NationStates Jolt Archive

Firstly, I will apologize by starting yet another homo's vs the world thread, but I'm coming at it form an angle I haven't seen discussed here or anywhere else for that matter.

I shall begin by defining morality. It is largely customary law as well as to what the individual finds wrong. Therefore, morality as a concept lends itself well to conservative thinking (status quo) in addition, it has an element ( a very big one) of egocentrism. Using the basis of Christian morality, the bible, it's easy to pick and choose various blurbs to conclude X is immoral but in all honesty, the bible is full of some very distasteful elements, including misogyny, which modern culture does find to be 'immoral'. Further, to say the bible is the definitive word on morality wouldn't be well received by a Muslim, Buddhist or even an atheist.

With that said, what is the definitive standard? That we are dealing with human behavior, and that psychology itself has no baseline at all to discern pathological/destructive/unusual behaviors (disorders) from normal behavior, since the science of psychology moved away from the Judeo-Christian influenced morals based school of thought to amoral (not immoral) objectivity, behaviors such as homosexuality were given a second look. Homosexuality was then decriminlaized, depathologized and is now regarded as a normal naturally occurring variant of human sexuality while those who hold to the morals based psychology feel otherwise and often base their beliefs on Judeo-Christian beliefs (ie. choice vs. predeterminism, organic origin vs. nurture, untreatable vs. treatable, etc.)

So entrenched is the mindset of the pro-morality psychologists that they are largely conservative in their political views to counter the "liberal" element within the profession. So then follows any individual voicing pro-homosexual opinion is labelled a lib while the other camp is labelled conservative. I'm really at a loss what politics has to do with it all and would rather leave it up to objective, trained researchers but as long as leaders wish to put the civil rights issues which crop up to referendum, I guess we will have to endure the endless politicization.

Getting back to the topic of morality, being customary law and egocentrism, versus homosexuality I'm somewhat confused how the hetersoexual ethic of Bronze Age Jews is correctly transferrable to homosexuals (heterosexism). We know that homosexuality is attraction to the same sex, instead of the same, but that's just looking at the behavior in its simplest context. The reason this attraction occurs stems directly from an incomplete degree of gender identity crossover vs. anatomy. This holds true for heterosexuality only that the individual's gender identity is truly matched to anatomy.

In virtually any culture, religious or not, Christian or not, there exists the heterosexual ethic which usually involves some form of marriage, "proper" behavior (age differences, partner's roles within the union, etc.) but not until recently has the homosexual ethic begun to be hammered out. It's the central theme of the gay rights movement but ironically is fought at each turn by moralists armed with the right to vote. Given that homosexual comprise a slim minority and with all the anti-gay rhetoric out there, it's quite clear why gays are the underclass. It's tough when you don't have God on your side as with the heterosexual population. *smirk*

Does this opposition not seem immoral in itself? To denegrate individuals even professionals don't quite understand fully by a few lines in a quasi-historical document or by the opinion of an army of fag hating Joe Lunchbuckets doesn't seem "moral" let alone right to me.

I had hoped to write a bit more but my coherence suffers with length and I'm tired. If anyone wants to pick up where I left off or add or lambaste me I'm all ears.

Im afraid I could not add to the thread properly as I dont think I could do it justice. But I do agree completely.

Im afraid I could not add to the thread properly as I dont think I could do it justice. But I do agree completely.
I would say exactly the same...

You pose some very intriguing points. Are you a philosophy or social sciences student, by any chance? Or perhaps psychology?

uhhh, no and I work as a labourer :(

I didn't actually graduate from HS until I was 27... I did 2 years of college sciences before that though...

so kids, stay in school!!!

Getting back to the topic of morality, being customary law and egocentrism, versus homosexuality I'm somewhat confused how the hetersoexual ethic of Bronze Age Jews is correctly transferrable to homosexuals (heterosexism). We know that homosexuality is attraction to the same sex, instead of the same, but that's just looking at the behavior in its simplest context. The reason this attraction occurs stems directly from an incomplete degree of gender identity crossover vs. anatomy. This holds true for heterosexuality only that the individual's gender identity is truly matched to anatomy.

that is totally incorrect. there is ample research demonstrating that homosexuality is not related to lack of gender identity in most homosexuals. most homosexuals are very aware and accepting of their own gender, and they aren't trying to fill the opposite "gender role" by being gay.

gender identity doesn't necessarily have anything to do with what parts you have, and i don't see any reason why it should...chromosomal anomalies, mixed-sex births, and any number of other phenomenon have proven that gender is a state of mind, and there isn't any particular benefit to forcing your own concept of your gender to conform to what your body says. well, there's one benefit: getting the traditionalists to leave you alone. but i never thought that it was smart to live your life according to what the bullies compel you to do.

of course, most homosexuals are people who have also probed their own sexuality enough to know that gender roles based on physical anatomy are suitable only for creatures with no frontal lobe development, so perhaps that is why homosexuals and bisexuals tend to move beyond traditional gender roles in the first place; any self-aware individual can do this, it just happens that homosexuals are more likely to have done it than heterosexuals.

Looking at graeco-roman tradition, it would seem to me that this whole notion of homosexual vs. hetrosexual behavior is a false dichotomy that we inhereted from the Judeo Christian tradition. It seems to me that in the pre-christian ancient world, sexual behaviour was looked upon without homosexual/hetrosexual labels as we construe them, regardless of the gender combination. For example, many famous figures from both ancient greece and rome had lovers of both sexes and they were not classed as "bi" but rather as simply sexually active. Generally relationships seem to have just been classed as either sexual or non sexual without the need for additional modifiers dependant on gender pairings. Presumably some people favored one gender over the other, like the Emporer Claudius or Hadrian, whereas some others were definetly in our terms "bi", like Alexander. But the striking thing is that no-one seemed to make the same value judgements that we do based upon this preference. And it seems that sex with either gender was accepted as recreational and fun without it necessarily being placed in the context a specific orientation or determing ones "natural" gender.

I think therefore, a lot of our thinking today is colored by looking through the lens of adding unecessary modifiers like homo and hetro: Modifiers which the ancient world did not use in the same way. In other words, to the ancients sexual activity was not classified with as much emphasis based upon the respective gender of the partners but rather upon of host of other factors such as rank, aesthetics and considerations of infidelty - indeed, it often appears to me that aesthetic considerations were considered more important than the sex of the prospective partner. That a man would choose a male lover and then, subsequently, a female lover was therefore unsuprising to many in the ancient world and, rightly or wrongly, would not arouse questions regarding "orientation" - in fact it may well not arouse any questions at all. As a consequence of this attitude, perception of one's gender identity was not altered simply because of the sex of one's lovers. A man could still be percieved as heroic, manly and virile and yet have a slew of male consorts. Conversly, a man could be considered unmanly and weak, yet be almost exclusively hetrosexual. Clearly then, the ancients defined the strength of one's gender identification - someone's "manliness" or "femininity" - almost entirely without reference to what we would term "sexual orientation". Rather they focused upon how an individual expressed him or herself through other actions and his relationship with the rest of society.

That we do not do this today is, I think, a product of our judeo christian history which, in my opinion, still needlessly influences even those who wish to study sexual behavior "objectively". Our weltanschaung seems to mandate that we judge one's gender self indentification with regards to choice of gender of sexual partners. The name Rock Hudson seems to still engender almost sophomoric sniggers in many of us as we attempt to process this archetypal male figure in juxtaposition with his now revealed homosexuality. Similarly, many of us judge James Dean's maleness through his choice of lovers. Yet on the other hand, Milton Berle gains stature in the eyes of many when they discover his purported success with women. This is in sharp contrast with the mores of the greeks who viewed Paris, the prototype "lady killer" of the Illiad, as weak and womanly but Achilles, an open homosexual, as the quintessential manly hero.

Therefore, in a larger context, I think much of the dialog with respect to sexuality is still limited by a cultural bias. Clearly the ancient world viewed the whole issue in a very different light and rejected much of what we consider the defining characterstic of sexual relationships - the gender of one's partner. This gave the ancients a more limited and yet paradoxically more expansive viewpoint: Limited in the sense that sex was viewed more as a recreational act rather than a defining aspect of an individual's nature (regardless of the choice of gender of one's current partner); yet more expansive in the sense that one's self identification of gender was determined through one's overall person - and not through the very limited test of chosen sexual activity. Seemingly, from that viewpoint, gender role and what we term sexual orientation become almost entirely seperate aspects of one's person, unlike today where they are almost inextricably intertwined.

Of course, in reality I expect that there were many layers to all this, but these are just my quick impressions. Also I think you have to admit, that we do as a society place far to much emphasis upon labels such as "gay" or "straight" - labels which were meaningless to the ancients - when defining people. We are culturally conditioned to percieve homosexual men and woman, if not somehow less manly and feminine respectively, then at least fundamentally "different" in their gender to to the so-called straight community. No matter how hard we try, we still find it difficult to accept a homosexual man as "manly", a concept with which the greeks had no problem. Sparta for example. (Possibly an unintended consequence of the porn industry is that it is now easier for us to accept that a woman who engages in lesbian sex can still embody a powerful feminine gender identification, but in general I think the point still holds.)

Do not imagine however, that I am suggesting that there is no modern day validity in the "gay" experience or that there is no "gay" comunity. But I am raising the question that could this experience be no more than a cultural artifact derived from our judeo-christian tradtion - and one which would have no anologue in the ancient world. This also raises the question that if we reformed our cultural values would much of the current debate regarding the ethics and morality of homosexuality disappear? After all one's sex life is a remarkably small part of one's overall personality unless one chooses it to be so.

(Interestingly enough however, the ancient world never seemed to recognize gay marriage however, even in cases where the relationship was notorious - for want of a better word - and stable, for example with emperor hadrian. I offer no opinions on this in the context of the current gay marriage debate except to observe that possibly the need for "formal" recognition by the gay community in this regard is a reaction to the cultural experience that our judeo-christian values have imposed and if we ceased to define gender in terms of choice of sex partner this need would evaporate as the gay community would no longer feel that, from a cultural standpoint, the gender of homosexuals is viewed as somehow different to that of heterosexuals and thus is in need of legitimization.)

Of course I no classicist so I could be wrong.

I like to hear peoples thoughts. Flame away.

that is totally incorrect. there is ample research demonstrating that homosexuality is not related to lack of gender identity in most homosexuals. most homosexuals are very aware and accepting of their own gender, and they aren't trying to fill the opposite "gender role" by being gay.


I didn'y say it was, I was referring to a degree of gender identity crossover. I happen to be one of those "homosexuals" and I am happy with my parts but it cannot be denied most homosexuals have androgynous personalities and I will also cite the infamous LeVay study which showed a neurological basis for this.

Of course I no classicist so I could be wrong.

I like to hear peoples thoughts. Flame away.


Too tired...will try later tonight. :(