Required Reading?

[Cole Parker]

I cannot imagine anyone who frequents this site wouldn't be interested in this article.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commen...0,2291603.story

C

[Trab]

I agree. Very interesting article. It should be reprinted in Virginia, and become forced reading in their legislature.

[Cole Parker]

You've probably seen what I have: fundamentalist conservatives don't tend to listen to or consider anything that doesn't agree with their current narrow mindset. Plastering this all over Virginia might change some of the citizen's minds, but certainly wouldn't affect the thinking of those now in power.

Getting the populace to vote them out certainly would be a blessing. But they just voted them in. Could it be that the majority of the citizens of that state believe the same things these 'leaders' do?

One can only hope that where these men are taking Virginia won't be foretaste of where the country will be going following our next election.

C

[Trab]

I have to be honest here, I don't believe your rights to free speech are actually helping.

[DesDownunder]

The article only reinforces my perspective on gay rights, namely, that regardless of genetic factors, sexual expression is a human right.

However it is not a human right to impose belief on others, even if, especially if your religion, belief system, or your invisible friend tells you to so impose on others.

Other people do not have the right to prohibit the right to sexual expression (between consenting adults.)

They can think it is wrong, but they cannot impose their belief that it is wrong, on others.

Recently I saw the extremist argument claiming natural rights as overruling human rights.

This is a deception, a logical fallacy, a deliberate attempt to deflect reason.

I'm all for genetic evidence being used to maintain the validity of inherent sexuality of individuals, but the danger is that someone will try to alter the code to exclude or modify the genetic structure to conform with whatever is considered to be right on Sunday mornings.

That is a violation of human rights. Homosexuality is not a defect, it is a condition of nature, occurring in other species, and is a human condition enabling us to express our love for each other. Dare I say that without it, the human race would not survive any war.

It is not unknown for two heterosexuals of the same gender to have sex with each other. It happens all the time actually. In fact there is a strong argument to suggest that bi-sexuality is quite common in at least 50% of the population, but it is suppressed by social indoctrination. Religious organisations are notorious for inhibiting sexual expression for no good reason.

As I have said before, it is the heterosexuals who need to be liberated from their narrow-minded point of view that homosexuality is wrong.

Such liberation is their human right, but they won't understand that unless we help them.

[Graeme]

If statistics prove that 10% of the populace are totally gay then it stands to reason that at the other end of the scale 10% must be totally straight. What, then, are the 80% in between. They must be very bi-sexual or hardly bi-sexual depending on where they fall along the scale. I bet if this was proved then there would be some very red faced people about once they realized that 90% of the populace are gay to a greater or lesser degree!

Sorry to correct you, but you're making an unjustified assumption. That is, that the distribution is even. That could be true, but it may not be and there are certainly arguments to suggest it isn't (such as an even distribution would have affected long term genetic viability in any species with such a distribution -- they would have been out-bred by those species that didn't have an even distribution).

[Bruin Fisher]

I'm with Graeme on this - I don't see any reason why the distribution couldn't be, for instance, 10% gay, 10% bisexual, and the other 80% straight. Not that I'm suggesting that's the true distribution, but there isn't any reason to suppose an even symettrical distribution. Certainly the numbers who present as bisexual don't amount to 80% of the population!

I once wrote a story (The iPlug) in which I proposed a future time when telepathy would reveal that almost everyone was potentially bisexual and it was their own mindset that caused them to self-identify as one thing or another. I was, quite justifiably, shot down in flames over it, several people speaking up to say that while bisexuality certainly exists, it's a minority sport. It wasn't a heated debate, after all it was only a story - but I took the point.

If anyone's interested in my short story, Here it is: The iPlug - for some reason I never posted this one at AD. An error of omission which I must rectify tout de suite.

[DesDownunder]

Based on his findings, Kinsey made similar conclusions on the extremes of the sexual pendulum.

However the issue is not about static extremes, it is about a very mobile majority. At least the contention is that the majority would be more sexually mobile than they are, if they were not conditioned by cultural influences to regard sex as sinful. Some people never get over feeling guilty for the pleasure sex gives them.

The slightly less than 80% figure is not totally bisexual all the time, or for all their lives. Sexuality for the bisexual is a dynamic, capable of change. Neither does it mean rampant promiscuity, though of course accurate statistics would probably indicate progressive movement towards one of the extremes as the individual ages, or finds a compatible life-companion.

So we might consider that it is not unreasonable to think that the human race is basically bisexual, just not all of them, all the time, but some of them, some of the time. A kind of sexual musical chairs where the one left standing goes home alone, or waits to see if they can get another chance.

In the early days of the HIV infection awareness programs, I remember a report from a Sydney hospital worker who claimed that whilst the mothers were giving birth, some 80% of their husbands were asking for an HIV test, because they had had sex with another man. Naturally I can't vouch for either the report or the statistic.

What we do know is that in Ancient Athens when homosexuality was openly part of their culture, the Birth rate did not decline, indeed it was slightly higher than its neighbouring city states. They also produced genii at the rate of one a year, while, until recent times, the going rate was only one every fifty years. Yes, I know they had slaves, but so do we, we just pay them, something, some of the time.

If we look at our own cultural influences, with open mind, we should be able to understand that the moralistic attitudes of certain groups in any culture, demand that people regard themselves as one thing or another. (Bisexuals are despised by all because it is difficult to understand why one would not be one thing or another, but this attitude overlooks the fact that we are not all at the same point of our lives.)

Strangely enough, the aristocracies of governments, monarchies and religions, all screw whomever they like. Are we to believe those people are all in a category of 'free to have any sex' they like, which ordinary people can never access? One law for the rich and powerful, and another law for the rest of humanity is not being civilised, it is an insult to every human's right to be treated equal.

The core Human Right, is that no one should demand your sexuality be anything other than what you want; the freedom to be whatever we desire at any moment with due regard for the golden rule.

My contention is that this freedom of sexuality would manifest itself in widespread acceptance of the human race as being 'sexual,' without the need to label anyone. The preoccupation that some cultures and some people, exhibit in their concern about the sexual habits of others is really not necessary in a world as over populated as ours. Not that it is anyone else's business anyway.

Of course the need to dismantle the cultural conditioning which oppresses so many into believing they have the right to tell others how they should live their lives, or that they sin every time they orgasm, will present problems, but we have already moved in this direction since the musical HAIR made the very valid point that "masturbation can be fun." That liberated millions.

Eventually, if we survive, I believe we will see a remarkable acceptance of sexuality as an individual human right in our cultures without passing judgement on others.

The alternative is another dark age of inquisitions, tortured souls, and witch-hunts, and that does not sound like a fun time to me.

The sooner we stop worrying about what happens in other people's bedrooms, the sooner we can regard ourselves as a civilised race of beings.

Nothing herein should be taken as an argument for child molestation. This is a consenting adults only, subject.

[Cole Parker]

This is a fascinating discussion when compared to a thread, or was it this same thread, which shortly ago was used to attempt to define homosexuality.

It was suggested then that homosexuality wasn't an act, but an attraction. That made great sense to me. If a man wants to have sex with another man and does not have a similar attraction to women, to me that means he's gay, whether or not he acts on the impulse. That also agrees with the fact that his sexuality is not something he has any control over; it's what it is, it's innate, and is basically genetic.

Yet in this thread now, it is being said that whether a person is bisexual is determined by his actions, and to a degree by how he labels himself. I disagree. I think that label still is dependent on his attractions. Not his acts. So, if he finds himself attracted to both men and women--and it doesn't have to be to the same degree--then he's bisexual.

And by that definition, to say 80% of the population bears that tag might not be such a stretch after all. Certainly a large part of that 80% don't act on those desires, but that is for cultural and preconditioned reasons, not genetic ones.

C

[Bruin Fisher]

I agree that it causes problems when people confuse homosexuality with homosexual acts. Homophobes have been known to say 'homosexuality' when they mean anal sex. I have been known to say 'homophobe' when I mean scumbag.

Of course this muddies the waters when the religious detractors say things like 'homosexuality is a sin'. They think they're talking about an act, which anyone has a choice about - to do or not to do. We listen to their words and hear them describe an innate attraction, not a choice - essentially to be or not to be. So they say homosexuality is a choice and we argue with them at cross purposes because we're talking about two different things. AAarrrgghh!

[Trab]

I agree completely about the cross purposes or misunderstanding or presuppositions inherent in the current usage of homosexual. I certainly consider it to refer to the attraction, not the act. If it were the act, I'm not exactly what I'd be. A monk, and not a Catholic one?

[DesDownunder]

The line of thought in my post was not aimed at showing or denying any genetic dependency.

Rather I was attempting to indicate that the human race is sexual, and that labels such as homosexual, heterosexual, or bisexual are used to denigrate the sex act when such acts do not meet with the approval of prevailing rules of a culture.

My contention was that such rules oppress individual sexual expression regardless of genetic disposition, or choices, and are derogatory to a civilised human society which would not and should not, concern itself with the sex lives of humans.

The argument is that the labelling, is itself used to further the abuse of the freedom of sexuality in any of its forms.

If we continue to label ourselves as this or that, or not, we miss the point that the race is, at its core, sexual, and as such individuals have the right to express themselves sexually with each other.

I am certain that many of us here would not desire to express ourselves sexually with someone of the opposite sex. That is not under examination or dispute.

What is being denied by the cultural moralists in particular, is that the majority (80% or so) of humans are perfectly capable of a sexual and loving relationship regardless of the gender involved. This denial has been imprinted on the race for many years, many generations, and like many of the older 'laws' must now be thrown out as they have outlived any usefulness they once had, if indeed they ever had any useful purpose other than granting the moralists control over the people. Realising that there has been an act of oppression on our recognition of our natural sexual nature is the first step to getting rid of the oppression and those archaic laws.

Cole, we seem to agree that this denial is for cultural and preconditioned reasons, not genetic ones.

Personally I would rather fight for the individual's human right for sexual expression, than submit (under force in my case) to some future corrective genetic modification, administered by someone who believes they are doing the race a favour by restricting its freedom of sexual expression. It is not a matter of deciding whether I would be gay or straight if I had the choice, but that we are inherently entitled to the right for freedom of sexual expression.

In restricting our sexual freedom, we also restrict our ability to relate to each other. There is nothing wrong with people who wish to spend their lives together because they love each other, regardless of their sexuality. Sometimes that love will be expressed physically, sometimes not. It is those people's business and no one else's.

And no one should be in position to condemn their relationship.

No one should be in a position to restrict marriage to one group, or to say that another group should be excluded or worse, executed for their acts or their attractions.

I am trying to say here, that however we humans define what we are, whether by act, relationship or attraction, sexual expression is an inalienable human right and should never be the subject of condemnation (where the participants are consenting adults.)

What I think would be worthwhile is a breakdown of why the culture of moralists, particularly those in most religions, are so eager to apply guilt and sin to the sexual act, let alone to sexual attraction. When we understand that, we may be able to help liberate them to have a guilt free sex life, but that is probably a long term project.

Freedom of sexual expression should be a primary aim for the human race to assert as a right, if we are to crawl out from under the evils of unjust and unwarranted morality.

Those concepts should be assigned to history.

[The Pecman]

I don't see any reason why the distribution couldn't be, for instance, 10% gay, 10% bisexual, and the other 80% straight.

I think the numbers are greater than that. While I might question the 10% exclusively gay (I'd put it at maybe 5-6%), I bet that bisexuals are closer to 20%. And when you consider the "desert island principle," where two guys or two women are on a desert island for a few years, I'd slide that up to 80% bisexual.