nature or nurture?

[Scarlett]

Is homosexuality determined at conception or throughout a pregnancy, or is it caused by social or external things after birth, such as an over-bearing mother?! I was having a very frustrating discussion about this at work yesterday!! What do you think?

[Skreecheeboy]

I think external factors are to blame. Don't think there's anything wrong with it though. Natural selection one might say.....

[Octavius]

It is quite alarming that anyone in the 21st C is still asking. It would appear from your post that homosexuality is deviates from the norm so therefore something must have 'caused' it.

The simple answer is nobody knows. Have you ever asked yourself what are the causes of heterosexuality?

[Joe_the_Lion]

Mr Octavius, the causes of hetrosexuality are clearly from the promotion of natural selection. "Genetic Group Survival" I believe was the term Darwin used.

Whilst I hold no prejudice against our colourful gay cousins, I would argue they are still deviating against the norm.

The norm is surely at least 51 percent of the population? The norm is surely having ten toes and two arms etc etc etc.

To answer your question Scarlett O'hara, the "gay gene" is formed for poofs in the female egg and for lezzas in the male sperm. That is why there is a confusion of sexuality and gender roles etc.

Take away the foul and quite fish smelling bull-dykes, like the ones who used to chain themsleves to Greenham Common fences, the majority of gays are fantastically conformist to law and work.

Perhaps they are Gods way to promote happiness. I do not know the derivation of the word GAY but it also means happy.

Ergo, the gay gene is assosciated with the happy gene.

And Gene Pitney is a sideline.

[dot.hawkes]

I think 'gay' is better than 'queer' which is what people would say a few decades ago and i always thought that was just wrong.

[Octavius]

JTL, I fear you misquote Darwin (wasn�t it survival of the fittest?). In any event if we take your �argument, then we could assume that all members of the population who produce homosexual offspring are also �unnatural� since their genetic makeup is creating an entity that deviates from the norm as you say.

Darwin's main conclusion, that species are descended from other species must mean therefore that all homosexuals in the world must have at one point also been related to you and I. So out of the 2 of us, which of us has the 51% normality to which you refer? I suspect it�s not me.

Natural selection is not about procreation, it is about adaptation and surviving in new environments. Those that didn�t have enough fur to keep warm expired and so on.

Evolved characteristics (adaptations) of organisms are determined by natural selection (survival of the fittest). How are humans perpetually producing offspring which are homosexual? If 49% of the population have survived regardless of your theory that they go against your version of Darwinism, and do not fit with your evolutionary cycle of genetic group survival, how is that so?

[missrandom]

not this again. I firmly believe it nature, born that way. i also believe the claims that the high level of female hormones in our water system (from womens urine that are on the pill). apparently there is a higher number of hymaphradites (sorry cant spell it) due to the same reason.

[missrandom]

joe you insinuate that gay people are not "normal" and the same for people that dont have the "normal" amount of fingers and toes. Its not abnormal just different to you. My daughter was born with a hip defect and had to wear a hip brace 24/7 for weeks, people looked at her in the same way you are talking, so is she not normal?! what is normal anyway, people are all different and its a good job too.

[Joe_the_Lion]

I believe "Survival of the Fittest" was infact a Herbert Spencer quote determining economic systems.

I refer to the part in The Origin of the Species that deal with group survival within the species, not the species as the whole. It has been a long time since I read it.

But surely your mention of natural selection, does in fact insure that gays do not breed. Ergo, they are abnormal.

I reiterate, nowt wrong with bendy boys, but they are not normal.

[Skreecheeboy]

I thought Joe explained normal very rationally, The norm is at least 51% of the population. Your daughter had an abnormal hip defect by the sounds of things ergo not normal. That's not to say that it is wrong though, she just had an abnormal hip. Joe is correct in saying that it isn't the norm for people to be gay, it's an abnormal sexual persuasion, not to say it is wrong however, just different from the norm.

[Octavius]

Are you therefore inferring that homosexuals are a sub-species?

[Joe_the_Lion]

Miss Random, it is your interpretation of the word normal.

Normal cars have four wheels. Therefore Robins are not normal cars. Most cars DO NOT have turbos. Infact the term for the vast majority of cars is NORMALLY aspirated.

I guess the tern abnormal can be used with derision, but I maintain that your niece is therefore not normal, but not in a negative way.

Are white witches normal??? No they bloody aint. Are 7 feet men normal?? Again no.

The way you put quotation marks around the word normal is perhaps what makes it a negative term. It is just my use of the word, for want of a better one, so I mean no offence.

Not normal is however better than saying "Odd"

[Joe_the_Lion]

Oct, I am not a socio-biologist, can you elaborate that question please?

[Octavius]

JTL I am not questioning your proclivites for homosexual men, or women.

Simply re-written: Would you say that homosexuality exists as a sub-species within the "normal" human species?

It is normal for a gay person to be gay. The ape is also part of our sub-divided species. Are they abnormal because they have full body hair, live in trees and can't talk -or are those characteristic ok and - ergo, normal?

[missrandom]

my daughter actually, but yes i take your point. its just all your other terminology is used in a derogitory way eg bendy boys, poofs, lezzas, fish smelling bull-dykes. so i therefore took abnormal as a derogitory terminology too.

[cazzz1975]

Its supposedly because the baby is exposed to larger amounts of hormones in the womb.if a girl is exposed to too much testosterone, or a boy is exposed to to much oestogen it can create "gay behaviour patterns" girls receiving too much oestrogen would make them more girly and vice versa.

[Joe_the_Lion]

I don't know where i got NIECE from!!!!! Sorry.

Oct, this is a tad outside my limited intellectual capacity. Is it "normal for a gay to be gay", is probably is the realms of philosophy, insofar as I think therefore I am, and existentialism.

What I would say, and feel free to correct me, is surely we are part of the ape sub-species, not the other way round as you state. Surely the evolutionary time scale is a pointer to which is sub or not???

But, to answer you, then yes. Gays are therefore a sub species. (I think, but whatever people say about me holding prejudice views, I hold no ill-will to chutney ferretes at all, I hope I have made that clear!!!)

[Joe_the_Lion]

cazzzzzzzz, that is sort of what I said in my first post, but you have explained it better.

[cazzz1975]

It was from a documentary about this very subject, that was the general view from scientists (obviously using bigger words and elaborating more)

[dot.hawkes]

so does that mean that that process in the womb, the exposurething, has always happened or has it in the past not happened because the environment/diet whatever, did not exist? are there more homosexual people now or do we just feel comfortable now and live in peace,?

[cazzz1975]

I think it has always been around dot, there is a lot of evidence (particularly in roman times) of homosexuality, I would imagine most of it was frowned upon and therefore people kept quiet.

Who would have thought rock hudson was gay back in the 1940's?