Talk:Homosexuality/Archive 7

This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

←

Archive 5

Military

"Others, such as the United States purge them from the force in the belief that they are a threat."

Purge is a bit of a loaded word. Reading that sentence, I might expect that link to go to some page detailing how the US military conducts widespread interrogations to ensure its military is 100% heterosexual, when in reality under DADT it is barred from doing so as long as the service member does not actively disclose his or her sexual orientation or lifestyle. This is far from the ideal situation of equal protection regardless of sexual orientation, but I think the sentence does a disservice to wikipedia's philosophy of NPOV.

Definition Dispute

Definitions of homosexuality and gender -

American Heritage Dictionary

Homosexuality - "1. Sexual orientation to persons of the same sex. 2. Sexual activity with another of the same sex."

Gender - "1. Grammar a. A grammatical category used in the classification of nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and, in some languages, verbs that may be arbitrary or based on characteristics such as sex or animacy and that determines agreement with or selection of modifiers, referents, or grammatical forms. b. One category of such a set. c. The classification of a word or grammatical form in such a category. d. The distinguishing form or forms used. 2. Sexual identity, especially in relation to society or culture. 3a. The condition of being female or male; sex. b. Females or males considered as a group: expressions used by one gender." and "usage is supported by the practice of many anthropologists, who reserve sex for reference to biological categories, while using gender to refer to social or cultural categories."

Merriam Webster Dictionary

Homosexuality - "1 : the quality or state of being homosexual 2 : erotic activity with another of the same sex"

Gender - "1 a : a subclass within a grammatical class (as noun, pronoun, adjective, or verb) of a language that is partly arbitrary but also partly based on distinguishable characteristics (as shape, social rank, manner of existence, or sex) and that determines agreement with and selection of other words or grammatical forms b : membership of a word or a grammatical form in such a subclass c : an inflectional form showing membership in such a subclass 2 a : SEX <the feminine gender> b : the behavioral, cultural, or psychological traits typically associated with one sex" Apollomelos 11:29, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Sigh! You just don't get it, do you? We made the WP so we can be at least as good as your average dictionary, and strive to be a lot better. The definitions you quoted are not exactly written in stone, in fact, if you'd check a few old editions, you would probably find other definitions. As for the question of sex and gender, there are tons of WP articles you might read and which I really, really advise you should not change just because a dictionary says something mildly different. sex, gender, and my I think quite exhaustive explanation of the problems associated with the term homosexuality in Homosexuality and transgender, and lots of stuff linking from there should make even you understand why your edit is not only POV, but simply inaccurate. Kindly stop being so trollish and become somebody who contributes information, instead of making one- or two word POV changes. Thank you very much. -- AlexR 12:20, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Insults aside the dictionaries are quite accurate. For example on the homosexuality and transgender article all of the situations with the discrepancies are intersex. A male is a person born with the organ to produce sperm - it does not matter if you cut it off at a later date or it does not function. Please explain how I am inaccurate. Apollomelos 12:28, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

What's the point of throwing in more dictionary definitions here - you are not going to convince anybody with that. And your definition of "male" is hardly the only one in existance, and I seriously doubt you can claim it is the only correct one. Also, by no means all the discrepancies I pointed out refered to intersex people alone. Besides, if you still do not understand where the problem with your definition is, I sincerely doubt you are even remotely interesting in finding out in the first place. Oh, and this is going RfC now - I can't be bored with somebody who's arguments consists of dictionary quotes, some of which you don't even to have seem to have read. -- AlexR 13:23, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

AlexR by all means I am not doing this to offend you rather to maintain the accuracy of this encyclopedia. Even throughout this dialogue when you have referred to me as a troll, homosexist, POV warrior, etc., I have refrained from insulting you. Do you have anything to support your assertions outside your opinion? Any dictionaries and so on? Apollomelos 20:10, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

American Heritage Dictionary

male - "1. A member of the sex that begets young by fertilizing ova. 2. A man or boy. 3. Botany A plant having only staminate flowers."

female - "1. A member of the sex that produces ova or bears young. 2. A woman or girl. 3. Botany A plant having only pistillate flowers."

intersexual - "1. Existing or occurring between the sexes: intersexual competition. 2. Biology Having both male and female characteristics, including in varying degrees reproductive organs, secondary sexual characteristics, and sexual behavior, as a result of an abnormality of the sex chromosomes or a hormonal imbalance during embryogenesis." Apollomelos 12:35, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Apollomelos: If you will look at Sexual differentiation, you should be able to see that "sex" can mean many different things—genetic sex, anatomical sex, hormonal sex, psychological sex, etc. For the purpose of the article on Homosexuality, the use of gender is a much clearer and unambiguous term to use than sex. (FYI: Becuase there has been an anonymous editor that keeps switching sex for gender in the Unisex names article, I wrote a longer explanation of the issues involved at Talk:Unisex name#Gender.) BlankVerse ∅ 14:32, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I completely disagree. This is an article on homosexuality - and rather scientific. Plus I have yet to see ANY mainstream major sources outside of personal Wiki opinions that hold that view. There is good reason for the dictionary definitions. Various cultures that have displayed homosexuality commonly modify the gender identity to break a taboo. Furthermore how would we apply a gender based definition to the Animal Kingdom? Thee most common definitions according to the dictionaries are that sex is scientific based and gender is a social identity - the only people where there would be a discrepancy are intersexuals – another scientific term. If you can cite evidence otherwise that is equally scientific I would change my opinion, until then I cannot. Apollomelos 20:10, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The bottom of this matter is when it all gets down to the basic defintions - a male being born with an organ that usually produces sperm - the only way you could not be displaying homosexuality if with another male would be you are intersexual. Gender is a social construction. We can mention it, but as to re-define the term - I oppose. Apollomelos 20:42, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Your alleged "scientific" definition is a) not even agreed upon by scientist, and b) I think I can safely say that Homosexuality and transgender covers quite sufficiently why all of the "scientific" arguments have lots of problems. And evidence has been presented sufficiently as well. -- AlexR 21:58, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Okay. "not even agreed upon by scientist" - is your opinion. Dictionaries state otherwise and last time I checked the dictionaries are the source of definitive meanings of words. "I can safely say that Homosexuality and transgender covers quite sufficiently" - give me an example using science and following the dictionary meanings. One that is based on science as homosexuality is NOT a social construction whereas "gender" is. I bet you cannot. Apollomelos 00:55, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

That is exactly where you get it wrong - there is not just the plain technical meaning of "homosexual" around, but also one that is based on identity. One is usually not orientated towards a certain set of genitals, and much less so on a set of chromosomes or sperms. As for the rest, obviously, it is not worth repeating myself again. Oh, and BTW, what is this latest edit of yours supposed to mean? It is rather ... odd. Well, already reverted, so it does not matter much. -- AlexR 03:18, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

My two cents: On the one hand, I think it could be argued that the definition is evolving right now rather than statically defined (as in a dictionary); on the other hand, I think it could be argued that the dictionary definition is the closest thing to a neutral version.

Well, actually it would be nice if it were, but that is not quite the case. Most dictionaries are often prescriptive, not descriptive. They record the "correct" usage, not the actual usage. And in anything relating to sex/gender (and probably other fields, too) they are not exactly quick to update any definitions; and that does include not updating to current scientific definitions, too (of which there may be more than one as well). Not to mention that a dictionary, almost by definition, has short definitions, while we have (or should have) the long and usually more complicated definitions. -- AlexR 13:01, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Give me one example of this justification regarding transgender people who are the scientific justification as on the transgender and homosexuality article that do not become intersexual by the end of the argument. You cannot. Transgender = social identity, intersexual = man and woman at the same time in a scientific sense. A transgender man who sleeps only with other men is scientifically homosexual not heterosexual just because his social identity is a woman. Apollomelos 21:25, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Well, actually, a transgender man (that would be a female-to-male person) who sleeps with other men is probably gay, but to what extend that can be called "homosexual" - well, that has been dealt with extensively, so what exacly makes you deny that? You obviously don't even know what you are talking about, and you sure don't mind being as insulting as possible in your choice of words, not to mention that all other people who have worked on this article in the past months disagree with you; so what makes you think you can convince anybody with your vague semblance of arguments? Just wondering ... -- AlexR 21:58, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Sorry for using the word transgender man incorrectly, but that still does not dismiss my assertions or the dictionaries. And everybody who worked on this article in the past does NOT agree with you simply because they omitted correcting the mistake, perhaps they did not notice. Plus I can see from transgender and homosexuality's talk page that users have disagreed with your own personal opinion of the usage of gender and sex stressing the defintive meanings be restored. Apollomelos 00:55, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Intro rewrite and terminology

Well, I'm not sure what the dispute above is about exactly. The article sex identifies ten different compentents of sex and gender, both biological and social. I certainly lapse into using "sex" and "gender" as synonyms, because repeating one of them over and over again just gets kind of boring. But certainly the scientific community seems to prefer "sex" to have biological connotations, and "gender" to have social connotations. Though when writing for the encyclopedia, it is probably important to be explicit whether we mean one in particular or both. When doing this, we must keep in mind that not all readers will know if we say "sex" we mean "biological sex" and if we say "gender", we mean "gender identity or role", or (Webster rolls in his grave) vice versa. In most cases, this article is really talking about both, and the messiness of the distinctions thereof is pushed out to other articles. In doing on work on the introduction, I've simply used both terms, which will hopefully alert people to the idea that there are at least two different things going on here. Well, that and the paragraph that points people to the articles describing the fuller complexities in detail.

In any case, in the process of rewriting demographics of sexual orientation on the basis of the various scientific studies, I found it useful to separate "sexual orientation" into three axes - orientation/preference/attraction/inclination, behavior, and self-identification - because these are what scientists use in practice to define the term. In common society and among LGBT people, you see different people using "homosexual" to mean any one of these three things (and often arguing over which one is the "right" definition).

If you actually try to use a popular dictionary to do detailed linguistic work, you will find that it is often incomplete. (Many of the definitions are also circular - e.g. males are men or boys, boys are young males, etc.)

Unless we are playing Scrabble or something, dictionary writers can't really be the final arbiters of what a word means or whether or not it exists; popular usage determines those things. When someone sits down to write a dictionary, they do a lot of research to find out how people are actually using various word. Unfortunately, dictionary writers tend to wait a long time for words to "stabilize" before they record them; they often prefer written usage to oral usage; they often prefer more "mainstream" sources and dialects which may tend to de-emphasize certain communities of usage (everything from slang in ethinic and sexual minorities to technical jargon); and they don't update their dictionaries very quickly. And if you actually try to use a popular dictionary to do detailed linguistic work, you will find that it is often incomplete. (Many of the definitions are also circular - e.g. males are men or boys, boys are young males, etc.) I'm not sure why that is exactly (other than the sheer magnitude of the problem of isolating so many different meanings loaded into the same word), but certainly when it comes to reading scholarly journals about homosexuality, the dictionary definitions are often too vague or otherwise inadequate.

Whether or not a particular usage is "correct" or not is also a matter of popular or personal opinion, and over time, popular consensus has changed about many such questions. And very, very, often, people disagree about what "correct" usage is - sometimes due to localized patterns, sometimes because the language is changing, and so on. Dictionaries are often used to settle these disputes, but the very same controversies happen in the process of writing the dictionary. Dictionaries which are useful to linguists will note multiple usage patterns, and will also note that some people consider one or more usages to be erroneous, offensive, etc. (If I remember correctly, The Language Instinct talks more about the controversies of proscriptive grammars and word usages, and about language change.)

The policies Wikipedia is not a dictionary and NPOV seem to imply that Wikipedia should not take a stand on which usages are "correct" and which are "incorrect", but for accuracy and completeness, we should note when some people think that a given usage is offensive, erroneous, etc.

I'm sure there are articles on Wikipedia (possibly including this one) which could use some improvements along these lines. -- Beland 04:29, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I guess you can consider all that babbling about dictionaries to be a semi-educational tangent-slash-rant; the citations above seem to show that there are multiple, contradictory "proper" usages, and that "correctness" can differ depending on the social context. (Which agrees with my own experience.) So once again, my general advice would be to explicitly disambiguate using more specific terms, for the benefit of our poor, confused readership. If this whole long dispute was just about the use of "sex" vs "gender" in the introduction, then as I've said above, we really mean both, because usually people - including scientists - when they talk about homosexuality are thinking about or are actually measuring people who have either male sex and gender, or female sex and gender, and don't really consider the fuller complexities, and anyway, we have some fine articles that go into that subject in great detail. So hopefully my dual use of both terms plus linkages to appropriate articles will suffice. -- Beland 04:51, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Yes, that's a lot better - thank you for your effort. As for the general problem with dictionaries etc, I 100% agree with you there. -- AlexR 13:01, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, thank you Beland you always do great work. I believe your new introduction is equitable. My main concern with the previous edition was the possibility of having a lot of relevant information removed. For example - negative attitudes with the scientific definition - Romans held negative attitudes only for the passive partner - certain cultures did the same thing, only the passive person was really "gay" - some culture are positive towards it as long as it does not threaten the masculine or feminine gender role - i.e. Hijras of India. And of course we will explain each case in the best possible manner to avoid any confusion. Apollomelos 20:17, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Biology Edit 04/04/2005

I believe you may misunderstand scientific studies and I am sure your edits are in good-faith. An experiment finds something not “claims”. Now if you can find another experiment refuting the previous one I welcome the additions, but you cannot place “claim”, that would suggest that they did not “find” anything. You also inserted “allegedly”, once again the results either find something or they do not. When writing about history it would seem admissible to use “claim” but with science the experiment finds something. Now the overall context may be disputed, i.e. if other studies have found refutations – but still the one study in itself can not be described by “claim”. “Some scientists have suggested that male homosexuality is an innate condition, though not necessarily inherited through the genes.” – this addition is just inaccurate. The majority of scientists believe it is innate and cannot be changed and I am not sure why we need that in the genetic section as it is made clear in the malleability area. This article’s genetic section deals with just that – so if it is not “necessarily inherited through genes” it does not belong there – it is off topic. However; again, if you can find a study that found otherwise feel free to add it to that section – but remember this study only found it in 20% of male homosexuals. Apollomelos 19:27, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

There is sometimes some room for use of the word 'claim' with respect to scientific studies, and that is usually when the study returns statistical data which is then interpreted - though in this case, it is the scientists, or the reviewers of the study, who make the claim, not the study itself. Additionally, studies are often done within a certain ideological framework that leads to an appropriate use of the word 'claim' with respect to the given results of the study. A good example would be the studies done with respect to the effects of pornography, where a very real claim is made, but that claim is justified only with respect to the very leading questions that are often asked. I'm fine with either, so long as 'claim' is used only with respect to interpretations of the results of the study, and 'find' only with respect to the actual statistical data gathered. To date, no study has found a biological cause for homosexuality, but many claims have been made with respect to the information gathered. -Seth Mahoney 19:47, Apr 4, 2005 (UTC)

I think that when most people say that something is "innate" they mean that is part of the genotype of an organism. When they say it is acquired they mean it is something that stands as a modification to what is at least potentially there in the genotype. To me, the above discussion is inadequate because the formation of a sexual identity (by that I mean the formation of all of the identifiable sexual traits) and the formation of a gender identity are both "nature and nurture" processes. As each layer of one's phenotype is laid down, something takes form that is difficult or impossible to change. There is no way to change the chromosomal sex (XX, XY, or whatever) once conception has occurred. All the cells that grow from the first cell are going to be like it chromosomally. But an XY individual doesn't have to be born with male genitalia because several things can go wrong in the womb to prevent the fetus from being masculinized. Even if the baby were surgically reassigned to being a male, it would be a "male" with no possibility of producing sperm cells. If, on the other hand, an XX fetus happened to be exposed to masculinizing hormones at the right time and ended up with an enlarged clitoris that was, in effect, a penis, that feature could be surgically changed. Brain structures, however, are totally beyond our ability to change in any constructive way. By the time we get down to things that might be changed, they are generally rather superficial things such as how somebody with a masculine gender identity learns to express his masculinity. (Guys can be reeducated and learn that it is o.k. to cry, for instance.) Or, to put it another way, by the time somebody gets born his or her sexual identity and the basis of his or her gender identity are at most subject to some kinds of learning experiences that may modify their expression somewhat. What is possible to the organism is mostly all there, and any changes are likely to be limitations of one kind or another that get imposed from the outside. What is most confusing in all of this, I suspect, is that humans are generally innately capable of a much wider range of sexual and other behavior than society permits them to experience without discomfort or even trauma. Most humans are probably capable of interacting sexually with many other "sex objects" than the one-item menu that most societies give them: member of the opposite sex. 金 (Kim) 03:52, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

A single experiment certainly does not reliably prove a fact, for encyclopedic purposes, even a study that is apparently well-constructed. Scientific peer review requires replication. In this case, there are conflicting studies using different methodology. Genetics and sexual orientation is collecting all of the science on this issue, and this paragraph actually belongs in an unwritted section of it, so I have moved it there to get things rolling. The paragraph is flawed; I will need citation to the original study (singular?). See discussion on Talk:Genetics and sexual orientation. -- Beland 05:40, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Homosexuality in animals

I proposed a rename of Homosexuality in animals to Sexuality in animals or Animal sexuality or something similar. The reasons are twofold:

This follows the convention being established by the renaming of many of the homosexuality-related articles.
The article covers a lot more than just homosexual-like behavior in animals.

There is a vote on the bottom of Talk:Homosexuality_in_animals. -Seth Mahoney 19:54, Apr 4, 2005 (UTC)

Suggestion re introduction

The introduction to this article is truely, truely awful. I suggest tearing it down and rewriting it. →Raul654 05:43, Apr 9, 2005 (UTC)

I agree that there are more elegant introductions on WP - however, check the "definition dispute" above to see why it looks that way. I can do without a repetition of this argument. -- AlexR 08:02, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

== There is a wide variety of sexual behavior in animal kingdom , and the high class animals are close to law class humans, so you can fine a similar phenomena between them . ==

I think some people will remind us that the polygamy is a well known phenomena in the animal kingdom, and that woman cant kill a man after intercourse just because the black spider and bees do that, we don’t have to inherit all from animal kingdom that man belong to, because the idea of evolution is to correct the behavior of the animal and turn it to a neuter .

The sexual preference is affected a lot by the ideological and psychological character of the person, people who like violence in doing sex, or dirty chat during it, men who prefer hairy pussy , women who prefer hairy men, women who prefer bearded men, women who prefer unbearded men , women who prefer men with long hair, or don’t like them and don’t attract to them at all, men who prefer women with short hair, I knew a man who was very straight said that he find long hair for a woman " disgusting " !

Sexual identity

Please note that there are two different concepts associated with the term "sexual identity". The first is male/female identity, which is what sexual identity covers. The second is self-identification with respect to orientation, e.g. "I am gay." This is the meaning used by the introduction, and this meaning is covered in a section on "sexual identity" in the article sexual orientation. This is certainly a confusing arrangement, and I would support making "sexual identity" a disambiguation page or other remedy. -- Beland 03:31, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Health Risk Revert 04/15/2005

Your additions are not fact; the percentages are skewed as there as never been a census on the number of homosexuals and does not even begin to take into account the widely accepted bisexuality reported by Kinsey. Furthermore even countries such as the Netherlands that do have such information have reported no major discrepancies between heterosexuals and homosexuals; in fact homosexuals had a lower divorce rate. It may be true that HIV transmission is easier during anal sex, but not all homosexuals have anal sex and many who do practice safe-sex. That information belongs in anal sex. I would appreciate it if you stop posting these “facts” from Christian hate sites. Apollomelos 21:30, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I very much agree - even if, for example, the thing about thyroid fever is correct, that is not a health risk of homosexuality, but of eating feces - something some straight people do as well, and most homosexual people do not. Similar statements could be made for most of those "statistics", but I guess it is pointless - people who compile such "statistics" are not exactly known for listening to arguments anyway. -- AlexR 00:58, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Does any point of view other than your own, stem only from “Christian hate sites”? Is it not possible for your view to be skewed as well? Why must you remove any point of view other than your own? -- Rgordey 23:58, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Rgordey. Look at every other wikipedia article that contains information about a potentionally hazardous behavior. There is a list of health risks/ safety section at the end of each article. See spud gun, motorcycle, rifle for quick examples. If you want to make a difference, add information about using condoms. 69.42.5.52 22:21, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Possible solution: Since the "health risks" aren't actually peculiar to homosexuality, add them to both homosexuality and heterosexuality (and maybe bisexuality as well). -Seth Mahoney 01:01, Apr 25, 2005 (UTC)

Good idea, though it bears mentioning which populations in each group are more at risk (such as truck drivers and teachers in Africa, homosexual men with partner lists in the three and four digits in the west, etc.) Haiduc 01:14, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Please don't encourage other users to do this. See Wikipedia:Don't disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point. We should welcome a "health risks" section here as long as it's done neutrally. Sloppily-cited lists copied from godhatesfags.com are unacceptable, of course. The "health risks" section we're discussing here is thinly-veiled Fred Phelps propaganda, much of it apparently made-up in the old coot's head. But I don't think it's POV to simply state that unprotected anal sex (both gay and straight) is a good way to get HIV, and gay health groups recommend safe sex. Rhobite 01:12, Apr 25, 2005 (UTC)

Hrm. I was joking. The fact is that there are no health risks associated with being gay, only with doing certain things. Notes on health risks, if they are pertinent to an encyclopedia at all, belong in the articles discussing specific acts. (Its also worth noting that this article discusses gay men and lesbians, making "health risks" even less pertinent.) -Seth Mahoney 02:52, Apr 25, 2005 (UTC)

Being an open member of the gay community for nearly 7 and a half years, I truely believe wikipedia is withholding valuable information from this article. It is imperative that young homosexuals know the facts to make the correct decisions about sex. The consequences can be (and often are) deadly. 69.42.5.52 02:05, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Health Risk Revert 04/17/2005

In addition to what has already been said above much of what you have listed would be more correctly defined as a health risk of promiscuity and unprotected sex. Sexual history is a much greater indicator of the listed health risks than sexual preference. -- CVaneg 01:54, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Also, the proposed "health risks" section is mostly copied from godhatesfags.com, and "fag" has simply been replaced with "homosexual". The citations are sloppy, or simply fabricated - I couldn't find the CDC / Associated Press article, for instance. Rhobite 21:03, Apr 19, 2005 (UTC)

Several of the bullet points in the "health risks" section referenced a mysterious "Dr. E. Fields". Well whaddya know, I tracked him down. What a respectable source, in addition to opposing homosexuals it turns out that Dr. Fields is dedicated to the survival of the White race. He belongs to nice groups such as National Vanguard, and denies the holocaust. What a cool guy! [1] [2] Rhobite 01:29, Apr 25, 2005 (UTC)

Sources: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) web site Slides from http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/graphics/trends.htm Page Titled: AIDS Surveillance - Trends

Just for the year 2003 there were approximately 50,000 newly diagnosed cases in the US of AIDS regardless of gender, sexual preference or transmission vector.

Just for the year 2003 there were approximately 25,000 newly diagnosed cases of AIDS attributed to Male/Male sexual contact.

That is approximately 50% of new cases of AIDS from an estimated 7% of the total nation’s population. (I have seen thousands of estimates of gay population both higher and lower. Seven percent seems to be the media’s guess. It should be less if we discount for lesbian women being part of the initial seven percent)

I have tried not to skew the facts however, if you still say “there is no risk for being gay” your just dancing with semantics. Why do adult black (Afro-American) men have a higher risk of heart disease than white (Anglo-Saxon) males? (Rhetorical) I have no idea, but they still do. That doesn’t make me a racist no more than observing that there IS a health risk for being gay. And I use the term ‘gay’ to mean the state-of-being, as in “I have been gay all my life.” and “I will live and die gay.”

The whole purpose of the ‘Homosexuality’ article is supposed to present the pertinent evidence in an unbiased fashion and let the reader determine for his- or herself the validity.

Rgordey 20:49, Apr 27, 2005 (UTC)

In that case, I'm not at all sure what you're saying. There are no health risks that are inherently a part of being gay, at least if you are referring to HIV/AIDS, because some gay people are lesbians, some gay men don't have sex, some gay men only have oral sex (which presents a much lower risk of HIV transmission than most other sex acts), and so on. They are all gay people. Further, that a certain group experiences on average a higher incidence of certain conditions does not mean that being in that group gives you a higher chance of developing that condition. If, for example, on average white men aged 20-30 had a higher incidence of heart attack brought on by poor diet, that doesn't mean that men aged 20-30 who eat healthy meals have a higher chance of having a heart attack. Being gay doesn't increase your risk of anything. Certain acts, which are not inherently connected to being gay or straight or anything else, sometimes do.

Further, based on the information you have provided, AIDS cases resulting from male-male sex are leveling off, whereas AIDS cases resulting from heterosexual contact, especially among adolescents, are going through the roof (one thing to note here, both in reference to gay and straight people, is that AIDS usually takes a while to develop after the initial infection, so this information is a few years older than it looks, if you're talking infection rates). Given that information, it would seem that not only is AIDS a health risk to everyone, but perpetuating the myth, whether by throwing out a skewed view of the "facts" or by stating it outright, that AIDS is a gay disease does a disservice to heterosexuals everywhere. -Seth Mahoney 19:47, Apr 27, 2005 (UTC)

I apologize; I'll try to be clearer. (If you will allow me to paraphrase) I am suggesting there are certain acts, which ARE inherently connected to being gay or straight. It is my understanding that the exceptions you site while completely valid are in the miniscule minority and don’t effect the conclusion I presented. I had assumed it’s given that when I referred to gay men in particular I meant gay and bisexual men who practice same-sex intercourse. I was trying to make a general observation. I am aware I was purposefully being inclusive partly because I am a lazy typist. I didn’t make any distinguishing observation between oral or anal sex because I didn’t have the supporting data. Again, I mean intercourse or sex to be a broad term as I didn’t have CDC data for different individual habits. I think the vast majority of people both gay and straight agree there are differences in being gay while at the same time acknowledge for the overwhelming majority of gay people, they “put into practice” there gayness; I was hoping my broad reference would have been clear.-Rgordey 22:20, Apr 27, 2005 (UTC)

Okay, in a nutshell, here's what I'm getting at:

1. Unprotected anal sex is the biggest culprit in transmitting HIV between men.

2. There are gay men who have sex, but don't have anal sex, and among those men who do the majority usually practice safer sex.

3. These men are all practicing homosexuals.

4. Therefore, having unprotected anal sex is not intrinsically a part of being a practicing homosexual.

5. Therefore, increased risk of HIV transmission is not intrinsically a part of being a practicing homosexual.

6. Therefore, any data you have collected regarding HIV transmission among gay men belongs, if anywhere, on the pages that discuss the specific acts, and not here.

-Seth Mahoney 21:19, Apr 27, 2005 (UTC)

I concur with Seth, risks of AIDS transmission would be more appropriate for anal sex (which already discusses it), safe sex (which touches on the topic briefly), and probably some other places. One context in which AIDS would be appropriate for this article would be how it has shaped the gay community and how it was initially percieved as a "Gay Plague". -- CVaneg 22:25, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Assertion: “Unprotected anal sex is the biggest culprit in transmitting HIV between men.” – While I do not have hard data to support this, I would tend to agree. The truth is I do not know. Please share your data sources.

This is just commonly accepted fact. HIV is transmitted through blood, semen, and vaginal fluids. It is only very rarely transmitted by oral sex, because there's no way for the virus in the semen, even if ingested, to get into the body. I'm sure the CDC has info if you want to look there.

Source: http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/pubs/faq/faq19.htm Dated: December 15, 2003 "Can I get HIV from oral sex? Yes, it is possible for either partner to become infected with HIV through performing or receiving oral sex." "...no one knows exactly what the degree of risk is..." -- Rgordey 17:04, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Right, you'll note I didn't deny that HIV can be transmitted via oral sex, so I don't know what you're hoping to prove. You might also want to note that if you go to the effort of going about proving that HIV is transmitted by all sex acts gay men engage in (I'm pretty sure its not), you've simultaneously proven that HIV is transmitted by all sex acts straight couples engage in (except straight couples have one additional act that transmits HIV), so you still haven't proven that there is some inherent health risk to being gay, just to being a sexually active human being. Which suggests that the appropriate place for any of this information is on the pages describing the specific acts themselves. Therefore, until you actually provide proof that being gay is inherently a health risk, any changes to the article to that effect will be reverted. There will be no further discussion on my part regarding this point. -Seth Mahoney 14:50, Apr 28, 2005 (UTC)

So then why does 7% of the nations population develope 50% of the nations's AIDS cases? If you'll notice, I have not made any changes at all to the article - ever. I had hoped someone else would. Why do you feel the need to threaten me with a revert? Do you own this article? - Rgordey@16:59 Apr 28 2005

I hadn't noticed, actually. I assumed that since you were participating so much in the discussion your changes had prompted it. My apologies. And no, I don't own the article, but that doesn't mean that I, or someone else, will not revert changes that amount to a fiction. Not a threat, just the way things are. -Seth Mahoney 03:17, Apr 29, 2005 (UTC)

Supposition “There are gay men who have sex, but don't have anal sex…” – Again I would tend to agree however I am not sure that this is a large enough of a subgroup to make that much difference in the statistics presented.

Here's my major point: it doesn't matter what difference it makes in the statistics. It could make a .0000000000000001% difference, and it wouldn't matter, because if there is even one gay man who doesn't have anal sex, then having anal sex isn't necessarily a part of being gay.

Predicated Supposition “…and among those men who do the majority usually practice safer sex.” – Again how can you be sure? I haven’t found any empirical data that supports this. Please share your sources.

Well, I guess I'm basing this primarily on my own experience, but most of the gay men I have known claim to primarily practice safer sex, I have almost always practiced safer sex, most of my partners have practiced safer sex, at least with me, all the gay men I have known have never had a short supply of condoms... I'm not sure what evidence you want.

Supposition “These men are all practicing homosexuals.” – Fine, I am not arguing this.

Well, you kind of have to be, if you're acknowledging that some gay men don't have anal sex, but arguing that nonetheless all gay men are at increased risk from HIV, which is what you would have to be arguing to assert that being gay somehow puts you at increased risk of HIV.

I don't think that was the argument. I think the point is simply that - as medical organizations themselves say - gay men as a group (emphasis on the latter word) have a higher statistical rate of HIV infection than is the case with most other groups in the population. That doesn't mean that all gay men are individually at greater risk, nor would such need to be the case for these statistics to be relevant to this article. 152.163.100.12 02:35, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

His assertion, elsewhere on this talk page, is that being gay is inherently a health risk, therefore the data belongs here. The assertion is false. Yours, that there is a higher HIV rate among gay men than among other population groups, is much stronger one for including some information regarding gay men and HIV/AIDS (which is probably covered somewhere in its own article anyway - at least, I'd be surprised if it wasn't), however that still doesn't justify including something to the effect that being gay is hazardous to one's health or that there are health risks associated with homosexuality - they are associated with particular acts, regardless of the genders of the people engaging in them. -Seth Mahoney 02:45, Apr 28, 2005 (UTC)

Conclusion “Therefore, having unprotected anal sex is not intrinsically a part of being a practicing homosexual.” – Where is your data? How did you come to this conclusion?

I don't actually need data here. This conclusion follows from my premises.

Conclusion “Therefore, increased risk of HIV transmission is not intrinsically a part of being a practicing homosexual.” – The data I presented seems to indicate the opposite conclusion.

No, the data you presented suggests no such conclusion.

Conclusion “Therefore, any data you have collected regarding HIV transmission among gay men belongs, if anywhere, on the pages that discuss the specific acts, and not here.” - This is the one that gave me pause. Where should a relevant warning that has transience mortality implications, to say the least, be placed? I am sorry it is unpopular, but that has nothing to do with its relevancy. Perhaps if more were aware of this data they would be alive now? -Rgordey 3:10, Apr 28, 2005 (UTC)

I told you where it should go. I don't know what else you want.

-Seth Mahoney 02:24, Apr 28, 2005 (UTC)

first nations

it is true that homosexuals among First Nations and Native Americans were called Two Sirited people and were respected and even reveared, for having a closer connection to the earth then most, i was wondering if this should be included in the article... what do you think? Gabrielsimon 05:31, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

There is Two-Spirit to check, but briefly, that term refers to transgender people, not homosexual people. -- AlexR 09:04, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

That is only partially correct, from what I have seen. Two-spirit expression is very fluid and not all two-spirit people take on the gender chractersitics of the opposite sex, suggesting that those may be garden-variety homosexuals. Haiduc 10:44, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Then be so kind and update Two-Spirit, since all I ever heard was that two-spirit people are usually considered gender-variant. Then again, the framework two-spirits were set in was probably different from the current western one, so that ought to be explained in detail. -- AlexR 11:45, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Semantics: being gay is gender variance. Hyacinth 21:45, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Well, usually it is not included in "gender variant", but at the very least that is open to debate. -- AlexR 00:01, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Different cultures use(d) "two-spirited" differently, and some cultures had other words. Not all native cultures celebrated homosexuality either. Exploding Boy 22:36, Apr 19, 2005 (UTC)

i never said they all celebrated two spirited people, i said they reered hem for thier difference, unlike how people from more european style civilisations just feared and hated and misunderstood it all. aboce all else, homosexuality was accepted among native cultures. Gabrielsimon 23:29, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Just among the Sioux (which includes several cultural variants identified by tribe or nation) there are very strongly held differences. One group is intolerant and forces non-conforming individuals out. The other group gives "two-spirit people" a legitimate place in society. I think Alex is right about the framework thing. The way it seems to be explained is that some people with male genitalia feel like women. Therefore they do things appropriate to that gender. Having sex with men may be part of the feminine gender role of some of them but not necessarily all of them. On the other hand, I have never heard of these two-spirit people having sex with women. I'll have to root through my books. Another complication, now that I think of it, is that there is another concept that may be applied: "backwards people." As Lame Deer explains it (see: Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions"), "backwards people" do everything the other way. If it is hot they will put on a coat. If it gets cold they will take the coat off. Their genius evidently tells them to do everything the "wrong" way. Having sex with the "wrong" people could be included. Lame Deer doesn't mention sex acts, as far as I can recall. (I think I would have noticed.) But I believe other people do make this connection -- maybe even taking things to the extreme that the "anti-sense-ness" of these people is solely limited to sexual behavior. 金 (Kim) 07:49, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Choice

a good number of homosexual people i have spoken to say that their being the way they are was not a choice, but that they were born that way. should that have a place in the article?

Gabrielsimon 05:35, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

This seems to be covered at Homosexuality#Malleability. --SPUI (talk) 05:53, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

idiocey

i find it strange that small minded idiots keep vandalizing pages all over this site....

Gabrielsimon 03:53, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

the Arabic literature was clear from homosexualities until they invaded Europe and read the greek's books, no men, no boys, no shemales, the Zionist organizations tells us that Buddism didn’t stand against the same sex relationships, and jump immediately to the next point without telling us or giving us time to remember that Buda, told his students not to deal with females, not to touch them, not to speak to them, not to look at them, and when his best student Ananda, in the famous story asked him what if one lady start talk to him, he told him to answer her ( what a polite !! ) but keep the conversation as short as possible and not to look as much as he can ! now what the poor guys would do !? the difference between Buda and Plato on one hand, and Jesus and Mohammad on the other, is that women are more kept away from philosophy then her to be kept away from religion, because in religion she would just teach the inherited rules to children or to other women, but not to men, she must know religion very well to be abele to educate children and rise them, she can teach the rules, but not making them, or reshaped them, if she dare to try, and started become strong, man start give her more authorities on the field of transferring the rules , like in Iran lately, how they allow women to be Imam of pray of a group of women instead of elderly man, and how she even can have this leadership on men like in muslems of west, because can man allow her to teach him what other men said, but not to teach him how to think .

What exactly are you trying to argue here? -Seth Mahoney July 4, 2005 18:57 (UTC)

Animal Kingdom Revert 04/21/2005

"Clearly, homosexuality among animals may refer only to an apparent sexual behavior. Homosexual behavior is observable"

That revision is wrong for the following reasons:

Biologist call it common not just "obersvable" - that is POV
- OK
"Clearly" is a POV word
- OK. Explained.
Some of the documented cases were in animals that mate for life therefore it is not only a "sexual behavior".
- It is behavior, even if life-long.
In the species that it may be a sexual behavior it would be just as true for any form of sexuality including heterosexuality.

There is no reason for this revision and I am assuming good-faith. Thanks for your help to the user who made it. 63.224.248.30 20:48, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

But there is. One has to stay away of antropomorphism that begins with the very title "animal kingdom" (replaced), otherwise you are in trouble. One has to explain human homosexuality basing on the preexisting phenomena in "animal kingdom", not vice versa. You can only observe the behavior or animals and draw conclusions; you cannot ask a cow how it feels.

Thanks for clear explanation of your objections. I hope you will understand my position and we can find a way how to put it forth in a reasonable way.

By the way, you also reverted my addition that cows mount cows. A cowboy sees it every day in a sufficiently large herd. I believe it was unintentional, but if you have a real objection, please explain. Mikkalai 22:36, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Kingdom (biology) is a technical term, not anthropomorphism. Joe D (t) 22:45, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thank you, I am not a native English speaker, and you guessed correctly, I forgot about this meaning. Nevertheless, if one wants to go really technical, then "kingdom Animalia" is the usage, if you want to avoid confusion with, e.g., Disney's Animal Kingdom. Also I suspect that the original author did not really mean to discuss homosehuality among, say, Nematoda, so if not antropomorphism then an overkill. Mikkalai 23:41, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Elvis Presley's possible homosexuality

A devoted Elvis fan is constantly deleting what is written about Presley's possible homosexuality in two different books on Elvis and some other sources. One of these sources is written by the king's stepmother, Dee Presley. In the Wikipedia article on Elvis is only written that some authors claim that Elvis was gay. The reader may decide whether or not this accusation is true. This Elvis fan seems to be the same guy who is still under a Wikipedia hard ban. He is even deleting parts of the discussion and claims, without proof, that Elvis slept with hundreds of women. I do not understand why this Elvis fan sees the king's possible homosexuality as a problem. See Talk:Elvis Presley.

Sociology

"Those who are atheist, agnostic or secularist have been consistently shown to be tolerant of homosexuality as well as supportive of gay-rights legislation. Countries with significant populations of these groups are often among the most accepting of gay citizens."

Is this true? I don't think the Soviet Union or China were/are particularly accepting of homosexuality despite the fact that both were/are officially atheist. I'm not going to edit the article, as I don't know for sure, but someone who knows more about it probably should look into it. Vonspringer 01:46, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Any dominant ideological force can be used to attack homosexuality. The CCP was so strongly against homosexuality for ideological reasons that they blinded themselves not only to the number of people who were motivated to engage in homosexual relationships but also to the actual behavior of ordinary people. Any position, religious or ideological, that interferes with people seeking truth in objective, empirical, investigation and demands of them that they accept as truth the dictates of some "holy book" (whether it's the Bible or Mao's little red book) makes it easier for opponents of homosexuality to attack it. All they have to do is find an authority figure that says its bad. When empirical investigation and free inquiry is practicable then opponents have trouble finding any real objection to homosexuality. So I don't think it is the athetism, agnosticism, or whatever that is behind the greater tolerance. Rather it is a question of the methodologies for determining what is true that are deemed acceptable in any given society.

The writer of the passage quoted above would probably have trouble coming up with statistically valid studies to prove his/her point. 金 (Kim) 03:52, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Then perhaps the first sentence could better read something more like: "Many of those who are atheist, agnostic or secularist consider themselves to be tolerant of homosexuality as well as supportive of gay-rights legislation." The second sentence might need to be more severly modified or deleted since it makes a statistical statement without citing research.

Vonspringer 07:21, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Actually, even that sentence does not hold much water, above it is already mentionend that "atheist, agnostic or secularist" does not automatically equal LGBT-friendly; and it implicitly still implies that not being "atheist, agnostic or secularist" means automatically a homophobic bias. That seems to me very much like one of those US based POVs, where that experience probably can be made, but fact is, one has nothing to do with the other. Even when one assumes that many religious leaders or teachings have a homophobic bias, experience in Europe at least has shown that this does not necessarily mean that those belonging to these religious groups show the same bias. Most ceretainly it is not a necessary relation. So I'd just cut it, because it is - at least right now - nothing but POV crap. -- AlexR 08:47, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

That's more or less what I was worried about as well. I agree that cutting the entire section would be best, since there is by definition no uniform atheist position on such a subject. And I don't like the implication that religion implies intolerance. But I'm not going to do the modification myself since I have no idea how to do the necessary updates to the table of contents. If you'd like to, feel free to go ahead and chop it yourself if there are no objections from anyone else. Vonspringer 20:28, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Abrahamic

Christianity 04/27/05

Strong's Number: 8441 Pronunciation: tow`ebah to-ay-baw' or

Total Occurrences: 117 KJV Word Usage: abomination (113) , abominable thing (2) , abominable (2)

תעבה to`ebah to-ay-baw' act part of 8581 ; TWOT-2530a; n f

Definition: 1) a disgusting thing, abomination, abominable 1a) in ritual sense (of unclean food, idols, mixed marriages) 1b) in ethical sense (of wickedness etc)

In the Book of Leviticus (Vayikra ויקרא), which is a book of the Torah (תורה), God reveals his commandments or laws through Moses, in an ethical framework. In the context of Chapter 18, (in modern Christian Bibles), God pronounces his law concerning sexual immorality. The Hebrew word תעבה or abomination, as it was translated into English, is used many times throughout the chapter. For example, it is used to describe incest, adultery, the act of same gender intercourse and bestiality.

While is true the word is used 117 times, but to liken the word abomination to “being arrogant or eating shellfish” as exemplar is being narrow minded and trying to fabricate or further a particular point of view. With regards to usage and context incest and bestiality bound the act of same gender intercourse. However I would suggest the phrase “—much like being arrogant or eating shellfish.” Should be removed rather than include a comparative. I understand the Hebrew Torah, Christian Bible and the Qur'an of Islam all view the act of same gender intercourse as a violation of God’s law. Why not let this be stated here plainly and be done with it? Rgordey 19:41, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Because the (potentially sanctimonious) phrase "God's law" can refer to all manner of things, many of them trivial, ridiculous, or nonsensical to modern eyes. Their inclusion thus contextualizes the argument. Haiduc 12:17, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Health risks redux

While there are no health risks associated with homosexuality, just as there are no health risks associated with heterosexuality, there ARE sex risks associated with certain aspects of gay culture and of straight culture. We (gays in the west) have a problem in the community. Friends of mine are either dead or sick. And now that people are becoming complacent that problem is intensifying rather than going away. People may not be dying like they were ten - fifteen years ago, but they are continuing, some to get sick and others to infect their partners, unknowingly or not. How and where should we discuss this? A new section? Under Gay community? That seems like a proper place for an expanded discussion, but should there not be a pointer, a phrase or two, in this article, as we do with many other aspects? Haiduc 04:01, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

You're totally right. This does need to be discussed, and relevant statistics could be useful info to use. I'd be surprised if there wasn't already an article that could be linked to and paraphrased. I'll do some digging and report back any findings. -Seth Mahoney 04:09, Apr 29, 2005 (UTC)

Some useful articles as a starter might be Homosexuality and medical science, AIDS myths and urban legends, AIDS (especially "Current status"), Safe sex, and Bugchasing. I'd prefer to see the new section titled something along the lines of Reactions to HIV/AIDS within the gay community or something like that. -Seth Mahoney 04:23, Apr 29, 2005 (UTC)

From RfC

Hi all. I've read through the recent talk entries, but I'm not entirely sure what disputes remain. Can someone give me a thumbnail update on what issue or issues precipitated the RfC? · Katefan0^(scribble) 03:07, May 1, 2005 (UTC)

Religion

Instead of cutting the Atheists, Agnostics, and Secularists section entirely, as suggested by the "Sociology" talk section above, I made an effort to be more informative but factual, and completely rewrote it.

The section on religion in this article is much longer than the article Religion and homosexuality, which is only a little insane. I will work on moving material there in the near future. -- Beland 02:56, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

Whether here or there I hope the allegations of actively homosexual Popes and Cardinals can either be withdrwn or substantiated. Andycjp 25th May 2005

The Lariviere book has a handful of homosexual popes and cardinals (Michel Lariviere, Homosexuels et bisexuels celebres, Deletraz Editions, Paris, 1997) Haiduc 09:33, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

Debate on format

Two users are discussing whether the lists of arguments set out in the Polemic section should be left as lists or should be reformatted as narrative paragraphs. Opinons of other users would be welcome. Haiduc 02:16, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

edit needed

"Anthropologists divide homosexuality into three major types: fags, fagiitty fags, and homos. See Forms below."

can someone sort this out, it appears differently when i try to edit, not sure what to do.

It was already fixed--Tznkai 18:06, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

clarify point of view.

There are users trying to remove logical arguments that they obviously disagree with by calling it POV. Please clarify this. Just because an outside source says it exists, does that make it legit? I would tend to side with logic- if you can disprove those arguments logically I would be happy to recant.

Above by User:IntellectualProp2002. Please make sure to sign your comments by using four tildes in a row ~~~~. It makes these pages easier to read. Also, to FCYTravis... is this IP you? 207.224.198.170 (revert intellectualprop, use talk page to discuss why your origincal research and non-mainstream conspiracies should be included, if you or your ip address reverts again you will be blocked for 3RR) -- if so, perhaps you should be careful yourself of 3RR; if you're this IP, I count this last revert to be your fourth. If not, then please disregard. · Katefan0^(scribble) 22:06, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

I am separate although the other ip addresses I believe are connected to intellectualprop2002. If you wish to develop your material in the specifc articles and than once that has been wordsmithed insert a small summary feel free. Mainstream science has cited androgen links in MANY studies yet we only half a sentence on this page for that because of size constraints. 207.224.198.170 22:18, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Size constraints? Wikipedia is not paper.. If it's a valid theory, there's no reason why those theories can't be included. These are particularly critical to social debates over homosexuality, so I can't see how it can be argued for them to be excluded. · Katefan0^(scribble) 22:21, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

Can we add the fourteen paragraphs of mainstream scientific studies on adrogen to the article as well? 207.224.198.170 22:23, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I rather resent the allegations of sockpuppetry (do you really think I would jeopardize my admin candidacy over this?), but I'll set that aside for now, per WP:FAITH. The article is already 70KB long - fringe arguments such as those being added do not merit lengthy, paragraph-long insertions in this already-overlong article. The proper place would be a Scientific theories of homosexuality article, or some such, but as such an article does not exist, that's neither here nor there. --FCYTravis 22:24, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Look, I am not particularly well versed in whatever these theories are, but isn't it more proper to air them in a discussion setting instead of just reverting things and seeking to quash debate over it? (I ask this of both sides of this current edit war).) What are these theories that are being proposed? Let the community see them and decide. · Katefan0^(scribble) 22:26, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

I'm fairly new to this process. I wasn't sure what 3RR was, but thanks for the warning. It's not becomming of us to twaddle on insignificant matters. My goal is the truth. I will take your advice and create new aricles, but unless you can find an egregious error in the logic, I insist on including these. I suggest you counter these arguments with ones that offer more information as opposed to ignoring current information. These arguments represent a significant portion of the scientific community, as well, and I cannot rely on what you say is "mainstream."

sorry the last comment was by Intellectualprop2002 22:30, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)intellectualprop

I see. I took a look at some of these links and looked more carefully at the text being proposed and see them for what they are. I do think they're perhaps worth mentioning in the article, but definitely do not deserve the amount of real estate that's being inserted currently. I agree that it would perhaps be better for a fork article. And FCY, I apologize for any affrontery I caused you -- I just saw all the reverting, plus reverting from an anon IP along the same lines as yours, and was taken a little aback. · Katefan0^(scribble) 22:31, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

by the way- These arguments are at the crux of the origin of homosexuality. Why don't they deserve discussion? Yes you should put 14 pages supporting your view. JFIntellectualprop2002 22:35, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I in fact suggested the opposite -- let's discuss it. Can you please make a thumbnail argument for what you would like to insert? Thanks. · Katefan0^(scribble) 22:37, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

Those paragraphs are pretty concise, but I suppose I could reduce them further. JFIntellectualprop2002 22:53, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I am asking for a conversational argument, not cited text. · Katefan0^(scribble) 22:54, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

Please see mall. section, mainstream scientific organizations clearly state homosexual orientation is not a choice and it cannot be changed due to innate factors that are immutable. A social construct infers choice and is definently a minority fringe view in todays world (2005), now in the 1980s that was another story... Globeism 22:57, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

On top of that mutiple admins have been working to reduce this articles size removing many mainstream views to their own articles. These fringes do not deserve 75% of the biology sections when they only represent perhaps 1% of science. This is a summary article in that respect. Globeism 22:57, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I have researched these subjects in depth. This new material is, well, foor lack of better word disgusting and quite a minority view. Globeism 22:59, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

There exists a Genetics and sexual orientation article. I believe any new material relating to the debate over genetics and homosexuality be taken to that article. I have clarified the link to that article in my latest edit of the main article. --FCYTravis 23:04, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

- Additionally, your argument that homosexuality is caused by "nurture" versus "nature" seems adequately treated in this paragraph: Conservative religious congregations maintain that being gay is a self-indulgent transgressive choice, like being a fast driver, and state it is learned behavior. Thus it is their position that all homosexuality is of a preferential nature. Some of the organizations that believe homosexuality is a choice and a violation of their religious creeds offer "conversion therapies" for lesbians and gay men in an attempt to change their sexual orientation. Some groups, most notably the Roman Catholic Church, take an ambiguous position on whether homosexual orientation is a free choice, explaining that the psychological basis behind it is not well understood. It is viewed as a "cross that must be borne", and homosexual individuals are expected to practice chastity. [3] (http://www.vatican.va/archive/catechism/p3s2c2a6.htm) I'm sorry, as much as I respect your obviously strongly-held views, I personally feel that they are fairly represented already in this article. As FCYT said above, I encourage you to see if your information would fit somewhere in the Genetics and sexual orientation article. Thanks · Katefan0^(scribble) 23:07, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

3 revert rule and revert wars

I would invite all the participants in this debate to please read WP:3RR. Note that sockpuppets are not allowed as a way of circumventing the 3RR. -- Karada 23:08, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Globeism- you're being extremely close minded. We do not know everything there is to know about anything. If you can explain to me how those arguments are wrong, I will recant. I will not rely on your supposed "mainstream science." That means nothing to me.

Katefan- sorry. Here's the thumb- sex genes instruct us to have sex and reproduce. We wouldn't like sex if it didn't promote life. Homosexuality doesn't promote life because offspring is cannot happen, so the allele (if it existed) would kill itself off through natural selection.

JFIntellectualprop2002 23:09, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

That is a POV. Arguably, homosexuality promotes life in certain circumstances by providing a limitation on human population growth - which, if left unchecked, could threaten the survival of the human species. Secondly, many gay/bisexual people have children through surrogacy or heterosexual relationships. --FCYTravis 23:12, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Katefan- I don't know if you were directing that last post to me, but my arguments do not have anything to do with religion or politics. It is logic based on scientific findings. The section that you referred to implies that this only conservative religious people "feel" that homosexuality is a choice. I'm interested in the truth, not what people feel. Thanks for understanding. :D JFIntellectualprop2002 23:13, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your clarifications. It's an interesting theory; do you have research to back that up? Anyway, I feel that, also, it's more appropriate for the Genetics and sexual orientation article, where they are purposefully collecting all manner of scientific research on the issue. Thanks · Katefan0^(scribble) 23:14, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

I think saying that only "conservative" religious organizations believe that is a bit of a POV in itself - I've changed it to simply say "Some" religious organizations. --FCYTravis 23:16, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Travis- that was the most illogical thing I've ever heard- homosexuality promotes life by limiting it. As for the children of homosexuals- I understand that that happens, but the children are not created out of the homosexual couple as in a heterosexual couple, and if he was, it is not natural in the evolutionary sense.Intellectualprop2002 23:17, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It's your POV that it's illogical. Given that population growth beyond habitat limitations is a major factor in the cycles of many animals, it's not out of the question to postulate that homosexuality could be a natural evolution to check rampant population growth by reducing the number of members of the population which are likely to engage in behaviour that expands the population. This would have the effect of *promoting* the overall sustainable lifespan of the species by preventing or moderating boom-crash cycles. It's just as plausible as anything you've put down. --FCYTravis 23:24, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I think you're right- there may be a better location for this information, but this article deserves some recognition of scientific and logical evidence supporting these arguments, not just "some" religious groups. Intellectualprop2002 23:19, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

we do have narth included, which claims to be not religious, though it is a fringe group as well, (1000 psychologist versus. apa @ hundred of thousands)

Yes, you could be right. There could perhaps be a generic paragraph stating that some scientific research supports the "nurture" theory. Travis, how could this be done? · Katefan0^(scribble) 23:21, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

Intellectualprop I question whether you have researched this topic much. You have one author who thinks it might be an evolutionary disadvantage when highly regarded universities such as Georgetown have put forth it is an evolutionary advantage, not to mention widespread throughout the animal kingdoms. Your disdain for scientific authority frightens me. I believe, even you must admit your view is a TINY minority. Even China's medical organizations backed away from the claim it is changeable is 1999 and following the world majority and mainstream scientific views. Globeism 23:34, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Even if it is a disadvantage, it's entirely possible to have people who are carry the "gay gene". and who reproduce (See recessive gene). That's assuming that sexuality is based on a single gene. On top of that there are those who consider sexual orientation to be something measured along a scale rather than pigeonholed into distinct categories. So really, I think the matter is quite a bit more complex than you are making it out to be Intellectualprop --CVaneg 23:57, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

And just because you think it is "logical" does not mean it can be included in Wikipedia. We need citations, evidence, support, this is not original research for user's "logical" views or fringe respresentation. We designate what major, highly regarded authorities say, and likewise specifiy views that are minority as such. It is to bad Wikipedia does not have a MLA format. Globeism 23:40, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

globeism- please address the argument at hand, and abstain from red herring personal attacks.

Travis- you have a point about the maintenance of certain population levels, but that is more likely a social construct as opposed to a genetic one. Do you really think genes know what the world population is?

Genes don't know that an animal needs to fly, either. It simply happens to be an evolutionary advantage. A population with a recessive trait of nonreproduction could have an evolutionary advantage over a population without a similar trait that goes through more violent boom-bust cycles. --FCYTravis 00:26, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

see androgen studies, the more children you have the higher likelehood of homosexual children Globeism 23:45, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I accept that sources could be a benefit to this forum, but do "a number of researchers," or "recent estimates," or "many studies," or "the great majority of workers in medicine and the sciences," constitute sources? If so, I will rephrase my arguments with those meaningless blurbs next time. Thanks for the advice

see specific pages, they have citations because those are summary statements, visist things sucyh as apa statements, or pediatric, etc. Globeism 23:48, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

But I agree with user Jayjg in that wikipedia does need more citations, for example when stating many studies it should give a few examples even in summaries not just specific article Globeism 23:51, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[3] you should check this out, many organizations such as apa sometimes mention androgen for their reasoning, multiple studies have linked it to homosexuality in humans and animals, brain structure, penis sizes, fingerprints, sweat odors, etc

I wonder if we aren't getting off track a little. It's really immaterial what our personal views are (mine, too). The question we have to answer is -- is there information from a credible source that bears on the debate that is missing in our article? If so, we then have to evaluate how mainstream the view is (so we know how much or little to include). Then, if those conditions are met, we should summarize that viewpoint in that article. Debating amongst ourselves about which theory is correct, while tempting, really detracts from the point of building an NPOV article. · Katefan0^(scribble) 04:23, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)

Just to add my two cents: what we've seen regarding the above issue has been the norm in this article for months: any attempt to include a countervailing viewpoint is repeatedly reverted based on an endless series of baseless excuses. Tonight's events are another example of the pattern: after someone added a link to a site for the conservative Catholic organization "Courage", it was inevitably reverted - first by Tony Sidaway, based on the claim that it's allegedly an "ad", although it is in fact the same type of official site as the others in the list. Then Nohat reverted it again, this time claiming that it's "too specific" for inclusion, although that's no more the case than for any of the others in the list. It will undoubtedly now be reverted again, based on a third and equally baseless excuse, then the 3RR will be invoked to make the censorship permanent. The real reason it's being removed is because it represents a view that doesn't sit well with the activists who dominate this article, and that's also the reason they removed the material added by Intellectualprop2002 being discussed above. 205.188.116.13 28 June 2005 08:10 (UTC)

This group, sadly, is not one of the "Organizations that offer support to lesbians and gay men" but another dogmatic effort to propagate an irrational and unscientific conceit toxic to (for example) young people who are trying to make sense of their nature in the face of a climate of hate and who often kill themselves rather than live with this hate. It is no different from a site that might purport to help black people with their blackness in the hope that they will be reborn white someday. As an example of religiously-inspired bigotry it might belong as an exhibit in the aticle on Homophobia, or the one on Superstition. Repeated attempts to force it into this article, which has hewed to scholarly methodology and has survived this far only due to that principle, are propagandistic efforts by people busy calling others "activists." Heal yourself. Haiduc 28 June 2005 09:54 (UTC)

I have to agree with Haiduc on this point. Beyond the group's specious purpose (and the anon's inaccurate description of it in the text of the article), the link is so specific as to be all but useless to the majority of readers on the English Wikipedia. Additionally, remember that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia -- its articles should hit the high points of a topic, but even though Wikipedia is not paper, it should not be a dumping ground for every piece of fact or fancy -- or every Web site. · Katefan0^(scribble) June 28, 2005 14:52 (UTC)

I certainly didn't expect that type of response from the two of you, who had previously been the most reasonable of the group. I will merely point out that advising people how to live within Catholic morality is not "bigotry" - unless you yourself are biased against this particular religion, as is clearly the case.

At any rate, this is just more censorship, reminiscent of the situation described recently by an editor who had tried to introduce some balance into one of the articles dealing with pedophilia, but found that it was dominated by members of NAMBLA (the North American Man/Boy Love Association) who were reverting any views which are not supportive of pedophilia. I'm sure they similarly toss around terms like "bigotry" as an excuse to remove anything that doesn't fit their viewpoint. Such tactics are not fooling anyone: it is merely censorship, and such censorship has been the norm in this article for a very long time. 205.188.116.13 28 June 2005 18:12 (UTC)

You failed to refute any of my points, so I don't have much else to say on this score, except that a website espousing adherence to Catholic morality (especially one for Slavs) is not any more germane -- per se -- to the subject of homosexuality than is one about, say, monkeys. · Katefan0^(scribble) June 28, 2005 18:16 (UTC)

The only points you made were: 1) A website for the Slovenian branch of the group is too specific, which I addressed by changing the link to Courage's main site; and 2) You claimed that this group's purpose is "specious", without giving any justification for that inflammatory label - it appears to be merely more of the same anti-Catholic sentiment. The issue here isn't whether you personally agree with this group's goal or religion - Wikipedia is not supposed to be limited to only those items you personally agree with. Up until now, there hasn't been a single link in that list representing a countervailing perspective. 205.188.116.13 28 June 2005 18:31 (UTC)

Well, if we're going to have a list of groups that support gays, then, as misguided as I think the ex-gay movement is, there probably is room for such a link, although perhaps not the one put forth. It would be disingenous to claim that every such group is a mob of crazed hate-mongers. Some of these people really do believe that they are helping gays and approach "therapy" in a supportive way, even if they are, in my opinion, wrong. --CVaneg 28 June 2005 19:22 (UTC)

I am sorry if this is perceived by the anon as "censorship," but the fact is that until we have scientific evidence that these groups are helpful and useful to people drawn to same-sex relationships (perhaps it exists, but I am not aware of it, only of evidence debunking all the claims of these groups), I do not see how their inclusion can be justified here under this rubric. Religious contributions are not necessarily bigotry, but something like this, coming from a group that has historically done so much harm, and coming with no claim to legitimacy other than its self-styled assertion that it is "therapeutic" remains to my eye an obvious example of bigotry. Remember when the Australian government was forcibly taking aboriginee children away from their parents to raise them in orphanages to be accultured into white society? Would you categorize that under a list of "Social assistance for Aboriginees," because that was the intent of the policy? Haiduc 29 June 2005 03:27 (UTC)

I think the simplest way around this is not to class them as helpful or not helpful. I think the section I created is sufficiently NPOV and yet accurately describes these group's base ideals by calling them "Groups that seek to change homosexuals' sexual orientation or sexual identity." Myabe that's good, maybe it's bad; it takes no stance. · Katefan0^(scribble) June 29, 2005 12:18 (UTC)

Shouldn't we simply describe them as Ex-gay groups, referring to that article for more information? Axon 29 June 2005 12:43 (UTC)

I wouldn't have a problem with that personally, but I would anticipate the people pushing for those groups' inclusion would quibble with that descriptor. For instance, Courage doesn't claim to try to "turn" people straight, but rather only to stop referring to themselves as gay. That is, sort of, slightly different. · Katefan0^(scribble) June 29, 2005 12:45 (UTC)

Actually, I believe "ex-gay" can refer to those who have allegedly changed their sexual orientation from gay to straight and those who are simply celibate. I believe courage were once an "ex gay" but ceased using reparative therapy due to their lack of efficacy[4]. So you are correct, they can no longer be referred to as an ex-gay group. Axon 04 July 2005 14:13 (UTC)

I have no problem with the link as long as it is not classed with "Organizations that offer support to lesbians and gay men". Haiduc 30 June 2005 02:16 (UTC)

Aesthetic attraction

At the top of the page, the article currently gives one definition of homosexuality as "A sexual orientation characterized by aesthetic attraction, romantic love, and sexual desire exclusively or almost exclusively for members of the same sex or gender identity." While I agree with the part about romantic love and sexual desire, I don't think it's fair to say that homosexuality can be characterized by aesthetic attraction exclusively for members of the same sex. Aesthetic attraction applies to all things that one might consider "beautiful", whether they be men or women, or works of art, or whatever. This should be rewritten so that it doesn't seem to imply that to be homosexual means to only find beauty in members of the same sex. Nohat 28 June 2005 06:37 (UTC)

Aesthetic attraction is the precursor for sexual desire. There is no need to de-contextualize something that is obvious and understood to refer to the topic of this article. The apparent conflict you point to would only be a cause for concern in a legal document. Haiduc 28 June 2005 10:17 (UTC)

I think the sentence is misleading. We do a disservice to our readers if we make an ambiguous statement that could be misinterpreted. Nohat 28 June 2005 15:11 (UTC)

The mechanistic reading that you are suggesting ("Oh, you mean that gay people do not like flowers and music and all that stuff?") is not plausible. It becomes impossible to write anything with anything approaching style and ease of readability if your aim is to "idiot-proof" the texts. Why, of all the problems with this article, is this irking you so much? Haiduc 29 June 2005 03:32 (UTC)

Because it's at the very top of the article. How can I begin to address the other problems with the article if I can't even get past the first paragraph without wincing at the terrible writing? It's simply bad style to have misleading or ambiguous sentences, no matter how implausible the alleged "mechanistic" reading. In fact the reason I bring it up is because someone was reading the article over my shoulder and noticed that sentence and remarked, "huh? does that sentence say what I think it says?". The idea encompassed can be succintly and elegantly expressed without being ambiguous and misleading. Why is it so important to you that the ambiguity remain? Nohat 29 June 2005 04:39 (UTC)

Would you like to suggest an alternative phrasing? Haiduc 29 June 2005 11:05 (UTC)