Kodi Arfer / Wisterwood

In the interests of spinning off an angry thread into a more civil discussion...

Topic List
#001 | mimir227 |
I postulate that sexual orientation is more of a social construct than a psychological variable that exists independently of our belief in it. I postulate further that this concept of sexual orientation does more harm than good. Thoughts?

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If it's neither true by definition nor falsifiable, then it isn't important.
#002 | TheCheezBounce |
We should just love everyone, am I right? :V

Also, no, I believe it's been proven to be caused by a differing level of certain hormones within a person. I could be wrong about that, though.
I also tend to be rather skeptical of those who claim to be bisexual, usually, but if that's how you feel, that's how you feel. I'm hardly one to make any claims about others' sexual feelings.
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#003 | FoxMetaI |
I disagree with your first contention and agree with the second. I worked with a gay guy a couple summers back and that was my first 'encounter' with a non-hetero person. After getting to know him and stuff, I asked when/why/what made him realize he was gay, and he said "Girls don't do it for me. They never did." So I says, "Wait, you don't like boobs? At all??" And HE DIDN'T. See, I was always under the impression that no matter how gay you were, you'd at least like boobs, but they didn't turn him on in the slightest. So obviously that's more of a nature thing. Then a few quarters ago I met a bi dude who just said, "I used to be straight but now I don't discriminate against gender at all." I think that's more of a nurture thing because he eventually became comfortable with it. I think the second part is self explanatory, or at least my point of view is probably consistent with yours (mimir).

I'm not a fan of the hormone tests because technically everyone has differing levels of hormones for everything. No one's completely male or completely female since we share the whole human thing, but I can definitely see where people trip balls when you say they're not fully straight.

Cheez, what's your beef with bisexualism? If a cat swings both ways, doesn't that make her bi?
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#004 | FoxMetaI |
Oh, I'd like to add that I don't think it's all about intercourse, either. Humans are a social species and some are straight up more emotionally compatible with some than others.
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#005 | AlmightyNecron |
See, it's hard for me. I like girls, always have, but when I turned 13, I started having gay thoughts. I really don't know what to make of them. The easiest thing I can do is say I'm bisexual because I'm definitely not 100% straight. As I said, though, I'm leaning towards women, and there's this girl that I have strong feelings for.

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Meh
#006 | willis5225 |
Eh, I get suspicious of arguments about things that are "just" a social construct. Social constructs are very real things; if you want to argue that without taboos there wouldn't be such a thing as sexual orientation, that's all well and good, but it's also sort of like if I were to make an argument that started with "if we assume that pi is exactly three..."

It's true that there are historical societies in which what we'd now call sexual orientation was more fluid, but generally speaking, to be gay was still considered "weird," if just because it wasn't what most people did. A great example is Greek homosexuality: it's often presented as "the aristocracy was gay as hell and they had tons of sex with little boys," but there're at least two points you have to understand (for the sake of this discussion). First, the aristocracy had sex with boys specifically because of qualities associated with femininity: hairlessness, high voices, naivete, etc. Second, there was very much a time and a place for homosexuality; Aristophanes is full of jokes about some dude that grew up, but still wanted to have sex with men, what a weirdo, that's so weird, he should be trying to have sex with women or young boys or both.

Then you have traditions like in Hindu where they have the dudes who volunteer for castration and live as girls, but that's a cultic practice, and inherently "weird," if sacred. It's atypicality is intimately tied to its sacredness, but it's still atypical. You have (dubiously authentic) stories in Old Norse, but it's still in the vein of "what a weird thing to do; but then gods break taboo sometimes and that's their business."

So my point is that homosexuality has been, throughout history, not the norm. Does that make it bad/evil/naughty/should be illegal? No, but there are very real if social reasons people think about sexual orientation.
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#007 | FoxMetaI |
well, what do you consider 'gay thoughts'? 'cause i mean, when i see a dude like this
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Xz4sGcYBDFU/RtvqrJ8MWUI/AAAAAAAAAA0/gJDf2BvBTnw/s400/brad_pitt_abs.jpg
i'll take a moment to appreciate how ****in' beautiful that man is, but i'm not down with the idea of getting my cornhole pounded. similarly, if i see a chick like this
http://style.popcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/amy-winehouse-troubled-singer.jpg
i'm not gonna drop my shorts and start pokin the pickle. does that make me not 100% straight?
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#008 | AlmightyNecron |
"Gay thoughts" as in anything seen as sexual. It can range from simple kissing to... yeah, we don't need to get descriptive... Also, are you sure that's a chick in the second picture? It looks like a dude...


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Meh
#009 | willis5225 |
From: FoxMetaI
similarly, if i see a chick like this
http://style.popcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/amy-winehouse-troubled-singer.jpg


Ah!
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#010 | TheCheezBounce |
Cheez, what's your beef with bisexualism?
See, right there you're putting words into my mouth. I see nothing wrong in any sexuality and I never said anything close to that.
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#011 | FoxMetaI |
no, i'm asking you a question. what about it makes you skeptical? seriously, i'm not putting words in your mouth or anything, just take what i say at face value.
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"I'm not great at farewells, so uh... that'll do, pig."
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#012 | TheCheezBounce |
Also, yes, Mont. That's a chick in that picture. It's Amy Winehouse. It says it in the URL and the person in the picture has the same tattoos as her. I'll agree with you, though. That definitely looks like a dude.
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#013 | TheCheezBounce |
I'm just skeptical sometimes because I've met people who claimed to be bisexual and actually only prefer sex with ONE gender. They say they find both genders attractive and will make out with them both, but only want to have sex with one.
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#014 | FoxMetaI |
ah, yeah, that's a difficult situation to delineate.
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"I'm not great at farewells, so uh... that'll do, pig."
Natalie Portman was here
#015 | AlmightyNecron |
I'm looking at it as sex isn't really an issue. It's the relationship thing. I would probably try stuff, but I have no interest in forming a relationship with a guy. I'm not going to randomly just have sex with a guy or girl to see what I like. Since I have no interest in persuing a relationship with a guy, I would say I'm straight. The reason why I say I am bisexual now is because I like both sexual stuff right now based on what I've seen. I'm guessing the Internet isn't the best way to judge what you like, but that's all I have now. I'm not going to go out and have sex. That being said, it would all come down to who I would love with me, as sex is the same no matter what. You still get the same feeling, so that's not the issue. Again, I'd rather be with a girl; therefore, I'm bi leaning towards straight. Get it? Got it? Good.

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Meh
#016 | Jacehan |
That may change in time. What you said about seeing things online but knowing it's different in real life struck me because that was very much how I felt during high school. I had a string of female crushes from elementary through high school, but there wasn't a single guy I knew in person that I found attractive/crush on. I didn't have one until college.

Also, Wil, I want to call you out on "just a social construct" as it's not what Mimir said.
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#017 | willis5225 |
I'm just gonna say every time I've dated a bisexual girl she's turned out to have a wicked case of BPD.

I'm not usually a proponent of genocide, but the universe would be a better place if we took everyone carrying the BPD gene and tossed them down some kind of Sarlacc pit.
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#018 | willis5225 |
[This message was deleted at the request of the original poster]
#019 | willis5225 |
@James:
Yeah, that's fair. I guess I would just question the distinction between "social construct" and "psychological variable." Not that they're equivalent, but that they're pretty inextricable. So it was mistaken to imply that you (Mimir) were taking "social construct" to be something inherently reductive, but I think it holds up that being social doesn't preclude being psychological. Furthermore, all this talk of hormones points to neurology as well, on which I'm utterly unqualified to comment, but is another thing that isn't clearly equivalent to sociology or psychology, but is essential to both.

Anyway, I didn't mean to so much justify militant heteronormativity as to try to argue that the impulse springs from psychological-predisposition-qua-societal-conditioning and simultaneously from societal-norm-qua-expression-of-a-psychological condition. The psychological being "I like people who do the same things I do" and the social being "this is the sort of thing most people do."

I suppose you're very right in sexual orientation has a meaning because we, psychologically and sociologically, imbue it with one, but it's a little reminiscent of positivo-relativism to say that it's only meaningful because we acknowledge it with our faculty of reason.
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#020 | mimir227 |
Let me explain my own opinion in more detail. What I'm claiming, essentially, is that sexual orientation is not like handedness. In the case of handedness, we have two classes (right-handed and left-handed), one of which is significantly more popular than the other, but almost all people can meaningfully be said to belong to one and not the other. Ambidextrous people are the exception rather than the norm. In the case of sexual feelings, on the other hand, it seems like nearly everyone is at least slightly attracted to both sexes, and while there are doubtlessly individual differences in how much one likes each, there is no empirical basis for a clear-cut straight–gay distinction. In other words, there's a great deal of diversity in how much people like each sex; further, as has already been mentioned in this topic, some people like the two sexes in qualitatively rather than just quantitatively different ways.

So Cheez, I bet these hormone differences you're referring to (whatever you're exactly referring to—the language you use here is vague) are indicative less of a straight–gay distinction than of this wide variety of individual differences.

And Willis, it should be clear now that I am in no wise disbelieving in heteronormativity. It's obvious that most guys like girls more than guys, and vica-versa. So how can we meaningfully distinguish a social construct from a psychological variable? Well, differences in sexual preference are cultural universals, so that's a clear case of a psychological variable. The straight–gay distinction, by contrast, isn't universal. To use your own example of ancient Greece, there was a socially constructed idea of normal male sexual behavior, but it wasn't the same as our idea of heterosexuality, because, for example, it included pederastry. Individual differences in sexual preference existed, in spite of opposition to them, because (I claim) they are innate to our species. I hope you agree that this kind of distinction between a social construct and a psychological variable is meaningful without recourse to positivo-relativism or whatever.

From: Jacehan | Posted: 4/13/2010 11:47:14 PM | #016
I had a string of female crushes from elementary through high school, but there wasn't a single guy I knew in person that I found attractive/crush on. I didn't have one until college.

Coincidentally, I too had crushes on girls in middle and high school and now have crushes on boys in college. Strangely, there was no overlap between these periods, and my crushes on girls were consistently strong whereas my crushes on boys are consistently weak. Perhaps it should now be clear why I prefer a concept of sexual preference as "a weird constellation of individual differences" over "a single variable on a nominal scale". (I mean "nominal scale" in the sense of [1].)

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Level_of_measurement#Nominal_scale

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If it's neither true by definition nor falsifiable, then it isn't important.
#021 | HeyDude |
Well, this may not be universally accepted, but to me you can be far enough to one side of the spectrum that it would be "close enough" to classify you as either/or. For example, if you are a guy who likes girls, who's only ever liked girls, and who can only imagine ever liking girls, and your curiosity (if you have any) about men is too weak to ever bother acting on and it doesn't bother you that you can't/won't act on it... you're straight. Whatever curiosity for men you have, I don't see how it's meaningful at that point.

That's the situation I've found myself in. I think we all maybe have a thought or two, particularly in junior-high years, that's identifiably gay but that doesn't really unseat our heterosexuality in any way. Or am I merely extrapolating based on myself? It's hard to tell; this isn't a subject I've ever talked about at length with people so I only really have my own information.
#022 | mimir227 |
Yes, there are definitely such people. Whether they're the majority or not is harder to say. It does seem to me that most people believe most people are so rigidly heterosexual as to never have a single "identifiably gay" feeling in their entire lives.

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If it's neither true by definition nor falsifiable, then it isn't important.
#023 | AlmightyNecron |
See, here's the tricky part. I probably never would have looked up homosexual media if it wasn't so ingrained in my head from what other people were saying. When I was in school, people used to make comments about me all the time being gay; however, it never phased me.

It was actually Aman that got me looking into it. For whatever reason, I was in a stage where I believed what other people thought about me. He was going on about how he had this "gaydar" and that he could detect a homosexual. He told me that based on my voice and other characteristics, I was probably gay. At that point, I decided to test that and do a little exploring. I ended up liking what I saw. Now, prior to this, I had several thoughts coming into my head; however, I didn't really think much of them. I just saw them as thoughts and nothing more. Once I found out I liked homosexual media, I think I prematurely confirmed I was gay.

The thing is, though, the Internet is not a good source of information to determine what you like. First of all, it's media and can be made to look appealing. Second of all, I'm not strictly turned on by just M/M, but it turns out all three types: M/F, F/F, and M/M. Based on that, I've reached three possible explanations:

1) My tendency to over analyze everything is screwing me over and making me worry about stuff that I shouldn't be worrying about at this point in my life. I have plenty of time to figure things out (which I pretty much know what I want now that I've been able to classify what's going on).

2) I'm simply bi curious and thinking that since I like what I've discovered, it's labeling me when it could very well just be hormones (I am 16, after all).

3) I'm simply sexually hyper. The fact that I like all forms of sex just shows that I have a problem. I would actually be more inclined to say that I am a male version of a sex nymphomaniac. I'm certainly no Glen Quagmire, but I just may be attracted to anything sexual at 16.

That being the case, I've already decided that I am going to lean towards women. There is a girl I like, and she might not like me if she finds out I did anything with guys. I wouldn't tell her because that's none of her business (unless it happened when I was with her), but I think it would hurt more if I didn't get a chance with her because of that then to experiment with something I'm not sure I'll even like in real life. That's the problem. What you see on the Internet is MUCH different than real life. I'd rather take a safe bet and stay with what I know I like then take a chance on something I may not and risk out on a good opportunity.

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Meh
#024 | TheCheezBounce |
So you like a girl you're worried wouldn't like you as you are, so you'll change your perception of yourself for her? Sounds like high school, all right. :V

I'm going to agree with you and say you probably shouldn't base your sexuality off what other people say you are, or what media you like to watch. Though, I honestly have never watched any form of..."Media" (not straight or gay; video or pictures) so I have no clue what to think of someone's choices in it.
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Holy **** we're in the Matrix? - Willis
#025 | mimir227 |
People! "Pornography" is not a banned word! Even though the first time I typed the previous sentence, I misspelled it as "pronography". (What would that be? Images of people having sex while at their job, I guess.)

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If it's neither true by definition nor falsifiable, then it isn't important.
#026 | AlmightyNecron |
But Cheez, all I can base it off of is what I see on the Internet. I'm not out having sex, so I wouldn't know in that department. Since I'm only basing it off of the Internet, it's not really changing a perception. I know for a fact that I am into girls. The question is whether or not I'm into dudes.

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Meh
#027 | TheCheezBounce |
I haven't been here for awhile. I don't have banned words memorized.
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#028 | willis5225 |
From: mimir227
Let me explain my own opinion in more detail. What I'm claiming, essentially, is that sexual orientation is not like handedness. In the case of handedness, we have two classes (right-handed and left-handed), one of which is significantly more popular than the other, but almost all people can meaningfully be said to belong to one and not the other. Ambidextrous people are the exception rather than the norm. In the case of sexual feelings, on the other hand, it seems like nearly everyone is at least slightly attracted to both sexes, and while there are doubtlessly individual differences in how much one likes each, there is no empirical basis for a clear-cut straight%u2013gay distinction. In other words, there's a great deal of diversity in how much people like each sex; further, as has already been mentioned in this topic, some people like the two sexes in qualitatively rather than just quantitatively different ways.

So Cheez, I bet these hormone differences you're referring to (whatever you're exactly referring to%u2014the language you use here is vague) are indicative less of a straight%u2013gay distinction than of this wide variety of individual differences.

And Willis, it should be clear now that I am in no wise disbelieving in heteronormativity. It's obvious that most guys like girls more than guys, and vica-versa. So how can we meaningfully distinguish a social construct from a psychological variable? Well, differences in sexual preference are cultural universals, so that's a clear case of a psychological variable. The straight%u2013gay distinction, by contrast, isn't universal. To use your own example of ancient Greece, there was a socially constructed idea of normal male sexual behavior, but it wasn't the same as our idea of heterosexuality, because, for example, it included pederastry. Individual differences in sexual preference existed, in spite of opposition to them, because (I claim) they are innate to our species. I hope you agree that this kind of distinction between a social construct and a psychological variable is meaningful without recourse to positivo-relativism or whatever.

From: Jacehan | Posted: 4/13/2010 11:47:14 PM | #016
I had a string of female crushes from elementary through high school, but there wasn't a single guy I knew in person that I found attractive/crush on. I didn't have one until college.


Coincidentally, I too had crushes on girls in middle and high school and now have crushes on boys in college. Strangely, there was no overlap between these periods, and my crushes on girls were consistently strong whereas my crushes on boys are consistently weak. Perhaps it should now be clear why I prefer a concept of sexual preference as "a weird constellation of individual differences" over "a single variable on a nominal scale". (I mean "nominal scale" in the sense of [1].)

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Level_of_measurement#Nominal_scale


Oh. Okay.
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#029 | Jacehan |
I wasn't assuming all the media referred to was pornography, though I did assume a large chunk was.
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#030 | AlmightyNecron |
Out of curiosity, what else did you think I meant by "media"? In the sense of having to do with sexual orientation, what is there other than pornography?

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Meh
#031 | Jacehan |
Pretty much any kind of media. The type of media has nothing to do with the subject.
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#032 | willis5225 |
So you figured he was watching RuPaul's Drag Race and a Buffy marathon?
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#033 | Jacehan |
It's certainly a possibility.
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