Homosexuality does not exist.

There is evidence...empirical/theoretical evidence....people do it now...what's to say that it couldn't have happened way back then?

Really?

I'm not trying to be difficult, but I have to say, that response was kinda surprising.

i couldnt figure out how to say that. thanks

I'd say that there's a difference between the LGBT community as a whole and the Lesbian community in particular. There are differences between the Transexual community and the lesbian community. There are differences between all those groups, their interests overlap, but they are different. I'm not sure how someone could be unaware of the serious issues between the (male) gay community and the lesbian community. I'd think that this sort of "all those people are the same, why don't they all get along" type of thinking is especially annoying.

That one sentence (out of the dozens I've written in this thread) might seem flippant, but I DID go on to say more in response to Salome, and my other points stand. Thanks for ignoring those and giving me a wikipedia link, though (one which goes into exactly what I wrote above, btw).

Yo:

I think that simply means that one is not necessarily entitled to belong to a particular sexuality based community.

BEEEEEEEEEEEE ALL THAT YOU CAAAAAAAN BEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

We're kind of turning circles here.

Who decides who gets to belong to a "community", anyway? Is there some sort of qualification that one must have to decide who's in or out?

PointBlank's being disingenuous if he thinks that I think all non-hetero folk collectively should somehow naturally bond in a big non-straight group hug of sexual subversiveness. I understand that people are individuals and need not get on as individuals. I guess he assumes that I'm the one being disingenuous, but

Who the fuck is being referred to here? (Apart from the MadMan moron?) Who is assumed to be unaware of this, based on what?

A bi girl being dissed by lesbians is not a civil rights issue. That's hardly rocket science.

I've read what Necia and PB and others have written. Bi girls have unearned privilege. Yes, and...?

Well, it's sort of hard to parse what you're trying to say when your answer is a one-word response with a link to the Wiki entry on "LGBT" I mean, did you think I was unaware of the concept? Really?

Yes, but some of the people in this thread have equated the two. Thats when I came in.

The idea that has been repeated here is that it is somehow "worse" when a discriminated group disses others than at other times. I'm simply trying to point out that that isn't true at all. it might seem irritating, or counter intuitive, but it's not worse, and its not even the same as real oppression or discrimination. YOU might understand that, but there are people who don't.

...and that might explain some of the tension? You keep taking one sentence and ignoring the rest. Necia said a whole lot more than just that.

Second, my response to Salome that you seemed to have a problem with was explaining what you took for granted in the sentence above. She was denying that it's a privilege. I was pointing out (in the part you didn't quote) that it is.

Anyway, I'm guessing that we agree more than not on the subject, and I've written too much already here...if I haven't been clear enough, then I'm not going to be if I write another 2,000 words.

While I understand this is a side thread, the mystery is actually more about why homosexuality is as common as it is in humans (and apes?) if it doesn't directly result in the transmission of genes that cause homosexuality into the next generation. And no one argues that in prehistoric [Homo, individuals that failed to reproduce were killed. They just ... didn't breed. Which is by definition, not reproducing.

Also: jibe vs jive.

I would speculate that:

1. Many homosexuals do reproduce.

Just as otherwise straight people sometimes experiment with the same sex, homosexual people sometimes experiment with the opposite sex. Sometimes this will result in children.

As far as I know, many homosexual couples still desire children. Without modern medicine, the obvious remedy is heterosexual sex.

2. There is no negative selection pressure against homosexuality.

Evolutionary pressure tends to select for the best traits in a given environment, but it usually does not select against neutral or marginal traits.

3. It is not a genetic condition, but a predisposition.

Surely genetics comes into play, but there are certainly people with "fat genes" who aren't fat, and vice-versa.

TheFuckOffKid, I'm fairly certain that neither you or PointBlank is being disingenuous. What I think is that this is a complex issue and different people have different opinions involving various degrees of knowledge about the queer spectrum communities, and as such is engendering all kinds of levels of frustration based on that and an inherent amount difficulty in relaying various, facts, opinions, feeling, etc over the internet.

What PointBlank said is factually correct: there is a lesbian community that defines itself outside of the LBGTQ community. That is not meant to mean that every individual lesbian identifies as a wholly solely separate social and political group outside of LBGTQ, but it doesn't make that group which identifies itself separately, nonexistent.

I think you were addressing something that wasn't suggested when you pointed to a source evidencing the existence of a diverse group that has chosen to unite under a common banner, for a multitude of reasons.

I think that there are also parallel and intersecting arguments going on, and this is just and naturally difficult medium to talk about these things.

It depends on which community you're talking about. If you're talking about any one of the hundreds of lesbian exclusive communities, it could be any number of things, ranging from not getting picked-up at bars, not get positive responses from personal ads, or having some lesbians you know saying things that aren't fair--like, "your sexual identity and practices aren't valid."

And that might lead to friction and or resentments that may or may not be fair welcoming.

Also, it's not easy to tell what someone knows and doesn't know, unless they expressly point it out--especially about sex, sexuality, sexual identity, and gender identity issues.

There are other huge items, but I sincerely regret that I can't devote the proper amount of time to address it. I've already been doing a bunch of things while typing this that I'm afraid I may have not expressed myself on the issue with the thoroughness it deserves. It probably reads all disjointed and whatnot, and for that, I'm sorry.

i would assume its a whole confluence of genes, its a complex behavior ruled by lots of different chemicals so i would think it would take more than one gene to flip the switch as it were.

Man, the amount of information not understood about the biology, sociology, cultural practices, and variants in the queer communities could fill a book. Ha!

Yes, that's a joke that only I will probably get, or think is kinda funny.

But, on a really serious note, a lot of tension caused by the growing pains/cultural evolution of the female queer community came after the lesbian community started to see an increase in STDs because of bisexuals were the vectors for them.

The lesbian (exclusive) community had enjoyed a very low STD rate until a certain point in the queer revolution (which, 'oddly' enough, coordinates with the sexual revolution of the 60's and 70's).

That's not meant to viciously indite any individual; it's just an objectively observed phenomena. The stats are out there, I'm just not going to find the sources of data, right now. I may, however, do that later, but wouldn't object to someone else checking that claim.

The search for the "gay gene" is the equivalent of the search for the "evil gene".....it's absurd. I'm more apt to believe that it's dependent on an individual's unique natal astrological chart. According to many ancient astronomers there are numerous celestial recipes that are said to produce tendencies for homosexuality and bisexuality (read Tetrabiblos, Astronomica, Matheseos Libri, Carmen Astrologicum, et al.)....someone needs to build on the work of Michel Gauquelin and get us some hard statistical data to prove (or disprove) the ancients.

IIUC, being male homosexual was a very strong indicator for becoming a shaman's apprentice, in some places. I forget where I read that, so it might be complete fabrication (but not by me).

That certainly used to be the case. Oscar Wilde, for instance, fathered two sons.

I think what you are experiencing is due largely to the fact that a great number of people [in general] want to codify everything into their dualistic way of thinking (right/wrong, good/evil, gay/straight, etc...). Personally, I see sexuality as a spectrum- and most people fit somewhere in the middle (whether or not they choose to admit it).

Also, this discussion really reminds me of why I loathe labels in general. They are usually used to ostracize people and/or dehumanize them.

If only more people understood this. My son is the product of little experimentation with bisexuality (in my case, that meant heterosex, since I was/am already an out lesbian). I never claimed to be anything but a lesbian, but somehow, to a lot of people, sex with ONE MAN makes me "truly straight" or "bisexual" and that lesbianism is some phase for me.

If a heterosexual woman has one drunken encounter (or even a short fling) with another woman, no one questions her strait-ness, after all, it was "ONLY ONE TIME." Lesbian gets shitfaced and gets with a guy, and the world says "AHA! She's not really gay."

Nothing against bisexuality or heterosexuality, but I don't like being mislabeled. Just as bi-girls shouldn't be mislabeled as confused- they're not confused, they know exactly who they want.

We've tried to hammer this point home....unfortunately there's no takers...*sigh*

Yeah. . .no. It's not about whether or not anyone dislikes labels or not. I'm not saying you don't have a right to dislike labels, but not only do people label others, there are plenty of people who like to label themselves--which is totally valid for them to do.

There isn't anything inherently wrong with labels. But, in our limited ability to communicate with others, labels may be too broad, too narrow, too inaccurate. . .There may be any number of things that may be right or wrong about labels. It'd be pretty difficult to describe anything to one another without them, though.

No, that's not really incorrect. There are many historical and contemporary pederastic cultures.

homosexual tendencies were seen as being a sign of being blessed by a goddess or of containing aspects of both genders and thus more in touch with the other planes.