Homosexuality?

Go on, Orion. Please explain your position in more detail.

Post 21

Thursday, September 30, 2004 - 7:55pm

Yes, Orion, do elaborate! And please clarify your last sentence, which was no sentence at all.

Post 22

Thursday, September 30, 2004 - 11:36pm

I don't see how I can be any clearer. You either bow out of the game, or you find a kinder, gentler version of the same game.

And as for my last sentence, which you claim is "no sentence at all"... In sentence construction, subjects and verbs do not have to be explicitly stated for the sentence to be, in fact, an actual sentence.  (I didn't think this would become a grammar inquisition, but all the same, let me respond).

Case in point: the sentence "Fetch me my newspaper". Fetch is the verb, the newspaper is the direct obejct, and "me" is the indirect object. What, then, is the subject? The subject is you... it's just not explicitly stated.  It's called the "implied subject". What this means is that the sentence is really saying "You... fetch me my newspaper".  You is the subject.

In my final sentence, which begins "Thus, homosexuality"... there is an implied subject and verb:  you (or we) have. In other words, the sentence is communicating "Thus, you (or we) have homosexuality".

My favorite part of my public school english classes was sentence diagramming; I made a careful point to really understand sentence construction. That's the clearest that I can make this point.  But my grammar choice was unconventional; I'll grant you that.

Post 23

Friday, October 1, 2004 - 4:37am

However grammatically capable one may be of implying a subject, such implication is only practical when implying the "you" in a command, as you mentioned. In addition, you admittedly implied more than a subject, as you claimed to have implied "we have", which is a subject and a verb. One must never hope to imply a verb in the way that you have (I can't think of a situation wherein one could ever imply a verb, but in case there is an obscure one, I'll leave that open).

Post 24

Friday, October 1, 2004 - 8:03am

What Orion is saying (and please correct me, Orion, if I misinterpreted your statement) is that homosexual men go for other men because they do not want to compete with heterosexual men for women. The reason for this, according to the research Orion cites, is that their temperament predisposes them to dislike competition and that it is easier to compete for the affection of other homosexual men.

So what about lesbians?

Post 25

Friday, October 1, 2004 - 12:40pm

Byron:

That's what I thought he meant, but his position was not as clear as your paraphrasing of it.

Orion:

Orion, seriously, how did you come to this conclusion about homosexual men? Anecdotally, many homos I know (I used to live near Boy's Town) are exceedingly beautful men, well dressed, are of fine taste, and attract a bevy of fag hags, any one, or more, of which would be fine bedroom playthings. Many gay men are tremendous athletes, and are of fantastic build, which would seem to debunk the idea of them being sissies, unable to compete. How do you account for them? Is there some book or study or data you base your conclusion upon?

Post 26

Friday, October 1, 2004 - 1:37pm

I have to second Scott's anecdotes. I have observed that homosexual men do tend to be more artistic, cultured, and sophisticated. They tend to know how to shop for clothes and dress up. They tend to be better dancers and singers. They tend to have an easier time making an emotional connection with women. I mean, that show "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" is an example of this.

Of course, I cannot understand why they are not attracted to women (physically, women have more offer to the eyes than men . . . and they feel and smell better), but I'll grant that, all in all, homosexual men tend to have the advantage when it comes to attracting the company of women.

Post 27

Friday, October 1, 2004 - 7:57pm

Scott,

Yes. There are several researchers who have been studying this for some time. If you do what's called an "eric-search" at any university library system (or perhaps they might be found through the google or dogpile search engines), you can search under "prenatal", "homosexuality", "arousal"... and I recall one research publication title being something like "exotic becomes erotic", and that was the principle, based on post-natal temperament studies.

There is a woman researcher at Villanova who studies the effects of maternal, pre-natal stress on the hypothalami of infants, and the effects that those conditions have on the post-natal temperament of the child. Also, as a continuation of this principle, one other researcher has run with this theory, and proposed that all sexuality results from the way that this inborn temperament dictates what each of us sees as "exotic" behavior in others, and that the person displaying the most "exotic" behavior, triggers "erotic" feelings and interpersonal dynamics. This is where the phrase "exotic becomes erotic" was coined by the other author.

I know all of this -- and other things about neuroscience and behavior -- because that was my undergraduate training.

Post 28

Saturday, October 2, 2004 - 7:26am

"...studies the effects of maternal, pre-natal stress on the hypothalami of infants, and the effects that those conditions have on the post-natal temperament of the child. Also, as a continuation of this principle, one other researcher has run with this theory, and proposed that all sexuality results from the way that this inborn temperament dictates what each of us sees as "exotic" behavior in others, and that the person displaying the most "exotic" behavior, triggers "erotic" feelings and interpersonal dynamics."

What do you, or the researcher, mean by 'prenatal stress'? I know prenatal means before birth. Does this mean that if I punch a preagnant lady in the belly, her kid will be gay? Or if Mom is stressed out during hte pregnancy, the kid will be gay? Precisely what kind of stress did the researcher study?

If all sexuality is determined by the degree to which one underwent 'prenatal stress" would one be asexual in a stress free pregnancy? Or a perfect hetero? Does high stress always result in homosexuality? How can prenatal experience (comparatively blind, deaf, pre-cognitive) effect what we see as normal or "exotic" once we are born? Do infants homos get baby boners whenever someone puts on a musical or show tunes?

This 'research' sounds alot like the 'scientific evidence' for creationism...maybe I'll spend some time today, in addition to writing that pesky response to motion to dismiss, to find some of these studies...

Post 29

Saturday, October 2, 2004 - 9:24am

Scott said:

"Does this mean that if I punch a preagnant lady in the belly, her kid will be gay? "

Dude, if I was still drinking milk (but it's not on Atkins) it would have squirted out my nose. I suddenly envisioned a Queer Squad out assaulting pregnant ladies - you *know* it would happen if this were shown to be true. Or really progressive women going to fancy clinics for stress inducement so they can have designer gay babies. It would become the new cool thing.

Post 30

Saturday, October 2, 2004 - 4:00pm

Ash, one of the reasons (but only one of the many reasons) I dig you so is that you are hip to my jive. Another is that you are lovely and intelligent. Another is the moment of realization we shared at SOLOPhilly that we should have just gone to Coyote Ugly, where booze, loud music, shiny, rapidly-moving objects, and hair of the dog would have kept me awake past 10 pm. (I was suffering from an all night bender the night before I flew in that basically took me 2 days to recover from). You backed my play. I had been there earlier in the day for lunch and promised some lingerie-clad bartendresses that I would bring some honest-to-god-philosophers there later that same evening. Alas, twas not meant to be...

So yeah, if only Hitler knew about the gay-baby-belly-punch, he could have just socked some Jewish and Eastern European bellies, and the 'Jewish problem' would have resolved itself in a generation--no breeding whatsoever! But the fashion! THE FASHION that would have resulted would have driven the Franch fashion designers out of business!

We could improve the appearance of everyone in the world in a generation, all we have to do is sock ugly pregnant women in the belly, and their genetic pre-disposition for ugly will not be passed on. (This ignores, of course, the hot-woman, ugly boyfriend phenomenon, of which I am alwys on the look-out to exploit!) If I see any hot Mommies-to-be (after making sure that they are also good, moral productive achievers, of course), I will offer to rub cocoa butter on their bellies and sing capitalistic-lullabies to reduce the prenatal stress, so the little girls and boys that issue forth will be hetero-sexual dynamos that will procreate and populate the world with all beautiful people! Bwahaha! Muahhahaha! (That's what passes fo rmy best Dr. Evil laugh).

Post 31

Saturday, October 2, 2004 - 8:37pm

Scott, I love you! And at the next conference we are ROCK STARS & all will be forgiven. Actually, now that I have heard that LA is the location for our next conference, I am perfectly willing to just come straight to Chicago to get a jump on things.

Post 32

Sunday, October 3, 2004 - 9:12am

You guys,

Here's something to back Orion's research and resultant sentiment. Prenatal and perinatal hormone exposure matters - though not necessarily in a "physical determinism" manner:

"Adult male sexual behavior in mammals requires the neuronal organizing effects of gonadal steroids during a sensitive perinatal period. During development, estradiol differentiates the rat preoptic area (POA), an essential brain region in the male copulatory circuit. Here we report that increases in prostaglandin-E(2) (PGE(2)), resulting from changes in cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) regulation induced by perinatal exposure to estradiol, are necessary and sufficient to organize the crucial neural substrate that mediates male sexual behavior. Briefly preventing prostaglandin synthesis in newborn males with the COX inhibitor indomethacin permanently downregulates markers of dendritic spines in the POA and severely impairs male sexual behavior. Developmental exposure to the COX inhibitor aspirin results in mild impairment of sexual behavior. Conversely, administration of PGE(2) to newborn females masculinizes the POA and leads to male sex behavior in adults, thereby highlighting the pathway of steroid-independent brain masculinization. Our findings show that PGE(2) functions as a downstream effector of estradiol to permanently masculinize the brain."

[Abstract] Amateau SK, McCarthy MM. Induction of PGE2 by estradiol mediates developmental masculinization of sex behavior. Nat Neurosci. 2004 Jun;7(6):643-50. Epub 2004 May 23.

Program in Neuroscience and Department of Physiology, University of Maryland at Baltimore School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland 21201, USA.

Online Abstract available:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15156148

Ed

Post 33

Sunday, October 3, 2004 - 12:40pm

Hi Ed:

I don't know that this "backs Orion's research" as his premise was not that "hormone exposure matters." Surely noone would disagree with that. Without the influence of hormones (MIH), all fetuses would default to female! So obviously they have a purpose. The question is - well, I am sort of unclear - it seems to be that some children have inborn temperaments towards overarousal, which causes them to avoid conflict, or that prenatal stress results in a temperament which seeks out the "exotic."

This article (from the abstract) seems to indicate that the administration or withholding of X either impairs male sexual behavior or masculinizes the female brain (in rats!). While this supports the assertion that chemicals are critical in the developmental process and possibly even sexual behavior (in rats), I don't know that it supports anything Orion has said.

Not that there are no studies which support what he has said, I haven't looked. But one thing I have learned from reading copious amounts of scientific journals is that rarely will one study give you much of an "a-ha! that's it" moment, rather one study provides some evidence of one tiny piece of knowledge that must be glommed together with lots of other tiny pieces of knowledge, from which you can form yet another hypothesis to test. The nature of scientific method requires one to narrow the scope of inquiry so much that rarely are broad social questions answered definitively by a couple of studies. I realise that everyone really already knows this, I am just reminding us all that - although science is important and in my experience incredibly exciting - we should use caution in the popular interpretation and social application of it.

Ash

Post 34

Sunday, October 3, 2004 - 5:22pm

I doubt Orion's theory for two reasons. First, I know guys who used to be very shy and unsuccessful with girls, at high school. They are heterosexual. Secondly, the homosexual men I know never even tried competing for girls.
And I am interested to know what your theory makes of lesbians.

Post 35

Sunday, October 3, 2004 - 7:14pm

Hi Ashley,

Glad to see you around and loved your post, intelligent (of course), savvy (as always), and very good natured (even thought you can be very bad!) haha,

Cheers,

Michael

Post 36

Sunday, October 3, 2004 - 8:44pm

It's actually not my theory... Any opinion I have on this, is a result of the research that I've mentioned.

And yes, there are lots of the "Sadie Hawkins"-type relationships that you mention, but as I see it, those are a result of feminist influences on our society, which are considerable. Under those conditions -- which I believe are covered by my stipulations regarding males being able to succeed if they can find situations where male-vs-male competition is lessened or nonexistent -- then, yes, the more mild-mannered male can succeed.

Under more traditional circumstances, males of many species typically have to fight tooth and nail to be the "cock of the walk"... and then the females were the selective groupies, and so on. Nowadays, there is no clear direction, and if a male does not magically just "know" whether he is to be dominant or not, and precisely where and when, he risks landing in prison. For many males nowadays, it's just not worth it to play that game of Russian Roulette any longer.

I saw a bumper sticker the other day, which said: I have the vagina, therefore I'm right. This is what today's male is up against. At least in previous years, the average female was usually much more mature than the male, and was the glue that held society together. Today, there's nothing of the sort... today's society is just an island where little boys and girls run around naked and vicious like savages, whiled a pig's severed head sits on a stick, and flies swarm around it.

As I've said before, I think that this is an understandable reason for bowing out of the mating game, where the stakes are astronomically higher now than ever, and even the "winners" oftentimes end up losing in the final analysis.

(Edited by Orion Reasoner on 10/04, 9:34pm)

Post 37

Sunday, October 3, 2004 - 9:31pm

Ive bowed out of the dating game for the same reason. But i still havnt become gay nor will i ever. Ill just remain a lonely shy virgin for the rest of my life.

Post 38

Sunday, October 3, 2004 - 11:37pm

Today, there's nothing of the sort... today's society is just an island where little boys and girls run around naked and vicious like savages, and a pig's severed head sits on a stick, while flies swarm around it.

As I've said before, I think that this is an understandable reason for bowing out of the mating game, where the stakes are astronomically higher now than ever, and even the "winners" end up losing.

When did you become so jaded?

Tooth and nail eh, bowing out of the mating game eh, well thats one way to put it. Taking that as a personal philosophy of life sure makes things easy doesn't it, you never risk being hurt or rejected - life is nice and safe. There's just one problem, you will be safely bored, safely passionless, safely frustrated, and given enough time you will hold all of humanity in contempt. The cold safety of loneliness always leads to contempt. Oh, did I use the word "humanity", sorry I forgot, I meant to say that you may end up despising the " little boys and girls who run around naked and vicious like savages, while a pig's severed head sits on a stick, while flies swarm around it." Bowing out my ass, sounds more like cop-ing out.

Personally I just don't see it. There's a cliche that begins with, "better to have loved and lost, than to......." - I am sure you have heard it before. And while it may be cliche, it is nevertheless true. The world is full of so many interesting, intelligent and beautiful girls/women, that I cannot begin to even understand how you arrived at the conclusions you have.

No one who is in love, AND is being loved in return, could possibly make the statement you made. Here's a piece of advice: shut off the computer, bookmark 'Atlas Shrugged' and close it - then spend a little more time with those "naked savages".

George

(Edited by George W. Cordero on 10/04, 7:36am)

Post 39

Monday, October 4, 2004 - 8:47am