Gays, lesbians, bisexuals, PART II

[Huorn]

Originally Posted by Jonathan

Thank you very much Entwife/Huorn for sharing your story.
The fact that your and your identical twin's upbringings were so interestingly different and that only you developed POCS made me spend the last hour or so searching for and skimming through medical articles about environmental risk factors associated with POCS.

Lol, I'm a med student nerd

The interesting feature is that none of my ultra sounds actually show cysts, I don't have the high Body Mass Index. The doctor just slapped the label on me because I am physically andogynous for no real apparent reason. I have had scans done of my brain and kidneys too. All negative.

[Butterbeer]

I have had scans done of my brain and kidneys too. All negative.

... you have no brain and no kidney??

..you'd be a star at the AA meetings!

[Huorn]

Originally Posted by Butterbeer

... you have no brain and no kidney??

..you'd be a star at the AA meetings!

Im a Huorn silly, I am made of wood!

[Jonathan]

Originally Posted by Huorn

The interesting feature is that none of my ultra sounds actually show cysts, I don't have the high Body Mass Index. The doctor just slapped the label on me because I am physically andogynous for no real apparent reason. I have had scans done of my brain and kidneys too. All negative.

Yeah, you don't look anything near obese in your photo. You have a son too, so unless he's adopted I guess you didn't have some kind of chronic anovulation, which could also be a condition caused by PCOS (or if PCOS can be caused by anovulation, I read that suggestion somewhere).

[Lief Erikson]

Gwaimir, I trust my professor. I've had him for two semesters now, and find him to be one of the most intelligent and knowledgeable people I've ever known.

But Gwaimir, I did bring up other sources to verify my points.

I cited Minnesota State University, which says things very similar to what my history professor did. I also cited Wikipedia.

And BB, here's my response to what you said about Wikipedia's reliability:

Originally Posted by CNET News

Wikipedia is about as good a source of accurate information as Britannica, the venerable standard-bearer of facts about the world around us, according to a study published this week in the journal Nature.

http://news.com.com/Study+Wikipedia+...3-5997332.html

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

Don't just accept what people tell you; go to the source.

Normally I double check things like that if I disbelieve what I'm hearing. I have no reason to disbelieve Professor Cuddihy, a man who truly is astoundingly knowledgeable, especially not now that I've heard his account corroborated by the Minnesota State University.

I agree with you, BeardofPants, that primary sources are the best.

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

But remember, sodomy was illegal.

I cannot believe that this is true of Sparta. Spartan society celebrated homosexuality in the union between soldier comrades, and heterosexuality was scorned in Spartan culture. I have provided evidence from three different sources that this is true. This goes to prove my main point that Sparta was a very strongly homosexual country, and heterosexuality was scorned.

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

I cannot believe that this is true of Sparta. Spartan society celebrated homosexuality in the union between soldier comrades, and heterosexuality was scorned in Spartan culture. I have provided evidence from three different sources that this is true. This goes to prove my main point that Sparta was a very strongly homosexual country, and heterosexuality was scorned.

Not really. You are making a broad generalization based upon a few facts. This is often even done by respected historians. They take aspects from a certain place and time in the history of a civilization and project it upon the entire populace.

Even past historians with a more direct experience with Sparta have their biases, and write about the aspects of the culture that interest them, not necessarily the entirety of what that culture was. They can also be guilty of writing towards their audience, expressing what they think their target audience wants to hear.

I'm not saying you are right or wrong, but there is no "true" or "prove" when it comes to ancient history, only theory.

[Last Child of Ungoliant]

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

I'm not saying you are right or wrong, but there is no "true" or "prove" when it comes to ancient history, only theory

until i have invented a time machine that is

[Huorn]

Originally Posted by Jonathan

Yeah, you don't look anything near obese in your photo. You have a son too, so unless he's adopted I guess you didn't have some kind of chronic anovulation, which could also be a condition caused by PCOS (or if PCOS can be caused by anovulation, I read that suggestion somewhere).

Yeah I do have the anovulation symptom. I only have a small window each year where it is possible for me to become a mother. Doctors called my son a miracle baby. He's a 'fluke'. He's the only child I ever had.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

Gwaimir, I trust my professor. I've had him for two semesters now, and find him to be one of the most intelligent and knowledgeable people I've ever known.

But Gwaimir, I did bring up other sources to verify my points.

All that I've seen verified male-to-male relations, but I don't see the necessity for there to be any lack of significant age-difference, as you claim.

I cited Minnesota State University, which says things very similar to what my history professor did.

It failed to mention the two most humiliating claims; covering the woman in filth, and having the sex act performed in front of the man's peers. I'll come back later with my Plutarch to cite the text telling that the sex act was in fact performed in secret, not as a public act.

I also cited Wikipedia.

And I cited Cicero, stating that anal sex was forbidden. Here he is again: "The Lacedaemonians, while they permit all things except outrage (hubris, referring here to homosexual coitus) in the love of youths, certainly distinguish the forbidden by a thin wall of partition from the sanctioned, for they allow embraces and a common couch to lovers."

Normally I double check things like that if I disbelieve what I'm hearing. I have no reason to disbelieve Professor Cuddihy, a man who truly is astoundingly knowledgeable, especially not now that I've heard his account corroborated by the Minnesota State University.

Corroborated in certain details, but not in those which really make the sex-act humiliating, nor in general pronouncements that heterosexuality was despised. True, homosexual love was doubtless considered higher, as in much of Greece, but this does not mean heterosexual was necessarily looked down upon. As a Catholic, I consider the Pope higher than a bishop, but I certainly don't despise the bishop (well, not qua bishop, at least ).

I agree with you, BeardofPants, that primary sources are the best.

BoP and I seem to think this more important than you. I stand by her "ALWAYS, ALWAYS" check primary sources, if at all possible.

I cannot believe that this is true of Sparta. Spartan society celebrated homosexuality in the union between soldier comrades, and heterosexuality was scorned in Spartan culture.

I have seen no citations that have more than personal credibility about your claim of soldier-lovers, and nothing indicating that hetereosexuality was scorned in Spartan culture.

I have provided evidence from three different sources that this is true.

You have provided evidence that there were queer customs regarding marital relations, nothing more. Plutarch will help clear all of this up.

[Jonathan]

Originally Posted by Huorn

Yeah I do have the anovulation symptom. I only have a small window each year where it is possible for me to become a mother. Doctors called my son a miracle baby. He's a 'fluke'. He's the only child I ever had.

Wow, the odds certainly weren't on your side then. Neat that you managed to become pregnant despite that

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

It failed to mention the two most humiliating claims; covering the woman in filth, and having the sex act performed in front of the man's peers. I'll come back later with my Plutarch to cite the text telling that the sex act was in fact performed in secret, not as a public act.

Very good. I might talk to my history professor and ask him what his sources were (provided I remember to), just to satisfy you.

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

nor in general pronouncements that heterosexuality was despised.

On the contrary. As my quote from the Minnesota University said, "The groom afterward would return to the barrack of young men, and would have little or no contact with the bride from thereafter, save for purely procreative visits. A Spartan male could have multiple wives, (anthropologically known as polygamy) but lived mostly amongst his mess and barrack mates with little connection to the opposite sex."

This shows clearly that heterosexuality was not considered a great thing. It was only used for procreative purposes, as I've been saying from the beginning of this conversation. So heterosexuality was not considered a very positive thing, but this doesn't prove that humiliation occurred in it (aside from head-shaving).

The website I cited also said that the woman was dressed in men's clothes, which might imply that even in heterosexual relations, a connection with men was enforced.

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

BoP and I seem to think this more important than you. I stand by her "ALWAYS, ALWAYS" check primary sources, if at all possible.

Frankly, I don't have the time to "ALWAYS, ALWAYS" check primary sources. And I don't see a need, either. The sources I have cited are perfectly valid, even though they are secondary. The point to checking primary sources is that they are less assailable. Sometimes, authors who use secondary sources get their facts wrong, or impose their own viewpoint onto what the words they're quoting, misconstruing the text and ignoring the context. Using primary sources evades these problems. So does using reliable secondary sources .

Wikipedia has been compared to Encyclopedia Britannica in accuracy though by a study from Nature. This shows that it is generally very reliable and accurate. The other two citations I have made are from universities, which also thus are very reliable. You have not made any attacks on my sources except to say that they're secondary. This is a true assertion, but it is not evidence that they are flawed. Indeed, there is good reason to believe (which I have stated above) that they are fully reliable.

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

I have seen no citations that have more than personal credibility about your claim of soldier-lovers, and nothing indicating that hetereosexuality was scorned in Spartan culture.

The Minnesota State University website stated that heterosexual sex was not engaged in except for procreative purposes. This is right along the line of what I was saying, though what I said went even further.

Here are a couple citations (in addition to my professor) for the homosexual bonds between soldiers.

Originally Posted by About.com

There is in fact evidence that romantic eros was seen as homosexual all over Greece. Sparta, even with its relatively free women, had homosexual relationships built into the structure of the training all young Spartan men received.

http://ancienthistory.about.com/libr...y/aa072099.htm

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

Pederasty and military training were intimately connected in Sparta, as in many other cities. The Spartans, claims Athenaeus [19] sacrificed to Eros before every battle: "Thus the Lacedaemonians offer preliminary sacrifices to Eros before the troops are drawn up in battle-line, because they think that their safe return and victory depend upon the friendship of the men drawn up." However, unlike other cities which stationed lovers side by side in battle to encourage each to fiercer efforts, Spartan youths were so well trained that they fought nobly regardless of where they were positioned.[20]

The lover was responsible for the boy's training. An anecdote relates the story of a Spartan magistrate who was fined by the city because his beloved had cried out while he was fighting, which was considered to be a sign that the young man was overly effeminate and had therefore not been properly educated by his distinguished lover.[21] And while the ephors were lenient with a youth who committed a misdeamenor, they made sure to punish his lover, since it was his responsibility to watch and control his beloved.[22]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pederas...ancient_Greece

[Butterbeer]

and your response to my questioning the validity of CNET News?

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by Butterbeer

and your response to my questioning the validity of CNET News?

CNET News did not conduct the study. Nature did, which is why the story was big enough to make BBC News a while back. That's how I first heard about it.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Okay, here comes Plutarch; watch out!

Originally Posted by Plutarch

And to the end he might take away their over-great tenderness and fear of exposure to the air, and all acquired womanishness, he ordered that the young women should go naked in the processions, as well as the young men, and dance, too, in that condition, at certain solemn feasts, singing certain songs, whilst the young men stood around, seeing and hearing them.

*snip*

These public processions of the maidens, and their appearing naked in their exercises and dancings, were incitements to marriage, operating upon the young with the rigor and certainty, as Plato says, of love, if not of mathematics.

Quick note: If they were all homosexuals, as you categorically asserted, who only slept with women when they had to, they would not be attracted to maidens, and thus the sight of them dancing or processing naked would not be an incitement to marriage, operaing with the "rigor and certainty of love".

Originally Posted by Plutarch

In their marriages, the husband carried off his bride by a sort of force; nor were their brides ever small and of tender years, but in their full bloom and ripeness. After this, she who superintended the wedding comes and clips the hair of the bride close round her head, dresses her up in man's clothes, and leaves her upon a mattress in the dark (not in a public way surrounded by peers); afterwards comes the bridegroom, in his every-day clothes, sober and composed, as having supped at the common table, and, entering privately into the room where the bride lies, unties her virgin zone, and takes her to himself; and, after staying some time together, he returns composedly to his own apartment, to sleep as usual with the other young men.
And so he continues to do, spending his days, and, indeed, his nights with them, visiting his bride in fear and shame (but read on, this has a purpose), and with circumspection, when he thought he should not be observed; she, also, on her part, using her wit to help and find favorable opportunities for their meeting, when company was out of the way. In this manner they lived a long time, insomuch that they sometimes had children by their wives before ever they saw their faces by daylight. Their interviews, being thus difficult and rare, served not only for continual exercise of their self-control, but brought them together with their bodies healthy and vigorous, and their affections fresh and lively, unsated and undulled by easy access and long continuance with each other; while their partings were always early enough to leave behind unextinguished in each of them some remainder fire of longing and mutual delight.

Emphasis mine; italics my insert.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

Very good. I might talk to my history professor and ask him what his sources were (provided I remember to), just to satisfy you.

As brilliant as he may be, do you trust him more than an ancient Greek historian, separated as he is by some roughly 2500 years from that of which he speaks?

On the contrary. As my quote from the Minnesota University said, "The groom afterward would return to the barrack of young men, and would have little or no contact with the bride from thereafter, save for purely procreative visits. A Spartan male could have multiple wives, (anthropologically known as polygamy) but lived mostly amongst his mess and barrack mates with little connection to the opposite sex."

This shows clearly that heterosexuality was not considered a great thing.

It's does not. It merely shows that male camaraderie was considered more important than

It was only used for procreative purposes, as I've been saying from the beginning of this conversation.

See Plutarch above, where he speaks of desire, longing, and mutual delight. From the perspective of the hive-like state, it was, but it is simply untrue to assert that virtually the entire nation was homosexual. They were bisexual, as were essentially all the ancient Greeks, and the Japanese, and the Arabic peoples, and I imagine a lot more than that.

The website I cited also said that the woman was dressed in men's clothes, which might imply that even in heterosexual relations, a connection with men was enforced.

It might suggest that, but I think one can't say for certain one way or the other.

Frankly, I don't have the time to "ALWAYS, ALWAYS" check primary sources. And I don't see a need, either.

You don't have to ALWAYS check primary sources; that's why I modified BoP's religious fanaticism () with if possible.

The sources I have cited are perfectly valid, even though they are secondary.

In the end, everything comes down to primary sources, and as far as I can see, there is no corroboration from either primary or secondary sources for covering the woman in filth or having the man's peers watch the sexual act; the primary sources in fact strongly indicate that the latter was NOT the case. So, it seems the one secondary source, from what we can tell, is in fact not valid, since from what we see, one of the assertions it makes is not corroborated by other sources, and the closest source we have actually contradicts another.

The point to checking primary sources is that they are less assailable. Sometimes, authors who use secondary sources get their facts wrong, or impose their own viewpoint onto what the words they're quoting, misconstruing the text and ignoring the context. Using primary sources evades these problems. So does using reliable secondary sources .

But the problem is, you can never be sure that a secondary source is reliable. See the little tizzy GM and I got into, over whether or not the Republic considered women to be inferior to men. What was the reason? He relied upon a SECONDARY SOURCE, which told him that it established their equality (drawn from the fact that it said all occupations should be open to them), rather than reading for himself operum ipsud.

Wikipedia has been compared to Encyclopedia Britannica in accuracy though by a study from Nature. This shows that it is generally very reliable and accurate.

Naw; just shows ya can't trust the EB.

The other two citations I have made are from universities, which also thus are very reliable.

Oh, come now, surely you don't think everything from a University is reliable? Universities are far too common and too talkative for that to be the case.

You have not made any attacks on my sources except to say that they're secondary. This is a true assertion, but it is not evidence that they are flawed. Indeed, there is good reason to believe (which I have stated above) that they are fully reliable.

See above. Also, the conclusions they draw don't seem correct from what Plutarch says, or the conclusions they imply don't, at least.
Universities are by no means ipso facto reliable.

The Minnesota State University website stated that heterosexual sex was not engaged in except for procreative purposes. This is right along the line of what I was saying, though what I said went even further.

Plutarch indicates otherwise.

[Lief Erikson]

Sorry for not giving you much of a reply here at all, Gwaimir, but I think I'm done debating on this subject too. It takes more time than I want to spend and for me, it isn't important enough to continue focusing on.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Fair enough; I can certainly understand that. I know I was quite overwhelmed by our debates a few years ago!

[Butterbeer]

so .... who won?

[Gwaimir Windgem]

I want to say Plutarch, but that would be sophomoric.

[inked]

Wake up this dormant thread:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21309724/?GT1=10450

research!