*headbashes on table*
Okay:
1) Before continuing, please make sure you are able to understand proper usage of terms and profiles. Failure to do this is why the vast majority of threads like these is filled with useless crap. Some terms are best used precisely, others should only be used precisely. Like I like to say...dictionaries are a wonderful thing!
Notes:
a) We still haven't defined 'g@y' or 'homosexual', and I don't think we will here- it's too large a topic to cover. I may have mentioned Kinsey earlier in this thread, when talking about sexuality being best explained by a 'spectrum'. More to the point, Kinsey conveniently defined (for the sake of his survey) sexuality based on actual reported behaviors, but as Asherlee pointed out recently, this appears incomplete in the scope of the discussion. Keep this in mind- you would do well to try to clarify what 'g@y' means to you when expressing your views.
b) Overdone generalisations are a behaviorist's worst nightmare, because they are so frequently made, and so thoughtlessly made. If I see one more "only" and "always" here without a really good reason then...well, I guess I can't really do very much about it except chuck a tanty on my side of the computer screen :P
Pretty please, don't do it! There's evidence and there's numbers, just as there are definitions; pay attention to them. For example: Moe mentions pedophiles because dirkpitt went on some tangent about g@y men "going after little boys" (that's even worse, you're mixing stereotypes now!) I'd like to point out an inconsistency: when a layperson talks about pedophiles, their phrasing and thoughts are tempered by the recent public sensationalism, and they will tend to equate pedophilia with the behavior. However, from a) we don't do this with homosexuality because we are aware that of the greater cultural facets, and we take this into account.
Given that we can argue that both homosexuality and pedophilia (and any number of other terms describing modes of sexual attraction/gratification) are currently defined simply as predispositions (usually strong or overriding, again get a copy of the psych manuals), the scope of both go beyond the simple "if you're this, then you go after little boys" and vice-versa. This is why terms like "recidivism" in the criminal justice system exist.
c) Terms like "hardwired" and "instinct" are sneaky weasel words because they have been so ingrained into the world of moral discussion. Instinct, in particular, is a bit of a relic in a day and age where the context of its terms, i.e. the perspective that differentiates animals from humans in an artificial (anthropocentric) sense greater than our mere taxonomical differences, is no longer favored. That is to say, the term in its common sense is now outdated.
Thus every time I see the word "instinct", therefore, I have the urge to ask "what do you mean by instinct?" "Instinct as opposed to what?" In this thread, we seem to differentiate instinct from "behavior", implying that by "behavior" we mean "human behavior", pertaining to the scope of sophisticated human cultural development. But as I've said elsewhere, this too needs to be clarified because it is not apparent that other species also have varying forms of "behaviors" and societies that we can recognise.
So in conclusion to 1), suggested reading: If the DSM-IV is too heavy/esoteric a read for you, then try the Merck Manual, the psychiatric section (particularly the one on sexual behaviors, for this thread). It's up to the 18th edition, but the 17th edition is still adequate for our purposes.
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2) Now for the interesting bit. g_dawg's post interests me specifically because "redisposed" is highlighted in bold. So let's break it down:
a) Guppies are obviously not humans, and so the discussion of their behavior is of limited import in terms of drawing parallels with human behaviors...but for the purposes of defining how we discuss behavior, it can be very useful!
b) In this case, one could say that the behavior is "hardwired" in the sense that it is necessary for continued survival of a species- obviously, where sexual reproduction is a condition of survival of a species (and the sex of any individual is fixed, which, in certain species, it is most certainly not!)
c) This however doesn't seem to have any reflection on a moral debate, however, because in the case of humans, while we currently require heterosexual intercourse for the purposes of propagating the human races, we've already covered the fact that accepting homosexual behaviors (or predispositions, if you will), won't threaten this.
We need to be aware of our context and the way it has affected our thinking on how sex is related to relationship and behavior models. I know it's a hackneyed example but the Ancient Greeks had quite a different model- heterosexual intercourse within the bounds of marriage was a duty, not something sacred, and categorically for the purpose of procreation, not so necessarily the consummation within a sanctimonious bond. On the other hand, g@y sex was pretty much de rigeur.
d) What would you say to the suggestion that while we live in a world where we generally suppress our 'instincts', we are still influenced by them? By this I mean that for the most part people are hardly critical enough of our own behaviors, not least because we are not at the stage where we even understand them on our own terms. We merely tend to take our own autonomy for granted because this is what we were 'hardwired' to do.
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Right, this post took me far too long to write. READ IT ALL...just kidding. If you TL;DR it, I'll understand, but I'll try to direct your enquiries to the relevant parts, if they're covered here.
