Nature of Sexuality: Philosophy Forums

Calendar

Quick Links open

New Posts Member List

Help

Philosophy Forums » General Philosophy » Nature of Sexuality » Nature of Sexuality

Nature of Sexuality

Page: 1 2

Nature of Sexuality

BitterCrank
Student

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Mar 01, 2008
Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota
Total Topics: 1
Total Posts: 52

Posted 05/03/08 - 08:48 PM:	#26
What is the nature of the gay man's aversion to the female? Is it physical or psychological? In most cases there is no aversion to women, psychological or physical. There may be gay men (and some straight men) who really just dislike female sexuality, and you might call that an "aversion," but I don't think most gay men have either an aversion to, or fear of, female sexuality. What they have is indifference. The way Kensey described it, and its a good way of looking at it, is that behavior can be entirely oriented toward the same sex on one end of the continuum, and toward the opposite sex on the other end - with points of "somewhat" in between. Similarly, fantasy can be entirely oriented toward the same sex, the opposite sex, or various points in between. Exclusively gay men don't have an "aversion" to females, they have no sexual interest. Similarly, Exclusively heterosexual men have no sexual interest in other men, and they don't have an aversion to men. Their interest is entirely with the opposite sex. Kensey's scale: a man's attraction to men 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 women the gay end the straight end a man's fantasy about men 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 women the gay end the straight end So a totally gay man would be at zero in both cases, and a totally straight man would be at 6 in both cases. There are some gay men (and straight men) who are in the middle of the distribution - and have sex with both men and women. When gay men are being "campy" (which is an exaggerated way of talking and moving) they may speak AS IF they had an aversion to women. A gay man's campy representation of women isn't intended to be emulation, its just a sort of joke at the expense of women. Drag queens who dress up as women (and not just any old women) are again telling a sort of joke, at the expense of women. Its acting. It isn't an expression of a wish to be female. Drag queens in bed act pretty much like any gay man. Does that make sense? Bitter Crank Edited by BitterCrank on 05/03/08 - 09:10 PM
_____________________ If you can't fan the flames of discontent, at least don't join the fire department.

yiming
Student

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Apr 25, 2008
Total Topics: 0
Total Posts: 61

Posted 05/03/08 - 09:01 PM:	#27
Your explanation is clinically clear but it does not shed light on why the gay man is not turned on by the female. A human being when driven by hunger is hard-wired to gravitate towards food and eat it. What is driving the gay man away from and towards another source of gratification?

BitterCrank
Student

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Mar 01, 2008
Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota
Total Topics: 1
Total Posts: 52

Posted 05/03/08 - 09:37 PM:	#28
yiming wrote: Your explanation is clinically clear but it does not shed light on why the gay man is not turned on by the female. A human being when driven by hunger is hard-wired to gravitate towards food and eat it. What is driving the gay man away from and towards another source of gratification? Ah ha! That is the $64,000 question. What makes a woman attractive to a man is the way the pleasure/reward system in the brain works. In 96 cases out of 100, the male brain that is being assembled in the womb is primed (by hormones from the mother, probably) to develop in a certain way, and starting at puberty, when his own hormones start kicking in, to experience pleasure (of a sexual sort) when thinking about or being with females. The brain has a system which allows us to experience pleasure in all kinds of situations - its done with neurotransmitters. Some of what makes us feel good is learned (like we learn to love a certain band, and it makes us feel good to listen to them play). Some of what makes us feel good is hard wired by the way the brain is put together. We are wired to feel sexual pleasure, and hormones can tip the development towards heterosexuality (most of the time) or homosexuality (some of the time). Now, you don't have to believe this. Some people think it is all hard wiring, some people think it is all learning, some people think it is all hormones, and some people think it depends on what your horoscope says. To be 100% honest about it: there is no definitive answer at this time about why most men like women and some men like other men. The experience and testimony of both heterosexuals and homosexuals suggests that who we are going to find sexually attractive is decided either very early in childhood or before birth. The testimony is that so many men who were gay, for instance, found boys attractive before they were in first grade. Similar story for heterosexuals. Little boys who always liked little girls. If it is hard wired by genes or hormones, there is still a learning component involved. Which kind of woman a straight man will find most attractive, what kind of man a gay man will find most attractive probably is learned, at least in part. I don't know how, I've found that this isn't an area that has been researched a lot. (For instance, why do some men find redheads irresistible? Why do some men like a particular shape of the leg or breast on a woman?) Its hard to imagine how some of these preferences (red hair, upward tilted breasts, slim thighs) would add up to a survival advantage. What do you think?
_____________________ If you can't fan the flames of discontent, at least don't join the fire department.

yiming
Student

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Apr 25, 2008
Total Topics: 0
Total Posts: 61

Posted 05/04/08 - 08:41 PM:	#29
You know what, Bittercrank? The best way to inquire is to begin from ground zero and look at the issue without any presumptions or prejudgment. This thread is about sexual attraction and how deviations from heterosexuality is relevant to survival of the specie. The human animal is not as simple as other animals that are mainly biologically driven. Animals, I surmise, don't have a sense of self. Animal sexuality is basically physical. It all happens in the moment and once it is over, the animal goes about its business. Human sexuality is psychologically driven. And because that is so, anything goes in the name of recreational sex. And it has nothing to do with biology and evolution.

BitterCrank
Student

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Mar 01, 2008
Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota
Total Topics: 1
Total Posts: 52

Posted 05/04/08 - 10:50 PM:	#30
yiming wrote: You know what, Bittercrank? The best way to inquire is to begin from ground zero and look at the issue without any presumptions or prejudgment. This thread is about sexual attraction and how deviations from heterosexuality is relevant to survival of the specie. The human animal is not as simple as other animals that are mainly biologically driven. Animals, I surmise, don't have a sense of self. Animal sexuality is basically physical. It all happens in the moment and once it is over, the animal goes about its business. Human sexuality is psychologically driven. And because that is so, anything goes in the name of recreational sex. And it has nothing to do with biology and evolution. Well, yes, of course, indeed, certainly. But I don't know where ground zero is in a discussion about sexual behavior and/or the survival of our favorite, all-important, super-special species- WE. A totally irrelevant comment follows. [By the way, "specie" is not the singular of species in biological usage. Species is an English coinage (around 1610, give or take a few years). "Specie" as a singular is a "back formation" from species later in the 17th century and is a legal term. Specie is also a Latin term (not referring to taxonomy.) Species is both singular and plural as in: One species of the primates is talking about evolution; two species of primates are talking about evolution.] This totally irrelevant comment has now concluded. I have doubts about the sincerity of any member of our species who says he or she is speaking about evolution or sexuality without presumptions or prejudgement. However, this is just my hang-up and I am sure it has nothing to do with philosophy. But onward toward the truth. So here are some of my presumptions, prejudices, and prejudgements: #1. Animals in the class of creatures that are mainly biologically driven are not simple, and human beings are part of that class. Where would we be without our animal biology? #2. Most animals apparently don't have a sense of self in the way that humans have a sense of self. Animal brains function similarly, from one species to another. A dog brain, monkey brain, and human brain are all put together and work very similarly. #3. Animal sexuality is basically physical. Humans are animals, and a lot of human sexuality is basically physical. How much fun would sex be if it wasn't "animalistic and physical"? #4. Alas! Sometimes one has sex with someone else and it is over in a flash; and then its on to the next To Do list item: Getting the brakes fixed, or something. #5. Because humans are both physically and psychologically driven, the only perverse behavior is an impossible behavior. #5 not withstanding, most people are not prepared to try everything that is possible. #6. People argue about evolution AS IF they could observes the gears, levers, pistons, and wheels of biological selection going on in front of them as plain as day. Not the case. Evolution is a subtle process; we do not know the complete list of characteristics that helped us survive 100,000 years ago, and we don't know what characteristics are going to help us survive 500 years from now. We can not know too much about how our present reproductive actions are going to affect our survival in the future. So, Yiming, to make a long story short, I agree with you. I would be inclined to say that if you consider, say, five sexual fetishes (leather bondage sex, sex in semi-public places, sex with partners who are at least 20 years older than you are, sex with three women at one time, or sex while other people are watching) it would be impossible to describe any of them as an evolutionary advantage or disadvantage. But what matters most in evolution is whether one reproduces or not. It has been proven over and over again that people can do all sorts of kinky things, and STILL manage to reproduce. A significant number of gay men manage to reproduce in the usual way.
_____________________ If you can't fan the flames of discontent, at least don't join the fire department.

yiming
Student

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Apr 25, 2008
Total Topics: 0
Total Posts: 61

Posted 05/05/08 - 09:30 PM:	#31
Gay men reproduce in the usual way? What way is that? Do you mean that they have sex with women? I would think so. Sex is a biological process much like eating or breathing or sneezing. Fixation on sensual stimulation leads to exaggeration of the process resulting in morbidity. Your doubt about my sincerity in speaking about sexuality without prejudgment is not unreasonable. Chances are I am unconsciously biased and it is the aim of philosophy to unearth that crooked thinking to get at the truth. Let's do it. Human sexuality is by and large psychologically driven. As such, sexual innocence does not exist. Debauchery has taken place long before the virgin is physically deflowered. I find this sad. How am I doing so far?

SIR2U
Why

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Nov 17, 2006
Location: Honduras
Total Topics: 16
Total Posts: 697

Posted 05/06/08 - 06:47 PM:	#32
Human sexuality is by and large psychologically driven. If this were true then homosexuality would exist only in humans. What about the documented cases of homosexual behavior in other animals?
_____________________ Unknown Alanic wiseman. "Ignorance and bad teeth have at least one thing in common. Keeping your mouth closed makes them both less obvious"

The_Rational_Animal
Übermensch

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Mar 21, 2008
Location: München, Germany
Total Topics: 4
Total Posts: 137

Posted 05/06/08 - 07:49 PM:	#33
SIR2U wrote: If this were true then homosexuality would exist only in humans. What about the documented cases of homosexual behavior in other animals? I agree. I have trouble believing that homosexuality is a genetic trait because what is the evolutionary advantage of engaging in "fruitless" sexual activity? I hate to say it, and at the risk of getting flamed, but I see homosexuality as a biological defect of development, because enough physiological evidence exists to differentiate the gay from the straight. It is not immoral, so to speak, but it is something that should have some social stigma to it.
_____________________ "Whenever you think you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong." ~Ayn Rand

yiming
Student

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Apr 25, 2008
Total Topics: 0
Total Posts: 61

Posted 05/06/08 - 09:48 PM:	#34
Hey Rational Animal, fruitless sexual activity is the pre-occupation of heterosexuals too. Such activity is called recreational sex. As for same-sex fornication among animals, SIR2U, I question the conclusions drawn by the human observers whose motive is to validate homosexuality as a natural wholesome bent. If it is immoral for a man to seek "fruitless" sex with another man, I would think that it is also immoral to do it with a woman, a camel or a tree.

The_Rational_Animal
Übermensch

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Mar 21, 2008
Location: München, Germany
Total Topics: 4
Total Posts: 137

Posted 05/07/08 - 08:39 AM:	#35
yiming wrote: Hey Rational Animal, fruitless sexual activity is the pre-occupation of heterosexuals too. Such activity is called recreational sex. Well, I don't see heterosexual animals engaging in recreational sex. Recreational sex is a human phenomenon; sometimes, it leads to children even though that was not the intent. It suffices to say that homosexual sex, by definition, cannot lead to the ultimate purpose of sex, which is procreation.
_____________________ "Whenever you think you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong." ~Ayn Rand

SIR2U
Why

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Nov 17, 2006
Location: Honduras
Total Topics: 16
Total Posts: 697

Posted 05/07/08 - 06:50 PM:	#36
Rational Animal you wrote: As for same-sex fornication among animals, SIR2U, I question the conclusions drawn by the human observers whose motive is to validate homosexuality as a natural wholesome bent. Same gender sex amongst aminals is a fact. It can and has been be observed in many species. And I certainly doubt the the observers go out of there way to find these specific cases just to prove that being gay is natural in humans. In fact I believe that most of the discoveries of this type were a surprise to the observers. The fact that certain people use the facts to try to explain human behavior is something else, there is always the possibility of a mistaken conclussion when that is done. you wrote: I see homosexuality as a biological defect Biological or psychological? There is no real evidence of either being true. If there is such a thing as a gay gene then it would not be unnatural. If a gene mutates to cause homosexuality then it is as valid as any other mutation that thas happened in evolution and still natural. If it is a question of social influence or psychological corruption then it must also be natural to appear in so many different species and that does not make sense. you wrote: Well, I don't see heterosexual animals engaging in recreational sex. I am not sure, but I don't think that anyone has actually asked male gorilas or dogs why they have sex with other males. I have observed dogs doing it occassionally and they only reason for it that I can come up with is that they want to have sex and no females are available. Does that count as recreational sex? you wrote: Recreational sex is a human phenomenon; So if it is for fun, why can't it be done with someone you like? Why does there have to be a restriction on gender choice? you wrote: It suffices to say that homosexual sex, by definition, cannot lead to the ultimate purpose of sex, which is procreation. Who says that the purpose of sex is to make babies, maybe it was originally designed for fun and the reproductive function added later.
_____________________ Unknown Alanic wiseman. "Ignorance and bad teeth have at least one thing in common. Keeping your mouth closed makes them both less obvious"

Page: 1 2

You don't have permission to post.

Please login or register.