Gays, lesbians, bisexuals, PART II

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by inked

And, as regards your point on the issue of pederasty and man-boy relationships as emblematic of homosexual activity. I think a long ignored valid point is that if it were due to genetic factors as alleged and not proven, there would have been no such major decline as evidenced in Western culture. Reflectively of the apparent allegations of a third sex (homosexuals of either gender), one must wonderwhat happened to the gene in the intervening 2000 years. Did it go underground only to emerge in the mid-1950's? That is very doubtful prima facie. More likely it is a cultural aberration encouraged by a climate of permissivity. Clearly it would have been (relatively) safer prior to the advent of syphillis and gonorrhea and HIV and Hepatitis B - D, etc.

Just because something is not apparent does not mean it does not exist. The recent "climate of permissivity" has only allowed something that has always been present to become more visible. This is true of much of the "darker side" of human nature that was highly suppressed by society until relatively recent history (i.e. spousal abuse, pornography, violence, etc.)

The genetic/learned debate is also irrelavent as I argued many months ago because we as a society haven't really figured out how things that are "learned" effect how people act to any real extent. Some feel that exposure to a certain type of behavior can encourage it, others feel that completely shielding someone from a certain type of behavior can lead to a situation where they make uninformed choices when the behavior inevitably presents itself, or our even drawn to it because of it's "forbidden" nature.

When you make the claim that something is "learned" there is the hidden implication that we can somehow change the environment in which a person is raised to avoid this "learning". The problem is, we don't know what the right changes to make are. And we know even less if we encourage an atmosphere of suppression.

The recent issues in the catholic church involving pedophelia is just one example of that. One would assume that what these priests "learned" would have had at least some effect on how they acted, but obviously, it did not.