Originally posted by Esau Cairn
I admire how you conveniently leave out quotes like;" However, whether this hormonal surge is the sole cause of musth, or merely a contributing factor, IS UNKNOWN."
"Scientific investigation of musth IS PROBLEMATIC."
"Although is has often been SPECULATED..."
"Musth is linked to sexual arousal or establishing dominance, BUT THE RELATIONSHIP IS FAR FROM CLEAR."
That's good, because I left them out precisely FOR the sake of convenience.
This entire thread, whether you know it or not, concerns the power of language to shape thought, behavior, and policy.
For instance here you're throwing the above phrases around, i.e. using the power of language, to make it seem I'm somehow ducking a point or points you made. As if people can't read that short article for themselves, or as if in the normal course of conversation you don't have an opportunity to bring up objections.
However, I did apparently make at least one error, and that is assuming you had some familiarity with this subject merely because it was in the American and English press continually years ago, or that with all the mention you've made now of animal documentaries, you were a reasonably exposed watcher of them.
Generally the point of animal documentaries is to show people what a treasure we have, how we impact the natural world for good or for ill, raise awareness of problems that we hopefully can fix, and trigger people's desire to do so. Save nature from ourselves FOR ourselves and for future generations.
This has been the narrative since before I was alive, and seems to have continued relatively unchanged to the present day.
This affair of elephants and deviant behavior fits neatly within that model, and, until talking with you in this thread, I THOUGHT this specific plight was a relatively well-known affair, at least, again, among people who have familiarity with animal documentaries.
Briefly, elephant habitats have become very messed up.
Why have they become messed up?
Deforestation is one reason. Poaching another.
Urbanization/modernization a 3rd.
And ... the relatively recent government killing of elephants.
Which left a lot of elephant orphans.
And eventually fatherless, juvenile males.
Who fall into musth, A SEXUALLY AROUSED STATE, far more often, in periods which seem to last far longer, with behavior far more destructive than what had been previously seen. Because we made the elephants' HABITAT ... (fill-in-the blank).
That is the reality alluded to by Wikipedia's mentioning older male elephants being "re-introduced" to the herd. And what I thought you knew but apparently did not.
It is, by the way, arguably, a remarkable parallel to what we see when HUMAN juvenile males are stripped of father figures and older mentoring adult males.
I am genuinely surprised you knew nothing of this till now.
Here ... a brief question letter and response letter to this subject that should corroborate much of what I said:
Originally posted by Esau Cairn
And what "good information" are we supposed to be enlightened by from homophobic comments?Now musth may lead to sexual arousal but nowhere does it state being triggered by a habitat that goes "ape shit" or that it leads to homosexual acts.
So once again. what is your point or relevance by mentioning it?
And I admire how you conveniently leave out quotes like;
" However, whether this hormonal surge is the sole cause of musth, or merely a contributing factor, IS UNKNOWN."
"Scientific investigation of musth IS PROBLEMATIC."
"Although is has often been SPECULATED..."
"Musth is linked to sexual arousal or establishing dominance, BUT THE RELATIONSHIP IS FAR FROM CLEAR."
Leaving items out that don't flow with their point is what people who are trying to push an agenda do.
Originally posted by bluewaterrider
That's good, because I left them out precisely FOR the sake of convenience.
This entire thread, whether you know it or not, concerns the power of language to shape thought, behavior, and policy.For instance here you're throwing the above phrases around, i.e. using the power of language, to make it seem I'm somehow ducking a point or points you made. As if people can't read that short article for themselves, or as if in the normal course of conversation you don't have an opportunity to bring up objections.
However, I did apparently make at least one error, and that is assuming you had some familiarity with this subject merely because it was in the American and English press continually years ago, or that with all the mention you've made now of animal documentaries, you were a reasonably exposed watcher of them.
G
I'm amused but slightly baffled on your responses to my posts.
If this thread was titled: "Debunking Animal Facts" your responses & comments & links would fit it nicely.
But it's not.
Regardless of whether it was a troll bait or the poster firmly believed a threatened habitat leads to homosexual behaviour in animals is & has always been the point I wanted to debate & to be given proof to back those claims with.
So far, you've neither mentioned or addressed the issue I've brought up.
You've gone from lemmings to fake documentaries to elephants "musthing" to questioning whether I knew or knew not about musth in the first place.
Yet NOWHERE have you addressed or provided info to prove or dispel the actual topic I'm talking about.
NOWHERE in your posts do you even mention homosexuality, which is exactly what this thread is about.
Your comment on leaving things (facts) out for the sake of convenience says it all. You clearly have a hidden agenda & you're clearly wasting it in this thread replying to my posts.
Originally posted by bluewaterrider
Briefly, elephant habitats have become very messed up.
Why have they become messed up?
Deforestation is one reason. Poaching another.
Urbanization/modernization a 3rd.And ... the relatively recent government killing of elephants.
Which left a lot of elephant orphans.
And eventually fatherless, juvenile males.
Who fall into musth, A SEXUALLY AROUSED STATE, far more often, in periods which seem to last far longer, with behavior far more destructive than what had been previously seen. Because we made the elephants' HABITAT ... (fill-in-the blank).That is the reality alluded to by Wikipedia's mentioning older male elephants being "re-introduced" to the herd. And what I thought you knew but apparently did not.
It is, by the way, arguably, a remarkable parallel to what we see when HUMAN juvenile males are stripped of father figures and older mentoring adult males.
I am genuinely surprised you knew nothing of this till now.
Here ... a brief question letter and response letter to this subject that should corroborate much of what I said:
Rape & homosexual behaviour are two separate things.
63 rhinos were gored to death.
One expert says, "nothing sexual about the attacks."
Another concludes some elephants mounted rhinos in "false copulation."
No mention at all on the sexes of the rhinos killed or even specifically the rhinos that got mounted.
Now we trying to drag Rhinos and Elephants into this nonsense!?
Seriously people.....Lets get this thread back to a more NORMAL level....
Originally posted by Esau Cairn
Rape & homosexual behaviour are two separate things.
Consent doesn't work quite the same way for elephants and rhinos in Africa as it does for you and your wife in Australia.
Originally posted by Esau Cairn
63 rhinos were gored to death.
Acknowledged.
Originally posted by Esau Cairn
One expert says, "nothing sexual about the attacks."
Another concludes some elephants mounted rhinos in "false copulation".
The same expert who concludes the elephants mounted in "false copulation" says
"it's ridiculous to dismiss the possibility that the attacks have a sexual aspect" ...
Here:
" ... Bradshaw maintains that the elephants have been observed mounting their rhino victims and that it's ridiculous to dismiss the possibility that the attacks have a sexual aspect. Though she prefers the term "false copulation," she says, "it is unlikely that the act was consensual as so many rhinos were killed, so in that context and in light of current science, 'rape' is not inappropriate ...."
[i]Originally posted by Esau CairnNo mention at all on the sexes of the rhinos killed or even specifically the rhinos that got mounted.
If all you want is specific mention of this sort of thing, go to the 38 minute mark of the following and listen for exactly 60 seconds:
Fly uses irony reasonably well to make the point, that, through deceptive framing and propaganda and use (misuse) of language, the absurd is quickly made the new "normal". Or at least the guy in Fly's video makes that point. A 52 year old man, married with children suddenly decided he is, in fact, a 6 year old girl.
People really do not understand the power of language, especially in conjunction with the backing of authority figures and visual media, to shape thought.
Lemmings are not much interest to me, but the case illustrates how false concepts become "fact" in collective consciousness over time.
Yes, Esau, much like the "fact" of Bruce Jenner "really" somehow being a "woman" all this time.
Here, I'd intended to share this particular article the first day the lemmings were mentioned. Interestingly enough, it begins with Australian people propagating language lies:
Early European settlers of Australia destroyed vast tracts of millennia-old rainforest in order to plant their English roses. They rationalised these actions, those who felt any compunctions at all, by referring to and decrying the native bush as ‘scrub’. What a difference language makes to the world we inhabit! So much easier to think you’re clearing some nuisance scrub in the spirit of pioneering than to realise you’re cutting a living chain uniquely evolved from the magisterial forests of aeons ago. That would constitute a monumental tragedy! But clearing a bit of scrub – good work! Have a beer!
Another ecological lie which is embedded in our language relates to the lemming. The very word ‘lemming’ has come to refer to an unthinking conformity which leads inexorably to self-destruction. This meaning is even ensconced in the Oxford English Dictionary, which sets forth the common usage of ‘lemming-like’ as ‘headlong, suicidal, unthinking.’
The amazing fact is that the only evidence which supports this commonly held misconception was fabricated by the makers of an Academy Award-winning Walt Disney nature documentary. An excerpt from this film, along with some extraordinarily stupid interview subjects, can be viewed here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDqlZjpSJCc
There are four different types of lemming; they are furry little rodents (can be about 10 cm long) and are found in the cooler northern parts of Eurasia and North America. As with other rodents, populations of lemmings go through mysterious boom and bust cycles. The fluctuations in lemming populations are more regular than for other rodents: every three or four years, lemming populations peak dramatically and then drop back to almost zero. No-one knows why. There are quite a few educated guesses involving food availability, predators, migration, diseases, climate and other environmental variables, and yet it bears repeating, because it is the fear of this sentiment which causes scientists to cook up the odd hypothesis or two: No-one knows why.
One such odd hypothesis, possibly originating in the 1930s at the Bureau of Animal Population, Oxford University, in merry old England, was that natural population control in the form of a sudden population crash was effected by mass-suicide.
Walt Disney’s White Wilderness (1958) was filmed in Alberta, Canada, by nine different cinematographers. The photographer in charge of the lemming sequence was James R. Simon. It seems the film-makers believed the group suicide theory; perhaps from this we can infer it was the accepted scientific ‘truth’ at the time. Since lemmings are not even native to Alberta, Canada, the film-makers purchased a number of pet lemmings from Inuit children, transported them to Alberta and then staged a scene where the lemmings appear to throw themselves into the sea. In fact, and this is now acknowledged by the Walt Disney company, it was the Disney film crew who threw these helpless creatures off a cliff into a river, and used camera angles and editing to create a misleading impression which resonates to this day.
The film won the 1959 Oscar for Best Documentary, beginning its long life of disinformation. The scientific theory it was based on quietly went out of fashion, and no doubt because the Pied Piper-ish ‘if everyone else jumped off a cliff would you?’ metaphor proved so apt for the human species, ‘lemming-like’ behaviour passed into the language and became a seemingly immovable prop within popular culture. All of this is very worrying indeed. Some scientists lay down the law, Walt Disney creates a memorable if faked movie (for which animals were murdered and at the same time slanderously implicated in their own deaths) and that is all that is needed for a false concept to become rooted in our collective culture, because it seems easier to unthinkingly accept an inherited falsehood than to really get to know other animals on their own terms.
-- David McMillan
Since we had a lot of transgender talk in here I figured I'd post this here:
So essentially North Carolina is being threatened with having various funding cut if they don't get rid of the bathroom law. Remember this is the bathroom law that really can't be enforced anyways unless you put dick checkers at every bathroom.
So they will threaten to yank funding for this, but they won't yank funding from Sanctuary Cities. So one place apparently violates federal law and it's wrong, another place does it and it's okay.
Being gay is a choice. Not necessarily a mental disorder. It's like one of the defensive mechanisms in the mind that could trigger from emotional, physical, or psychological trauma. Or, it could be none of these, but an effect from being raised in a community full of homosexual people.
Somewhat off-topic, and I don't feel like littering the forum with another thread about sexuality: I know a couple who are both females, and they are not lesbians. They are actually females in a sexual relationship. It's odd, and I didn't know this kind of relationship existed. Is it possible for a heterosexual male to be sexually attracted to the same sex, and have a working mutual relationship, like this couple?
I guess it depends on what you mean by being gay being a choice. For instance it is certainly a choice if one chooses to act on a homosexual desire.
Also dude if you know two females boning each other(so to speak) then they are lesbians or bisexuals. I'm not sure what would drive them to try to suggest they are straight but that they also have sex. I don't know if they are trying to mess with you or just are delusional lol. Actions do tend to speak louder then words. A person at the very least is bi sexual is they are out screwing people of the same gender.
Well to get back to the other thing, I think it's a growing trend this day and age for people to just try to pretend they are things they are not. That is really the only way I can see how two women could be sleeping together while claiming to be straight.
It's like..I could sit here and tell you the sky is pink with purple polka dots. But just because I believe that..it doesn't actually change anything. The sky is still blue. A belief doesn't overrule reality.