Talk:Homosexuality (mainstream view)

There are numerous issues with this article. For example, the introduction says:

“ The number of people who identify as gay or lesbian and the proportion of people who have same-sex sexual experiences are difficult for researchers to estimate reliably for a variety of reasons, including many gay or lesbian people not openly identifying as such due to homophobia and heterosexist discrimination. ”

Firstly, it is conflating a homosexual sexual orientation with same-sex sexual experiences. It is conceivable that some fraction of teens might engage in same-sex sexual horse-play before engaging in life-time opposite-sex sexual relationships.

Secondly, there are strong theoretical reasons related to selection for asserting that the number of gay or lesbian people in any population is low; a same sex sexual orientation has such an enormous impact on reproductive success that selection would ensure that genes opposing same-sex behavior arose and propagated through the population.

Thirdly, we have good data that suggests that the number of gays and lesbians is on the order of 1-2% of the population.

Finally, it is well known that a large proportion of young people are highly suggestible and that 'fads' sweep through many countries quickly. Indeed, at times in the past young males have been persuaded to be mutilated in significant ways: Skoptsy.

The latest edit is a step in the right direction. However, we need to rewrite this article, I think. --Crew (talk) 16:03, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Further discussion

@Crew

1. it is conflating a homosexual sexual orientation with same-sex sexual experiences.

• A person can be celibate while still being heterosexual/gay.
• Same-sex sexual experience can have multiple motivations:
  • standard experience based on sexual orientation.
  • as horse-play.
  • for payment (prostitution or performance).

Yes, you are correct. Human behavior is very flexible. It seems that we need to distinguish between obligate homosexuality and facultative homosexuality. Those individuals who engage in exclusively same-sex sexual behavior would seem to be obligate homosexuals and an explanation for that behavior would seem needed.

2. a same sex sexual orientation has such an enormous impact on reproductive success that selection would ensure that genes opposing same-sex behavior arose and propagated through the population.

This is a reasonable argument based on evolution/genetics. But it does not account for changes influenced by the environment during the developmental stage. Sexual orientation could be crystallized during early years or around puberty rather than at birth. I don't believe that it is purely genetics at work.

Yes, humans can engage in behavior that is contrary to their reproductive interests, either because they are forced or hedonistically. These things are also complicated by differences in male and female behavioral repertoires as I will suggest below.

3. gays and lesbians is on the order of 1-2% of the population.

Depends on cultural acceptance. I strongly suspect environment has as much (if not more) influence on sexual orientation as genetics. So, the percentages may be that low in societies where homosexuality is not acceptable, and much more in those that do.

That leads to an observation I have. In times past it was more acceptable for parents to coerce their homosexual children into adopting heterosexual practices than it is today, and indeed, the reproductive costs for females can be lower because they can be coerced into having sex that results in pregnancy. Selection could have operated on parental behavior to improve the reproductive success of individuals who do coerce their children. Indeed, even today in some cultures children do not choose who they will marry or whether they will marry.

4. However, we need to rewrite this article, I think.

Perhaps. My main criticism is that it is too long. Certain sections could be moved into their own articles.

Whitebeard (talk) 20:53, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

I agree that it is too long and it focuses far too much on the notions of 'homosexual' rights. I like the additions that Ovid has made that broaden the material to reactions to homosexual behavior by more cultures.

Other issues

I note that there seems to be a bit of stealth citing going on as well, for example:

Opposition to homosexuality in China originates in the medieval Tang Dynasty (618–907), attributed to the rising influence of Christian and Islamic values, but did not become fully established until the Westernization efforts of the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China.

The second reference is to a book about same-sex relations in China from 1900-1950 and when you check into it it seems to refer to a single novel from circa 1650, Silent Operas(http://www/zonaeuropa.com/20050222_1.htm), with one one story of a homosexual nature. There are several issues with this. Authors of novels are not generally good guides of general culture and at that time it is likely that the ability to read was limited and this novel might have only be destined for the upper classes.

I know what you mean by stealth citing. I have seen it in the articles that claim Chinese priority for the discovery of Gunpowder. You come across a reference to a high school history book (Asian History I recall) so you get the book to check the reference. You find it has one or two sentences on the subject that refer to a foot note. The foot note refers to an article on JStore. You get the article from JStore and find that fanciful claims are being made on the basis of a demon carved in a cave in China in the late 1100s holding an object that resembles the Milemete gun (http://www.academia.edu/12138631/The_Milemete_Guns) that Historians are so interested in, but which is likely an artist's depiction of something he was told and actually looks very unlike the real thing. I call it Cargo cult citing. (Moreover, the objects being held by the demons in the JStore article are likely fire pots not canon and bombs.)

In any event, why not cite the more primary material rather than something in the introduction to a book not even dealing with that era.

To be honest, nearly all of the articles and categories on homosexuality, transsexuality, etc are horribly written, and need a big overhaul. There's been a pretty obvious design in the original articles to try to intermingle left-wing "gender identity politics" and new contrived "sexual identities" like "pansexual", "genderqueer" without much if any medical or scientific relevence, into the articles and categories relating to homosexuality and trans. I'm planning on working on some massive-rewriting to keep the articles simply on the topic of the sexual identities themselves, with all of the "identity politics" and "LGBT community" stuff moved into entirely separate articles.--Tears of Ovid (talk) 19:23, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

This would be good. You might mention the research about masculinizing female brains and info from CAH (congenital adrenal hyperplasia) for example, being one source of potential 'gender dysphoria' issues. Here I think it is impossible to escape the term 'gender' even though I think it is primarily a grammatical concept. It would seem to apply to individuals who are genetically XX but who have CAH and have masculinized brains, for example. Anyway, go ahead. Anything would seem to be an improvement over the current articles.

Biological issues

There can be little doubt that the two sexes (ignoring the small number of CAH females and intersex individuals) have very different behavior. Eleanor MacCoby detailed some of it in The Two Sexes: Growing apart and coming together (or something like that.)

She documents that in children it is boys who police the separation of the sexes when they can. It should also be clear that boys spend a long time developing same-sex groups and bonding in large groups of males. Then when puberty hits they have to start changing their behavior and start getting involved with girls. Some, especially Cochran, have suggested that homosexuality in humans is largely caused by a 'pathogen' that somehow interrupts the normal developmental pathways. In the past I thought that one way in which male homosexuality might develop is by disrupting/destroying the areas of the brain that recognize acceptable sexual partners (and there is intriguing evidence from sheep, but humans are more complex than sheep) but another possibility is that something (possibly a pathogen) disrupts the transition from exclusively seeking male interaction to also needing interaction with females.

Now, this should be presented as only one of the arguments, but the older brother argument and the argument that homosexual males help their brothers/sisters is very weak ...

Then of course, we get into the issues of: If it is caused by a pathogen, should we develop a vaccine. Here you pit the interests of parents against the interests of their potentially homosexual offspring and we start to re-enact the arguments around the deaf community and rubella.

There are other issues here as well:

1. Male homosexuals are likely to experience more medical problems than Lesbians. These are likely to be both proctological and related to STDs. It seems that syphilis is making a comeback among the gay male community.
2. Heterosexual communities can experience problems as well, some more than others. For example, sub-Saharan African women seem to have problems because of male behavior and desires.

These issues should not be glossed over.

My main concern

My main concern here, however, is a higher quality article.