Armenians & Homosexuality

[Stark Evade]

That's a wise observation. But take it further. Modern Western society produces a homosexual "community" (or a Waldo would write it the "Homosexual Community") - creating what is, in effect, an ethnic group. And one that guards it territory and right to exist and recieve financial funding as viciously as any real ethnic group and actively seeks to enlarge its community, and considers any opposition to its aims as genocidal in nature. There is a similarity here to the self-proclaimed "Deaf Community" - which considers the surgical cure of deafness (a condition that is now entirely curable), as amounting to genocide.

[bell-the-cat]

* Points remote at bell-the-cat.
* Presses mute button.

Hmmm, has the almost-senseless-one mixed up the few senses he has? This is a visual medium, not an aural one.

[TomServo]

Hmmm, has the almost-senseless-one mixed up the few senses he has? This is a visual medium, not an aural one.

Hmm... the remote seems to be missing a battery.

[karoaper]

Hmm... the remote seems to be missing a battery.

It's probably a soviet made remote. Just throw it at him.

[Lamb Boy]

Why ?

LMAO!! Omg That's funny! heheheheh

Is she really gay or does she play for both teams

I think due to the way women are relatively forced to look, comment about each other, adore, and appreciate the female figure that a good portion of women are quite into other women. There are magazines from Glamour, Cosmo, and probably 100 or 1000s of others that glorify and exemplify the female body without falling into the pornographic arena. Then we have building sized ads with scantly clad women which imo is another “reinforcer” of female body appreciation. It's all good but I don't think guys should feel bad if a girl they like also likes women. Not really my thing but whatever floats your/their boat.

In my experience, including a younger lady I work with (we're pretty close and she tells me everything!), the previous statement I made is pretty much on the money. She's AC~DC and so is almost every single lady I've met in the past 2-3 years. Before that time I think I just wasn't aware of exactly how prolific the lesbian situation truly is here in America and probably in European countries.

I'm not really referring to the man looking mullet wearing big girls that could crush me with a single blow ... on the contrary these are the "Lipstick Lesbians" Oooo La Laa !! J/K I care not what any person prefers ... bothers me not.

I guess they're L.U.G.s that graduated ifyaknowhatimshayin...

The younger the more likely ... it's like the young kids with their color coded "Lance Armstrong" sex bracelets are really just having a sexual free for all, if they want to ...

[Anonymouse]

Produce? No it doesn't. The behaviors of different societies may illuminate the reality of it differently but they do not produce anything. There is no factual basis for such a statement. It is a sentiment. Nobody says people should be homosexuals; they say it is acceptable to be. A homosexual is a person who prefers -- or would prefer, given an environment free of forceful stimuli -- partaking in homosexual acts. Other than sentiment, there is no reason to believe that homosexuals are being created over believing that the tolerance of society can illuminate to a degree greater than a less tolerant society, the homosexual population that was already there.

Your Greece/Rome comment doesn't illustrate how society creates homosexuals. Homosexuality being conditionally accepted would not change the fact that some of the people who were married and had a family would have perfered to live mostly, if not totally, homosexual had social norms not been ultimately forceful of heterosexuality. It's just as I described above. You are falling victim to shotty statistical analysis.

I think people are playing word games when they throw around words like "lifestyle." It's not an either-or thing and acts and lifestyles are not competing for validity. They are both part of a single general idea. Homosexuals, as I defined above, can commit individual homosexual acts and/or live a homosexual lifestyle, characterized by homosexual acts being the dominant form of their sexual expression.

I disagree. Perhaps it was unclear when I stated modern society produces homosexuals. What the underlying premise of that is, is that modern society has completely constructed the social and political identity, class, and idea which we call homosexuality, or homosexual, from something that was, and is, merely a behavior, and had been considered so by all past societies.

Consider the nature of homosexuality. No one knows what causes it. All biological explanations have not gone beyond the realm of the theoretical. Thus, this is where Foucault comes in, himself a homosexual. He stated that homosexuality [the political, and social category and identity] exists because we as a society have created it. In other words, it is a construct of modernity. And they constitute themselves as a political class, demanding (and often vociferously) of rights. Because the biological explanation of how homosexuality got here is unsatisfactory, Foucault contends, and whom I agree with, that modern society created this label, a political and social label. And how does one create an identity, a classification, and a label, based on something that was strictly considered a behavior in all times before modernity? The simple fact that a homosexual can change, and many have changed their sexual preferences over time, is indicative of this phenomenon.

In the past, indeed in Greece, and in Rome, and in countless other societies before modernity, homosexuality was simply an act engaged in. It was a sexual act, a behavior not necessarily connoting an identity, or a fixed thing. In fact, the word "homosexual" first appeared in the English language in 1892. In the words of Foucault himself:

"homosexuality appeared as one of the forms of sexuality when it was transposed from the practice of sodomy into a kind of interior androgyny, a hermaphrodism of the soul. The sodomite had been a temporary aberration; the homosexual was now a species." --The History of Sexuality. Volume 1.

Therefore, homosexuality, as we mean it, in this time, in our contextual relations, is a political, and social identity, and that is what is signified by the term "lifestyle". There was no such thing as a homosexual, or homosexuality in Greece or Rome. They were people that engaged in behavior, in what we now would call homosexuality, but that they themselves were not and did not consider it as such.

[axel]

There was no such thing as a homosexual, or homosexuality in Greece or Rome. They were people that engaged in behavior, in what we now would call homosexuality, but that they themselves were not and did not consider it as such.

I believe you are too "categorical" .

true there is this "marketing" thing and creation of a gay ecosystem which helps sustain the movement but the main issue here in my view is as I mentionned in my last post (that seems to have gone unnoticed) feminization of society.

[loseyourname]

Thus, this is where Foucault comes in, himself a homosexual. He stated that homosexuality [the political, and social category and identity] exists because we as a society have created it. In other words, it is a construct of modernity. And they constitute themselves as a political class, demanding (and often vociferously) of rights. Because the biological explanation of how homosexuality got here is unsatisfactory, Foucault contends, and whom I agree with, that modern society created this label, a political and social label. And how does one create an identity, a classification, and a label, based on something that was strictly considered a behavior in all times before modernity? The simple fact that a homosexual can change, and many have changed their sexual preferences over time, is indicative of this phenomenon.

To be fair, Foucault says that about everything. Plus, if we're going to speak strictly of homosexuality as a lifestyle, it is no less socially constructed than heterosexuality as a lifestyle. Things like dating, marriage, and courtship rituals can hardly be called behaviors inherent to reproduction and child-rearing. Also, many heterosexuals have changed their minds and become gay. I agree with you in essence, but also think it is somewhat trivial to say that an advocacy group that forms the basis of a common political identity is socially constructed. That's like saying the phenomenon of being "American" is socially constructed. Well, it depends. If we're speaking simply of the geographical fact that one resides on the American continent, then no, it isn't. But if we're referring to a national self-identification, then of course it is. The same thing probably holds for homosexuality.

Where StarkEvade seems to diverge, and I would certainly diverge with him, is in the claim that the creation of the homosexual community has resulted in more people possessing a sexual preference for those of the same sex (after this last post, though, I'm not sure that you're even making this claim).

Anyway, this isn't directed at you any more, but just for the forum to ponder, I dug up this entry regarding some of the theories regarding a genetic basis to homosexuality:

Genetic influence for homosexuality?

They looked at the pedigree for male homosexuals to see if it ran in the family. Researchers found that the concordance rate for homosexuality is highest among identical twins, lower among fraternal and lowest in adopted siblings. Such a pattern is evidence for a genetic basis to homosexuality... the closer you are genetically to your sibling, the more likely you both are to be gay. If you are not genetically related, you are less likley to both be gay, even though you grew up in the same home. However, it should also be stressed that the researchers found aconcordance rate of around 50% for both gay and lesbian pairs of identical twins... *not* 100%. In other words, half of those with an identical twin who is gay are also gay, half are not. This probably means that, although genes play a role in sexual orientation, they are likely *not* to be the only factor, as they are for traits like eye and hair color.

The final piece of evidence comes from studies on gene linkage. Remember the pedigree analysis that suggested a gene for male homosexuality on the X-chromosome. To review some basic genetics, girls inherit 2 X-chromosomes, one from each parent. Boys get an X-chromosome from their mother, and a Y-chromosome from their father. The fact that gay men tended to have more gay relatives on the mother's side than on the father's suggested that, if homosexuality was inherited, the gene would be on the X-chromosome.

So there is a link, just not a really strong one. Plus, there aren't any studies for women. There are other studies that claim male homosexuals have "female" looking brains, eg the INHA3 and studies on how lower levels of testosterone in the womb are related to this (related to sexual preference). But what about females? Do lesbians have brains that look like males?

Oh, found it, here's my notes on the study (Bailey & Pillard)
Percent indicates the proportion of siblings that were both homosexual
_______________________Male____________________Female

identical twins___________52%______________________48%
fraternal twins___________22%______________________16%
adopted siblings__________11%______________________6%


This also relates to a book I read by Bryan Sykes/and here (Adam's Curse). He posited that perhaps the mother's DNA was responsible for making her sons gay in an effort to pass on more of her genes, since having gay sons would function, in effect, to have more sterile workers around to help bring up her female offspring. He discusses a genetic battle of the sexes in which the mDNA would only be passed on through the female line. He also suggests that there are other examples of the mother viewing the male offspring as a foreigner - she makes H-Y (H-Y is on the Y chromosome only and stimulates testis development) antigens so that her future sons will be seen (at least in part) as foreigners and try to reject the fetus. Apparently, the chances of being gay go up the more older brothers you have (Ray Blanchard)

In addition, it's probably worth pointing out the rampant bisexuality found amongst bonobos, a sub-species of chimpanzee which shares almost all of our genome. There are also at least 139 known species of animal in which some individuals are exclusively homosexual. When you see a behavior repeated across so many cultural and even species boundaries, it's hard to say that it's entirely created by environment and that genetics plays no role, although it's almost certainly equally fallacious to pretend that nothing but genetics is determining the behavior as well.

[Anonymouse]

feminization of society.

I agree, there are certain androgynous tendecies that pervade now as the rule, and not the exception, and we have introduced into our discourse the "metrosexual". It's really horrific as to what males are becoming.

[Anonymouse]

To be fair, Foucault says that about everything. Plus, if we're going to speak strictly of homosexuality as a lifestyle, it is no less socially constructed than heterosexuality as a lifestyle. Things like dating, marriage, and courtship rituals can hardly be called behaviors inherent to reproduction and child-rearing. Also, many heterosexuals have changed their minds and become gay. I agree with you in essence, but also think it is somewhat trivial to say that an advocacy group that forms the basis of a common political identity is socially constructed. That's like saying the phenomenon of being "American" is socially constructed. Well, it depends. If we're speaking simply of the geographical fact that one resides on the American continent, then no, it isn't. But if we're referring to a national self-identification, then of course it is. The same thing probably holds for homosexuality.

I'm sure we can nitpick all we want and find little exceptions. Indeed, for Foucault everything was a social creation, within the context and power relations of the time. However, his example of homosexuality is specifically for homosexuality, and indeed, this can be found in his The History of Sexuality. His argument seems to be that homosexuality, something that used to be just a simple a behavior, is now thrown into the center of society as somehow standing alone, in and of itself, as a category, and asked to be accepted as such.

You cannot easily pass off categories such as gender, or race as socially constructed ( although your garden variety post-modernists and Marxists still try to), since these are identities that cannot be changed, and are in fact rooted in a biological level, whereas a behavior such as homosexuality, goes both ways as even you pointed out. The genetic influence of homosexuality is not conclusive, like anything else, we don't really know what causes it. Thus we can only conclude that modern society has produced and created homosexuals.