OR nurture. As previously stated, this passes the buck on to whether choice itself is nature or nurture (if it exists at all).

The sci-fi ideal of the ultimate sexuality being pansexuality is based on the ideal that sexuality stops being necessarily about the flesh and is instead about the persona, or perhaps for the more religious, the soul- that you are intimate with who, not what, or how. I think it's more pragmatic to accept that that preferences will always exist, but that they will become more malleable and less crucial.

 

[Ickorus]

If I remember correctly in nature animals aren't homosexual, they're bisexual.

But yeah, going by the term of finding sexual attraction in the same gender then it is natural even if it is a bit of a human oddity to not have the same attraction in the opposite gender.

Apparently in can be an evolutionary reaction to perceiving your environment as overpopulated.

So there you go...

This also makes sense as a reason why humans seem to have this oddity.

 

[Varya]

Apparently in can be an evolutionary reaction to perceiving your environment as overpopulated.

So there you go...

Source? This seems... strange, since while it would be a beneficial gene, how could it survive? You cannot have a "failsafe" gene, designed not to get reproduced, it would die out in a generation.

 

[Nieroshai]

I know I know another sexuality thread, I dont know why But I find this "nature vs nurture" argument very interesting, not just in regard to gayness

So I guess the obvious question is: can your secual orientation be influenced by outside..um things, or are you just born that way?

personally I would lean towards the "nature" side of things, not saying that your upbringing cant have an effect but I mean you get people who come from traditional christain nuclear families who are gay, so how do you explain that?

Because their upbringing is archconservative and they grow a deep psychological need to be different from their parents. You hear about pastors' kids being rebellious all the time, a famous case being Alice Cooper. In my case, I simply had no idea there was a difference between genders until long after my stepfather started taking his own masculinity issues out on me. I hated him so much I wished I was a girl instead, and tried to be one. Somehow that affected me in my early teens even though he was long gone by then.

 

[esin]

From my personal experience I just can't put much stock into nurture. People forget the major push in psychology to act as if everything was nurture and that parents were at fault for virtually every minutiae of a child's existence.

People loove weave narratives/myths to preemptively explain what they have no facts to prove. I am gay and no, I've never had 'Daddy' issues and I can't say my parents were particularly abusive, nor coddling. And for whatever my account is worth, my feeling of attraction towards other men is the farthest thing I've felt from being anything like a 'choice'. I can see masculine traits as beautiful and arousing. I can see the feminine as beautiful but never once felt the slightest hint of physical arousal toward a woman.

 

[incal11]

I'd say it's similar to all the endless blather about "girl gamers".

yeah i think you have a point.. lol. oh the fun of being both! :')

I'm not making a fuss over you being either a girl, a gamer, or gay. Rather it's you making a fuss about people trying to undertand you (the behavior of male teenage gamers is another issue really).
I understand you'd want everyone to be indifferent or tolerant, but as you said we live in a "straight world". The best way to defeat intolerance is to fight off the ignorance from which it is born. Not act all proud and expect it'll go away by itself.

that is the point, there is nothing wrong with me so why do so many straight people fuss over what i am?

Because of the victorian influence on our modern view of sexuality. More precisely we can trace the roots of that mentality down to the advent of the christian church. Which found no better way of setting itself apart, and therefore above, other religions than by arbitrarily declaring some behaviors "sinful". Here is your explanation.
Before that it never came to anyone that whatever you do in private is anything else than personal tastes.

i read your first link and yeah, that disproves/points out flaws in a few scientific claims about homosexuality, but it doesn't mean it can't be found there eventually, if at all. it just don't see why it matters, and why so many (mostly?) straight people are so focused on find a 'cause', no matter what their believes are.

You really should read the second link, it disproves most or all of those misconceptions from both sides of the issue, or do you feel insecure about it ? There is always a cause to something, there could be a genetic factor of influence but for now it has not been found. In my case it is plain scientific curiosity, what's so wrong with wanting to know ?
It's not the end of the world if you are not born gay. Rather insisting, as some gay communities do, that gayness is that unexplainable birth gift doesn't help in forwarding tolerance. The idea is very appealing, so it's normal that shooting it down may feel like an attack on homosexuality. Still, the fact is a misconception is never ever a good thing.
Not all straights, or gays for that matter, think about it to the point of seriously discussing the causes. What I was trying to explain is that finding and explaining those causes could help in formally proving homosexuality isn't some kind of disease. This could help you feel a normal person in a more sex-tolerant world than just normal in a straight homophobic world, though it will take time.
So, you shouldn't feel like a dissected animal because of those studies. Use them against the homophobes who pick on you.

TLDR, Nature people, nature, and you're all as queer as a 3-dollar bill ^_^

Oh, also a neat fact, giraffe's are the gayest animal ever, 95% of recorded couplings are male and male, 1% is female and female, so, 96% of recorded couplings are homosexual... interesting, no?

I too believe that we can be (are) aroused by anything and everything. Though how you act out and expand on those pulsions is still the result of various factors. Same for other animals, it may be their natural behavior, but it is to establish ranks and ties, and we (wrongly) antropomorphise this. But at least it proves homosexual behavior is not unnatural.

 

[Varya]

Its genetic. I've read about a study that claimed that its caused by hormones while in the uterus.

"A study" isn't really conclusive evidence, especially if you have no source. There are plenty of studies that claim opposite things in almost all subjects. Also, hormones in the uterus seems environmental, if the mother had a hormone imbalance that could cause this, that would be very much environmental.

 

[incal11]

just because Option A isn't certain, that doesn't make Option B the default. `
I certainly don't think that nurture has zero impact on sexuality but I don't think it can decide your orientation short of the nurture being some sort of futuristic genetic alteration to sexuality right in the genes.

We might have misunderstood each other. I actually share your opinion, but back then you made it look like you thought that it was like being born tall or not.
Those links don't prove that genes have no influence whatsoever, just that their influence is minor at best.

 

[floppylobster]

It's absolutely nature (look at the gay fruit flies - are you going to tell me they were nurtured?).

However nurture can cause a human to repress their feelings and 'make them straight' despite what turns them on (I know some gay married men).

On the other hand peer pressure may make someone extremely weak willed 'experiment' with another sex, but if it doesn't work for them, they're going to have a hard time pretending to get off to it.

If anything 'nurture' is what stops some gay people from being themselves.

 

[esin]

Its genetic. I've read about a study that claimed that its caused by hormones while in the uterus.

"A study" isn't really conclusive evidence, especially if you have no source. There are plenty of studies that claim opposite things in almost all subjects. Also, hormones in the uterus seems environmental, if the mother had a hormone imbalance that could cause this, that would be very much environmental.

He may be referring to this?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prenatal_hormones_and_sexual_orientation

Can't make any bold statements, but it does give me pause for thought that I had a complicated birth and my mother has always been in semi-fragile health with an overactive immune system which I've read can have hormonal causes.

 

[incal11]

It's absolutely nature (look at the gay fruit flies - are you going to tell me they were nurtured?).

To begin they are fruit flies, not humans.
http://www.mygenes.co.nz/download.htm

Can't make any bold statements, but it does give me pause for thought that I had a complicated birth and my mother has always been in semi-fragile health with an overactive immune system which I've read can have hormonal causes.

It only make people "more likely" to have certain behaviors though.

 

[Varya]

I am not homosexual and am therefore unqualified to comment.

1) You just commented
2) I'm not either, but no matter. In fact, homosexuals might be the worst to answer. Since it affects them, they are more likely to input what they WANT to be true in their theories rather than what they KNOW to be true. This is of course also true of homophobes.
The only ones who actually qualify to comment in that case would be scientists who study this. But they are probably off and you know, doing science stuff, so let's do what we do on forums: discuss our theories.

 

[floppylobster]

Apparently in can be an evolutionary reaction to perceiving your environment as overpopulated.

So there you go...

Source? This seems... strange, since while it would be a beneficial gene, how could it survive? You cannot have a "failsafe" gene, designed not to get reproduced, it would die out in a generation.

Perhaps it's the first step toward becoming, or a left over trait from being, asexual? And that is certainly beneficial.

 

[Harry Mason]

Both. Just like everything else. I'm not sure why Nature Vs. Nurture is still even a debate in any regard. It seems like the answer is always "Well, it depends..."

It's like Coke Vs. Pepsi. There is no answer, it's just different from person to person.

As far as the whole "What's up with all the bisexual and lesbian girls?" Conundrum, I've never thought that sexuality made sense as a binary system (you are EITHER THIS OR THAT!), but rather as a scale, with most people lying in the middle-ish area and either rounding up or down.

Culturally, women are more comfortable with exploring the same gender because... Well... It's not frowned upon in the same manner. If a woman experiments with a woman, contemporary culture tends to look at it as tolerable, even "hot" in some cases. If a man experiments with another man, contemporary culture tends to view them as a GAY HOMOSEXUAL SKIRT WEARING SISSY-MAN. And that, boys and girls, is because contemporary culture sucks ass.

Could you imagine if the roles of experimenting with homosexuality in pop-culture were reversed? A girl would be caught being intimate with another female and her friends would shun her and say stuff like "No, you can't come shopping with us! Why don't you go watch football or wrestle or do something manly, you MAN." And on the flipside there would be drunk guys making out a college keggers while a group of women looked on and cat-called.

If the world were perfect, people would stop trying to label everything and condemn this and that and just chill the fuck out and love who you want to love, how you want to love, when you want to love.

Sure, from a purely biological standpoint, homosexual behavior is unnatural and doesn't make sense, but so is wearing a hat, going skydiving, having oral sex, eating Doritos, and EVERYTHING ELSE THAT IS FUN.

 

[The Stonker]

Nature but some of the ticks that some homosexuals have *cough,cough* flamboyancy, is nurture.
I've seen some manly gay guys and some femine gay girls so *shrug* I guess that is nurture and society but homosexuality is genetic in every sense.