Talk:Causes of sexual orientation (archive)

Isn't this entire dicussion (below) about the main entry itself? This isn't a off-topic debate; it is a discussion about what text we should write in the main entry. Why was it moved out of the "Talk" section? RK

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The following statement in the main entry is very wrong, and needs to be changed. This is largely because heterosexuality was considered the norm and homosexuality an aberration, although this view has been contested and weakened by the results of the research. Heterosexuality is most certainly the norm; there isn't a sane scientist in the world who disputes this. If it were not, the our species would face a demographic disaster that could end in extinction. Being liberal on homosexuality (as I am) does not mean rewriting basic facts about the nature of reality. Homosexuality is an abnormality, and science is begining to uncover the basic causes of it. That does not mean that homosexual people are evil, nor perverted, not "sick". It does not justify hating or murdering homosexuals. It means, in point of fact, nothing beyond the biological facts in of themselves. We don't need to rewrite nature to be tolerant and accepting of people with different sexual orientations. RK

Consider: albinos are certainly abnormal...yet this doesn't imply that they are perverts, or need to be "cured". It just calls a spade, a spade; it just discusses the biological facts. I get the idea that some people think that if something occurs in nature, then it is "normal". If so, then this is a definition of the world "normal" that I was previously unaware of. Having six fingers naturally occurs. Is this also normal? Of course not. It is an exception to the normal rule; i.e. an abnormality. Not evil, not sinful, not sick...but technically abnormal. Having five fingers is the norm. Does that make me overyly judgemental?RK

Just because the majority of a species has a trait, that doesn't make what the minority have to be "abnormal". If most people have a certain eye color, does that make the other eye colors "abnormal"? The fact that the species needs heterosexuality in order to survive doesn't necessarily imply that homosexuality doesn't serve some evolutionary or other purpose.

I agree that people with blue eyes are not abnormal. But color blindness is abnormal. You are mixing up the types of variations that exist by an order of magnitude! Having longer fingers than other people isn't really all that abnormal. But having six fingers is abnormal. RK

So some kinds of human diversity are normal, and others abnormal. Under that reasoning, one could argue that a person without any sexuality whatsoever would be akin to a person having color blindness. You are making an assumption that homosexuality falls into the category of "abnormal" variations rather than "normal" human variation. What are your criteria for this distinction? You haven't stated what they are.

I would strongly argue in favor of this article making no assumptions whatsoever about what is "normal" or "abnormal", but instead should address the question of what causes humans to have any particular sexuality, be it homo- or hetero- or bi- or whatever. It should make no assumptions about any type of sexuality being the default.

I disagree for the reasons stated above. Such arguments are politically driven, not scientifically driven. I think this is an example of political-correctness.RK

Nonsense, and this is a classic example of why the term "political correctness" is such an offensive term and should not be used in discourse, since its purpose is simply to discredit and smear the other person rather than address the issues at hand. You are assuming a political agenda behind my statements without any basis for that charge.

A friend of mine was born with some fingers missing from one hand. I consider that hand "abnormal". But I don't consider his hand "sinful". I just think he'd rather have all five fingers. Ed Poor

Wow, you think that's something - I actually know some people who use their left hands rather than their right for doing many things. I don't think they'd rather have been born right-hand-dominant rather than left-hand-dominant, but I think sometimes they wish the right-hand-dominant majority wouldn't gratutously assume their convenience and happiness is of lesser importance.

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Completely aside from the association between "abnormal" and "perverted" or "sinful" -- an important issue that the article must acknowledge, but still one that we can bracket for a moment -- I think that in order to have a meaningful discussion on this topic we need to distinguish between three uses of "norm" and "normal."

First is the statistical norm, or average. I think everyone would agree that in this sense heterosexuality is normal in US society, although (given that most American do not often think of "normal" instatistical terms, or that they identify statistical norms with moral norms, to say this without a lot of qualification is inflammatory and very vulnerable to misinterpretation).

Second is the moral norm, by which I do not mean what a minority of people consider write or wrong, but rather what the social consensus is (so if you prefer you can call this a social norm). I mean what almost every one would consider ideal behavior, behavior that society should encourage and value, even if a lot of people do not match this ideal. I think most people would agree that there was a time in the United States when heterosexuality was the social norm, and that today there are still communities where homosexuality is the social norm, but that in the past thirty years the United States has developed a more pluralistic attitude towards sexuality, based on the notion that sexuality is private and that sexual discrimination in public places is wrong, and as a result it is increasingly difficult to identify anything (including heterosexuality) as a social norm in this country. (But because statistically most Americans are heterosexual, there is still a general presumption that people are heterosexual).

The third use of "normal" is biological; it is based on a notion of what a healthy genetic human should be like. But this kind of "normal" is really hard to talk about because people often rely on the first kind as evidence, or use this kind to legitimize the second kind. In other words, although (or perhaps because it is) austensibly scientific it is very prone to politicization. In any event, I think there is genuine dispute among scientists as to whether heterosexuality is normal in this sense. One of Kinsey's inferences, and one shared my many anthropologists from the 30s on, is that for whatever reasons (genetic or social) it is normal for a minority of people to be homosexuality and normal for a majority to be heterosexual, in the same sense that it is normal for most human beings to have dark hare and normal for some human beings to have blond hair. Unlike color-blindness, being gay or straight does not involve any kind of organic disfunction or deficit. But I think this view (which was based on statistical observations) is still actively debated. One reason is that the whole notion of sexual orientation has been parsed a good deal. For example, what may ge genetic are certain biases to be sexually by aroused not by "men" or "women" but by something more discrete (a specific image or odor or something) that it generally associated with one sex but may be associated with some members of the other sex. But the main point I think is that one can be "naturally" gay without in anyway being sick or disabled i.e. being gay (well, or being strtaight) cannot be compared to colorblindness or sickle-cell anemia or diabetes (type I). SR

See also : Causes of sexual orientation