Homosexuality

[Insula Dei]

Could it not be unrelated to genetics, yet at the same time not be a free choice? Seems like there is a world of possibilities you're not offering.

[Insula Dei]

Do I feel the need to weigh in on this?

Of course I do.

1. @Afleitch: Yeah, heterosexuality isn't 'just' genetical either. Not that hard to admit to that.

Consider child X. If nothing out of the ordinary were to occur, child X would grow up to become a fully functional heterosexual. Chil X is brutally abused. Constatation: child X grows up to be something other than a fully functional heterosexual. Child X may have trouble staying in relations, choosing the right partners, or just not be capable of sex. It may even turn homosexual. No way of knowing what could happen.

Most of us have never been abused. But look back at that first paragraph: do you really think 'nothing out of the ordinary' is any less formative than abuse? Think again. We're formed, at least to some degree, by our experiences, and it isn't because sexual abuse is so completely awful that it would be any more formative than that one picture you used to keep looking at in that book of fairy tales you had as a 5 year old. You know the one.

2. If you have a rubber ball and you kick it, it will react different from a metal ball you kick with the same angle and the same force. Hello genetics.

3. Homosexual animals do not exist.

You may have animals that engage in sexual activity with the same gender. Sure. I somewhat doubt there are animals that do so consistently, to the exclusion of al other sexual activity. But even that is definitely possible. I don't know the science. What I would be somewhat willing to bet is that if you were to look at any case of animal homosexuality, you'd find strong indications of environmental factors playing a massive role in this. I'd even be willing to predict the n° 1 environmental factor contributing to same-sex intercourse: captivity.

But none of that's the reason that animal homosexuality does not exist. The reason animal homosexuality does not exist is the exact same reason animal heterosexuality does not exist. Animals don't think and, even more importantly, they don't speak. No animal has ever looked at itself and thought 'I am homosexual'. Animals don't define themselves in function of their behaviour, sexual or otherwise. Animals just plain do not define themselves.

4. You sleep with men, but you call yourself a homosexual. (Or gay, have your pick). See the difference?

5. How absurd is it to define yourself in function of who you sleep with? Might as well define yourself by what you eat, right? Or, wait for it, by what arbitrary genitals you happen to have, eh? Oh, wait.

This is the core of what being human is about. We speak, and we speak about ourselves. And after we've spoken, we take what's been said deadly seriously. You care about your gender. You care absurdly much about your gender. You care about your gender identity to the point where you're willing to go the extra mile to claim it. Looking at you Nathan.

You laugh at Lacan, but at the end of the day a pun can really make you sick to the core of your being. Here are four words which can make you ill: 'I am a man'.

6. Back to homosexuality. What is it I've been saying? a) (homo)sexual behaviour is not innate, and b) (homo)sexuality is a construct. Those are not value judgments. Look at like this: (insert any great piece of art you want here) didn't grow on a tree either. Welcome to the human race.

[Insula Dei]

I've been following this thread with interest for a while now but I just want to talk about this for a second. I'm not entirely sure what belgiansocialist in fact means by this, but:

This is the core of what being human is about. We speak, and we speak about ourselves. And after we've spoken, we take what's been said deadly seriously. You care about your gender. You care absurdly much about your gender. You care about your gender identity to the point where you're willing to go the extra mile to claim it. Looking at you Nathan.

You laugh at Lacan, but at the end of the day a pun can really make you sick to the core of your being. Here are four words which can make you ill: 'I am a man'.

My problem with this is a considerable amount of confusion about it. I can't claim something if I'm not sure what it is, particularly if it's a category (or any of a number of categories) that doesn't 'naturally' exist (the quotes are obviously hugely important here, since it's a bit of a crock concept and has a damaging influence on my psychology). I realize that because of this it's probably pretty easy to argue that I'm in bad faith and that's a lot of why I've been talking about this less, in general, in my life, lately, because I want to be able to discuss this cogently and I have a lot of other things to 'discuss cogently' too right now. Which is admittedly itself a bit of an excuse to not answer hard questions relating to identity--something I actually do feel opposed to the idea that I or anybody has to do.

And if I went over the aspects of the situation that do make me feel sick I'd be here for a while, and outstrip the bounds of what I want to share with the Atlas Forum.

Okay, let me clarify a bit:

1. Your name is wholly incidental up there. Just needed a transgender individual to liven up my point.

2. What's my point again? Oh, yeah, a quite banal one: gender matters. 'Want proof of that? look at transgenderism. That's putting yourself trough quite a bit of trouble in order to claim a gender identity. Why would you do that if Gender didn't matter? You wouldn't'

Aye, it's very banal.

3. But now you say something that I find both interesting and wrong. You say (correct me if I'm wrong, etc.) that 'manhood' is a crock concept. I answer: how can it be? What would a 'pure' version of the idea of manhood look like? It would look like nothing, for there's no reality to 'manhood' other than the one contained in the concept as it is used, and yet this is not a trivial reality.

When you say 'I am a man' you know what you say. You may mean something different from what I mean when I use these words, but you still have a very definite meaning in mind. It may just be so that that meaning diverges from what you feel you are. I'm not a psychiatrist, I'm not going to presume I understand you. But 'manhood' as a concept concerns the both of us, I'd say.

4. Final Point: is gender not 'natural'? Of course it isn't. A monkey can see what sex you are, much like he can see what race you are. But the decision to care about such distinctions, is exclusively human. (And in my opinion exclusively linguistic).

Why don't we care in the same way about the colour of our hairs? (addendum: Why don't we generally...)

(EDIT: This whole bit is useless to the point of 'whatever did I just write'. I'll readily admit to that.)

All summed up: Gender is a human significance* invested in a biological distinction.

*Significance= both 'importance' and 'meaning'

[Insula Dei]

I think you are confusing sex with gender.

You think so?