Homosexuality: Nature or Nurture?

[Shycte]

2-5% nature, rest nurture.

Have you seen in sweden how they're using a word between "he" and "she" for every child?

Yeah, don't let's discriminate, and sexually confuse everyone in the process >.>

Didn't you make a thread about that? You really are mad about this aren't you?

Anway, I'd say it is a combination of both. I mean, as far as I've understood it, it was common to have male lovers back in the days. Like, before Jesus and all that. It mostly became a "thing" with Christianity. Before that you'd just fuck whatever was fuckable.

As I've understood it.

 

[DannibalG36]

You know what's also naturally encoded in DNA? Genes that inspire alcoholism, kleptomania, and serial killings. Or so various scientists have at one point or another declared. This is why science is not to be trusted absolutely.

The problem is, the factors governing sexuality are fucking myriad, if you look at the problem from a rational or scientific viewpoint.

It's much tidier to say that God made the person that way, which is where the Christians have a leg up in the debate surrounding homosexuals.

But it boggles my mind why evolution would let a biologically useless urge survive in DNA. Then again, DNA also provides for other biologically useless functions, such as the WBC urge to picket - they are so asking to have their genetic line wiped off the face of the earth.

 

[ParkourMcGhee]

2-5% nature, rest nurture.

Have you seen in sweden how they're using a word between "he" and "she" for every child?

Yeah, don't let's discriminate, and sexually confuse everyone in the process >.>

Didn't you make a thread about that? You really are mad about this aren't you?

Anway, I'd say it is a combination of both. I mean, as far as I've understood it, it was common to have male lovers back in the days. Like, before Jesus and all that. It mostly became a "thing" with Christianity. Before that you'd just fuck whatever was fuckable.

As I've understood it.

Unless I was extremely drunk, I don't think so... I've made a thread about matlabing the age rule a while ago, and that's about it unless you have a really good memory.

I could have posted in a thread like that though *shrug*

I don't think anyone denies it's a combination any more.

 

[t3h br0th3r]

2-5% nature, rest nurture.

Have you seen in sweden how they're using a word between "he" and "she" for every child?

Yeah, don't let's discriminate, and sexually confuse everyone in the process >.>

Didn't you make a thread about that? You really are mad about this aren't you?

Anway, I'd say it is a combination of both. I mean, as far as I've understood it, it was common to have male lovers back in the days. Like, before Jesus and all that. It mostly became a "thing" with Christianity. Before that you'd just fuck whatever was fuckable.

As I've understood it.

Unless I was extremely drunk, I don't think so... I've made a thread about matlabing the age rule a while ago, and that's about it unless you have a really good memory.

I could have posted in a thread like that though *shrug*

I don't think anyone denies it's a combination any more.

I think we are confusing sexuality as whom a person was predisposed at birth to feel romanticly attracted to with sexuality in terms of who a person dates/has sex with. Its not Nature vs Nurture, its Nature vs(or in concordance with) What the person wants. what the person wants in heavily influenced by the times they grow up in (nurturing and such).

I think that even though we are born being naturally straight, Gay, Bi, ect, its possible for us to will ourselves into unnatural actions, hince how you get gay people in straight relationships or straight people seeming to go bi.

 

[MasterOfWorlds]

Nature, but your prefrences that you have in regards to looks, fetishes, kinks, and whatnot are probably based in nurture. When I was a psychology major, I wanted to do research into this kind of thing.

Also, there was actually a scientist back in the 90s I think that did research on homosexual men's brains and found that they actually had an underdeveloped part of the brain. I think it was the hypothalamus gland, but it's been a while since I read about it, so I might be wrong. The point is that he seemed to believe that it was a physiological thing. Sadly, because he was homosexual, and was doing the research on brains because his partner had died of a massive stroke or tumor or something, it was largely discredited from what I understand.

 

[p3t3r]

Well, are tall people tall because of the way they were raised?

Besides, a straight couple raised the first gay person.

well people in developed countries are taller than people in non-developed countries due to an increase in nutrition in there diets. so a taller person can be tall based on the way they were raised.

i would say there is a bit a both it isn't entirely one way or another.

 

[Pyro Paul]

This, I feel, I need to return to. "It's impossible for sexuality to be influenced by genetics"... I missed this before, and while we're on the subject of debunking old arguments.
This.. this is just wrong. Our genetics program us. We have instincts, they are in our genes. Psychology is very much a factor of genetics. We find some traits in females attractive because it's beneficial for us tho think so. Genetics determine our hormones, which very much affect our sexuality. I mean... I have argued with you on the basis that you knew that our genes are programmed to make us like to fuck. Are you seriously arguing that not only homosexuality is based on environment, but heterosexuality also? Because... no... it's in our genes, that's why we there's 7 billion of us...

what? again... are you just saying stupid stuff to taunt me or do you truely belive the lies you spout?

Instincts are learned. they are not hereditary artifacts of genetics...
If you believe instinct is genetic... then why are you not doing exactly what your great great grandfather did for a living?

you're just trying to troll now because you have no idea what you're talking about and only providing counter points with out adding anything to the discussion. You have yet to provide any real input and are just circle jerking around issues that you can't disprove.

just a simple question
if we are genetically ingrained to be sexual...
explain celibacy.

 

[DarkenedWolfEye]

just a simple question
if we are genetically ingrained to be sexual...
explain celibacy.

Celibacy is a forced behavior of unhealthy repression. It is to deny natural urges coded into our subconscious; the sexual urge exists to stop the human race from dying out. Even if you lived in a world where no one talked about sex or even acknowledged its existence (and there was such a time when that was the societal norm) you would still, on some level, be aware of sex and still crave the experience.
Now, answer me this simple question:
If sexual behavior, and therefore sexual orientation, is strictly a learned behavior (and I reinforce that it don't believe that's true) explain how children raised by straight parents and siblings grow up to be homosexual.

 

[Olrod]

I knew I was gay since the age of about 4 years old, so anyone who says nature has nothing to do with it has just been proven wrong.

 

[Wintermoot]

Nature some homosexual,s grew up in homophobic environment,s so why should they become gay by that?

 

[Dan Steele]

Considering you're 500% more likely to be homosexual if anyone in your family is homosexual, I'd say mostly nature.

Really? What's that based on? My understanding was that adopted children of gay couples had no increased chance of being homosexual link.

By family I mean genetically. And it was the Atheist Experience quite some months ago.

Nature, they tested this with monkeys. Homosexuality is literaly a genetic counter measure against overpopulation.

How come families with homosexuals in them have more children on average than "normal" families?

Because they adopt?

 

[Pegghead]

While I'd say it's undeniable that the attraction stems from nature it's how people act regarding it that stems from nurture.

I mean let's face it, if somebody with an attraction to their sex grew up in an extremely conservative environment then they probably wouldn't be very open about it. Take that same person and plant them in the middle of Mardis Gras (The Sydney kind) and they're probably going to act alot differently.

 

[Jaime_Wolf]

1) This is a relatively pointless thing to discuss since the answer isn't dependent on personal feelings, it's dependent on facts. This is like asking "do you personally feel that the Higgs boson exists?"

2) The facts right now are pretty inconclusive. Saying that it's "undeniable" or "obvious" is completely ludicrous. We have no idea.

3) The whole thing gets incredibly more complicated when you consider that any experiences you have (nurture) are mediated by your pre-existing structure (nature). It becomes really hard to even know what the question is asking at that point.

4) Twin studies suggest some sort of link, but this goes back to #3: separated twins are more likely than average to share sexuality, but it's effectively impossible to know why. Maybe they both end up homosexual because there's some societal pressure on people who look that way to end up homosexual. Tastes show a similar pattern for separated twins, so maybe there's some social pressure we never noticed toward people who like certain foods to be homosexual. It's pretty unknowable.

5) The "gay gene" research is very nearly as fraught with peril. Genes don't come with little stickers on them. It may even be the case that 100% of gay people possess a certain gene that 100% of straight people lack, but you still have no idea if that's the gene that leads people to like a particular shade of orange that just so happens to lead to the kind of experiences that make someone gay.

Most importantly: why on earth do we care so much? Why is our best argument for accepting homosexuality that homosexuals were born that way and "can't help it"? I understand that this is potentially persuasive to the fucking assholes who continue to have a problem with these things, but why do we spend so much time pandering to them? Imagine if the main argument against racism were "I know you think black people are inferior, but it's genetic and they can't help it, so it would be nice if you would just tolerate them". Even if the nurture people end up right (assuming we find some version of the question where it's even possible to say what being right would mean), are we going to ostracise people who wear glasses because we think poor eyesight is a negative quality and they weren't born with glasses?

It blows my fucking mind that people think they're being progressive by supporting these genetic arguments. What you're really doing is prolonging the fight by making it about something completely inconclusive when the fact of the matter is that the best argument for accepting homosexuality is the simplest: why not? The only argument against it is that some guy told you it's bad. Instead of leveraging our absurd argumentative advantage, we constantly shoot ourselves in the feet trying to find some other question to argue about because we know that, in reality, everyone on both sides knows how bad the arguments against it are.

 

[5mj7R7yf4Dwr3gdZyyu9PeGNwYjlNrjzuh3iTXQG]

The sexual orientation of humans falls into three [categories].

Though I think your post was quite marvelous and evidently well researched, I'm a bit iffy about the above statement. Only three sexual preferences? What about asexuality? What about the recognition of there being more than two genders?

Indeed, you're right. About 1% of the population exhibits no sexual attraction whatsoever [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asexuality], though I wouldn't be able to say how often this is intrinsic. Asexuality (or hyposexuality) are both symptoms that sometimes emerge from child sexual abuse, and victims of violent sex crime, much of which has only in the modern era begun to be regularly reported. In fact, I'm surprised at the 1% statistic.[footnote]As an noteworthy asside, Sir Isaac Newton is famous (along with his numerous scientific advancements) of not once having a sexual interest, and is not unique amongst mathematicians for doing so, to the point that there are conjectures regarding cerebral paraphilias in which deep thinkers (possibly unwittingly) find sexual gratification, even long-term sexual fulfillment in their academic contemplations. It's been reported by the occasional woman that as a high school student, she could orgasm from intense mathematical computations, and there've been cases in which such students found themselves compelled to court and couple with their mathematics instructors (Sometimes the feelings were reciprocated. Sometimes not.)[/footnote]

Things get complicated once one introduces all the genderqueer possibilities, but this is not to say they are to be disregarded. Part of the complexity comes from the delineation between gender (psycho-social sexual identity) and sex (the physiological sexual identity), both of which can be aligned, counteraligned, misaligned, third-polar, bi-faceted, polyfaceted, neutral, fluid and so on. And this is independent of sexual orientation. And then there are sexual orientations towards all of these. The debate continues as to whether they are merely fetishes or minutial paraphilic categories, or require consideration all their own. It's like ordering a customized coffee-based beverage from Starbucks.

238U.

 

[Madara XIII]

I think the whole "born this way" thing is bull.

I Agree with you on that to an extent.
I say to an extent mostly because this is certainly sticky situation....

HA HA! Double Entendre

However I think Noob Saibot is best suited for this situation.
What do you think Noob?

Eesh, never mind. >_>

 

[Jaime_Wolf]

I knew I was gay since the age of about 4 years old, so anyone who says nature has nothing to do with it has just been proven wrong.

Except not even remotely, unless you were born 4 years old. Hell, not even then, maybe experiences in the womb made you gay.

Who's to say you didn't like a particular shade of yellow that you happened to see for the first time on a man when you were young (younger than you could possibly remember) which lead to positive affect toward men and started you down that path. It's an absurd example, but hopefully it illustrates how it remains completely ridiculous to suggest that knowing at a young age proves that sexuality is genetically predetermined.

I don't assume that just because it feels like I've been gay as long as I can remember that I have some incredible ability to sense my own genetic structure. It's generally a bad idea to use intuition as evidence for things like this.

You're doing yourself a disservice presenting yourself as though you know the answer to this virtually unknowable question and hurting the cause when you argue on either side of this when it really has very little to do with the matter at hand (you can see a more wall-like discussion of why a few posts back).

 

[Julianking93]

As a lot of people have said before me, I'm going to say both have a definite effect on the outcome of a person's sexuality, not just in regards to preference, but even things like fetishes and kinks and the like.
Just depends on how you were raised.
I know I wasn't bisexual until a few years ago. It goes against a lot of what I believe but... I just never had a sexual thought about my same sex until I was about 14 or 15.
I had a friend who I got close to who was very kind to me and treated me better than most people in my life had before. I became attracted and found myself drawn to them, more than just a friendly way but I still liked the opposite sex, so it isn't like I just switched. Just learned I could love everyone, really

 

[Johnny Impact]

One's sexual orientation is always encoded in the genes. External factors just affect how much it is shown in the actions of the individual.

I think this is about the best way this can be said. You can spend a lifetime repressing it or denying your sexuality but it won't go away.

And before somebody goes off on me for being bigoted, I do not mean to say homosexuality needs to be repressed or denied. I mean the idea that homosexuality is wrong is deeply ingrained in our culture. Some people, of course, will be homosexuals by birth. Some of them will buy into the negative rhetoric, or simply fear reprisal should they show their true natures. They will spend their lives attempting to stamp out their natural inclinations.

Nor are gays the only ones to do this. I am straight by inclination. I have spent fifteen years trying (and failing) to crush my desire for women. Not so I can go for men instead, but so I will no longer be preoccupied with something I cannot have.

Have fun with your can of worms. Only eleven pages since 6:00 this morning? Come on, Escapists, sexuality is a hot topic! You can do better than that!

 

[AntonioDaFly]

You are born the way you are, but people can influence you to a point, but it doesn't change what you like or how you feel.

 

[sketch_zeppelin]

I've basically heard studies where apperently the larger a chimp community grows the more likely it is that some chimps will mate with members of the same sex. This could be nothing more than a horny monkey trying to get its freak on no matter wha.t Or it could also be an indicator that when certain species (say humans) grow large enough then you see an increase in same sex relations. Perhaps because with such a high population, reproducing is no longer essential? Perhaps its natures way of trying to curve overpopulation?