What is the purpose of Homosexuality?

[leonidas]

Even the most confident homosexual people have been through something straight people often have difficulty understanding, so I try to be sensetive with the issue, but I like to speculate at what the cause of homosexual attraction may be.

It is so blatantly anti-evolutionary, species try to survive, try to thrive.

Once a species dominates other species, I think they tend to become much more picky among themselves, and this is part of the reason I feel wars happen.
Wars, and fights, *tend* to weed out the weak, and those who haven't the mental or physical ability to thrive are not permitted by natural law/selection to perpetuate their inferior genees.

This is all fine and well, but just as many homosexual as hetrosexual people are intelligent and physically fit/attractive people.
Their genes would be a great benifit to perpetuate, and yet their feelings and attractions stop them. Could it be called a mental deformity? A disease?

Interestingly, though, alot of homosexuals feel a paternal/maternal urge to raise offspring, so this adds a whole different spin on things.

What the hell was god thinking?

[soliloquy]

What is the purpose of heterosexuality?

[danny elfboy]

Neither homosexuality or heresexuality exist.
They're cultural and social constructions influenced by political agenda.
Heterosexuality is as much as a "different thing" as homosexuality is.
We all have the potential to feel attracted and have affinities with people of whatever gender, it's just society that discipline and limits that potential.

The concept itself of falling in love with people of the same gender (i.e. judging the person rather than the gender) has nothing to do with procreation and would never be an hindrance to procreation. Population have been known where women have sex with women and men with men and they just had contact with one another to procreate.
The idea that procreation and sex are the same thing and totally linked is somethig not even elementary school kids believe anymore and something contradicted strongly by the animal world in general.

There's absolutely nothing physiologically, organically or morphologically different in people who consider themselves gay (of course even what it means to be gay and how gay "must" behave is just a man-made concept created by cultures) there's no gay gene, no gay celebral marks, no gay brainwaves. The few studied that try to prove otherwise were highly flawed in their methodology of not discriminating important factors like drug use for example.

It's just a fairy tale for not very smart people that every thing we experience in our life especially at the socio-cultural level must have to do with genes or evolution. If it was really like that (and there's no evidence whatsoever that it is so) we wouldn't even posses the ability to resonate about whether our behaviors depends on genes and evolution, it's like cutting butter with a knife of butter. That our behaviors are just the products of genes and evolution contradict our ability to have behavior that allow us to intefer about genes and evolution and their roles in our behaviors. Whatever theory that contradicts itself as its very core is just nonsense.

Besides a person enterily controlled by genes and evolution would never blow his head with a pistol and yet that's what someone believing he is just a puppet without free-will should be tempted to do. The idiot who killed 7 people in Finland a week ago just reasoned in the same way and just though people to be no more than their gene activity.

Also you've your theory and what consistutes strength and what constitues weakness completely warped, seems like you have played with too many videogames.
I suggest you to read what the biologist Lynn Margulis had to say about the "truth" of the struggle to survival and the survival of the strong. Let's just point out that by what you write you're the weak who don't survive unlike the people you judge.

What's the purpose of making pianists so gullable, completely obsessed by irrelevant fairy tales and believing every myth and urban legend to the point of building completely contradictory and improbable theories upon false premises? What the purpose of making pianists so predisposed to simplistic and mediocre thought and superficial analysis?
Silly me, thinking that pianism (often being the target of bullying and scorn, especially for young males) was a prerogative of sensitive, empathic and insightful individuals not of status-quo pop-culture legends junks.

[thalberg]

Wow, another typeractive response. 

My answer to leonidas--evolution is a lie, and you need to see that.

[danny elfboy]

Wow, another typeractive response. 

My answer to leonidas--evolution is a lie, and you need to see that.

I'm not even saying that it is a lie (even though there are controversies and many official theories not just one) but surely the way evolutionary premises are extrapolated wildly, to things that have nothing to do with what we can infer from evolutionary evidences, and used to support biased socio-political views is a lie.

[chopininov]

Wow. So you're essentially asking "Why are gay people gay? Some of them are smart and beautiful, so why don't they make babies like us straight people? This totally contradicts the theory of "evolution". Are they retarded? Diseased?"

While some might dismiss this as ignorance (to be honest, I almost did), this is actually a prime example of human nature: Attempting to cope or understand differences in others by making distinctions between "us" and "them". You are trying to find or make reasons for something you don't understand. It's understandable. It's human.
But please understand that "homosexuality" has nothing to do with evolution. It is not about the strong overcoming the weak. As long as their have been men walking about this planet, there has been "homosexuality". It is not some new evolutionary trend. But what has changed is society's willingness to accept it and tolerate it.

[wotgoplunk]

Evolution ain't perfect, is my response. 

Besides, we have yet to determine whether homosexuality is nature or nurture.

There must be some sort of purpose, because we've seen it in animals.

[prometheus]

OMG at this topic and the responses, especially the one by Danny.

[thalberg]

-

[wotgoplunk]

Thal, no book for either side will ever work until we discover how much is nature, and how much is nurture.

It's irrelevant until we discover that, isn't it?

Because if people can't change, then you're not going to force them to make a choice, and it must have a purpose.

If people can change, then we hit the ethical brick wall of, "should we force people to be heterosexual?"

[gerry]

This is quickly turning into one of the most remarkably unenlightened threads ever posted on this forum.

[wotgoplunk]

We're trying to be politically correct 

[leonidas]

What is the purpose of heterosexuality?

To encourage procreation.

If everyone was homosexual, there would be a problem.

There are those who don't want to have children, and those physically unable, if they were more common it would be a serious problem to life on our planet.


Another interesting and somewhat frustrating fact is that intelligent families tend to be smaller in number, and lower intelligence families tend to produce more offspring.

Another roadblock in the furthering of our gene-ocean.

Many people have the belief that stupid people should legally not be allowed to reproduce, and yet that is the first thing they want to do.

[ahinton]

Is there not perhaps a fundamental flaw in the original question? (and, in so saying, I am considering it, not seeking to criticise it negatively). The emphasis in the question is placed upon "purpose" whereas at least a goodly proportion of the likely answers may to have more to do with instinct. I can see the "purpose", of course, in asking the question this way from the standpoint that one could argue that the contrary "purpose" of heterosexuality is procreation and the continuation of the race but, again, is this "purpose" all that matters about heterosexuality? In other words, is heterosexuality ONLY for the "purpose" of procreation? I know that's another question - and I'm not ducking the one asked here - but I would have said that homosexuality is a matter of personal instinct (and/or genetic predisposition) rather than intended "purpose", frankly. Does that make some sense?

Best,

Alistair

[leonidas]

I find these things very interesting, and along the same lines - very intelligent and great people have committed suicide.

Were they genetically predisposed to this inclination? and if so, why haven't suicide genes, over the years, commited their own suicide? Or does it still happen because there are new things and feelings in our world that cause these feelings, which our ancestors would never have been exposed to.

[leonidas]

I know the word purpose brings to mind the 'meaning of life' question, but that is precisely the point, homosexuality is in a way *anti*-life.

[pianochick93]

If everyone was homosexual, there would be a problem.

Not there wouldn't. Look at genetic technology these days. IVF etc.

And I believe people are homosexual because that is just what they prefer. We should stop trying to wonder why and if there is something wrong with them and just see it as attraction. So most people are attracted to people of the opposite sex? Big deal.

[zheer]

   Am gonna be politically very incorrect, no man or women is born perfect,nature does prove time and time again that it is not only imperfect but also dangerous.
Therefore true as it may be that the vast majority of homosexuals are not homosexual by choice,some are drawn into homosexuality through circumstance.
I dont believe that it is natures way of controling population, but simply perfectly normal ordinary people are born different from the rest of us heterosexual beings.So basically it is a lottery anyone of us could have been born homosexual.
   

[prometheus]

Homosexuality is found in every species/animal where is looked. Clearly homosexuality is 'allowed' by evolution.

[counterpoint]

Why are people gay?   

https://www.musicnotes.com/sheetmusic/mtd.asp?ppn=mn0016556&bl=/features/artists/gershwin/default.asp&bd=gershwin+collection

[bob3.1415926]

If you're going to keep asking questions along these lines, stop asking these silly questions, and get to the heart of it, to the interesting questions. One of my favourites being:

Why is there gender?

Questions of sexuality and attraction are clearly derivative to this one.
I've not heard an apt explanation as initially, when the creatures that led to us stopped reproducing asexually (as bacteria - the supposed origin of life - do) and instead split into two genders, how this provided an immediate advantage to survive. The advantage of genetic diversity provided by multiple parents doesn't really kick in until much further down the line. The chances are that the newly formed male/female wouldn't have anyone to mate with and would hence die.

[danny elfboy]

You're all missing the point.
Sexuality is a continuum.
Researchers on sexual behaviors nowadays don't believe anymore in sexual identities but sexual hystory. Sexual hystory means that your sexuality is not some kind of fixed inborn predisposition but the sum all of your sexual circumstances. Concepts like heterosexuality and homosexuality are inventions, there's such no neat division in nature, there's only potentials and circumstances in nature and our free-will to react to them. The reason why in nature you see "homosexuality" is because because there's no kind of demarcation between what is sexual and what is not.
The demarcation between whatever activity and a sexual activity just doesn't exist and is fake. So in nature the continuum of activities to perform with a mate/friend include sharing some pleasure through physical contact.

The dichotomy hetero/homo is enterely cultural and enterely based on discourses of disciplination of the bodies. While intimacy, genital pleasure, physical contacts are not invented; sexuality and sexual identities are invented and the dichotomy applies only to a certain cultural and political mindset. We're all perverted polymorfous period, and before Mills and others could study the influence of "internalized cultural roles" most everyone was buffled as how we could eventually self-deny the potential to enjoy our sexual circumstances freely.

[gilad]

What is purpose of anything? a human life? You might say to reproduce.

But so what really?

What difference does our existance make to the world, galaxy, universe?

What is the purpose of anything on earth?

When I realise how pointless our lives really are, I become aware that we have to create our own purposeful being. That is whatever we set out to achieve.

Purpose is subjective, it is not necessarily a matter of science. Human behaviour is not a science.

[zheer]

Neither homosexuality or heresexuality exist.
They're cultural and social constructions influenced by political agenda.

  I disagree, at the age of 7 (i think possibly younger) i knew i liked girls, and my background is very strickt, so it came from within,nothing political about that. An erection is not socially or politically created, it just happens.It is only once you reach the age of 9-1o that friends would talk about these things and realize they have something in common.To be honest i knew what and why i liked women very early on,withought beeing told by a teacher or parent.Like animal,call it instinct.

[danny elfboy]

I become aware that we have to create our own purposeful being. That is whatever we set out to achieve.

It's weird that something like this must be reminded to a forum of pianists.
Who better than an artist should understand that life is what you make out of it and your passions are its purpose.

[danny elfboy]

  I disagree, at the age of 7 (i think possibly younger) i knew i liked girls, and my background is very strickt, so it came from within,nothing political about that. An erection is not socially or politically created, it just happens.It is only once you reach the age of 9-1o that friends would talk about these things and realize they have something in common.To be honest i knew what and why i liked women very early on,withought beeing told by a teacher or parent.Like animal,call it instinct.

Mills proved that even 2 years old kids are completely influenced by the culture they live in and that even the most superficial hints (even things like the tone of the voice, the songs you listen, the things your parent say while you're distracted) actively build "internalized cultural roles". We're social humans and it's normal to feel attraction for other humans.
But what I'm talking here is a dichotomy between sexual/non-sexual and between hetero/homo where instead there's just a continuum of circumstances, potentials and contacts. That's the point, since sexuality is not some kind of natural "fact" separated from the whole of all the other actions, feelings and human contacts; it's especially non-sexual discourses that shape cultural sexuality the most (and of course being "internalized" you're not aware of them or you internalizing them)
We would just need to make a less ethno-centric discourse (and see how completely different is or has been the sexual continuum of other populations) to understand this and stop believing we're talking of something universally binary rather than social roles.

[leonidas]

If you're going to keep asking questions along these lines, stop asking these silly questions, and get to the heart of it, to the interesting questions. One of my favourites being:

Why is there gender?

Questions of sexuality and attraction are clearly derivative to this one.
I've not heard an apt explanation as initially, when the creatures that led to us stopped reproducing asexually (as bacteria - the supposed origin of life - do) and instead split into two genders, how this provided an immediate advantage to survive. The advantage of genetic diversity provided by multiple parents doesn't really kick in until much further down the line. The chances are that the newly formed male/female wouldn't have anyone to mate with and would hence die.

Yeah, gender is an interesting one.

I can only think of the fact that with evolution, gestation periods have had to increase, and with that, one side has to take on a nurturing side, and one has to be the hunter gatherer.
If everyone were half-way she-males there would be less efficiency allround.

[danny elfboy]

Yeah, gender is an interesting one.

I can only think of the fact that with evolution, gestation periods have had to increase, and with that, one side has to take on a nurturing side, and one has to be the hunter gatherer.
If everyone were half-way she-males there would be less efficiency allround.

Yet once the again the facts contradict this Flintstones fairy tales.
Jared Diamond studied many hunter-gatherer populations who live the same kind of life and social system we had in the paleolithic. What he found out is that women are as hunter as the men and women and men go hunter together. Likewise the men are as gatherer as the women and they gather together. The tough beasts-killer men is also a myth. On average mostly smaller mammals are haunt and not with ease. In the past humans get meat from scavengering and only later hunting was introducing but that hunting is nothing like the england fox-hunt or the movie hunting scenes.
Young children are considered adult individuals and form their own relationships, groups and hunt together. While the first child depends on the parents attention for the first 3 years of life the next children will be nurtured by the older brothers and sisters.
On average these people to obtain the food to thrive and survive work 60% less than any western worker and have a lot more leizure time than us westerns which they use for dancing, art, developing relationships and other interesting practices that we might consider "immoral". The binaries of the western culture and thought are just not existant there.

While physiological gender differences exist, gender roles are an invention with no basis in the natural world. If you want to read a great tough book as to why genders are culturally constructed and the binary doesn't actually exist I suggest "Gender Trouble" by Judith Butler.

[thalbergmad]

I have always wondered why a lot of pooftas talk with high pitched voices.

Thal

[ahinton]

I have always wondered why a lot of pooftas talk with high pitched voices.

Thal

I have often wondered whether it is some kind of genetic determinant in mad Thalbergians that causes them to carry so much weight.

No, actually, if I'm honest, I haven't wondered that either.

"Pooftas"? You know, Thal, I've more than once asked you for the contact details of that charm school that you attended but you've never revealed them to me; in the meantime, however, what kind of epithet might you suppose homosexuals to believe to be the most appropriate for you?

Best,

Alistair

[thalbergmad]

What is wrong with "pooftas" ? I thought that was a general term to describe homosexuals. Or, should i say it is from my neck of the woods.

Also, we could use, bendahs, batti boys, shirt liftas, dirty tea towell holders, choccy stabbers, rusty sheriffs badges, queers, faggots, brown enders, fairies, gaylords, ring raiders, fudge packers, or we could just use homosexuals i guess.

The charm school is in Frome, where i will be next week.

One of my best friends is gay and runs a flower shop in Kent. He gave me the above list.

Thal

[soliloquy]

To encourage procreation.

I knew you'd say that.  So I will now elaborate on what should have been the inferred meaning of what I said.  You are lexicographically obligated to now choose one of the following options, and only one:


A- the purpose of heterosexuality is nothing more than to create children, therefore the only reason one would be heterosexual is that they want to create children.  This is obviously false, and also discounts things as subtle and unimportant as, oh say... love.


B- you must agree that the creation of children through hetero-sex is not the purpose, but instead an effect of heterosexuality.  If so, then you must again answer my question, because if this is the case, then as of yet you have failed to do so.



 



So perhaps, you should rephrase the original question.

[leonidas]

The purpose of something is the intended effect, and if homosexual is not an anomaly or disorder, it certainly is confusing.

I can love a man as much as I love a woman, it's about sexual attraction.

[chopininov]

The purpose of something is the intended effect, and if homosexual is not an anomaly or disorder, it certainly is confusing.

I can love a man as much as I love a woman, it's about sexual attraction.

It's about as confusing as heterosexuality.

[wotgoplunk]

I can love a man as much as I love a woman

Congratulations, you're bisexual.

Sexual attraction is least important.

[soliloquy]

The purpose of something is the intended effect, and if homosexual is not an anomaly or disorder, it certainly is confusing.

I can love a man as much as I love a woman, it's about sexual attraction.

Definitions of "purpose" as per google:

an anticipated outcome that is intended or that guides your planned actions; "his intent was to provide a new translation"; "good intentions are ...

function: what something is used for; "the function of an auger is to bore holes"; "ballet is beautiful but what use is it?"

aim: propose or intend; "I aim to arrive at noon"

determination: the quality of being determined to do or achieve something; "his determination showed in his every movement"; "he is a man of purpose"

reach a decision; "he resolved never to drink again"

Show me the word "effect".  "Effect," in this context, is semantically impossible to synonymize to "purpose", because the effect must, semantically, be an aftermath, and not simultaneous thusly, therefore your own personal, and entirely incorrect, definition is false.  So once again I am going to have to ask you to rephrase the question or admit to this thread's lunacy, or even both.

[leonidas]

You are gay.

[ahinton]

You are gay.

You hardly identify yourself as the world's most observant and percipient person by so saying - and so what if soliloquy is gay? Which of your arguments (if indeed you really have any here) can be proved by your mention of soliloquy as gay?

Dear me!

What is the purpose of leonidas? - apart, perhaps, from providing all manner of possible anagrammatical - er - "effects"...

Best,

Alistair

[maul]

There is no purpose of homosexuality. It is a genetic defect.

[danny elfboy]

There is no purpose of homosexuality. It is a genetic defect.

There's nothing genetic in homosexality and only an ignorant homophobic could say otherwise. The moment you find out a gene for homosexuality (or any other human behavior) have it peer-reviewed so it can be debunked and you can be called publically an idiot. There's just no difference between people like you and intolerant fundamental religious fanatics. Both of you are completely blinded by your own dogma and both of you are completely stuck in your fairy tales disregarding whatever fact, just to keep acting like absolutist paranoid seeing allowing no-middle ground, no doubt, no compromise and no shade to the truth, just counterinttellectual black and white thinking.
I'm pretty sure that what makes certain people zealous prederteminists without any rational thinking, a sense of equilibrium, a sense of objectivity and a love for biased science IS a genetic defect. 

[chopininov]

There is no purpose of homosexuality. It is a genetic defect.

What wonderful insight. Please elaborate.

[thalberg]

What wonderful insight. Please elaborate.

Don't encourage him!! 

[pianochick93]

It is easier to argue against him if he elaborates. There will be more agruments to argue back.

[danny elfboy]

It is easier to argue against him if he elaborates. There will be more agruments to argue back.

You expect "arguments" from these people?
These are not arguments, these are just-so stories and dogmatic premises.
They have no knowledge and have mostly read stupid articles on pop-science magazines and still believe they're some kind of guru who have found the key that explaina every little thing in life. And as long as the theory backs up the fundamental premise, it doesn't matter whether the theory is plain wrong and and easily disproved by whatever text book. But don't expect "arguments" from fundamentalists, you won't get any.

Why don't you few bullshitters make your own "evolutionary wankers" forum and stop infecting this one? Of course the same apply to the few relisious fundamentalists, the few fast speed obsessed and snotty musicians. I mean this forum would be great if it wasn't for a dozen of infective junk that keep ruining everything. Create your own forum for fundamentalist idiots where you can keep lecturing the people who are stupid enough to listen to you.

[maul]

Well, at least we know who is gay now. *phew*

[thalbergmad]

Why don't you few bullshitters make your own "evolutionary wankers" forum and stop infecting this one? Of course the same apply to the few relisious fundamentalists, the few fast speed obsessed and snotty musicians. I mean this forum would be great if it wasn't for a dozen of infective junk that keep ruining everything. Create your own forum for fundamentalist idiots where you can keep lecturing the people who are stupid enough to listen to you.

Agreed, and this forum would also be great without people with Encyclopedias stuck up their arses who think they know everything.

It takes all of us to make this forum the place that it is, "bullshitters" included.

Thal

[danny elfboy]

Agreed, and this forum would also be great without people with Encyclopedias stuck up their arses who think they know everything.

What about chronic drunk brainless dude proud of their ignorance and with a need to attack those who know something?

[danny elfboy]

Well, at least we know who is gay now. *phew*

At least we know who is a talentlessly brainless, which is way more useful to know who is dating who.

[danny elfboy]

Congratulations, you're bisexual.

Sexual attraction is least important.

Not correct.
Bisexuality is being physically attracted to both mainly characteristics and female characteristics. There's another form of attraction, which is being attracted to the person, to the individual and the feelings he/she makes you feel, in spite of what gender this person is. It's like the difference between claiming to accept both black and white people or to just ignore the skin color in favour of personality, skill, intelligence and so on.

[gerry]

Well, at least we know who is gay now. *phew*

I respectfully suggest that with that, for want of a better word, untenable observation, we retire this thread and return to more productive areas of exchange. Considering that this forum is supposedly populated by artists, I'm appalled that the muse hasn't "burned" some of them enough to see and appreciate the wonderful gray areas of life and to accept and respect the diversity of human existence. Couched in the guise of intellectual curiosity and scientific exchange this discussion has unfortunately has provided a pulpit for some to regurgitate the same old saws that have plagued the acceptance and integration of gays as fully franchised members of society. Unfortunately the above quote by maul sort of sums it all up.