I also think that 46% percent of men having sexual attraction to other men
> is nonsense. Maybe if by "sexual attraction" is meant "the idea occasional
> pops into one's head that Bob is pretty good-looking," which is not the same
> thing as "wanting to get all sweaty with Bob."
Okay, but your research has involved... what, exactly? I hope you don't think I'm being rude, but your strategy for making your case appears to consist of making oracular statements. Perhaps there is there an element of this being biographical - ie, you don't want to get all sweaty with Bob (or take him up the aisle), but you can see why others might? It just doesn't look like you've researched beyond your own predilections.
Re, the child-fancying business, I suppose one distinction I haven't really made is between pre-pubescent and adolescent children. The cultural output I referred to (schoolgirls, Lolita, etc) as a rule encourages fantasies about adolescents, whereas the traditional definition of paedophilia (maybe not a very helpful one, but anyway) has referred to desire for pre-pubescent children. The latter, I would guess, is far less common. Maybe that goes some way to reconciling our divergent perceptions of the matter. I do still think, though, that there is a bigger problem than you are willing to admit, and that this is tied up with a proprietorial conception that still lingers about children (the outraged parents in the UK who demand the right to smack their children is an obvious instance of this) as well as a fear and loathing of them (evidenced by the hysterical garbage about 'feral children' and the assumed need to discipline kids with a healthy dose of patriarchical violence).
SA writes:
"But the Old Testament says for a man to lie with a man is an abomination, so it seems these hygiene doctrines were in fact very old ideas from human history dressed up in modern garb, rather than really owing their existence to modern imperialism and such. No?"
Sure, there are plenty of examples of pre-modern aversion to homosexual activity. The Romans, for example, disapproved of sodomy. But these were not medicalised as they are today, and the idea of treating homosexuality as a biological illness, as an 'unnatural' *physical and mental condition* rather than just a behaviour that may be disapproved of, is a very modern idea. Moreover, the Christian/monotheistic disapproval of homosexual *behaviour* was a spiritual one not tied up with biological conceptions or with the idea of a coherent (albeit supposedly perverse) homosexual identity. This is an important difference.
(Apologies for exceeding my posting limit. I will retire to meditate on Bob's sweaty orifices).