"I Still Believe Homosexuality is a choice..."

Started by Aletheia, December 04, 2014, 03:54:27 AM

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stromboli

The issue of homosexuality is simply a human rights issue. The idea of gays being evil/sinful/in error is completely based on cultural or religious stigma. There have been societies that accepted it, and others not. It is simply a matter of removing the cultural stigma and looking at it without bias. All that is wrong with sexual behavior is only wrong  to those who are culturally or religiously biased to view it that way.

Regardless of whether it is choice or not is really not the issue. People, various stars, have come out as bisexual. Whether that is biological we'll let the scientists decide. It is in the end just a cultural and religious bias, after all the smoke finally clears.

Deidre32

Even if it is a choice...who cares? It's still none of my business what people choose to do, in the privacy of their own homes (between two consenting adults)
The only lasting beauty, is the beauty of the heart. - Rumi

Mequa

Quote from: Deidre32 on December 31, 2014, 12:17:21 AM
Even if it is a choice...who cares? It's still none of my business what people choose to do, in the privacy of their own homes (between two consenting adults)
Consenting adults can still be abusive. If they are both adults, and consenting, yet there is abuse and exploitation going on, I would say this is a very different matter to a non-abusive consensual relationship.

Consent also needs to be mutually informed, in my view. If consent is based on belief in a lie through deception, such that consent would quite simply not take place if such deception were not present, then the consent is not informed.

Personally, I would raise the stakes to non-abusive mutually-informed consent before considering it genuinely none of my business. Abusers tend to inspire my martial impulses, and a passionate desire to take out the trash.

Aletheia

Quote from: Mequa on January 04, 2015, 05:34:48 AM
Consenting adults can still be abusive. If they are both adults, and consenting, yet there is abuse and exploitation going on, I would say this is a very different matter to a non-abusive consensual relationship.

Consent also needs to be mutually informed, in my view. If consent is based on belief in a lie through deception, such that consent would quite simply not take place if such deception were not present, then the consent is not informed.

Personally, I would raise the stakes to non-abusive mutually-informed consent before considering it genuinely none of my business. Abusers tend to inspire my martial impulses, and a passionate desire to take out the trash.

Could you elaborate? Given that this thread is about homosexuality, does this mean that consensual homosexual relationships could qualify as abuse or exploitation?

I know in battered spouse syndrome, the person suffering from the abuse is in no way consenting, and desire very much for the abuse to end. They simply lack the strength and/or fortitude to overcome the situation they find themselves in, which is why outside parties are justified to intervene on the victim's behalf, if at all possible.

However, sado-masochistic relationships between two consenting adults can involve honest communication with both deriving happiness from the arrangement - one is happy to cause pain and the other happy to receive it. People in a relationship like this establish rules and will stop if one party no longer wishes to participate. In a situation like this, it is not justified for an outside party to intervene, since what may be abuse for an outside party is not necessarily abuse between two informed adults who respect each other's wishes.
Quote from: Jakenessif you believe in the supernatural, you do not understand modern science. Period.

Deidre32

Quote from: Mequa on January 04, 2015, 05:34:48 AM
Consenting adults can still be abusive. If they are both adults, and consenting, yet there is abuse and exploitation going on, I would say this is a very different matter to a non-abusive consensual relationship.

Consent also needs to be mutually informed, in my view. If consent is based on belief in a lie through deception, such that consent would quite simply not take place if such deception were not present, then the consent is not informed.

Personally, I would raise the stakes to non-abusive mutually-informed consent before considering it genuinely none of my business. Abusers tend to inspire my martial impulses, and a passionate desire to take out the trash.

I agree with the elaboration. But, given the nature of the question...it doesn't matter if homosexuality is a choice or not...as to whether or not two people who are consenting and not abusive wish to engage in sex.
The only lasting beauty, is the beauty of the heart. - Rumi

trdsf

What I want to know is, if it's a choice, why do the people who think it's a choice never explain when and how they chose to be straight?
"My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total, and I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution." -- Barbara Jordan

Gawdzilla Sama

Quote from: trdsf on January 14, 2015, 03:17:39 AM
What I want to know is, if it's a choice, why do the people who think it's a choice never explain when and how they chose to be straight?
Ellen DeGeneris's girlfriend went straight. "I've been lied to."
We 'new atheists' have a reputation for being militant, but make no mistake  we didn't start this war. If you want to place blame put it on the the religious zealots who have been poisoning the minds of the  young for a long long time."
PZ Myers

Desdinova

"How long will we be
Waiting, for your modern messiah
To take away all the hatred
That darkens the light in your eye"
  -Disturbed, Liberate

Atheon

Sexuality is a spectrum. Homosexuality/heterosexuality is a choice for those who are attracted, to a certain degree, to members of both sexes. For people on the more exclusive ends of the spectrum, I can't see it being a choice.
"Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful." - Seneca

SGOS

Quote from: Atheon on January 17, 2015, 12:56:08 AM
Sexuality is a spectrum. Homosexuality/heterosexuality is a choice for those who are attracted, to a certain degree, to members of both sexes. For people on the more exclusive ends of the spectrum, I can't see it being a choice.

For many who are adamant that homosexuality is a choice, I suspect they are bisexual, and since that is their personal experience with sexuality, it would probably be seen as a choice for everyone.  But not everyone is near the center of the scale.

Draconic Aiur

I got banned from this forum for a few mins, because I decided to choose to be gay and hit on skeletal atheist. Didn't work out and many peeps thought I was pretentious ass troll. You can't just leap to the decision your gay or bisexual based on your brain;it's all decision of what your penis/vagina craves. like I'll admit i was being a lil pretentious but maybe 20 percent bi sexual due to my weird dick-o-meter. point is everyone is bisexual with a little nudge to the left or right and choice is bull,

Mermaid

Quote from: SGOS on January 17, 2015, 06:04:03 AM
For many who are adamant that homosexuality is a choice, I suspect they are bisexual,
I suspect they are self-centered and quite often painfully stupid.
A cynical habit of thought and speech, a readiness to criticise work which the critic himself never tries to perform, an intellectual aloofness which will not accept contact with life’s realities â€" all these are marks, not as the possessor would fain to think, of superiority but of weakness. -TR

The Skeletal Atheist

Quote from: Draconic Aiur on January 17, 2015, 06:25:22 AM
I got banned from this forum for a few mins, because I decided to choose to be gay and hit on skeletal atheist. Didn't work out and many peeps thought I was pretentious ass troll. You can't just leap to the decision your gay or bisexual based on your brain;it's all decision of what your penis/vagina craves. like I'll admit i was being a lil pretentious but maybe 20 percent bi sexual due to my weird dick-o-meter. point is everyone is bisexual with a little nudge to the left or right and choice is bull,
Haha, I remember that. It didn't really bother me, just caught me off guard.

As per being a choice...no, not for me at least.
Some people need to be beaten with a smart stick.

Kein Mehrheit Fur Die Mitleid!

Kein Mitlied F�r Die Mehrheit!

Aletheia

Quote from: SGOS on January 17, 2015, 06:04:03 AM
For many who are adamant that homosexuality is a choice, I suspect they are bisexual, and since that is their personal experience with sexuality, it would probably be seen as a choice for everyone.  But not everyone is near the center of the scale.

Oh no, don't throw that hot potato to the bisexual community - we'll throw it right back.

Bisexuality is viewed as another "I didn't have a choice in the matter" category by most of the bisexuals I've met in real life and online. As a community, bisexuals tend to agree that gays and straights are legitimate parts of the human sexuality and are rarely suspected of including people who are "bisexuals in denial."

If you're looking for a category of people who have caused quite a bit of drama on the matter - religious and predominately heterosexual still remains the main impediment to equality and acceptance of the entire spectrum of human sexuality.
Quote from: Jakenessif you believe in the supernatural, you do not understand modern science. Period.

Desdinova

Fuck who you want when you want.  As long as both are consenting adults and its behind closed doors its nobody's business.  Period.  End of fucking story.
"How long will we be
Waiting, for your modern messiah
To take away all the hatred
That darkens the light in your eye"
  -Disturbed, Liberate