Males and Females

[-CC-]

It isn't simply m_c, but the rather societal view of 'you must be like this to be a woman' and 'you're not a man if...'

You're not a man if you keep posting gay shit like this.

 

[Mort Divine]

You're not a man if you keep posting gay shit like this.

Deny it all you want, it is true

 

[Jimmy... Dead.]

Yeah, it really is a shame fags and bisexuals aren't equal to us normal people. Oh well, that's life.

 

[SentinelSlain]

So I've got a date properly planned with a really hot girl. She kind of looks wasian but is white.

 

[damnromulans]

It's not un-PC so much as technically incorrect. A person is a woman if she has two X chromosomes and identifies as female. It gets hairy with trans people and some rare genetic anomalies but I still don't think it's that complicated and am therefore disgusted by people's weird butthurt reactions to someone not fitting into A or B category perfectly.

Really if someone's sexuality is that important to you and you need to sex them in order to sleep at night, just ask them or something.

I do find it interesting that women don't sit around being grossed out by homos and bisexuals, at least not anyone I know - but maybe it would be different if I were from the Bible belt or somewhere really conservative. Who knows. Lobsters in a bucket I guess, whatever!

 

[PhlegethonVeins]

I do find it interesting that women don't sit around being grossed out by homos and bisexuals

Eh, I see it from both sides, but on average really don't see much of it at all until I hit the interwebz.

 

[Serjeant Grumbles]

II do find it interesting that women don't sit around being grossed out by homos and bisexuals, at least not anyone I know - but maybe it would be different if I were from the Bible belt or somewhere really conservative. Who knows. Lobsters in a bucket I guess, whatever!

There are women who are grossed out by it, iwis. But they are the same sort of women who are disgusted by sex in general.

 

[whiskey funeral]

So much gayness.

 

[SentinelSlain]

I'm so sick of being sexist and insecure in my masculinity. I don't know what to do. I suppose if I was really, really nice to this girl I've arranged to see and it worked out and ended up going on for some time then just being happy with her would mellow me out. Then I could stop worrying that all the perfect women are in a bed somewhere with some man who is and looks very different from me, being railed.

 

[Jimmy... Dead.]

What you need is some perspective to hit you in your empty fucking head.

 

[SentinelSlain]

Some whiskey or something stronger might be better.

 

[Dak]

Yeeeeaaaahhh. See, alcohol doesn't fix anything except irrational inhibitions.

 

[whiskey funeral]

Maybe a sledgehammer might help?

 

[Jimmy... Dead.]

Some whiskey or something stronger might be better.

Dude, seriously though, start reading some philosophy. I recommend Existentialism. Camus, Sartre etc

 

[SentinelSlain]

I took a class in philosophy for a semester last year.

 

[Vimana]

With regards to the bisexuality question, I think all humans have a bisexual psychology, some just veer more toward one extreme while others veer more toward the other.

I could never buy this. It makes no sense to me how after hundreds of millions of years of evolution through sexual reproduction, we would somehow drop heterosexuality from our psychology. We're heterosexual (unless there's a neurological abnormality), but our sexual development is complex like our development in general, leaving room for all kinds of strange sexual natures to develop.

One, our brains are capable of associating almost anything with almost anything, and two, the environment we live in is far different from the kind we spent most of our evolution, making us develop all kinds of odd behaviors due to attributing manmade, arbitrary things to inherent instincts. Just because we develop a weird behavior, that doesn't mean it's inherent. A good example I saw is this idea that we are divine and pure throughout so many cultures in the world, but it's just a manifestation of our valuing of our bodies and by extension, our survival. Just because an instinct leads to a developed behavior in lots of different people doesn't mean that developed behavior is inherent.

As Jonathan Haidt (or someone he cited, I read this in his book, The Righteous Mind) puts it, we're "pre-wired." We come with a set of instincts that can be changed, but we're still born with them.

 

[crimsonfloyd]

I could never buy this. It makes no sense to me how after hundreds of millions of years of evolution through sexual reproduction, we would somehow drop heterosexuality from our psychology. We're heterosexual (unless there's a neurological abnormality), but our sexual development is complex like our development in general, leaving room for all kinds of strange sexual natures to develop.

A psychological inclination toward homosexual activity doesn't exclude or threaten a predominate inclination toward heterosexual activity. Think more in terms of behavior and less in terms of identity. The former is much more a biological measure.

One, our brains are capable of associating almost anything with almost anything, and two, the environment we live in is far different from the kind we spent most of our evolution, making us develop all kinds of odd behaviors due to attributing manmade, arbitrary things to inherent instincts. Just because we develop a weird behavior, that doesn't mean it's inherent

Here's the problem with this suggestion: it doesn't explain the presence of homosexual behavior in hunter gatherer tribes or other great apes. Like I said before, homosexual acts are not uncommon in chimps, bonobos or gorillas. I would need to do more research to speak with confidence on hunter gather tribes, but what I remember from anthropology, it is not uncommon.

 

[Vimana]

Identity is a behavior. The point I was making was that just because an animal is intelligent enough to learn unusual sexual behaviors, that doesn't mean they're born with a drive for them. The behaviors are a trigger for an instinct, not an instinct on their own.

Basically, in a normal person's brain, homosexuality is a conditioned response, whereas heterosexuality is unconditioned. I don't think we have unconditioned homosexual tendencies simply because we can be conditioned to enjoy homosexual things, and I think the same goes for other apes, too.

 

[crimsonfloyd]

Identity is a behavior. The point I was making was that just because an animal is intelligent enough to learn unusual sexual behaviors, that doesn't mean they're born with a drive for them. The behaviors are a trigger for an instinct, not an instinct on their own.

Basically, in a normal person's brain, homosexuality is a conditioned response, whereas heterosexuality is unconditioned. I don't think we have unconditioned homosexual tendencies simply because we can be conditioned to enjoy homosexual things, and I think the same goes for other apes, too.

Identity is not behavior. For example, a man can see himself as gay without ever having an intimate encounter with another man. A biological female might see her/himself as a man without necessarily dressing up like a man.

As for homosexual activity being a learned trait, evidence for that would be the absence of said behavior within certain ape communities. For example, some chimpanzee and bonobo societies use twigs to get termites, while others don't. So it's a part of some chimp/bonobo "cultures" and not a part of others. It's a learned trait. In contrast, homosexual behavior is just about universal in chimp/bonobo societies. With bonobos it's literally an everyday practice. So it seems a implausible to state that a behavior that all healthy members of a species engages in on such a regular basis is learned. The simpler explanation is that it's inherent.

Read this article on bonobo sexuality, especially the last two sections. DeWall isn't specifically focused on whether or not the traits are inherent or learned, but I think based on the structure of bonobo society, those males and even moreso the females who have homosexual tenancies would have a better opportunity to gain food resources and mating opportunities:

http://www.primates.com/bonobos/bonobosexsoc.html

 

[Eligos]

It had to be done.