| JREF Homepage | Swift Blog | Events Calendar | $1 Million Paranormal Challenge | The Amaz!ng Meeting | Useful Links | Support Us |
![]() |
|
|
|
|||||||
| Notices |
| Welcome to the JREF Forum, where we discuss skepticism, critical thinking, the paranormal and science in a friendly but lively way. You are currently viewing the forum as a guest, which means you are missing out on discussing matters that are of interest to you. Please consider registering so you can gain full use of the forum features and interact with other Members. Registration is simple, fast and free! Click here to register today. |
|
|
#42 |
|
Banned
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Queens
Posts: 34,947
|
teenage party. two hot girls make out. the boys AND girls cheer!!!
two boys make out? they will be lucky if they get out alive. |
|
|
|
|
#43 |
|
Illuminator
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Tennessee. Ain't you jealous?
Posts: 4,410
|
http://law.findlaw.com/state-laws/abortion/tennessee/
Quote:
I still think it had more to do with being the "in" thing to do, though. This was in the Bible belt, and I think it had more to do with rebelling against religious sexual oppression. |
|
|
|
|
#44 |
|
Guest
Join Date: Dec 2007
Posts: 8,238
|
You mean serial couple bonding presumably? Because even when the social penalties are very strong monogamy does not seem to be as prevalent as the narrative would like to suggest. And polygamy is hardly a possibility without capital: do you have examples of that in hunter gatherer societies? How does it work?
|
|
|
|
|
#45 |
|
Scholar
Join Date: Sep 2009
Posts: 81
|
Does anyone know the % of homosexuality in humans? I have heard 10% but this seems way too high I think it is spin. I would guess more like 1 out of 40.
Wiki says about 1.5% http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_perce..._is_homosexual Based on a 2000 census |
|
|
|
|
#46 |
|
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Jun 2003
Posts: 26,189
|
It wouldn't, and that's not my point. Rather, my point is that from an evolutionary perspective, genetics are still relevant. It may be that there is currently no (or little) variability in the genes which dictate the response to environmental stimuli, but that need not be the case forever.
|
|
__________________
"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law |
|
|
|
|
|
#47 |
|
Banned
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Queens
Posts: 34,947
|
|
|
|
|
|
#48 |
|
Guest
Join Date: Dec 2007
Posts: 8,238
|
http://gaylife.about.com/od/comingout/a/population.htm
http://www.gallup.com/poll/6961/what...ation-gay.aspx It is not really clear because there are so many confounders. Estimates vary a lot |
|
|
|
|
#49 |
|
Graduate Poster
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Washington state, USA
Posts: 1,402
|
Barrymore,
There are two reasons, I think, why homosexuals are not selected out through evolution. One, homosexuality is a side effect of some other helpful gene. Homosexuality has been around through all of recorded history and is seen in many other species, so it is not an odd aberration. It is something that happens often in nature, so must not be detrimental to the species. Option two, which I prefer, is that it is actually helpful for a community to have non childbearing people who help raise the children of others. This would also apply to heterosexual people who have no drive to have children of their own. Even if I have no children of my own, much of my genes will be passed on through my sisters children, and my helping her to raise her children and make their lives better could be a better help than having even more children of my own. On another unrelated note, this is the same reason why the 'idiocracy analogy' is bs. Even if all people of above average intelligence had children 0% of the time, it would still be greatly beneficial to the parents and siblings of the intelligent person to have them around, ensuring that the genes, though dormant in all breeders, would stay in the gene pool. This would lead to the intelligent people becoming a 'working class' that did not breed, and the rest being the breeders. |
|
__________________
"Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain."- Friedrich von Schiller "I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature." - Thomas Jefferson "Let all your troubles go, cling to the joy of living..." - Heavenly |
|
|
|
|
|
#50 |
|
Philosopher
Join Date: Aug 2001
Posts: 9,869
|
|
|
__________________
|
|
|
|
|
|
#51 |
|
Guest
Join Date: Mar 2008
Posts: 7,173
|
That was Kinsey's original estimate, based on the 10% gay/10% perfectly straight, rest in the middle.
Actual studies of actual people tend to peg it a bit differently, but Kinsey didn't believe in unchanging sexuality anyway, so everyone repeating that 10% has been an idiot from the word go (that being said, mostly gay interest groups were responsible for it - you can't blame the 'Family Values' coalition for ALL the bad science (just most of it). |
|
|
|
|
#52 |
|
Appearance of intelligence
Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: Vancouver
Posts: 3,176
|
Originally Posted by barrymore
Homosexuals aren't in any danger of dying out due to evolution. If all the homosexuals were struck down by lightning today, more would be born to heterosexual parents tomorrow. |
|
|
|
|
#53 |
|
Appearance of intelligence
Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: Vancouver
Posts: 3,176
|
|
|
|
|
|
#54 |
|
Appearance of intelligence
Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: Vancouver
Posts: 3,176
|
Clearly, I don't get out enough.
Certainly I've noticed an increase in het women making out on MTV "reality" programming, but I figured they were specially selected from a small subset of under-educated celeb-obsessed famewhores who don't come anywhere close to representing the average American. And don't be fooled. There are plenty of het women who enjoy some hot man-on-man action.
|
|
|
|
|
#55 |
|
Observer of Phenomena
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: The other side of your screen
Posts: 42,990
|
My anecdotal experience suggests, as others have mentioned, that female bisexuality is way more socially acceptable today. For a demonstration, look at porn sites. Sites designed for heterosexual males always contain lesbian porn. They do not routinely contain male homosexual porn. For that you usually have to go to specific sites.
Um, not that I'd know, or anything. Anyway. I believe that I could say that I personally know more bi or lesbian women than I know bi or gay men. But it would be a close count. It seems to me that it's far more socially acceptible these days for a young woman's first sexual experiences to be with other women. I know several young women who were sexually active with girlfriends before they got boyfriends. I can't say the same thing about young men, although that might be just because they don't talk about it or engage in PDAs as much as women do. And I may have been sheltered when I was in school - actually, let's face it, I was pretty sheltered when I was in school - but I didn't see much sexual activity going on at all. They must have been moderately discreet about it, that's all I can say. Myself? I'm bi. I just haven't met the right man yet. |
|
__________________
Jadey (in RvB game thread): I just want to take a moment to commend Arth on his role as Parasitic Alien Tumor. I think he really connected with the character and there were times when I forgot that he was just acting. That's the kind of talent that you can't teach. |
|
|
|
|
|
#56 |
|
Critical Thinker
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Oz
Posts: 364
|
In my experience women are generally better than men at discriminating between 'touching that is going to lead to sex' and 'touching for another purpose'. So it may be a further leap than you perceive.
On a related topic, I once had an argument with a rather Literal Believer about lesbianism in the Bible. I asserted that lesbianism is not condemned in the Bible (Romans 1: 26 might be read by some to condemn lesbianism, but there is a good argument otherwise, that it is actually referring to 'unnatural' heterosexual practices; I'll leave it to your imaginations) Anyway, the said Literal Believer then put forward an argument along the lines of lesbianism not being a recognised cultural phenomenon of the time, so the Bible didn't need to mention it. So I surmised from this that it was the Literal Believer's opinion that some truths in the Bible were culturally relative and from there put forward the idea that perhaps the whole Bible 'thing' against homosexuality was one of those culturally relative sections. He went back to arguing about Romans 1: 26. Actually if you look in some translations of the Bible (the New Living Version for example), the translation of Romans 1: 26 has been made explicitly anti-lesbian. It is worth looking up, to see a blatant attempt to close what I affectionately call the LLL (Literal Lesbian Loophole). Anyway, I digress somewhat... |
|
|
|
|
#57 |
|
Illuminator
Join Date: Mar 2008
Posts: 4,176
|
|
|
__________________
Gamemaster: "A horde of rotting zombies is shambling toward you. The sign over the door says 'Accounting'" |
|
|
|
|
|
#58 |
|
Orthogonal Vector
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Tarrytown, NY
Posts: 26,424
|
I remember reading Turnbulls recounting his life with the Mbuti and I think one of the men lived slightly seperate and had several wives. The Yanomami do practice polygygny but you could argue if they are hunter gatherers or not. But really I can't say if there is enough evidence if you can say one way or the other. We really have no idea how people lived 50,000 years ago.
You also get complicated issues of if there is a surplus of women in such a culture it is not unreasonable for them to share a husband for support. It seems that monogamy is a relatively common ideal, if it is not often lived up to in practice. Then of course there are issues of male vs female fidelity |
|
__________________
Sufficiently advanced Woo is indistinguishable from Parody "There shall be no *poofing* in science" Paul C. Anagnostopoulos Force ***** on reasons back" Ben Franklin |
|
|
|
|
|
#59 |
|
Orthogonal Vector
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Tarrytown, NY
Posts: 26,424
|
The 10% comes from Kinsey and is broadly known to be a result of his poor sampleing methods.(well I am not sure he tried to get a statistical sample of the population at large).
So 10% of Kinseys male participants were gay, the commonly accepted numbers I hear are 3-5% for men, lower for women. It is not unreasonable to think that there might well be different causes and effects of what defines the sexuality of each. |
|
__________________
Sufficiently advanced Woo is indistinguishable from Parody "There shall be no *poofing* in science" Paul C. Anagnostopoulos Force ***** on reasons back" Ben Franklin |
|
|
|
|
|
#60 |
|
Orthogonal Vector
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Tarrytown, NY
Posts: 26,424
|
This assumes that genetics plays a strong role in homosexuality. It could be an uncommon expression of having a strong sex drive. There are many things that are not genetic but just random things that hit people.
The fallacy is that if it is not a choice it must be genetic. People and biology are much more complicated than that. |
|
__________________
Sufficiently advanced Woo is indistinguishable from Parody "There shall be no *poofing* in science" Paul C. Anagnostopoulos Force ***** on reasons back" Ben Franklin |
|
|
|
|
|
#61 |
|
Philosopher
Join Date: Aug 2003
Location: Bierland. I mean , germany.
Posts: 7,750
|
The only OVERT homosexuality I saw in High School was female homosexuality. The reason for that was simple : male homosexual would have been 1) shunned 2) beaten 3) driven out by the roving gang. sad ? Yes. Female were left alone by those gangs. I later learned in university that at least 1 guy in my HS (lycée) class was homo.
That alone is enough for me to hint that male homosexuality might be more wide spread that thought in HS. Me I was too occupied trying to get my hand in some cleavage or underskirt action to pay attention to that. But never ever in my time I have heard, learned, or got told that anybody I ever knew was bisexual. Homo lesbian yes, but never bi. |
|
__________________
Omnes Blessant Ultima necat "I want, and this is my last and most dear wish, I want that the last of the king be strangled with the guts of the last priest" (Jean Meslier / 1664-1729 / Testament) A very early french atheist, a catholic priest in life. |
|
|
|
|
|
#62 |
|
Illuminator
Join Date: Mar 2008
Posts: 4,176
|
|
|
__________________
Gamemaster: "A horde of rotting zombies is shambling toward you. The sign over the door says 'Accounting'" |
|
|
|
|
|
#63 |
|
Philosopher
Join Date: Aug 2001
Posts: 9,869
|
double post
|
|
__________________
|
|
|
|
|
|
#64 |
|
Philosopher
Join Date: Aug 2001
Posts: 9,869
|
|
|
__________________
|
|
|
|
|
|
#65 |
|
Illuminator
Join Date: Mar 2008
Posts: 4,176
|
|
|
__________________
Gamemaster: "A horde of rotting zombies is shambling toward you. The sign over the door says 'Accounting'" |
|
|
|
|
|
#66 |
|
Decoy
Moderator
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: A magical land full of pink fluffy sheeps and bunnies
Posts: 16,580
|
The whole argument about homosexuality not being genetic because it should have evolved away is just stupid. There are plenty of genetic conditions that are extremely detrimental to survival, let alone reproduction, yet they still exist today. Given that, how could it possibly be obvious that homosexuality should have gone extinct, when all it has going against it is the potential for a lower chance of reproducing?
For example - Tay-Sachs disease. Almost always fatal long before reproduction is possible. Still exists today. In comparison - Homosexuality. Not fatal, and not known to cause any health related problems at all. May result in less chance of reproducing, but still very much possible to do so. Still exists today. The former is known to be caused by a single gene. Clearly it hasn't evolved away. So why would homosexuality, given that it will obviously have much less evolutionary pressure against it? Note that I'm not claiming homosexuality must be entirely, or even partially, genetic. Merely that evolution is not a valid argument against it being genetic. I certainly wouldn't know anything about that either, but I have heard similar things from, er, friends. I think it raises an interesting question about how much taboo things like porn have influenced culture. The reason lesbians appear a lot in porn but not gay men so much is simple really - men look at porn more than women, most men are straight, straight men like looking at girls rather than boys, therefore porn is more likely to show women, whether alone or in groups, than men. The question is then if lesbian and bisexual women being more common in porn than gay and bi men is part of the reason for them being generally seen as more acceptable in society. Could it simply be that gay women are more familiar, while gay men tend to be something only other gay men see? |
|
__________________
I am not a little teapot. |
|
|
|
|
|
#68 |
|
Philosopher
Join Date: Mar 2009
Posts: 9,840
|
Fiona already addressed this, but just to add some detail:
The history of humanity and the life of hunter-gatherer tribes is not a happy post-scarcity industrial economy. Over-population, over-hunting and just plain bad seasons produced severe hunger more often than you'd think. We can actually determine stuff like that by, say, checking the tooth ennamel in fossils, and some grew up severely malnourished. What I'm getting at is that they never had the resources to enact your kind of scenario; you know, one where only about a third of the population (i.e., about 2/3 of the males) actually works, a third of the males guard the women, and the women lounge around in the teepee. Anyone who tried something like that, would starve into oblivion. Where a division of labour exists, men go hunting, while women and children go gathering. And btw, there are no males playing escort fighters for them. If she meets a tiger, she'll have to somehow avoid it on her own. Note however that the male tactics would be largely the same, though. They'd hunt animals that don't fight back, while avoiding the predators. A lone hunter has nothing to gain from trying to bravely wrestle a tiger with his flint knife, like in Rahan comics. The brute force, natural weapons and killer bite instinct would favour the cat every single time. Even if you somehow won, even superficial wounds can infect and kill you in an age before antibiotics and sterilized bandages, and it doesn't take many scratches before just blood loss would disable you. Essentially the males had to do the exact same as the females: try to avoid the predators. And you can see this in the reduced sexual dimorphism in humans. The evolution towards Homo Sapiens was marked by a fast reduction in size difference between men and women, and men lost any natural weapons of their ape ancestors. The roles really were that similar, and there just wasn't a need for big strong men protecting helpless women. The role of the helpless female who needs a big strong guy to protect her is a rather modern invention, and was mostly confined to the upper classes until very recently. A same sex lesbian couple, if their tribe sticks that strictly to division of labour rules, would however be seriously advantaged at gathering, while the same-sex male couple would have the food problem. But in reality the roles weren't that strictly separated. Men went gathering too, if all else failed. And the notion of a female hunter is a lot more feasible than you seem to assume. For a start a lot of hunting happened with traps or such. I believe that a woman would be just as good at catching rabbits as any man. Second, the bows of primitive tribes were not exactly the monster-pull yew longbows of the hundred year war. It took humanity ages to even discover a grip other than holding the arrow between index finger and thumb and pulling, which limits the maximum pull rather drastically. As late as Ancient Rome times, they preferred Cretan archers because those were one of the very few people which perfected a better way to pull the string (in that case, think: index and middle finger pulling directly at the string, with the arrow between them), which allowed them to use much higher pull bows for increased range and penetration. But at any rate, your average hunter-gatherer bows are inherently limited to such a low pull that really a woman _can_ do it. Mind you, most did prefer to send the males hunting, but there is no reason why a woman couldn't if she had to. But even bows and arrows are a very late invention. More primitive ways involved spears and basically all it took was a good aim and, if you'll pardon the crass expression, balls. You have to make some animal (e.g., a boar but it could be even mammoth sized with enough of a group) charge at you, and you'd prop the spear's end firmly in the ground and try to aim the tip so the incoming animal impales itself on it. If you aimed wrong, well, congrats, you just earned your trip to the happy hunting grounds Your own strength played exactly zero role in the actual hunting.While I'm not sure about Homo Sapiens, we have plenty of evidence from the Neanderthals that their women hunted perfectly well like that. In fact, apparently everyone did. Other ways of hunting involved basically more wits than strength or anything. For example see the buffalo skips used by the North American indians. They basically just scared a herd of buffaloes into stampeding off a cliff. |
|
|
|
|
#69 |
|
Crone of War
Join Date: Feb 2006
Posts: 6,873
|
|
|
|
|
|
#70 |
|
Illuminator
Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: Bellingham, WA
Posts: 4,037
|
Right, because all gay men engage in anal, and no one but gay men engage in anal. Ever.
The level of callous ignorance in this thread is sickening. You do realize that people from the groups you are making assumptions about frequent these forums and read these threads right? |
|
|
|
|
#72 |
|
Graduate Poster
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 1,937
|
|
|
|
|
|
#73 |
|
Illuminator
Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: Bellingham, WA
Posts: 4,037
|
|
|
|
|
|
#74 |
|
Illuminator
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Posts: 3,652
|
Here are some studies about people around that age group:
Quote:
I think that people who are mostly heterosexual and mostly homosexual could arguably be factored into the bisexual category for this, without forgetting their preferences, for the purposes of that. It doesn't say how many were specifically mostly homosexual and not completely homosexual, though. I also think that it is a big weakness that it doesn't have an "unsure" category. This one below doesn't have that problem.
Quote:
But it has the weakness of not looking as much at bisexuality (not giving percentages and separating completely heterosexual/homosexual from people along a spectrum), at least in the abstract. |
|
|
|
|
#75 |
|
Philosopher
Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: South Britain, near the middle
Posts: 9,553
|
My understanding of the point you were trying to make is that you believe anal sex is equally common for people of any sexual orientation.
Given that anal sex is more risky than vaginal sex with respect to HIV infection and homosexual men have a higher prevalence of HIV infection than heterosexual men, it would seem reasonable to assume a higher proportion of homosexual men engage in anal sex than heterosexual men or women. But to be blunt, a woman has 50% more orifices which can be used to stimulate and contain a penis compared to a man, therefore even if the selection of which of them to insert a penis into was random, it would be expected homosexual men would end up having anal sex significantly more often than heterosexual men or women. My original comment was in response to Cuddles closing remarks:
Originally Posted by Cuddles
|
|
__________________
My Blog. |
|
|
|
|
|
#76 |
|
Guest
Join Date: Mar 2008
Posts: 7,173
|
Ivor... just stop. You really have no clue, and there's a point where you should drop the shovel. You totally passed that about 2 posts ago.
|
|
|
|
|
#77 |
|
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Philadelphia, PA...USA
Posts: 14,482
|
A completely unscientific poll using a tiny sample size:
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.p...al+orientation |
|
__________________
If man came from dust, why is there still dust? |
|
|
|
|
|
#78 |
|
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: The White Zone
Posts: 42,268
|
I must reject the OP's theory due to lack of supporting evidence, to wit: Photos of hot chick on chick action.
|
|
__________________
If I see somebody with a gun on a plane? I'll kill him. |
|
|
|
|
|
#79 |
|
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Philadelphia, PA...USA
Posts: 14,482
|
|
|
__________________
If man came from dust, why is there still dust? |
|
|
|
|
|
#80 |
|
Banned
Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: Newbury, Berkshire
Posts: 10,242
|
|
|
|
![]() |
| Bookmarks |
| Thread Tools | |
|
|