help me with my project: what if gay were the norm and heterosexuality were taboo?

[Tanakh]

Art in the archaic sense, as in "a human endeavor that is not a science," not so much art in the sense that anyone who partakes in it is an art critic. There's just too much fudge factor involved for it to truly be a science; you know, like the old saying "it's more art than science." Bascially, cooking is an art; baking is a science. If you try to turn baking into an art or cooking into a science, the end result is not particularly good. (In the case of baking, I'm referring specifically to actually making the pastry/bread. There is very little room for going off-recipe, and experiments pretty much have to be carried out by changing one variable at a time. Decorating a cake, obviously, isn't what I'm talking about here.)

Give it a chance mate! Physics and Chem have 200ish years of advantage in their scientific endeavors. All social sciences study real phenomena and the best of them try to explain and predict the world; as such is just a matter of time till they get as robust as natural science.

Edit: But its true that most people in social science lack the math tools to do "real" science. Don't worry, when math majors take over the world we will force people to do 2 hours math a day at least.

 

[SnakeoilSage]

I know a lot of Republicans who would be holding bland parades of gray suits and tiny crucifixes clamoring for the right to get married. Just as disruptive, but not quite as spectacular to watch.

 

[HK_01]

We wouldn't really have survived this long. In fact, we wouldn't have survived more than a couple of generations since only a small fraction of the population would be capable of producing offspring at all, and if we assume that the majority group would treat the minority as was historically the case, well, the women who are pregnant can only be so through heterosexual intercourse, which would then be against the moral code or whatever and in the worst case, she'd be put to death (possibly only after she's given birth to the child). This would shorten the survival of humanity even further.

If we're only talking about today, I guess that this problem could potentially be solved by artificial impregnation. Not much else would be different, really.

 

[JesterRaiin]

you are looking at this topic the wrong way.

Now i'm geting it...
It's like Alan Turing was never forced to change his ways ?

Man, that's very intersting topic. Without digging in ancient history you have plenty of examples. Einstein had problems with keeping it in the pants. Marie Curie-Skłodowska was very, ahem, passionate. Tesla was not only weird but supposedly homosexual.

It really would be interesting to see how things'd change without/with sexual repression...

 

[Bloodsoul]

Wasn't this the plot to an episode of Star Trek TNG? It does pose an interesting dilemma, mainly are people straight because society expects it, or are people straight because they are born that way/ want to be that way. In a homosexual world, what would social customs become like? That is the more questionable part of it, because in order for the biology to work, humans would have to look very different, or all homosexual couples would use a surrogate. this would make for a series of cultures much more open to sexuality, because procreating could no longer take place behind closed doors.

 

[Edana_ni_Emer]

Niola Tesla? He was gay, and it ended up fucking over his entire life.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Art in the archaic sense, as in "a human endeavor that is not a science," not so much art in the sense that anyone who partakes in it is an art critic. There's just too much fudge factor involved for it to truly be a science; you know, like the old saying "it's more art than science." Bascially, cooking is an art; baking is a science. If you try to turn baking into an art or cooking into a science, the end result is not particularly good. (In the case of baking, I'm referring specifically to actually making the pastry/bread. There is very little room for going off-recipe, and experiments pretty much have to be carried out by changing one variable at a time. Decorating a cake, obviously, isn't what I'm talking about here.)

Give it a chance mate! Physics and Chem have 200ish years of advantage in their scientific endeavors. All social sciences study real phenomena and the best of them try to explain and predict the world; as such is just a matter of time till they get as robust as natural science.

Edit: But its true that most people in social science lack the math tools to do "real" science. Don't worry, when math majors take over the world we will force people to do 2 hours math a day at least.

I'll believe it when I see it. Personally, I have too much faith in humanity (and too much knowledge of the techniques used in Social science; I'm not even sure why anything softer than Sociology counts, especially not the really soft ones like history) to believe that you could ever categorize human behavior in a truly scientific manner. The mathematical models just don't reflect the real world to the extent they do in the hard sciences.

you are looking at this topic the wrong way.

Now i'm geting it...
It's like Alan Turing was never forced to change his ways ?

Holy crap, that would have made a huge difference to history. He never "changed his ways," to the best of my knowledge. He just died alone and obscure, a victim of an establishment that wouldn't recognize his genius until decades after it was too late for him. He committed suicide, didn't he?

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

This is possibly the most insulting thread I have ever seen against the gay community.

Yeap. Well, not the most insulting, i mean he doesn't say that gays are like Hitler, but it's as clueless insulting as it gets.

Then again, nothing big, i remember once i went to a gay party of a friend, all the guys were asking like "what is to be straight" - "dude, the same as you but i like boobs".

Offtopic: Anyone know how to embed an image? i assumed (brackets)image=Http://whatever.jpg(brackets) but i am failing at post

Fixed. Quote my post to see how it's done.

 

[Da Orky Man]

snip

Try reading "The Forever War" by Joe Haldeman. It deals with just that.

 

[JesterRaiin]

Human race would have never made it as far as it did. If we still survived at all it would be a few tiny clans of savages.

I beg to differ. Observe that many inventions were discovered almost simultaneously in different parts of globe. To this day some cases of "who was first" aren't 100% clear. Same things with pretty everything. If not Genghis Khan, then someone else. If not in 1492 then 100 years later. If not Iphone then TyrellPhone.

History of Mankind would be different, yes, no doubtly, but i guess not that much. Some things are determined to happen and people act only as conductors, agents of change, nothing more.

you are looking at this topic the wrong way.

Now i'm geting it...
It's like Alan Turing was never forced to change his ways ?

Holy crap, that would have made a huge difference to history. He never "changed his ways," to the best of my knowledge. He just died alone and obscure, a victim of an establishment that wouldn't recognize his genius until decades after it was too late for him. He committed suicide, didn't he?

He was chemically castrated, turned into freak with tits, ostracized, prevented from contributing into science. Exact circumstances of his death aren't that clear. Everything seems to point on suicide by poisoning but, you know, those were weird times. Some famous last words of suicide victims include "where are you taking me", "what are you doing", "don't shoot comrades" and so.

BTW : This whole "we would die" thing... Look people, a little finesee. Please. Even with homoesexuality accepted globaly we would still reproduce. Maybe we would invent some religious ritual, or simply nature would force us to mate, but we wouldn't be extinct.

 

[Scott Schreiner]

i actually have a gay guy in our group and his entire job for this week consists of comming up with heterosexual slurs that may have been developed through hisory

I'll make your friend's job slightly easier. One already exists and is used in this history: "Breeder"

As far as historical figures defined by their sexuality, the one that keeps popping into my head is Elvis. Elvis I feel is the first person that brought sex into mainstream music, changing it forever. What he did seems pretty tame by today's standards, but back then he was seen as a sexual predator by stuffy people. If he had been straight in a gay world, maybe he wouldn't have been shaking his hips so much and just turned out to be some boring crooner.

 

[CrustyOatmeal]

another topic i see being ignored is how this alteration in history would effect wars. if the world consisted mainly of lesbians and homosexuals then wouldnt their be a natural divide between the two? would wars have changed in meaning? would WWII be fought over homosexual superiority over lesbians? would new wars occurred or historical wars not have occurred?

 

[piesandwich]

Go and read "the Forever war". good book, and it covers this topic.

 

[Ghengis John]

in my social science class me and my group have decided to take a look at how the world would have changed if heterosexuality were taboo and being gay were the norm. seeing as how it is impossible to analyses this entire topic within a single semester, our group is concentrating on how America would change (with and emphasis on California since that is where we go to school).

No offense but you guys came up with the is topic yourselves didn't you?

 

[CrustyOatmeal]

i actually have a gay guy in our group and his entire job for this week consists of comming up with heterosexual slurs that may have been developed through hisory

I'll make your friend's job slightly easier. One already exists and is used in this history: "Breeder"

As far as historical figures defined by their sexuality, the one that keeps popping into my head is Elvis. Elvis I feel is the first person that brought sex into mainstream music, changing it forever. What he did seems pretty tame by today's standards, but back then he was seen as a sexual predator by stuffy people. If he had been straight in a gay world, maybe he wouldn't have been shaking his hips so much and just turned out to be some boring crooner.

HOLY CRAP! how did i miss him?

if you make Elvis a straight man in a gay world then he may not have been a musician and thus he wouldnt have revolutionizes the rock-and-roll revolution. who knows what would have heppend if the rock-and-roll revolution had been pushed back ten, twenty, thirty years... or if it never existed at all

 

[BanicRhys]

Good god, that would be awful. Nice it doesn't happen today.

Fortunately for us, Hugh Hefners are extremely few and far between.

And you better not be implying that girly mags count as sexuality being thrown in our faces because you actually need to be looking for them in order to notice them.

 

[CrustyOatmeal]

in my social science class me and my group have decided to take a look at how the world would have changed if heterosexuality were taboo and being gay were the norm. seeing as how it is impossible to analyses this entire topic within a single semester, our group is concentrating on how America would change (with and emphasis on California since that is where we go to school).

No offense but you guys came up with the is topic yourselves didn't you?

we were inspired by another project from a previous class about how society would view periods if men had them. the presentation talked about how periods would be openly discussed and men would even brag about it. the main point of our topic is not to imagine a world for the sake of imagination but to draw comparisons between the two and how different circumstances can drastically alter meaning

 

[Turiski]

No offense but you guys came up with the is topic yourselves didn't you?

And collaboration, as we all know, is strictly forbidden. By the Rules. Of Life.

 

[Vankraken]

Sorry to say but its a pointless topic because reproduction is based on boys and girls having sex with each other and you can't reproduce with same sex relations. So human reproduction would be greatly reduced and most likely unable to sustain the human life lose endured due to war, plague, and general hardships of past times. As a species we would be much more likely to die off. If humans did survive then the ones who were heterosexual would continue on as the homosexual population would not be able to reproduce. Heterosexuality can't really be the taboo sexual orientation or else the species dies off. At best it forces equality between sexual orientations and at worst extinction.

In a magical world where reproduction was not an issue then it would really be impossible to accurately gauge any meaningful change without going into homosexual stereotypes that are at best accurate for a small percentage of homosexuals and at worse completely incorrect.

Protip: Humans will always find things about other humans to hate and if given the chance will find ways to put down different groups of humans to elevate the status of themselves and humans that they are similar to.