Nobody is ‘born that way,’ gay historians say

[traininthedistance]

Ultimately, if this is just about semantics, who cares?

If that were true, then why push for marriage when you can have civil unions? 

Obviously people care about semantics.  And with good reason.

[traininthedistance]

Tony? Really?

The TERMS homosexuality/heterosexuality/bisexuality/asexuality are constructs - because they're terms society has created over a long period of time to describe biology.

Sexuality is not just the desire to ... stroke one's genitals, it's a method to build and sustain relationships, to continue your genetic line etc etc...

But a) the use or non-use of terms, and the implications they carry, absolutely do have a tangible effect on people (note my "civil unions" example upthread), and b) it's beyond silly to deny that society and culture has an impact on what people find sexually desirable, and how sexuality is practiced.  

Nobody is arguing that biology plays no role- that's a strawman.  But to say that society and culture plays no role?  Just take a look at the relative prevalence of pubic hair in pornos of the 1970s and today, and tell me with a straight face that sexuality and gender isn't at least a little bit socially constructed.  You can't.

Note: this is not to pick on you specifically, but is more to push back generally against the people who are basically denying that anything besides biology matters.

[traininthedistance]

You won't convince them. They have read Foucault. They are 'sage'

Sexual preference; choosing desirable characteristics in a mate is not the same as sexual orientation or sexual drive. You and I know this. It's not f-cking rocket science but constructionists go insane with it. As I said before if you say to someone who is heterosexual your sexual attraction to thefemale is a nothing more than a social construct because you happen to prefer afemale with 36DD breasts or a female with wooden cleft in her pallet and access to 36 goats you will be met, rightfully with ill concealed laughter.

My position has a lot less to do with Foucault than you imagine, and a lot more to do with the practical goal of maximizing rights and freedoms, than you imagine. 

The fact that we have a "gay" identity now, and we didn't hundreds of years ago, is intimately connected with, and in fact a prerequisite to, the rights you enjoy and the ability you have to express your sexuality freely and naturally.

And, yes, the idea of "heterosexuality" as a distinct category is constructed as well.  If people are trying to argue that one is but the other isn't, well then that would be gibberish, and offensive gibberish at that.  Luckily nobody is doing such a thing, not here at least.

[traininthedistance]

You won't convince them. They have read Foucault. They are 'sage'

Sexual preference; choosing desirable characteristics in a mate is not the same as sexual orientation or sexual drive. You and I know this. It's not f-cking rocket science but constructionists go insane with it. As I said before if you say to someone who is heterosexual your sexual attraction to thefemale is a nothing more than a social construct because you happen to prefer afemale with 36DD breasts or a female with wooden cleft in her pallet and access to 36 goats you will be met, rightfully with ill concealed laughter.

My position has a lot less to do with Foucault than you imagine, and a lot more to do with the practical goal of maximizing rights and freedoms, than you imagine. 

The fact that we have a "gay" identity now, and we didn't hundreds of years ago, is intimately connected with, and in fact a prerequisite to, the rights you enjoy and the ability you have to express your sexuality freely and naturally.

And, yes, the idea of "heterosexuality" as a distinct category is constructed as well.  If people are trying to argue that one is but the other isn't, well then that would be gibberish, and offensive gibberish at that.  Luckily nobody is doing such a thing, not here at least.

That's not the issue.  "Heterosexuality" is a term that categorizes a set of sexual desires which occur in human beings because of their genetic and hormonal makeup.  Maybe the better word for what we mean is "heterosexual desire" or lust.  The same goes for homosexuality.  The desire for sex and intimacy is an innate impulse in humans due to their biology.  How people act on their desire, what words we use to describe it, the particulars of what is attractive in a man or woman, sure, that's influenced by society a great deal.  But, where someone sits on the spectrum of heterosexual/homosexual is not very influenced at all by society.  Do you disagree?

It has previously been suggested that humans are not by nature sexually attracted to other human beings.  Basically, that human nature is to be a masturbating loner, but society has taught us that having sex is desirable activity.  That is ridiculous.  I find that idea fundamentally dehumanizing because it is opposed to the basic nature of the species I belong to.

Just an added line of argument:

Would anyone say, "nobody is born with autism?"  After all, autistic people used to just be called dumb or cretinous or idiotic.  So, autism is a social construct and nobody is born with autism.

It sounds like we've been talking past each other somewhat.  You're arguing that sexual desire is more or less innate; I'm saying that how that desire is expressed (and, crucially, how it is able to be expressed) is influenced by society and culture and the various self-identifications that people have available to them.  I don't think these two arguments are necessarily contradictory; in fact it's much more likely that they're both correct.  FWIW I agree wholeheartedly with Progressive Realist's perspective upthread, and I'd say that nearly everyone who accept that social construction is a thing that happens would also take that more nuanced tack as well.

So, yeah, I don't disagree.

As for autism... that's kind of a really complicated question, because there's this whole idea now of the "spectrum" that includes a lot of people who have some social difficulties but can function in life mostly okay in addition to the hardcore non-verbal folks who are more profoundly disabled.  I don't really feel qualified to analyze that particular phenomenon, but if someone were to say that Asperger's diagnoses were primarily a social construct, I wouldn't dismiss that out of hand- and I also wouldn't assume that meant they were any less tangible or "real" than any other diagnosis, either.  But I really don't know.

[traininthedistance]

Respectfully... how the hell did you get to there from what I wrote?

Um... it wasn't just what you wrote, and I thought I made that quite clear?  People are having a damn hard time actually listening to what other people are saying in this thread, that's for sure.  (Note: I do not exclude myself from that assessment.)

I find this idea that sexuality is purely about getting something hard and then sticking it into something - getting off and leaving... is actually a little disturbing.

I'm not entirely sure what exactly this is supposed to be directed to; I assume it's at Antonio but I'm pretty sure that's a misunderstanding of his position at best.

[traininthedistance]

I think I'm understanding what others are saying.

If I've misinterpreted what you were saying I apologise. This strikes me as two people driving down a divided road... you don't understand why the other isn't on your side of the road...

I think mostly what I've been trying to say, and not doing a very good job of, is this:

Left-wing humanities PhDs don't believe that biology influences society.  They have a large stake in that idea because they want to study society and language, instead of biology because they don't know how to study biology. They have a bunch of dog-eared copies of Foucault books, not microscopes.

Okay, I've stayed out of this so far because I've of late almost entirely stopped caring about aetiology when it comes to things like this but I just have to say that this is one of the most wildly chauvinistic and unfair characterizations of whole swathes of academic disciplines I've ever read, to the point that I'm not sure I can bring myself to believe it's serious.

I mean, obviously the article in the OP sucks, but that is entirely on the author of the article for misunderstanding the scholarship and introducing an undue political slant that, to be honest, is the exact opposite of what the quoted academics are trying to go for.  But of course some folks are entirely content to just run with that misinterpretation because it comports with their prejudices against humanities scholarship- prejudices that I'd expect to see from someone on the anti-intellectual populist right, but which feel like a deep disappointment and betrayal coming from well-educated liberals.

Not that one necessarily ought to agree with any particular scholar or anything, perhaps these folks are in fact barking up the wrong tree, but consigning entire subjects to the flames in this manner:

And, yes, I think "whole swathes" of US university humanities departments are terrible and useless. 

But, I think my deeper point is that you can't ask a historian or a linguist to answer the question posed in the original article.  The way the article is framed is blatantly stupid. 

is an obviously ridiculous and ignorant position to take.

Does that make any sense?

[traininthedistance]

Sorry for the bump... but a random thought just flew into my head for some reason and I figured it might be relevant here.  I guess I'd mostly be curious for Nathan's take on it, whether it has some merit or is just ridiculous, since he is the resident expert in both East Asian stuff and gender sociology stuff:

Does the apparent surge in asexuality in contemporary Japan- with young folks increasingly uninterested in not just raising a family, but even dating or sex- provide evidence for some sort of constructivist theory?