I have a question for any homosexuals out there: when you look in the mirror, are you attracted towards yourself? I do not mean this in any sort of derogative way, but I am curious as to this. Please do not take this the wrong way, as I am not against homosexuals in any way.
Mega: yeah, while it may not have been a blatant attack, it was certainly misinformed. Hence my post.
Mammon: that's an amusing, thought provoking question, but I would say this is about as applicable to the general population as saying that a heterosexual male could be attracted to his sister, for example.
That is to say there are a great deal many factors that influence the way one behaves, fantasises and perceives themselves (including sexually). I'm pretty sure that there are people who are both homosexual and are narcissistic (sexually attracted to themselves), but that there are also people who are heterosexual and narcissistic, and homosexual and not narcissistic. Even if one was homosexual and narcissistic, though, it is possible that their narcissism is not actually related to their homosexuality- but at this point psychoanalysis isn't useful.
For example, I am not actually homosexual (my sexuality is far more nebulous and complicated than that), but when I look in the mirror I rate myself pretty highly (I'm not particularly modest, eh). But exactly how would one define "attracted to yourself"? If I were to consider the possibility of "having sexual relations with myself"...well, I couldn't do that. It's just not something I'd want to consider- so whether or not I'm attracted to myself is, in this case, not particularly related to my orientation.
Others I know are not attracted to themselves because they have low self-esteem or poor body image.
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Funnily enough I've seen a few examples in popular media (Retarded Animal Babies, Futurama, a few more that I probably shouldn't mention to protect innocent minds :P), where the paradoxical event of meeting your self crops up, and x-rated things transpire with said self- and almost invariably there's a homosexual subtext in it.
But it's always expressed as attracted to self -> g@y, and not the other way around.
I suppose so Strop, you seem to know your stuff. I was just curious as to that question. When I look in the mirror, I am not attracted to myself because I do not feel that way about men, only women. But if a homosexual man is attracted to men, and he sees himself naked in a mirror... again, just something I wondered about.
I wonder if anyone would find themselves attractive. As Strop said, there are different factors for what humans find sexually attractive. One such that is subconscious is the ability to procreate and have healthy offspring. This is why people are most often attracted to those opposite of them, there is more diversity in the genes and therefore a larger possibility of a healthy child. This would also explain why most people would not be attracted to their brother or sister, other than the social stigma that we should not be. Since one would not be able to mate with oneself, then scientifically speaking, one generally would not be attracted sexually to oneself.
There are many proposed 'mechanisms' that have the effect of modulating one's behaviors with regard to attractiveness (note that I said effect, not purpose- this is very important :P) Some of them are indeed the kind proposed by DragonMistress- which are prevalent simply because they seem to work fine...but doesn't mean that's all there has to be.
Preamble aside, let's get offtopic!
...there is more diversity in the genes and therefore a larger possibility of a healthy child
Strangely enough, while the popular wisdom goes "opposites attract", the popular wisdom also goes "birds of a feather flock together". Which is which? In short, it's really both!
There are a number of factors in determining a partner which fall under the theory of 'assortative mating'- generally these follow the latter wisdom. Without some kinds of common ground, there appears to be no incentive to partnering.
But there are some very important cases in which opposites (or at least differences) attract. You can thank your sense of smell for this one: it's one of the biggest identified mechanisms for mate-selection. Simply put, generally speaking the greater a immunological similarity you have in your genes, the more offputting you're likely to find somebody's scent- this encourages people to select people with different immune setups which in turn encourages diversity, which is healthier from an immune perspective. Furthermore, certain recessive alleles are best kept that way as they tend to make things go horribly wrong when expressed, which is why procreation within the family carries an increased risk of congenital defects.
(Side note: the Romans supported a bit of family lovin' now and then in order to 'strengthen the noble bloodlines', so not surprisingly, there were quite a few reports of birth defects. Similarly, the 'inbred Tasmanian' jokes have a sting of truth to them- because the population is remote, small, and originally an offshoot of relatively few colonial settling families, there's also a high incidence of consanguineous disorders there!)
More recently it's been suggested that this kind of mechanism relates to people of differing orientations in different ways! For example, homosexual males are much more likely to respond to olfactory stimuli of other homosexual males than any other group, whereas heterosexual males would do so for heterosexual females, etc. etc.
This kind of research is in its nascent stages, but the message emerging is still clear: different people work in different ways, and we couldn't reasonably expect them to be otherwise.