Gayness: Nature or Nurture?

[SekoETC]

Science is cool. I'm surprised this discussion has managed to remain civil after the primary shock. You would imagine a subject like this be ready to explode like a powder keg.

[Phalynx]

I hope that's because, despite our differing views, we are all sensible people who think about things...

[Dee]

Thank yoy for sticking up for me, Phalynx!

[Phalynx]

Well in principle I share your views but years of moral relativism and working in PC environments has enabled me to crtically question things and be a little more indirect.

AIDS was never a gay plague, despite the right wing press's view, but it hit gay men hard because birth control, particularly condoms simply wasn't an issue for them and thus they simply wasn't the same level of protection...

Over time this has balanced a little. I don't accept the idea that gay men are more promiscuous either, another generalisation based on stereotype!

[Nixit]

Well in principle I share your views but years of moral relativism and working in PC environments has enabled me to crtically question things and be a little more indirect.

AIDS was never a gay plague, despite the right wing press's view, but it hit gay men hard because birth control, particularly condoms simply wasn't an issue for them and thus they simply wasn't the same level of protection...

Over time this has balanced a little. I don't accept the idea that gay men are more promiscuous either, another generalisation based on stereotype!

It mostly just spread fast because of those bathhouses that they had way back.

[Schme]

Anybody who thinks being gay is caused is ignorant. Nothing more to it.

[Phalynx]

Ignorance is Bliss!

[Schme]

No, power and wealth is bliss. And knowledge is power. Some of it, anyway.

[west]

My father believes that homosexuality is in part caused by a lack of a father figure or an inadequate one growing up. So he hopes none of us turn out gay, because it would mean (in his mind) that he was a bad father--an ever-present worry in someone who works as hard to support his family as he does.

It's eerily self-defeating, but again, he hasn't had much contact with gay men and subscribes rather heavily to the conservative movement.

[Schme]

Well, that's rather unfortunate, although I can see how one would come to the conclusion. Were it not for my father and other patriarchial figures I grew up with, I'd probably be a pretty big wuss(that is to say, if they left it up to my mother), and for some reason gay men are usually equated with being a wuss, and vice versa, I suppose because women are traditionally not as aggressive and violent as men.

If one doesn't really look into it much, it's naturally what one would come up with.

And what I mean by wuss is a man who isn't very assertive and is reluctant to righteously use violence when he's been wronged (Or even when he hasn't been.).

I'm not saying people who aren't violent aren't any good, or aren't men or anything, but I'm saying men are usually expected to act in such a manner as I discribed.

[SekoETC]

My ex bf is quite a sissy, (not gay though) and he's grown pretty much without a father. His parents were divorsed when he was a kid, then her mom had another man for a while but they split up too, and now she's alone.

[saztronic]

Plus, there's a pretty huge and thriving gay subculture that is all about bodybuilding. Walk around the Chelsea neighborhood in New York City, for example, and you'll see far more ripped, muscle-bound gay men than you will slight, effeminate ones.

I think it stems from two things -- first, these men are explicitly reacting against the "wuss" stereotype. Second, when AIDS was running rampant through the gay community in the late '80's and early '90's, there was this effort to look as healthy and robust and powerful as possible -- i.e., if you look that good you must not be HIV+

The hysteria over AIDS has lessened considerably, but the gyms remain.

[Schme]

Plus, there's a pretty huge and thriving gay subculture that is all about bodybuilding. Walk around the Chelsea neighborhood in New York City, for example, and you'll see far more ripped, muscle-bound gay men than you will slight, effeminate ones.

Yes, that's very true.

It's just that many people perceive gay men as men who want to be women, which is not the case, and therefore equate effeminate men with being gay, and being a gay with being effeminate.

But the fact of the matter is that gay men are still men. Men like to be strong and masculine and so on, and gay men also like masculine men.

But for some reason everybody thinks gay men are to end up being some kind of pansy.

[Phalynx]

Men like to be strong and masculine and so on,

Speak for yourself Ducky!

[Schme]

Ducky?

Most men like to be masculine, I should think. From my experience anyways.