Homosexuality: Chosen or Genetic?

Originally posted by soleran30
uh huh yeah take your analogy back sucka!

You were talking about neurotransmitters, nervous response, medulla oblongotta, primal responses whatever..............

No. Only neurotransmitters. The others have nothing to do with sexual attraction. In fact one of the objects you mentioned only regulates somatic functions like the heartbeat....

Originally posted by soleran30
You said if someone feels an attraction its chemical

Sexual attraction is caused by a neurotransmitter that is activated once the brain perceives stimuli.

And it doesn't have to be visual either. A study by the Harvard Medical School discovered that sexual arousal in gay men was caused by male phermones. Phermones are utterly undetectable without proper technology and can only be detected by our nervous system. We can choose this too?

Originally posted by soleran30
and no one can deny that I wasn't talking about premeditated murder but a murder of "passion." So if one can fall prey to one primal urge but not another I am thinking that maybe perhaps you should find another way to bring understanding to your view otherwise going off your biological chemical response system we are going to have to start "understaning" alot more of our primal responses and accept them.

This is flawed. You're still visualizing homosexuality as an act. Homosexuality is attraction.

You can CHOOSE to act on your sexual attractions. And you cannot. This is true.

You CANNOT however choose to have or not have sexual attractions. You can consciously deny them...but your body certainly won't.

Originally posted by Draco69
Is there a possibility. Sure, by the laws of statistics everything is possiblity. Is it worth evaluating in a logical manner? Absolutely not.

How we do we know it is not developed by stimuli? Because we've been studying it for the last TWO HUNDRED YEARS. We have no evidence whatsoever external stimuli causes people to "choose" to have same-sex attractions.

Also when you filter in cultural differences, different backgrounds, different religions and different heritages, the plausibility of some sort of key stimuli goes straight out the window.

It's not simple ignorance. It's just elementary to me for me as mathematics. You can argue that two plus two does not equal four but all signs of rationality says otherwise.

I am just saying, should we be willing to at least entertain the idea until it is soundly put to rest? I must admit, I don't have any hard evidence on me to support that side. It's just that, after reading up on some theory of inherent of bisexuality, you start to wonder you know?

2+2=4 is fact unless I am mistaken. I am not aware of any counter argument to that.

Originally posted by StyleTime
There are less believable things that mankind believes in than sexual orientation being chosen. Black holes, wormholes, time, star evolution, string theory, etc. By further examining the side not "worth evaluating" maybe it can actually be disproven completely.

This is flawed. We cannot perceive black holes. We cannot study wormoholes. We cannot physically access the components of time or "strings".

Sexual attraction on the other hand is experienced by us every single day by every single human being. You cannot choose your sexual attractions. Everyone in humanity (and the animal kingdom for that matter) can attess to this simple fact. We can CHOOSE to act on it but we can never choose to bring it about.

Originally posted by StyleTime
I am just saying, should we be willing to at least entertain the idea until it is soundly put to rest? I must admit, I don't have any hard evidence on me to support that side. It's just that, after reading up on some theory of inherent of bisexuality, you start to wonder you know?

It's simple fact. You can philosophize it but you cannot logically refute it. No human can choose to be sexually attracted to whoever they want. If this were so than hetero/homo/bisexuality wouldn't exist.

Bisexuality is more complicated because it is heavily misunderstood. Simple answer: they have sexual attractions for BOTH genders. They do not CHOOSE the attractions but they CAN choose to ACT on them. AND they can CHOOSE to focus on a particular gender (most often the opposite sex) but they cannot change the fact they have sexual attractions for the other gender.

Study at the University of Chicago.
http://www-news.uchicago.edu/releases/03/differential-brain-activation.pdf

Originally posted by Draco69
No. Only neurotransmitters. The others have nothing to do with sexual attraction. In fact one of the objects you mentioned only regulates somatic functions like the heartbeat....

Sexual attraction is caused by a neurotransmitter that is activated once the brain perceives stimuli.

And it doesn't have to be visual either. A study by the Harvard Medical School discovered that sexual arousal in gay men was caused by male phermones. Phermones are utterly undetectable without proper technology and can only be detected by our nervous system. We can choose this too?

This is flawed. You're still visualizing homosexuality as an act. Homosexuality is attraction.

You can CHOOSE to act on your sexual attractions. And you cannot. This is true.

You CANNOT however choose to have or not have sexual attractions. You can consciously deny them...but your body certainly won't.

as much as I would love to get into a "scientific" debate with you I just preferred to make fun of your analogy and your flawed logic on presenting half definitions of science and responses and even still you aren't truly addressing my piece on response with exception to your "pheromone" power.

Your definition was skewed to one side on murder. If you want to present a "scientific" study on homosexual and scince just make sure the way you define it and make comparisions keep your constants just that and don't mess up the variables..................gay straight whatever but if its a response given off by stimuli and what do you call fight or flight? Fear induces things as well so does posture so does smell blah blah blah so if its neurotransmitters get a reuptake inhibitor or whatever........................

Have either of you actually done any neuropharmacology? Or are you both just rambling?

Originally posted by Draco69
This is flawed. We cannot perceive black holes. We cannot study wormoholes. We cannot physically access the components of time or "strings".

Originally posted by Draco69
Sexual attraction on the other hand is experienced by us every single day by every single human being. You cannot choose your sexual attractions. Everyone in humanity (and the animal kingdom for that matter) can attess to this simple fact. We can CHOOSE to act on it but we can never choose to bring it about.

Originally posted by Draco69
It's simple fact. You can philosophize it but you cannot logically refute it. No human can choose to be sexually attracted to whoever they want. If this were so than hetero/homo/bisexuality wouldn't exist.

People can make themselves aroused at things contradictory of their sexual orientation. There are plenty of homosexual men who have kids through heterosexual intercourse.

Originally posted by Draco69
Bisexuality is more complicated because it is heavily misunderstood. Simple answer: they have sexual attractions for BOTH genders. They do not CHOOSE the attractions but they CAN choose to ACT on them. AND they can CHOOSE to focus on a particular gender (most often the opposite sex) but they cannot change the fact they have sexual attractions for the other gender.

Originally posted by soleran30
as much as I would love to get into a "scientific" debate with you I just preferred to make fun of your analogy and your flawed logic on presenting half definitions of science and responses and even still you aren't truly addressing my piece on response with exception to your "pheromone" power.

You don't have a piece. You're basically agreeing me. You're comparing sexual attraction to a "homicidal primal urge." I completely disagree but I'll walk with that. However you said that people can deny these "urges," thus indicating that the urges were not a choice and you can choose not and not to.

Originally posted by soleran30
Your definition was skewed to one side on murder. If you want to present a "scientific" study on homosexual and scince just make sure the way you define it and make comparisions keep your constants just that and don't mess up the variables

What the **** are you talking about? 😆

Oh my god. Honey, you're cracking me up. The sentence above doesn't make the slightest bit of sense.

Listen, you're obviously young. You cannot win an arguement with big words and fancy techinical dialogue that doesn't make sense. You obviously took some big words of the top of your head and placed them whereever in the sentence looked good to you:

"skewed to one side?"

Honey, this means the OPPOSITE. It's a statistics jargon to imply that a set of numbers are close to one another or the same.

"variables?"

There ARE no variables in my arguement. A variable is factor dependent on a fixed object. The word you were looking for was probably evidence.

"constants?"

Ditto with above.

Put your math textbook down please. 🙂

Originally posted by soleran30
..................gay straight whatever but if its a response given off by stimuli and what do you call fight or flight? Fear induces things as well so does posture so does smell blah blah blah so if its neurotransmitters get a reuptake inhibitor or whatever........................

Adrenaline IS a neurotransmitter. You got that right. It designates the human to either "fight or flight". Sexual attraction neurotransmitters simply give one message to your brain and body: "F***!!!"

Now you can choose to act on these chemicals. You can fight or flight or do nothing. Or in the case of sexual attraction you can choose to f*** or not to f***. Simple as that.

Originally posted by xmarksthespot
Have either of you actually done any neuropharmacology? Or are you both just rambling?

Wow I just remembered to make a valid point I needed to go and get my pharmacological exams finished so I can talk then post on a comic book forum my opinion🙂

Ok now that aside did you wanna comment on the thread or just wanna throw us a quick science lecture? 😱

yeah nope my post was in a response to your definitions and how you applied them on that post on the previous page. So I used the right words but thanks Draco none the less.

Originally posted by StyleTime
I mentioned that because you said the choice option isn't worth devoting time to yet scientist spend so much time(novels are written on these things) on things that are even less likely.

Yes. These are called horoscopes.

Just kidding. Anywhoo these things you speak of are not debated logically but rather philosophized. In SPITE of the contrary evidence, we're gonna argue otherwise. That's not factual logic. That's pure philosophy/ethos.

THAT you can debate for hundreds of years.

Originally posted by StyleTime
Like I said, the "choice" would be very subtle. It that one analogy I made, one may not even be completely aware of it.

Than by a very definiton of "choice", a decision you're not consciously making is not a choice.

Again, how can someone "subtlely" choose to have sexual attractions to one's own gender and completely rework how the body works in the process?

Originally posted by StyleTime
ll sexual orientations would still exist. The choice would be made very subtly but it would probably remain permanent. Each orientation would still be around after the person is "orientated".

Orientation is defined by the sexual attractions they have. If you get hard for a vagina than you're straight. If you get hard for a penis than you're gay. If you get hard for both...well you're bisexual which makes things even more complicated for your life.

Again. How does a person "choose" his or hers sexual attractions?

Originally posted by StyleTime
People can make themselves aroused at things contradictory of their sexual orientation. There are plenty of homosexual men who have kids through heterosexual intercourse.

Of course. They did or still do this for many reasons. Survival, religion, ostracizism, or all the above.

Does this make them any less gay? No. There are countless tales of homosexual men having sex with their wives (read "beard"😉 And what have most if not all gay men do during sexual intercourse with their wives?:

Fantazize about men.

A penis can be aroused simply by friction or touch. Hell, a pillow can make a penis erect. But can women make a gay man truly sexually aroused? No.

Gay married men have attested they simply imagine they were having sex with a man or just let their body go into autopilot much like pissing. A man doesn't need sexual attraction or arousal to ejacualate. It just requires muscle contractions.

Originally posted by xmarksthespot
Have either of you actually done any neuropharmacology? Or are you both just rambling?

Only biology, neurobiology and some biochemistry. I'm econ major so my classes were limited. 😉

Originally posted by Draco69
Yes. These are called horoscopes.

Originally posted by Draco69

Just kidding. Anywhoo these things you speak of are not debated logically but rather philosophized. In SPITE of the contrary evidence, we're gonna argue otherwise. That's not factual logic. That's pure philosophy/ethos.

THAT you can debate for hundreds of years.

Originally posted by Draco69
Than by a very definiton of "choice", a decision you're not consciously making is not a choice.

Now please don't get me wrong. I am not saying someone chooses a certain orientation because of a bad experience or a personal experience at all.

Originally posted by Draco69
Again, how can someone "subtlely" choose to have sexual attractions to one's own gender and completely rework how the body works in the process?

You're not reworking how the body functions. You're actually setting the way your body is going to work.

Originally posted by Draco69
A penis can be aroused simply by friction or touch. Hell, a pillow can make a penis erect. But can women make a gay man truly sexually aroused? No.

Originally posted by Draco69
Gay married men have attested they simply imagine they were having sex with a man or just let their body go into autopilot much like pissing. A man doesn't need sexual attraction or arousal to ejacualate. It just requires muscle contractions.

Anyway I am about to hit the hay. Thanks for responding sensibly. I know I came off a bit extreme originally so I don't blame you for the "in a hole" comments. I also understand that what I am saying is highly based in theory and I appreciate that you bother to respond despite that. Thank you.

And for the record everyone. I DO believe moreso that sexuality is NOT a choice. I just really like pondering other views. Noone else was saying anything about the choice side but "God said so....so HA!", so I figured why not give it a go?

Originally posted by soleran30
Wow I just remembered to make a valid point I needed to go and get my pharmacological exams finished so I can talk then post on a comic book forum my opinion🙂

Ok now that aside did you wanna comment on the thread or just wanna throw us a quick science lecture? 😱

To make a valid point on neuropharmacology, one tends to need some sort of background in human biology at least, preferably some sort of knowledge on the human brain. Otherwise you are, as noted, just rambling.

I don't intend to teach anything unless you intend to pay me for it. The going rate is 20 dollars/hour.

I and most others have commented in this thread ad nauseum. Its rather circular.

Originally posted by StyleTime
Sigh. Listen people. I am not saying it's a choice. I am saying that it COULD be. It hasn't been proven either way to my knowledge. Seriously what is so bad if it ends up being a choice?

COULD be. You are absdolutely right. It COULD be. But, the most important point you make is that even if some one creates some mental exercise to reach back into the mind of a homosexual and pinpoint the exact moment the choice was made, why would there be a problem? It is a choice made by a single human being, and no one else has the right to interfere with that choice.

See my very first post in this thread:

Originally posted by Capt_Fantastic
I think the biggest issue in the question posed is a matter of validity. People want to know what others think about the subject so that they can form their own opinion on the matter..or validate it to themselves. This is the way I see the question really being formulated in someone's head: "Is homosexuality something these freaks picked up because they're different and should be frowned upon for somehow "seeking" out this heddonistic lifestyle....OR..were the poor diluted souls born that way and simply can't help where they stick their dicks?"...which leads to the much more sympathetic disgust known as begrudged pity.

In either case, I wonder why it matters? If I am gay because I am genetically hard-wired to be gay, or whether I'm gay because I chose to be, isn't relevant. I simply am. I'm gay, and there's nothing that the good lord Jesus, the lord of darkness Satan, George W Bush, Firey Eyes, Adolf Hitler, Ghandi or John Kerry can do about it. It is a fact. And unless we are going back to the prehistoric days of simply killing those who are different BECAUSE THEY'RE DIFFERENT then it's a fact that the world is simply going to have to accept.

I've heard all these arguments before, and they always seem to fall short of ever accomplishing something...anything. When the argument is over and everyone has lost intrest in the thread, no one will have changed their mind, much less reached an informed conclusion where either side has been considered.

I'm not one of those gay guys that stands on the steps of capitol hill and waves a rainbow flag. I'm not a big supported of "gay rights"...as they are contradictory to the very goal they are meant to acheive. Special rights for gay people will only set them apart from the rest of society even further. It's like taking two shows and comparing them...like Six Feet Under and Queer as Folk. Six Feet Under has a lot of gay themes which are part of the larger story. Queer As Folk is simply a soap opera about gay people that fulfills every stereotype in the book. A straight guy can watch Six Feet Under and enjoy it, and not even notice the difference between the gay and straight characters...but let a straight guy watch Queer As Folk and they talk about how disgusting it is. I don't want "special" rights for gay people, I want human rights for everyone.

So, there is nothing wrong with people thinking it's a choice. That is their perogative. However, when that belief crosses the line in the form of insults and actual legislation that effects the lives of people who want nothing more that to live life and be left alone to suffer through it just like the rest of humanity, then a problem arises. Despite overwhelming evidence that homosexuality is caused by several genetic factors and a variety of genes, it is perfectly fine for someone to cling to the belief that it is chosen. But, step outside of your own opinion and tell others they have mental illness that causes them to behave in a degenerate manner is out of line. Telling someone their father molested them in their crib and that has resulted in their lives not being worthy of equal consideration is crossing the line.

The bottom line is that the whole thing is a non-debate. Opinions are like assholes, everyone's got them. And this debate is really more like saying people don't have assholes. And, as we can see from this entire spectacle, myself included, there are plenty of assholes in the world.

Originally posted by Draco69
Only biology, neurobiology and some biochemistry. I'm econ major so my classes were limited. 😉

Good, someone of educational status that is higher than mine.

I had a nagging question that I couldn't figure the answer to.

Perhaps you can help. (this would also be of benefit to Adam P.o.E. as he often presents evidence of differing genetics/DNA between hetero and homo sexual people.)

Here's the question that's puzzling me:

Identical twins. They have the exact same DNA. (right?)

Their genetic makeup is exactly the same.

In the history of the world, there have been gay people for centuries, if not for millenia.

There have been identical twins for just as long.

Now have some twins been born both straight?

Surely.

Have some been born both gay?

Probably so.

Now what about when one twin is gay and the other is straight?

How does that work?

If they have the exact same DNA, and homosexuality is a genetic thing that people are born with, .... then how could one twin be gay and the other straight?

(to say that such a thing has never happened would probably be a statistical impossibility, but I will check into it....)

They couldn't.

Identical twins would have to both be gay or staight, as they have the exact same genetic structure/makeup, .... if homosexuality is genetic.

Any answers, responses, explanations?

😕

It would be prudent to consider the different methods in which the biological process of reproduction yeilds twins.

Don't forget that there are instances where two seperate embryos are produced from a single fertilized egg and one in which two eggs produce two different embryos.

There is an overwhelming similarity in the sexual orientation of the twins in the situation of a single egg splitting into two embryos. And the chances of the sexual orientation for both twins being the same drops when there are two seperate fertilized eggs.

In either case however, the majority of humans born are heterosexual.

Originally posted by Capt_Fantastic
In either case however, the majority of humans born are heterosexual.

Oh, and one should point out to you that there is no such thing as two human beings with the exact same genetics. Twins do not share the same genetic structure. Only a clone would.

Originally posted by FeceMan
Kekekekekeke.

Yes, I have been hardcore owned!

free will and genetics I believe still both play a part in sexual preference.