Breitbart

[baboon2004]

Well not necessarily even immutable, then, but beyond the person's conscious control, put it that way. I don't think it's at all common for people to 'choose' to be gay, at any rate. Of course some people can adapt to a gay lifestyle if they're in a same-sex environment for a long time (boarding school, armed forces, prison, whatever) and people with strong same-sex desires can suppress those desires, even to the point of marrying and having children, if they're in a society where it would be taboo or even illegal to act on those desires.

But that's not the same thing as being able, in effect, to flick a switch in one's head from 'straight' to 'gay' or vice-versa.

I think that any binary model is mistaken though - I don't think the question is one of adaptation, or at least not in any arduous sense. And I think it's near impossible to be true to one's own sexuality, in the sense of divorcing it from the crushing societal pressures that forge it - one of the most crushing being the edict that you have to have a clear sexual identity, that 'YOU MUST TELL US WHAT YOU 'ARE'!' .

People experience sexual attraction for all kinds of reasons, so it doesn't make sense to me that would be this clear division between attraction to men and attraction to women. I'm pretty convinced that any given person will have experienced feelings that do not sit easily with such a sharp division; the question is what they do about it and how they see their sexuality as part of their identity.

I find this area very complicated, because it brings up the core question of what the hell sexuality is anyways.

 

[baboon2004]

I have no idea.

Does there need to be a "reason" why most people are straight, or more or less straight? Heterosexual attraction exists for obvious evolutionary reasons. Sure, same-sex attraction has been documented in loads of other animal species, and is particularly common in some of our species' closest relatives, so it presumably also fulfills some evolutionarily beneficial social function. But in terms of evolutionary pressures, this is going to be secondary to the basic fact of reproduction.

What if everyone fucked everyone (not literally, but you know what I mean)? you'd still have lots of reproduction, so I don't think that heterosexuality, tightly defined as ONLY fancying and fucking the opposite sex, has any specific function. Arguable that the predominance of heterosexuality only becomes imperative when the 1-1 marital relation is enshrined as one of the fundamentals of society.

Whether or not you agree with the above, then I think we can perhaps agree on the broader point that heterosexuality has rarely been held up to scrutiny - it's always 'deviations' from heterosexuality that are scrutinised closely. That's why I suggested possible (loose) analogy with whiteness - 'we' assume 'we' know what it means and it's very familiar, but it's not that clear at all really. It only assumes meaning in a historical context against a supposed 'opposite' that needs to be controlled in some way, or defined as 'lesser/deviant'.

Just a quick google, but this is interesting at least http://www.sfgate.com/books/article/Heterosexuality-More-Ideology-Than-Biology-3035001.php First use of 'heterosexual' in US in 1892?!
and http://www.salon.com/2012/01/22/the_invention_of_the_heterosexual/

 

[Mr. Tea]

I think that any binary model is mistaken though - I don't think the question is one of adaptation, or at least not in any arduous sense. And I think it's near impossible to be true to one's own sexuality, in the sense of divorcing it from the crushing societal pressures that forge it - one of the most crushing being the edict that you have to have a clear sexual identity, that 'YOU MUST TELL US WHAT YOU 'ARE'!' .

People experience sexual attraction for all kinds of reasons, so it doesn't make sense to me that would be this clear division between attraction to men and attraction to women. I'm pretty convinced that any given person will have experienced feelings that do not sit easily with such a sharp division; the question is what they do about it and how they see their sexuality as part of their identity.

I find this area very complicated, because it brings up the core question of what the hell sexuality is anyways.

There's a lad I used to know on the b3ta messageboards who was 'technically' bisexual because he famously fancied two types of people:

a) girls, and

b) Tim Curry.

 

[baboon2004]

lol

I'm getting off the web for a few days, so gonna resume chatting about this next week if the debate is still going...

 

[droid]

There is always the possibility that future generations will look back at San Francisco not as the high point of sexual freedom, but as the last vestiges of a repressed society before we entered into a new era of currently unimaginable human community and pleasure?

lol. It always comes back to sexpol with you doesnt it?

There's a sequel to Forever Peace by Joe Halderman where the protagonist returns to civilisation after a war (stretched out to centuries because of time dilation from traveling at near light speed) where, due to population pressure and eugenics, homosexuality is the norm and heterosexuals are regarded as freaks.

Which brings me to my faint hope that perhaps we might all be saved by some evolutionary genetic switch which increases the ratio of gay to cis as a response to environmental pressures... overcrowding, increase in temperatures... like the Protandrous hermaphroditism you get in cuttlefish or garter snakes - or crocodile gender being determined by temperature. Based on unproven biological essentialism of course, but still... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/g-roger-denson/is-homosexuality-populati_b_784449.html

 

[Mr. Tea]

I like the idea of 'SexPol' as this kind of international taskforce that relentlessly chases people from continent to continent, trying to capture them and bring them to justice for the crime of just being too damn sexy. Like, they'd be Austin Powers's nemesis if he were a villain.

 

[john eden]

lol. It always comes back to sexpol with you doesnt it?

Only on here, for some reason. It's the eroticism of the discussions, I'm sure.

 

[john eden]

I'm not sure I get you - a society in which most people aren't attracted to the opposite sex is not really going to flourish, population-wise, is it.

It really depends on what you mean by flourish. Plenty of ways to make babies these days.

Also some people seem to be forgetting that most heterosexual coupling doesn't produce children.

 

[Mr. Tea]

It really depends on what you mean by flourish. Plenty of ways to make babies these days.

Also some people seem to be forgetting that most heterosexual coupling doesn't produce children.

Sure, but I'm talking historically, before IVF, surrogacy, reliable contraception and all that.

 

[john eden]

Sure, but I'm talking historically, before IVF, surrogacy, reliable contraception and all that.

We must look to the future, Tea. All kinds of wonderful things are on the horizon.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Babies grown in vats. Imagine the simultaneous sigh of relief from billions of vaginae.

 

[vimothy]

There is always the possibility that future generations will look back at San Francisco not as the high point of sexual freedom, but as the last vestiges of a repressed society before we entered into a new era of currently unimaginable human community and pleasure?

That is surely a possibility.

 

[vimothy]

Which brings me to my faint hope that perhaps we might all be saved by some evolutionary genetic switch which increases the ratio of gay to cis as a response to environmental pressures... overcrowding, increase in temperatures...

Doubtless this is just a joke, but any sub-population which somehow kills itself off will not reduce the long-run population of the earth, only the numbers of its own descendents within it.

 

[droid]

It would do both surely?

If the numbers reversed and approx 85% of the population became homosexual, then you would see a huge decrease in birth rates - of course eventually, they would rise again.

 

[vimothy]

If 85% of the global population suddenly became homosexual then obviously there would be a substantial dip in population growth, but in the long run that would disappear and the only effect would be to remove the 85% from the gene pool.

 

[droid]

Sure, and when population growth reaches the same high levels, environmental pressures kick in and the gene switch is triggered again...

 

[vimothy]

Assuming the gene switch exists any more, and didn't leave the pool with the last mass die-off . . .

 

[droid]

Well, we dont know if there's a gene in the first place of course - but everyone retains all the genes, and if environment is a cause of gene regulation then theoretically the switch is also always there.

In theory - this could even be done manually through gene therapy... Surprised there's no right wing conspiracy about this actually, logical extension of feminisation via estrogen in food and water - NWO switching gay genes on using chemtrails...

 

[vimothy]

Perhaps you should put it out there.

 

[Mr. Tea]

The levels of oestrogens in water is actually a fairly major environmental headache.