responses to Miles
Arash:
>But it is a puzzle if there is a negative effect on reproductive success,
>as there would appear to be for a trait that leads to near-exclusive
>homosexual behavior. Perhaps individual with this trait also ended up
Miles:
>>Why assume "near exclusive homosexual behavior"? What we see in most
>>primates and mammals are opportunistic homosexual encounters, not a stable
>>homosexual "orientation" in a small percentage of the species.
I didn't assume it, it's been observed. I can get back to you with a research paper that cites this, but for right now it's noted in this Boston Globe article about biological research and homosexuality, "gay men are estimated to produce 80 percent fewer offspring than straight men" http://www.boston.com/news/globe/magazine/articles/2005/08/14/what_makes_peo ple_gay?mode=PF
Arash:
>> I don't think my point here precludes people having occasional sexual
>> encounters outside what their sexual orientation biases them toward.
>> What I think remains stable over a lifetime is our sexual attraction,
that
>> feature of puberty where physical arousal becomes associated with the
>> opposite sex if straight or with the same sex if gay.
Miles:
>This claim isn't supported by data. The "stability" of sexual
>orientation is a product of a society that creates and normalizes stable
>sexual categories. Do a little historical and cross cultural research:
>this idea that a stable sexual attraction that emerges at puberty is not
>universal! You're falsely projecting the characteristics of the society
>you're familiar with onto human nature.
First, I stated this claim too rigidly, I don't think it's as simple as your physical arousal having a switch for one position if you're gay and another if you're straight. There is likely a lot of diversity in what arouses someone but my statement as a broad abstraction may still have meaning. I've never noticed a shift in my own arousal being associated with the opposite sex even when I've actively tried to challenge my sexual orientation. The process itself of acquiring this arousal was such an involuntary feature of puberty I have a hard time believing it was primarily the result of personal effort or social conditioning. There is no reason to assume that my personal experience implies universality in the types of orientations, that's only a guess, but I don't see any reason to believe that the stability of my sexual orientation is caused by social conventions. You seem rather certain though that it is, any research you can recommend that settles the issue, I'd be happy to look it up.