...or, bisexuality is a real thing.
Identical twin studies show that homosexuality is not genetic
- Thread starter Makalakumu
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...or, bisexuality is a real thing.
But we generally don't deny people their basic rights for things over which they had no control. I don't think we should deny gays rights in any case, but to the extent it's genetic it might help with the argument.
In a world where--unlike ours--it could work? If they're adults, sure. It'd be their choice.
aaradia
Yellow Belt
First off, those things are a joke. This speaker I saw once talked about how a group he was involved in like that (many years before) was a great place to pick up men. Ever follow the stories highlighted in magazines about people who got "straighened out" by one of those groups? I have. Several years later they are often found in gay bars, outed having a gay relationship. etc.
Second, they are doing so only because society is telling them that they are bad, evil, sick, immoral whatever when they are not. It is damaging to a gay persons psychology. Just as the people who used shock treatment to cure gay people phsyically and psychologically damaged people. It's a milder version, but still based on the same garbage. (And yes, I witnessed the taping of people talking about being forced into shock treatment by their parents to "cure" them when volunteering for the historical society I mentioned). Pretty horrific stories.
Third, you do realize it was taken out of the list of mental disorders as psychologists and psychiatrists became more educated on the topic, right? Like in the early to mid 70's? Being gay is NOT something that needs to be cured. We don't need "treatment" for anything but perhaps dealing with the bigotry and hatred that affects our lives.
Cirdan
Senior Master
Apparantly there is now an app to cure homosexuality...
http://now.msn.com/gay-cure-app-door-of-hope-claims-it-can-cure-homosexuality-in-60-days
Now where is the app that cures hetrosexuality? Can you get an app for every sexual orientation? Might be fun, be attracted to possums one week, forklifts the next.
http://now.msn.com/gay-cure-app-door-of-hope-claims-it-can-cure-homosexuality-in-60-days
Now where is the app that cures hetrosexuality? Can you get an app for every sexual orientation? Might be fun, be attracted to possums one week, forklifts the next.
The ol' "you aren't tolerant of my intolerance" line that invariably pops up in discussions regarding homosexuality. It usually comes from the poor religious martyrs that are getting beat down and can't catch a break in this world that is all to quickly going to hell.
ballen0351
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Actually if you listen to interviews from docs that were part of the change it was due to political pressure from gay rights groups. It had little to do with research
be it as it may, it's hardly a mental issue, or rather it's not really damaging.
(and as the spread of AIDS has shown, the boundaries really do not exist)
Aiki Lee
Master of Arts
The DSM V is controversial but not for any “political correctness”. Changes from the DSM IV-TR to the DSM V include dropping Asperger’s as a distinct disorder and including it as a subset of the autism spectrum, chaining the title of mental retardation to intellectually delayed (means the same thing really), dropping the sub-categories ofschizophrenia, drops bereavement, expands the age allowance for pica and rumination disorders, and changed the name of gender identity disorder to gender dysphoria. Gender dysphoria has also been removed from the sexual disorders list and given its own category with a special subset for children experiencing issues with gender identity.
The controversy stands not for anything specifically to do with the diagnosis of any disorder but with the treatment recommendations.It is believed that there was possible pharmaceutical company influence on the members of the APA which constitutes a conflict of interest to the doctors involved. Of course none of this has to do with gender dysphoria or homosexuality because they are not treated with pharmaceuticals.
Aiki Lee
Master of Arts
Having it in there in the first place had little to dowith research. There are not problems arising from identifying as homosexual.The problem lies in social stigma which leads to depressive disorders. A person identifying as homosexual who is not accepted by his or her peers, family or society would very likely face depression and see a psychiatrist or psychologist. Back in the day it was wrongly thought that just being gay made you mentally ill, but it doesnt. Being rejected and hated just for being different from the majority makes you depressed.
It was never a psych problem so they took it out. It was and still is a societal problem.
ballen0351
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If its not genetic as some claim and, serves no biological benefit then perhaps it is a mental illness of some kind. Some chemicals messed up or unbalanced in the brain
well, if you see it as harmful. But is it?
It's not like depression, or bi-polar or whatever....If left alone nobody get harmed any worse than from hetero people.
The Greek had it figured out (some say, it got so popular, on both sides, that they had to actively encourage inter-gender fornication to get some babies...not sure tho, forgot where I read that)
Somewhere in the Thora it says man shall not lie with a man...practical reasons...small tribe wandering through the desert...we gotta make babies. Aside from that? I don't think it was the downfall of the Hellenistic civilization....it had a good run for several centuries!
And while I grant you that animals can be wired just as wrong as humans, homosexual behavior has been recorded across many species, without ill effects. Should make one wonder...if it's so 'unnatural' why does it happen so much in nature?
Or, sexual orientation is not as rigid as we think, and people fall at different points along a scale. If it's a mental illness, it should cause some dysfunction in a person's life. It woul dhave to be more than not wanting children (which isn't necessarily true of homosexuals, BTW)--we don't consider straight couples without kids to be mentally ill. What would the illness be, exactly?
aaradia
Yellow Belt
Just want to point out that Ancient Greece was not so much one unified country, but a mix of various City States that often warred with each other. They had different cultures and differing values within those City States. Athens and Sparta were not the same and should not be lumped in together as the same.
Not all of Ancient Greece was accepting of homosexuality.
Not all of Ancient Greece was accepting of homosexuality.
All true, but it was much more widely accepted throughout Greece then here--but in different ways. Through the agoge system in Sparta, older warriors with apprenticed younger warriors, for example.
ballen0351
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I don't think it has anything to do with wanting children. It has to do with having a physical attraction that is not a normal thing. For example when I watch that show about people in love with cars or walls or trees that is no doubt a mental illness. Now is that a bad thing? Not in my opinion. Is it something that needs to be treated? Not in my opinion. Is it even worth studying? Again no not in my opinion.
Flying Crane
Sr. Grandmaster
by whose definition of normal?
OP
- Thread Starter
- #140
The point I made earlier is that at least some part of homosexual behavior is cultural in origin. Apparently, humans don't need to have any "gay genes" in order to care for and have sexual relations with people of the same sex. I think this shows that human sexuality is a lot more flexible than is assumed in our culture.
With all of these cultural examples, I find it hard to support the notion of "orientation" as purely something derived from nature or nurture.
