Gaydar

philosophe · Jul 9, 2007

Originally Posted by JLibourel

Don't mice subjected to crowded living conditions resort to cannibalism rather readily as well?

And has being gay ever enhanced human survival in any societies that we know of? I seem to recall that even in enlightened, tolerant America, gay men die at a considerably younger average age than straight men and that this was true even prior to the outbreak of AIDS.

In general, the reserach says that men benefit from being married to women; whether they can reap the same benefits (care, social connection, etc., all of which promote health and well-being) hasn't to my knowledge been studied.

Depression and suicidality are said to be higher in the gay community, perhaps because of discrimination, social pressure, internalized self-hate etc. I believe, btw, that older white men are at the greatest risk for successful suidice attempts.

amerikajinda · Jul 9, 2007

Originally Posted by LabelKing

It doesn't seem Christian so much as rather Freudian, judging from the website. The whole Primal Scream business reminds me of those odd Birthing rites which essentially puts a person into a fake womb and reenacts the vaginal birth.
Good analogy... I don't quite get it, but I guess it has something to do with letting repressed emotions surface in the form of prolonged screaming... so I guess my friend thinks that if he understands why his dad ignored him when he was growing up, or why his piano teacher would slip his hand down my friend's pants, he can come to terms with that and he won't need to seek "approval" from other men. Oh the Christian places... that reminds me -- he once told me a story of how those Christian ex-Gay places are phony because this one minister of an ex-Gay church (who used to be gay, himself, but who is now "ex-Gay") was trying to "convert" my friend back to heterosexuality... but my friend just ended up sleeping with the minister! Numerous times! So my friend said those Christian ex-Gay places are fake... that's why he decided to move across the country to L.A. so he could enroll in Primal Therapy... at first I was very excited for him -- but it's been four years now and he's as gay as the day that he left. And he's just not happy... he talks about the "prurient" lifestyle, the phoniness, the materialism of it all -- how so much emphasis is placed on being in perfect physical shape, or else a hot guy won't even give you the time of day (that's why all his sexual encounters are either "George Michael Public Bathroom Anonymous-Style" or he'll pay $300 a pop to have some Appreciation actor come over to his apartment for an hour). He's not happy, but no matter how hard I try to convince him, he's just not into women... yet he can't help "acting out" with other men who he has no emotional attachment to... it's all just very sad... very, very sad...

edmorel · Jul 9, 2007

Originally Posted by globetrotter

I find it hard to believe that a man wakes up one day and wants to suck cock.

Globetrotter, I'd like you to meet GQGeek.

philosophe · Jul 9, 2007

Originally Posted by amerikajinda

Oh the Christian places... that reminds me -- he once told me a story of how those Christian ex-Gay places are phony because this one minister of an ex-Gay church (who used to be gay, himself, but who is now "ex-Gay") was trying to "convert" my friend back to heterosexuality... but my friend just ended up sleeping with the minister! Numerous times! So my friend said those Christian ex-Gay places are fake... that's why he decided to move across the country to L.A. so he could enroll in Primal Therapy... at first I was very excited for him -- but it's been four years now and he's as gay as the day that he left. And he's just not happy... he talks about the "prurient" lifestyle, the phoniness, the materialism of it all -- how so much emphasis is placed on being in perfect physical shape, or else a hot guy won't even give you the time of day (that's why all his sexual encounters are either "George Michael Public Bathroom Anonymous-Style" or he'll pay $300 a pop to have some Appreciation actor come over to his apartment for an hour). He's not happy, but no matter how hard I try to convince him, he's just not into women... yet he can't help "acting out" with other men who he has no emotional attachment to... it's all just very sad... very, very sad...

Those ex-gay programs are pretty notorious for just what you describe.

Has you friend tried volunteering some time and energy to service and social groups in the gay community? Not everyone is a vapid gymbot signing up for more plastic surgery. Volunteering time to a meals on wheels project is a great way to meet good people in the lgbt community.

And, for the record, plenty of straight men and straight women--and lesbians, too--are materialistic, emotionally empty jerks. It's not just gay guys.

amerikajinda · Jul 9, 2007

Originally Posted by philosophe

Those ex-gay programs are pretty notorious for just what you describe. Has you friend tried volunteering some time and energy to service and social groups in the gay community? Not everyone is a vapid gymbot signing up for more plastic surgery. Volunteering time to a meals on wheels project is a great way to meet good people in the lgbt community. And, for the record, plenty of straight men and straight women--and lesbians, too--are materialistic, emotionally empty jerks. It's not just gay guys.
I'll suggest that to him -- it's a great idea to volunteer for meals-on-wheels or some such so he can meet good people in the lgbt community. Of course gay guys don't have a monopoly on being materialistic, emotionally empty jerks... but I think there exists a certain double-standard, whereby a straight male, 35 years old, with a bit of a beer gut and maybe not the best looking guy in the world -- will have a MUCH easier time dating a "hot" girl (a 7 on the proverbial scale) in her twenties, than the same guy, were he gay, trying to date a "hot" guy (a 7) in his twenties... http://washblade.com/2007/7-6/eclips...TOKEN=60997179 "When you put several gay men in a room, by the time the sun sets, everybody is bitching about everybody else. Gay life is *****." "I read a book called 'Nasty People' and I finally understand gay men. I wish I had read it years ago and it would have saved me a lot of trouble."

Dakota rube · Jul 9, 2007

Originally Posted by Bandwagonesque

Thin, neat and single.
uh-oh...time for the Rube to put on some weight!!!

LA Guy · Jul 10, 2007

Originally Posted by JLibourel

And has being gay ever enhanced human survival in any societies that we know of?
Human beings are social animals, and individuals have highly specialized roles, so the question is probably better phrased as "Has homosexuality ever contributed to the survival of a coherent society?" The answer to that is probably yes. Non-procreating adults have greater freedom to fill support roles in societies when procreating adults are otherwise occupied.

lacosteaddict · Jul 10, 2007

yeah, i can agree with that.

Sucrose · Jul 10, 2007

In regards to the concept of a "gay gene", here's an excerpt from a very interesting discussion of the subject on EvoWiki: http://wiki.cotch.net/index.php/The_gay_gene

How Bodies, Minds And Behaviour Are Built

If your knowledge of genetics comes from what you've read in the newspaper, heard on the radio or seen on television, you could be forgiven for thinking that genes are little machines which work alone to build a particular characteristic. There is a stream of stories about the discovery of the genes for IQ, wife beating, or love. Geneticists do indeed talk about the gene for this and that, but they use the term in a completely different way to journalists and their readers.

When geneticists talks about a gene for a particular trait, they are using a convenient short hand, most of the time meaning something more complex than just "this gene produces this characteristic". Journalists also use this language as a means of simplifying the science for communicating it, but unfortunately, if you don't know what the shorthand means, you're liable to misinterpret the science it's designed to convey.

The development of big multicellular organisms like humans, with our differentiated organs and tissues and our internally segregated cells, is far more complicated than this one-gene, one-characteristic idea. You could spend months reading about regulatory elements, polygenic traits, the epigenetic model of the genome and the complex interactions between the chemical and cellular environment and genes.

But this is what you need to know. One: genes do not act unilaterally. Any one characteristic will have many different genetic controls, and the sum of the genes involved is much greater and more complex than the individual effects. Two: nature is not opposed to nurture. There is absolutely no reason to think that because a characteristic has genetic influences it can not also have environmental, social and cultural influences. Behaviour and sexual desire is almost always an interaction between the two. A desire for simple explanations has led to a groundless dichotomy between nature and nurture.

Behaviour and mind are produced by the biological organ that is the brain. The brain requires cultural inputs to function as standard, but the brain, like the rest of the body, is built by a set of biological rules dictated by genes. The brain is powerful and malleable, but it is ultimately constrained by the structure laid down by our genes, and culture can only influence our behaviour in ways that the rules of the brain allows, and variation in brain structure may be related to variation in the way we behave and respond to cultural stimuli.

Biological development often requires environmental and social input to determine which path it takes, though each path follows the rules laid down by genetics. A simple example would be the development of the vision processing mechanism of the brain. If the eye is deprived of light early in development the optical nerve will not connect properly with the brain, and the eye will be useless. Normal development of the optical nerve is determined by genes and molecules, but requires the input of light to switch the mechanism on. An analogy would be a computer programme, in which the functions and algorithms take a variable input and calculate an output using a set of fixed rules.

Heritability

Heritability is a technical term that describes how much of the variation in a phenotype (the physical and mental properties of the body) corresponds to variation in the genotype (the genes). Heritability can give us a clue as to whether a characteristic is a product of genetics or not. If a characteristic is shown to be highly heritable, that is, variation in the characteristic corresponds to variation in a particular gene or set of genes, that suggests that the characteristic is, to some extent, controlled by those genes. Heritability of behaviour is studied in twins as identical twins have identical sets of genes, while non-identical twins share around half their genes.

There are many limitations to what heritability can actually tell us about the genes that control development. Heritability only shows us the correlation between variation of genotype and phenotype, not a quantitative measurement, and can tell us nothing when there is no variation in a genotype (which rules out a significant proportion of genes). There are also limitations to what twin studies can tell us about heritability, as there is no guarantee that the increased heritability in a particular characteristic of twins is caused directly by genetics, or by them being treated differently to fraternal twins or having less variation between their environments. These are addressed by studies of biological offspring and foster children, which make the studies more reliable, but not immune to debate.

The evidence from studies shows that homosexuality is to some extent heritable, with 52% of identical twins of homosexuals also being gay, 22% for brothers and 11% in the general population. This contributes to the evidence that genetics is a factor, though the evidence of heritability could neither prove or disprove the hypothesis - after all, identical twin brothers also share more of their environment, including the womb, than non-twin brothers.

. . .

Is homosexuality genetic?

Yes. Even without direct evidence of individual genes we could be confident in predicting that, like almost all aspects of behaviour, sexual orientation has multiple biological and cultural influences. As it is, there is growing evidence from multiple areas of research that give us an idea of exactly what the biological influences, both genetic and non-genetic, may be.

. . .

So much of behaviour is an interaction of genetics and culture that the question "is homosexuality genetic" isn't even very interesting. Far more interesting, but possibly impossible to answer, is the question "is homosexuality an adaptation?"

Adaptationism

Much of human and animal behaviour has evolved for a purpose. From the genes' point of view, the purpose of life is reproduction, not just the survival of the individual. But individual aspects of behaviour can not just be assumed to have evolved for a purpose, and even the implementation of genetics in the development of a characteristic does not prove that the characteristic is an adaptation. There are numerous complications to be considered when asking if a characteristic is an adaptation. Genes can have multiple effects, depending on the other genes with which they share their body, the environment in which they are expressed and the culture that also affects the characteristic. So a gene may be favoured by evolution for its effect on one characteristic, despite its non-adaptationary side-effects on other characteristics, or other situations.

Originally Posted by Ã‰tienne

That just means that he is somewhat attracted to men or at least not entirely disgusted by the idea of sex with men. He could be bisexual. He could even be very predominantly attracted to women and not have many other options (like in prison).

Conversely, he could be gay and not ******** with another guy (abstinent).

I agree; desire rather than behavior really determines sexuality.

Originally Posted by edmorel

...for me at least, if you are attracted sexually to men (and you are a man), you are gay, there is no bisexual.

I think that the idea one is either straight or gay is probably a false dichotomy. That is, there can be various shadings between the two.

Etienne · Jul 10, 2007

Originally Posted by Sucrose

I think that the idea one is either straight or gay is probably a false dichotomy. That is, there can be various shadings between the two.
I'm convinced of that too. For me, people are spread on a scale of "sexual attraction" ranging from 0 (attracted solely to male) to 1 (attracted solely to female) with almost nobody at any of the two ends. Whether they act on their desires or disgusts is of course a different matter.

Actually, I read a very interesting psychology article about lesbians which implicates that there are even various dimensions, and that my "one scale" analogy is too simplistic. I don't recall all the details, but they talked at least of emotional and sexual connections that could be different. I mean a person could have more sexual attraction to men and emotional attractions to female. That same person could have several relationships throughout her life with men and women depending on who she meets, what happens to her, sometimes even for militant reasons, etc.

globetrotter · Jul 10, 2007

Originally Posted by tiecollector

Wouldn't it just be easier to produce a sterile male, instead of a "gay" one. XX is female, XY is male, XXY is male, but often sterile, or so I seem to remember reading.

got an answer - with chimps, our closest relatives, 30% of births are from "cheating" relationships. if that is the same with us, a sterile man could focus his efforts on raising a "family" that wasn't his - no benifits to anybody but the natural father. if he was gay, and not interested in raising a family, he could focus on helping raise his siblings children.

let me point out again, this is merly conjecture, but I find it an intersting argument.

globetrotter · Jul 10, 2007

Originally Posted by JLibourel

And has being gay ever enhanced human survival in any societies that we know of? I seem to recall that even in enlightened, tolerant America, gay men die at a considerably younger average age than straight men and that this was true even prior to the outbreak of AIDS.

ritual homosexual behavior has been recorded in native american populations, in new guinea, and in ancient greece. it would be hard to argue that it would develop with no good purpose, although we don't know, exactly, what that was.

mensimageconsultant · Jul 10, 2007

Those ugly Kenneth Cole shoes - someone ought to research whether gays ever wear them. The appeal of square-toed shoes to women probably is based on an association with stereotypical masculinity. You could almost equate it with how certain uniforms turn women on.

edmorel · Jul 10, 2007

Originally Posted by Ã‰tienne

I'm convinced of that too. For me, people are spread on a scale of "sexual attraction" ranging from 0 (attracted solely to male) to 1 (attracted solely to female) with almost nobody at any of the two ends.

Sorry, I totally disagree and this isn't some stupid machoism from my side. I can honestly say that I have never been attracted to men. Neither emotionally nor physically. There is no non-relative male that I "love". I have many male friends, some from the homosexual side of the ledger and I can't ever recall feeling especially close to any of them, like I would for a female that I loved. I've never been "curious" with other men. I have no issues showing affection to male friends but there is no sexual attraction. Yes, obviously there are people that go both ways, but in my experience that is the exception, not the rule. Maybe in France, the men are different but I like to think that I know my friends well and other than the gay ones, none of them have slept with other men.

mensimageconsultant · Jul 10, 2007

Female sexual orientation is believed to be more variable.

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