Poll: Is sexual orientation a recent invention?

[camazotz]

I had to vote no because there's plenty of evidence this isn't a recent phenomenon. However, when it comes to sexual identity that has nothing to do with the core impetus of sexual behavior, which is copulation. Evolution doesn't care who we screw when we're bored, I suspect....but it does care about making sure that we get pregnant and keep the population moving, so I would imagine and expect that there are extra motives to give impetus to insuring survival of the species. It is entirely possible that homosexuality (which tends to appear in about 7-11% of any given population, fairly consistently) likely does reflect some specific developmental advantage, either socially or biologically, though precisely what that is I couldn't say. There's a tendency among brothers in a family to have a statistically likelier chance of homosexuality in each successive sibling, for example. Is it possible that this is a desirable trait to insure that there is less aggressive competition in mating circles? We humans, of course, over-complicate everything by having lost most of our instinctive behavior, and adding in our own complex social organization and behavior into the mix.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/01/homosexuality-genetics-usa

 

[Woodsey]

I think I once heard (probably a gross oversimplification) that romans didn't have "straight or gay" but "submissive or dominant"

I think the technical term is "Toppers or Trouser Droppers", although I must confess that my latin is a little rusty.

 

[Nickolai77]

This is why I hate evo-psych: in the end it all boils down to, "Hey, I have this idea I can't possibly test, does it feel right to you?"

I don't really think that's a fair criticism of evolutionary psychology. There are plenty of hypotheses made by evolutionary psychologists that can be tested, for instance i dug this up:

Spoiler

A recent example comes from a research program on
?adaptive memory.? Nairne and his colleagues hypothesized
that evolved memory systems should be at least
somewhat domain specific, sensitive to certain kinds of
content or information (Nairne & Pandeirada, 2008;
Nairne, Pandeirada, Gregory, & Van Arsdall, 2009; Nairne,
Pandeirada, & Thompson, 2008). They hypothesized that
human memory should be especially sensitive to content
relevant to evolutionary fitness, such as survival (e.g., food,
predators, and shelter) and reproduction (e.g., mating).
Using a standard memory paradigm involving a scenario
priming task and a surprise recall task, they found that
words previously rated for survival relevance in scenarios
were subsequently remembered at significantly higher rates
than words rated for relevance in a variety of control
scenario conditions. Furthermore, Nairne and his colleagues
conducted additional experiments that pitted survival
processing against well-documented powerful encoding
techniques, such as ease of generating a visual image,
ease of generating an autobiographical memory, and intentional
learning in which subjects were instructed to remember
the words for a later test. Interestingly, rating the item?s
relevance in the survival scenario produced better recall
performance than did any of the other well-known memory-
enhancing techniques. The researchers concluded that
?survival processing is one of the best encoding procedures
yet identified in human memory research? (Nairne & Pandeirada,
2008, p. 242). Had the results failed to confirm the
predictions about specialized sensitivity to survival-relevant
content, Nairne?s adaptive memory hypothesis would
have been falsified.

-Jaime C Confer, Judith A Easton et al 'Evolutionary Psychology
Controversies, Questions, Prospects, and Limitations' February?March 2010- American Psychologist pp 112'

 

[Relish in Chaos]

In a sense?yes. Ever since Christianity demonized any form of sex outside of the singular purpose of reproduction, various sections of the sexuality scale were stigmatically pigeonholed, so now we have ?heterosexuals?, ?homosexuals?, and ?bisexuals?, without taking into account the fact that many people can fluctuatingly slide along that scale at various points in their lives, whether it be due to mood, romantic/emotional connection, or hormones. I think someone already mentions that the Greeks and/or the Romans didn?t have labels for same-sex relations; they just had ?submissive? and ?dominant?, labels that only exist in BDSM relationships of either gender now. For instance, it wasn?t considered ?wrong? to be a man who fucked another man, but God forbid if you were ever the receiver because that made you ?like a woman?.

Not to mention that there is such a thing as a man who happens to have sex with men, yet doesn?t self-identify as a gay nor is he in denial. And don?t even get me started on fetishes. Similarly, paedophilia was accepted back in the day because of the ?old enough to bleed; old enough to breed? mentality, which is why middle-aged men marrying barely pubescent girls was as common as dirt. But nowadays, if acted upon, it?s treated as illegal and a paraphilia signifying mental illness. I could talk about incest too. Not that I?m trying to compare homosexuality to paedophilia or incest, though. Just mentioning how perceptions to various sexual behaviour can change over time.

On a related subject, I also thought it?d be interesting to mention that lesbianism was never criminalized. Only male homosexuality was, until the late 1960s (correct me if I?m wrong). And I believe I recall someone telling me that a former Queen, like Queen Elizabeth or something, didn?t believe in lesbianism, since she thought that ?only men could be that depraved?.

 

[Nickolai77]

This is why I hate evo-psych: in the end it all boils down to, "Hey, I have this idea I can't possibly test, does it feel right to you?"

I don't really think that's a fair criticism of evolutionary psychology. There are plenty of hypotheses made by evolutionary psychologists that can be tested, for instance i dug this up:

This is why I've begun using the term "evo-psych" (I believe at the suggestion of someone on this forum, actually). Evolutionary psychology can be a legitimate scientific field (though because of our culture's funny position with respect to it, claims within the field require the highest level of skepticism and findings produced by research in the field require the highest level of care when reporting them). Evo-psych OTOH, is not a science at all, but a pop-culture phenomenon that we as a society really need to move away from.

Oh i see, you don't like armchair evolutionary psychologists? Fair enough i agree that a lot of the suggestions they make can't/won't be tested, but i don't necessarily think such hypothesising is a particularly harmful exercise.

 

[Xdeser2]

I don't necessarily think its a recent thing, but some cultures are/have been in the past more tolerant to those who fall outside those normal conventions than others

 

[an annoyed writer]

just to add a little, gender dysphoria aka transsexuality isnt new either. for certain native americans such people were holy, we all know that also applies to the indian culture. Its simply a natural occurance just like homosexuality, just today we got means to actually do something about it. A lot of people might see it against nature or something, but changing a transsexuals body to fit their spirit is as close to a cure as we can get today.

Yep. it actually goes back even further: there's actually some pretty interesting evidence of such things occurring in ancient Rome. I'd have to dig up the article that I'd found that in, but yeah, there were primitive versions of the surgeries and the like even back then. We are nothing new.

 

[Darken12]

or why the gay community has such an obsession with whether you're a top or a bottom,

They/we do?

Not really in the circles I hang out in. That kind of thinking is kind of assosiated with the 70's and 80's 'cruising' culture.

From what I've seen, that kind of thinking is more prevalent amongst straight people, gay couples often complain how people ask them which one is the woman and which one the man, and joking about attitude like that is common in the gay forums I frequent.

They/We do. But what you're saying is heteronormativity, the idea that every relationship must have a "man" and a "woman". And yes, straight people who write gay relationships often assign stereotypical feminine traits to bottoms and stereotypically masculine traits to tops. The gay community as a whole obviously doesn't see it that way, but the obsession with whether you're a top or a bottom (and the stereotypical traits associated with each) is still pretty prevalent in many circles. I'm quite glad it's not as universal as I thought.

 

[lunam-kardas]

I'm going to say "No it Isn't" and back away slowly from this thread in peace.

 

[MASTACHIEFPWN]

Bisexuality is clearly present in the Bonobo social hiacrhy. For the most part, if a bonobo male wants to mate with a female, it must also shag the leader of the group.

And with how complex every part of our mind is, How can one truely find anything as weird?

 

[Terminal Blue]

When I say recent, I don't mean within the last century.

However, you wouldn't be far off.

Annoyingly, I can't find my copy of the History of Sexuality volume 1 [http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_History_of_Sexuality.html?id=eJ_0twAACAAJ&redir_esc=y], but the first recorded use of the term "homosexuality" is only in the late 19th century. Before that, we had the theory of "inversion", which itself only dates to about the mid-19th century. Before that, nothing.

Homosexuality as we understand it today exists because it was medicalized by Victorian sexologists. Before then, a person could commit all kinds of sexual sins, but it would not change the class of person they were. They would not become a separate type of human being. Even the term "sodomy" did not refer specifically to homosexual sex but rather to any kind of sexual sin.

Your evolutionary theory is extremely dodgy. While the idea of "innate" bisexuality is still useful, most people would argue it kind of works the other way around. A newborn child clearly has no conception of sexual difference, so whatever "pleasures" they receive are completely divorced from male or female. The development of exclusive sexuality is a developmental process, one which may be linked to particular "intrinsic" characteristics but one which only manifests socially over time.

You cannot just make grandiose assumptions about the evolution of human sexuality. The way we view gay identity today is absolutely nothing like the kind of sexual behavior which would have been comprehensible to Greeks or Romans. In the latter case, for example, having sex with men was very clearly not about "being" a particular kind of person, but rather demonstrating virility, social dominance and proper manliness. It was not really "sex" in the sense we would understand it at all.

Just to be absolutely clear, I am not saying that what we would now term "sexual" contact between members of the same sex is anything new, quite the opposite. The concept of "heterosexuality" didn't exist until the 19th century either. I'm saying that "sexual orientation", as in the idea that putting your cock in a man makes you a different kind of person to someone who only puts their cock in women is incredibly new.. and exciting. The Victorians would undoubtedly have been horrified at where their attempt to impose medical categories onto human sex has bought us, it's turned out to be the most powerful political tool in the greatest liberation of human sexuality in history, and that's kind of cool.

 

[norashepard]

Well again, we're talking pre-historic times. Back then of course women in general (not all communities necessarily, but most) would rely on men to be protectors. Nowadays it's not needed as much, and as such the idea that a woman needs a man to protect her is outdated.

Well, just some clarification on this: The idea that in history women (in general) needed men to protect them is flawed slightly, because in prior centuries, romance was not as rigid as it is now, and men and women occupied different spheres of influence. In hunter-gatherer societies, for example the only times the genders would interact would actually be either social ceremonies or to mate and have kids, and marriage was not really a thing at all, so orientation wasn't even really considered. Another example is in the Victorian era, even if men assumed they were taking care of women, both still were rather separate, with men being breadwinners, and women being homemakers and social links to other families. On the whole in society it was men who protected women, as in wars and against external danger, but no one woman needed a man to defend her.

But to interact with your main point: It should be pretty obvious that homosexuality, and bisexuality, and everything else, were all naturally occurring things and have been so forever. There is evidence, for example, that suggests ancient humans would prop up transgender people as shamans, and men would take both men and women to bed frequently and think nothing of it. But science has just recently decided to bother classifying it (which I hate with a passion, the transgender standards of care are ridiculous and doctors who administer them are just as ridiculous), which has led people who are 'not' LGBT+ to actually become aware of other people, and thus it has become a popular topic. In no way is it a recent invention though.

Also your comment on straight girls making out so they can take care of kids is more than a little troubling. I won't get really ranty about it, because you seem genuinely interested in the topic and not intentionally rude, but basically that idea forces motherhood on all women, even those who do not want it, and even more so those who cannot have it (infertile women, or trans women like myself), which is offensive in more than a few ways, but the most important being it's implication that if you cannot have a child, you are worthless. This is obviously wrong and silly, and I know you didn't really mean that, but just be aware of it.

 

[Something Amyss]

Your theory is actually very problematic, in many different ways, because it implies that female sexuality revolves around men or childbirth.

Or, as we call it in modern culture, "standard."

 

[JoJo]

Also your comment on straight girls making out so they can take care of kids is more than a little troubling. I won't get really ranty about it, because you seem genuinely interested in the topic and not intentionally rude, but basically that idea forces motherhood on all women, even those who do not want it, and even more so those who cannot have it (infertile women, or trans women like myself), which is offensive in more than a few ways, but the most important being it's implication that if you cannot have a child, you are worthless. This is obviously wrong and silly, and I know you didn't really mean that, but just be aware of it.

Um, what? As a neutral third party I can't see anything which the OP wrote that implied that all women had to be mothers, or those without kids are "worthless". His theory does involve parental reasons affecting the evolution of non-parental traits and while his theory itself may not be true, countless other traits have evolved in regards to childcare (women's breasts, appreciation of "cute" features etc). The existence of these does not demean people who can't or chose not to reproduce.

 

[Dastardly]

Homosexuality (or any non-straight orientation) is not an invention, recent or otherwise. It's a natural part of the animal kingdom and is just as normal, valid and integral as heterosexuality.

Curious here -- what do you mean by "integral?" Do you mean to say that it is necessary to the natural order? If so, why? The other words you chose, I'm 100% on board with. It occurs in nature (natural), and it occurs often enough that it's relatively common (normal, though not "the norm"), and the word "valid" is vague enough that it can apply here, I suppose.

But "integral?" Hardly. Think of it this way: Some people have connected earlobes, while some have free-hanging earlobes. Both are normal and natural, both are "valid" ways to have earlobes, but neither of these traits has any real bearing on the natural order of things. They neither promote nor inhibit the survival or propagation of our species.

While heterosexual activity is demonstrably integral (we need to make tiny people to replace the dying), I'm not sure the same can be said for homosexual activity. What is the function it performs that cannot be duplicated by any other natural process?

(The reason I bring this up is because we often run into real problems when we overstate a point. It puts that tiny bit of the unreasonable into our argument, which our opponents can -- and will -- latch onto and use to summarily ignore our entire argument.)

 

[Commissar Sae]

From a historical perspective the concept is new. The Victorian mindset didn't accept the notion of other sexual orientations. That said the biological phenomenon did exist. There were cases of what we would refer to as homosexuality today, but they were not recognized at the time as such. Even the ancient Greeks, who engaged in quite a bit of "male bonding" didn't see it as part of their sexual orientation, rather it was a cultural and social bond meant to reinforce the connection between master and student and strengthen the ties between hoplites in a phalanx.

So the answer really is both yes and no. The label is modern, but biological sexual orientation is not something new.

 

[TheLycanKing144]

In my psychology class we learned that everyone is innately bi-sexual to a degree, and we tend to become monosexual because of our environment or upbringing, we are also biologically attracted to the opposite sex by nature, but nurture (environment, upbringing etc...) can override this.

This may not be a popular view on here, but the truth is that people can choose their sexuality. Look at prison for example, the men enter entirely straight. However due to the environment they develop same sex attractions, there are also many cases of women who are abused by their boy friends and they turn lesbians. It's a similar scenario.

The mind is like a series of doors, we can open certain one's and close others.

You can read more about it here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innate_bisexuality

 

[Relish in Chaos]

This may not be a popular view on here, but the truth is that people can choose their sexuality. Look at prison for example, the men enter entirely straight. However due to the environment they develop same sex attractions, there are also many cases of women who are abused by their boy friends and they turn lesbians. It's a similar scenario.

While I agree with the hypothesis that everyone is innately bisexual to a degree (as in, only a very small minority of people are 100% heterosexual for whatever reason), I don't agree with you using men in prison developing same-sex attraction as evidence of "choosing sexuality". No offence to anyone here, but why would anyone in their right mind "choose" to be gay in a society that condemns them for it? Especially if you're a guy?

All it means is that they were either in denial about their homosexuality and/or bisexuality, or they were already a little bi beforehand and merely needed an environment where there were no women to release their sexual frustration on the only sex that was in their prison: men.

I think sexuality is pretty much dominated by hormones. Maybe part of it is due to nurture, but most of it is nature, IMO. I'd say it's about 85% nature, 15% nurture. I could "choose" to bone my male best friend "just to try it", but it wouldn't make me gay. Sexuality is much more than someone happening to like ice cream, but not mayonnaise. No matter how much someone might want to be straight, if they only like the masculine figure, then that's what they'll be inclined to, no matter how vaginas they plough. Like how a gay man might marry a woman to "force" himself to become straight, but the marriage eventually dissolves and he stops putting on the act and officially comes out as gay. There are just as many examples to the contrary of those as you introduced, but sexuality is a complicated thing, and on a scale too.

Oh, and "innate bisexuality" was a concept invented by Sigmund Freud. The same guy that thought that men were attracted to their mothers in childhood and were scared of losing their penis after looking at girls.