h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This is interesting - the viewpoint of a lesbian who says her sexuality is a matter of choice. Though I wonder if she actually means her sexual inclination or her lifestyle. I mean, I can't imagine suddenly turning lesbian out of choice.


"If we wanted to be straight, we would be"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/gayrights/story/0,12592,1373326,00.html

"Attempts to identify a genetic basis for homosexuality refuse to accept that sexual desire is a social construct"



az

Like I said earlier, different people have different groups of people they find attractive.
If some people are capable of forming loving/sexual relationships with both men and women, that doesn't mean that everyone is.

One thing noticed a while ago when I used to browse the lonely hearts pages of a newspaper (possibly a non-representative sample of the general population) is that men seeking women, women seeking men, and men seeking men very rarely describe their sexuality at all - they seem to be happy with the natural default assumption of straight, straight, gay. A surprisingly (to me) large fraction of the women seeking women described themselses as bisexual. Also, I'm not sure if more than the odd self-desribed bixesual women every few weeks was looking for anything other than a woman.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if outside the essentially straight part of the population, a greater proportion of women were wider-rnaging in their tastes than men. There may be many reasons for that.

The underlying asumption of equality (in the sense of universal sameness) "If *I* fancy both men and other women, then every other woman (and man) in the world is basically bisexual" requires serious evidence. The assumption that every difference between people is a social construct is just that - a huge assumption about the way the world *should* be.
Just because equality sounds good from a philosopical or political point of view doesn't mean that's the way biology actually works.

Part of the problem here is that the term "social construct" is too often used as if such constructs "hang in the air", totally divorced from how things are in the material world.

To come at it from an angle, as it were, one philosopher used the example of purchsing cheese by weighing it and charging an amount of money based on this. This practice is a social construct. But it is a practice that could never have got started if the normal behaviour of cheese was to keep changing weight at random.

Similarly, if less trivially, with sexuality. Yes, the way we perceive and talk about sexuality is a social construct. But that discourse is only possible because we are in fact, concrete biological systems, one of whose functions is to reproduce. There ae actual physical structures and biochemistry involved, and the discourse is added to those. This isn't intended to sound deterministic, as if we had no choices, but just to point out that those choices are constrained, and not totally free.

Noggin

On the subject of what the anglican church (at any rate) believes and with regard to the Bish of Durham I think this thread has shown that the CofE at least has done a woeful job of communicating its beliefs to the gen public. It seems evident to me that the general perception of what the Church states/believes is, in the general populaces mind, stuck somewhere a couple of hundred years ago.

Jenkins didn't as I understand it, say or believe anything that the majority of theologians in the Anglican church hadn't been saying and believing for quite while. The difference was he was a bishop and the general public (read press) listened to him. On the resurrection issue he was misquoted. He did not say he did not believe in it, just that he did not believe in it in a simplistic way. Press being what it is thought that misquoting him made a much better story then reporting what he had said, which would actually have been of some benefit to the understanding of his and the churches beliefs.
Like many of the so called core beliefs of the Anglican church, what the lay person, press and indeed many of the older clergy believe is outdated by quite a long way. Virgin births, the existence of hell and damnation for sinners are not part of it.
Thing is, the Church of England has been quite liberal in an old boys club kinda way. And this has continued with the recent report of homosexuality and ordination etc. Basically saying: well, its ok ish, but maybe not. Probably shouldn't do it, but if you going to do it then ok, but don;t do it where anyone would notice. And don't blame us if you get caught.
When one looks at the range of beliefs covered by the Anglican church world wide it is not surprising there are disagreements. The difference between the operation of the english, African and American Anglican churches is very large. It would not surprise me in the least if this issue splits the Anglican church, indeed I fully expect it to. One wonders indeed how many Anglican churches around the world are overly happy having a druid as their religious leader.
The other reason for this coming split is the shift in power. The Anglican church, with the CofE at its head spread and grew in power with the British empire. That has gone so there is no power there. In its own home country the CofE is these days largely irrelevant and has become largely a social club. Which is no bad thing in itself since that is part of its remit. But the other branches of the anglican church, especially the African branch, are so strong in their own base they really don't need the CofE. If they could get over the break with tradition then there would be no reason for them not to split off. Indeed, in terms of members of the church, congregations a popularity, the African anglican church has far outgrown its originating organisation. But we don;t need a church for a social gathering, we have many others and they don;t make up us get up early on Sundays. The only areas where the CofE is really growing is with the somewhat more radical priests, especially in the inner city areas, who believe that as a christian and as a servant of the people (and that's another radical thought, the priest as servant rather than authority telling people what to believe) they should be helping those in need and providing a social service.
The church as it was used to be a nice guaranteed job with fairly easy hours if you wanted them, a free house and good income (considering you don't have to pay for the house or tax thereon) and a pension and some good promotional prospects as well as a position of standing within the community. Unfortunately (for the church) society has moved on whilst it has not. And now society still has a view of the church rooted somewhere a couple of hundred years ago. The church is fighting for relevance and its continued existence and to do that it has to tread on a lot of toes. There is a large group (power and influence wise) who do not want to see any change in the CofE even though this will eventually kill it.
And the split of the anglican church, loss of revenue and influence, is not going to help this. Hopefully, it will help the disestablishment of the CofE. Then it will have to start concentrating on making itself relevant to society, in whatever manner, and stop worrying about preserving stained glass windows in crumbling churches that have no congregation.
I realise that religion does not equal Anglican Christian but as a number of the specific arguments seem to be directly related to it I thought I would address that.

Noggin,

"...one philosopher used the example of purchsing cheese by weighing it and charging an amount of money based on this..."

Can you remember who gave this example and where? If it's part of a more in depth discussion rather than a throwaway remark I'd be interested in reading it.

Ictoan dearest! *Spacing* between paragraphs please!

I don't think it's just me that finds long blocks of unbroken text difficult to read on the screen.

I often wonder how religions can make themselves more relevant to today's society without making massive changes, which most seem unwilling to do.


az

sorry az, and everyone else. That was originally an email and I am forever being told off for double spacing my emails so I had deleted the extra lines. From one extreme to the other it appears.

Should I repost with spaces?

The philosopher is Wittgenstein, but I´m not sure exactly where - probably the philosophical investigations, but I could be wrong.

Noggin

>>"If we wanted to be straight, we would be"<<
I think this is interesting, I'll have to speak to my friends about this and see if they can sympathise because I can't
Christian prejudice against gay people - the best example I can think of is last year when I was talking to a Christian friend who'd just found out I was gay and he started asking all of these questions of me and being really irked when I couldn't give him a 'satisfactory' answer - the problem was he was determined that my sexuality was a choice which is absolutely not the case, it would be relatively easy for me to go through life and have people think I was straight, but it wouldn't make me any less gay.
My point is, while this lad would never stoop to outright gay-bashing, he exposed his ignorance in very polite, respectful ways, but he was making me justify myself. In the end I lost my rag and started trying to get him to justify himself, naturally a dead-end when it comes to the fervently religious.
I know many Christians, just as I know many Muslims, Jews, Buddhists and Hindus (Manchester is a wonderfully diverse city), and one of the reasons I count so many of them as friends is because they are good people for the most part. However when they start telling me I am wrong despite being more 'Christian' than many of them is when I tell them to shut up; I'll never be harsher because I forgive ignorance and irrationality in friends, just as they do with me (my love of Everton Football Club could be seen as both ignorant and irrational) because to me trying to force me to justify myself for no good reason is worse than outright prejudice

Noggin,

Good old Wittgenstein. If it's in the PI I've read the cheese example and forgotten that I had. Quite likely.

I note with interest the wonderfully unbiased way that Julie Bindel wrote her article :-

>>'One of the most controversial studies was conducted by gay neuroscientist Simon LeVay in 1991, who claimed that gay men's brains were "more like women's"'
>>'Then there was the one that "discovered" that boys with older brothers are 33% more likely to be gay because of occupying a womb where a male foetus has already been.'

Lovely use of "scare quotes" there, Julie.
If someone *did* discover a connections between the number of older brothers and sexuality, and their study wasn't biased by one of the many possible factors, then they did *discover* something, they didn't "discover" something. If you can't point to holes in the methodology, (which may well be there for all I know) you can't just pretend they invented the results just because you want to.
*If* homosexual men's brains actually *are* more like womens (based on whatever criteria), then they are. People might *want* to think that everyones's brains are the same, but if they really aren't, they aren't. If it is possible to say that X is more like Y than Z, and back that up with argument, then a better argument needs to be used to support an alternative conclusion.

>> "If we wanted to be straight, we would be"
Hmm - to me, is someone is flexible enough to be potentially happy with partners of either sex, then they're basically bisexual. They don't miraculously transform between straight and lesbian depending whose bed they happen to be in any more than I change from from vegetarian to carnivore when I finish a green salad and start on a steak.

Isn't it great how she knows that [by implication all] geneticists working on gender issues are out to prove that straight is best, presumably even the non-straight ones. I bet she must have done *loads* of research into their motives.

>>"Being gay or lesbian is obviously not a choice like which sauce to have with your pasta, but more a mix of opportunity, luck, chance and, quite frankly, bravery."

Wow - opportunity, luck *and* chance - what a heady mix of thoroughly different factors at play. Maybe happenstance, fortune, fate and kismet play a part as well, or would that be just too ridiculous?

Said what?

">>"Being gay or lesbian is obviously not a choice like which sauce to have with your pasta, but more a mix of opportunity, luck, chance and, quite frankly, bravery."

Wow - opportunity, luck *and* chance - what a heady mix of thoroughly different factors at play. Maybe happenstance, fortune, fate and kismet play a part as well, or would that be just too ridiculous?"



Not really a choice then at all?

By the way, you missed out serendipity.

F

Y'know, reading through all this one things strikes me.

And that is that if one asks the questions 'Why are some people homosexual' there is no one answer.

Indeed there seem to be almost as many answers as there are people.

One might almost come to the conclusion from this that homosexuals are complex individuals to whom no one overriding theory or construct can be applied.

And indeed the same applies if one asks 'why are some people heterosexual'.

It's could seem like the two are actually part of some larger grouping, say human beings, and that this is just one small part of their makeup.

Just like any other 'why are group A like they are?' question.

Quite shocking I must say.


p.s. enough spacing az?
p.p.s. still doesn;t mean I don;t want to understand each and every reason why since it would help me, and others, to understand human beings

I always get a bit wary when people ask "What is the reason for ...", and start to wonder "What makes you so sure there is *one* reason?"

"What are the factors involved in ..." is a far more open-ended question Even if it turns out there *is* only one factor, at least that hasn't been prejudged.

Maybe part of the problem is that the 'everything is purely a social construct' brigade are so sure that they know the *one* *true* *reason* for everything that they assume everyone else is as simplistic as they are (which of course they logically *must* be, given that everyone *is* the same), and don't appreciate that some other people are actually interested in looking for possible causal factors, rather than *the* reason for anything, and (God forbid) might even be looking with an open mind, without having predecided everything first on the basis of dogma and ignorance.

Isnt sexuality just as prone to our tastes as anytnhing else is.

Ive seen gay dogs and lions, onanist moneys and apes and read about lesbian dolphins and hyenas.

I have gay friends who are as butch as blokes come and known bisexual womwne who work as prostitutes for male punters. There is no gay and straight everyone does different things and likes different things. Just because we can draw people into three crude groups doesnt mean that our sexualities are fixed and are pinpointable. Sexuality is a sliding scale and believe me Ive known a few people whose preferences have shifted about as the years go by.

The clothes I like are the clothes I like and I dont ask anyne else for permision regarding what I wear. Its my choice, mostly I choose not to wear a lime green tutu with purple waders and a tweed jacket but if I did what business is it of anyone else's?

Why should we be trying to erradicate a certain extreme of sexual preference? As if the other opposite sexuality were some how more or entirely right (which is still not something anyone has ever proved to my satisfaction).

one love

>>"There is no gay and straight"

There isn't *only* gay and straight, but just becuase there may be a continuum doesn't mean that there aren't any recognisible ends.

It can be difficult to say exactly where tall becomes short, live becomes dead, hot becomes cold, but for all practical purposes, it isn't hard to be pretty sure which category many things can safely be put in.

If someone has never eaten meat, never wishes to (or wishes never to), and doesn't seem likely ever to eat it, then they might be a *potential* omnivore, but it is both safe and useful to call them a vegetarian.

You're absolutley right Potholer.

it can be safe and useful to call someone a vegetarian because they dont like to eat animal flesh and do their utmost to avoid ever doing so. Thing is they probably have second hand through eating plants that have been nourished by decomposed animal flesh and if push came to shove might eat bacon rather than starve to death. Useful and safe does not mean correct.

There are no absolutes in this as far as I can tell not at the human level anyway. Procreation in plants and the lower reaches of the animal kingdom is not the convoluted thing that pleasure seeking is anything more complicated than an earth worm.

Is a man who fantasises about other men while having sex exclusively with his wife gay?

Is an ageing singer who snogs a younger star to get herself back on the fronpages bi-sexual?

I really dont know and cant imagine why anyone makes a fuss about such things or needs to classify such things.

one love

I'm not sure (short of violent rape) that having sex is generally such a life and death matter.
If someone (or circumstances) make a vegetarian eat meat to save their life, I think it's still perfectly OK to call them a vegetarian.

What plant feeds on is irrelevant. From a chemical point of view there is no 'animal' in the plant, since 'animal' is a definition of a particular arrangement of atoms whih have been entirely rearranged by the plant. It'd be like saying there was Shakespeare in a copy of The Sun if the same printers type was use to print the two in sucession.

>>"Is a man who fantasises about other men while having sex exclusively with his wife gay?"
If he actually fanatsises about sex with men (though never has any), or similar intimacy, but is happily intimate with his wife, then I'd suggest he's maybe a *potential* bisexual. If he never intends to have any, then even the 'potential' would be rather too strong, and I'd suggest that to all intents and purposes, he's a straight man who sometimes fantasises about men. If he was actually always forced against his will to have sex with his wife, and never wished to be intimate with women, only men, then gay *might* be a more appropriate term.

I reiterate. Just because there are things in the middle of a continuum doesn't mean that there can't be well-defined ends. The definitions of the ends may be incomplete (there may be people *excluded* by a simple definition really should be included ), but may still be correct in the sense that they don't *include* people who should be excluded.

If a man felt drawn sexually to men, liked women but not overwhelmingly, tried heterosxuality for a brief fling or two, realised it wasn't for them and from that point on only ever dated men and had no intention or likelihood of dating women, then I think it would be safe (and much more meaningful) to consider them as gay rather than bisexual, unless one had an agenda that stated that everyone was effectively bisexual.
However, if one had that agenda, there wouldn't be any point looking at the world if no amount of evidence would persuade one to think otherwise.

Like many of these issues, just because it isn't possible to draw a line and say "everyone on *this* side is straight, and everyone else is gay" doesn't matter.
In fact, I suspect that it wouldn't be hard to come up with rough definitions of gay/bi/straight that would do a pretty good job of tripartite catergoristaion and be relatively easy to agree on. Certainly there'd likely be a pretty large variation of preferences through the bisexual category and it may well be that someone classified at one point as being at one end or the other ends up later classified in the middle.
I'd *suspect* that probably the male/bisexual category would have rather fewer members than the male/gay one, with the numbers in female/bisexual and female/lesbian being more similar.

>>"Is an ageing singer who snogs a younger star to get herself back on the fronpages bi-sexual?"
If it's done purely for outward effect, and it's nothing to do with her sexual preferences, then the answer is no.

well its life or death for your species unless you can reproduce by cell division.

What I was trying to get at is that there is nothing absolute about human bevaiour.

Nor isare there easy defenitions. It was not uncommon for men to be forced into "heterosexual" modes of behaviour because of social constraints whether they thought fleetingly, constantly or even induldged in secretly bum fun denies their heterosexuality. If maddona plays up to mens lesbian/bi fantasise or really gets off on it is neither here nor there she is doing the act whether or not she really is by an outside observes standards.

If I wear a beret and eat frog legs does it make me french?


The vegetarian/plant/decomposed animal analogy does hold more water than you give it credit for. Is an animal the amino acids that constitute its body or the life process that animates its body?

Im not really sure they can be divided you need both to be an animal, but that does not mean that a change of state denies those chemicals the possibility to be something else. IF THE BRAIN IS THE SEAT OF OUR CONCIOUSNESSES MIGHT NOT CHEMICAL CHANGES ALLOW US TO BE ALL ASPECTS OF HUMAN SEXUALITY (caps lock) depending on how the cards happen to fall at any point in our lives.

one love

one love