Stossel: the myth being gay is a choice & can be cured (clip from audiobook)

[Sandman33]

Beating homosexuals up seemed to cure homosexuality in the 50's 60's and 70's. You just gotta beat the gay out of em I guess. That's been the only effective treatment so far.

I mean back then the gay population was like 2% Now they say it's close to 10% The rise in homosexuality is clearly due to the lack of decent beatdown treatment. But I don't agree with that either. I mean one in ten people are NOT gay. I think they are just inflating the numbers on purpose to make their lobby and agenda look larger and more important.

Now here's the REAL question. I'm not promoting assaut on homosexuals but I wonder if back when people were gay and society didn't put up with it...did the fear of a beatdown for being gay ever make them straight?

I'm SURE that there are some adolescents that are on the sexuality fence...teetering towards hetero or homo and can't quite decide....is todays openly gay commuity pushing some kids toward that side?

 

[yongrel]

Homosexuality, like heterosexuality, is not a choice. Behavior is a choice. Many homophobes and cave-dwellers like to conflate those two concepts to arrive at the conclusion, "You can choose not to be gay! Ex-gay is ok!"

What this position is advocating is for individuals to live their entire lives conforming to an arbitrary social norm in opposition to their own fundamental biological mechanisms. When social conservatives preach "self-control" for homosexuals, what they actual want is authority and power for themselves. Social conservatives in their many ideologies and incarnations, like all other groups opposed to liberty, merely want petty control over those around them.

The social conservative position is absolutely antithetical to liberty, as evidenced both by posts in this thread and the cornucopia of bizarre literature flooding America. The extreme example above of advocating beatdowns to "scare straight" individuals who do not conform to some majority's worldview is not terribly different from the more mild form of stigmatization and castigation proposed by many.

Control freaks, the lot of them,

Also, John Stossel is the man.

 

[Mini-Me]

Beating homosexuals up seemed to cure homosexuality in the 50's 60's and 70's. You just gotta beat the gay out of em I guess. That's been the only effective treatment so far.

I mean back then the gay population was like 2% Now they say it's close to 10% The rise in homosexuality is clearly due to the lack of decent beatdown treatment. But I don't agree with that either. I mean one in ten people are NOT gay. I think they are just inflating the numbers on purpose to make their lobby and agenda look larger and more important.

Now here's the REAL question. I'm not promoting assaut on homosexuals but I wonder if back when people were gay and society didn't put up with it...did the fear of a beatdown for being gay ever make them straight?

I'm SURE that there are some adolescents that are on the sexuality fence...teetering towards hetero or homo and can't quite decide....is todays openly gay commuity pushing some kids toward that side?

The more gay guys out there, the better...because that means less competition for me!

 

[emazur]

For those saying who insist homosexuality is a choice, you are basically saying that YOU could be gay. Do you get erections when seeing handsome, young men? Get a woody out of playing close contact male sports like basketball or football? If not, admit that homosexuality is not a choice. If so, admit that you are bisexual.

 

[Sandman33]

The more gay guys out there, the better...because that means less competition for me!

When you're this awesome you don't have any competition And it's exactly that attitude (without being cocky or smug) that attracts women.

 

[Sandman33]

Homosexuality, like heterosexuality, is not a choice. Behavior is a choice. Many homophobes and cave-dwellers like to conflate those two concepts to arrive at the conclusion, "You can choose not to be gay! Ex-gay is ok!"

Cave dwellers huh? That's funny because just a few years ago homo's had to run off to cave to fuck eachother. Because "society" didn't put up with it.

Now that you're crawling out of the cave and society isn't beating you back into it you want to call SOCIETY cavemen.

 

[TurtleBurger]

Let's get this out of the way: What is your opinion of homosexuality?

My opinion is that people with same-sex attraction that want to leave the homosexual lifestyle should be encouraged and not condemned.

 

[PaulaGem]

Actually, human sexuality like most traits is a bell curve. At either end are those who are absolutley hetero or homo and there is a small percentage of these. As you progress to the middle the tendency to either decreases. In the middle you theoretically have those who could go either way, but social pressure predisposes them to be hetero (survival of the species and all that).

If you are somewhere near the middle you might experiment if you were in a social group that encouraged experimentation. This is happening more often now as the push to have children is not as important in society now.

Another thing that happens is that early childhood abuse by a parent or trusted elder could push someone who is biologically neutral one way or the other simply because intimacy with someone who is the same sex as the abuser is not possible.

Many women who are abused by men commoditze their bodies and will have relations with men for profit but reserve psychologically intimate relations for women.

You find a similar pattern with all traits, including vulnerability to drug abuse. At one end of the spectrum are those who are suceptible to addiction and once addicted find it almost impossible to quit, at the other end those who can abuse drugs and resist addiction. In the middle those who can become addicted but have a reasonable chance of working through it and getting out of it.

That is why it is so important not to judge your fellow man, you really don't know if he's in that extreme percentage that means a behavior is very much biologically controlled.

By the way, that 10% figure comes up frequently - that makes me wonder if there is some validity to using it as a marker for extremes in trait definition.

 

[Mini-Me]

Actually, human sexuality like most traits is a bell curve. At either end are those who are absolutley hetero or homo and there is a small percentage of these. As you progress to the middle the tendency to either decreases. In the middle you theoretically have those who could go either way, but social pressure predisposes them to be hetero (survival of the species and all that).

I've always kind of wondered if this was the case. Is it just your personal guess, or have you found research indicating this? There's certainly a much lower stigma attached to girls experimenting with each other than guys, but I always wondered why so many girls felt so compelled to in the first place. This might help explain that, if it's true.

 

[PaulaGem]

I've always kind of wondered if this was the case. Is it just your personal guess, or have you found research indicating this? There's certainly a much lower stigma attached to girls experimenting with each other than guys, but I always wondered why so many girls felt so compelled to in the first place. This might help explain that, if it's true.

The bell curve goes back to the Kinsey report. As far as abuse conditioning sexual expression, it's common sense, it's part of the scientific literature, and it has been confirmed personally by talking to people and listening to their stories.

 

[Mini-Me]

The bell curve goes back to the Kinsey report. As far as abuse conditioning sexual expression, it's common sense, it's part of the scientific literature, and it has been confirmed personally by talking to people and listening to their stories.

Yeah, I knew the part about the abuse...I was just asking about the bell curve part that I quoted. Thanks though, I'll have to check out the Kinsey report.