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

[Zack Alklazaris]

Exactly like it is today, except Men and Women couldn't get married and all our politicians would have a much better taste in attire.

 

[Haratu]

Besides, what you're saying is that homosexuality is something harmful and dangerous, which it is neither. It is simply frowned upon because it was used throughout history as a scapegoat by many peoples, and the stigma is only just being overcome.

Homosexuality is a problem as i indicated earlier, it causes issues with inheritance of power bases and so can result in power vacuums and war.
It is of course not a problem in an elected democracy since power is not inherited.

 

[DracoSuave]

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.

An interesting thought experiment!

i said to ignore the biological factor. read the post next time

But... biology is the most important determining factor in social development in every fucking species on the planet! The biology determines EVERYTHING! Society would be radically different and observing the changes would be awesome, but seeing as we can't actually include different roles of gender (which would define this brave new world but we can't discuss because it's biology)... it's no wonder you've hit a snag. Cause you've snagged yourself.

What's worse is you've shown a fundamental lack of understanding of GBLT issues from a cultural viewpoint, which makes you completely unqualified to even guess as to why things are the way they are. There's a cause and effect, and if you want your work to not suck, you need to examine why.

Assuming heterosexual reproduction still applies...

Well, why would humans be homonormative, rather than heteronormative? Well, the only evolutionary reason I can forsee to favoring non-reproductive sexuality is because of hyperfertility in women. Basically, this strain of humanity would have females that got knocked up so easily that homonormative behaviors evolved to combat overpopulation. A Malthusian effect, if you will.

Reproductive sexual congress would happen infrequently. As a result, most of society would stratify into gender roles even more than now. The reason for this is simple: without heterosexual prejudice, there's no biological need for gay men and gay women to associate, because they don't have common ground. Thusly, we can now speculate on what normal conception would be like in this world...

Single Monthers. Everywhere. Without the attachment to a female mate, the male is more likely to not be involved past moment of conception. Female attachment to the child would remain the same. Bear in mind, this would be normal. Men wouldn't be seen as child-rearers, because fathers wouldn't have relationships with mothers. Everyone would be far more likely to be raised by single mothers rather than a father and mother.

This will, in fact, be the major cause of social stratification. Either one of two possible social scenarios will occur: Either society will be heavily patriarchal, highly aggressive males keeping hyperfertile females for breeding, or hyperfertile females leading worker males much as queen bees.

Neither society could last.

See, heterosexuality wouldn't be as easily 'closeted' as homosexuality is in our society, because heterosexuality serves a useful societal purpose. At some point, the women gotta breed. So the act of heterosexual sex wouldn't be seen as taboo as homosexual sex has traditionally been in, say, Christian culture.

Now, the idea of a birth control industry would be incredibly niche. Very few people would have... or want... access to methods of stopping birth because most people don't engage in reproductive sex by 'accident'.

Looking at the patriarchal society, The males most likely to breed will be the most driven. The heterosexual males will engage in more encounters (legal or not) and thus reproduce far more.

Similiarly, in the matriarchal society, the females most likely to breed will be those who enjoy the act of heterosexual sex.

In either case, heterosexuality will be more likely to spread and reproduce because it DOES spread and reproduce. Evolution will then dictate that it will take over through sheer fecundity.

The soecietal result of this, however, and what is important for your paper... is that heterosexuals (and bisexuals) will not be seen as 'deviants' or as hated, because of the value they provided to the continuance of the species. However, gender politics will be even more uneven and fucked up than they are now, because the need for men and women to mingle as partners or potential mates will be signifigantly reduced. This will lead to greater gender-divergence, thus, men'll be manlier, women will be womanlier.

So, let's say you had a 'sex scandal' involving a politician. The idea of it wrecking 'family valuews' is absurd if it's a male politician, because males will not be involved in their decendants in this model. Who cares if he betrays his kids by sleeping with anyone? It's not like he got their names!

It wouldn't affect a female politician either. Who is she betraying? Her kids? Thing is, her kids have nothing to do with her sexual mate. They may or may not like her, but sexual mating and family would be completely divorced from each other, similiar to how family and the brand of beer you drink aren't related. Political sex scandals would be more geared towards other mates... how do they feel about it. People would identify with that more. Politicians wouldn't be looked on as family rolemodels anyways... it's just not how the society would work.

 

[s0p0g]

in that case, the world wouldn't make much sense, as homosexuality doesn't help the survival of the species, which seems to be all "nature" aims at, thus homosexuality as the norm would be be against nature... or something like that.
that's what the natural scientist in me says.
p.s.: maybe in that case nature would have established a way for all three possible combinations of mates to ensure the survival of species? you know, make every possible combination somehow able to reproduce.
...
......
i'd love to get my hands on an anatomy and physiology book out of that parallel dimension ^^


considering the rather good mood i'm in, i'd say "hooray, more lesbians to watch makeing out at bars, discos,..." ^^


actually i don't see how society as a whole should change that much, besides having less kids and growing smaller and smaller over time. that would make pensions smaller and taxes and stuff higher/more expensive.
also a higher percentage of the population would have STDs (no, i do not have any predu... predi... prejudices against homosexual people, but the numbers speak quite a clear language there, at least among men. but maybe their risky behaviour would change if their sexual orientation was the norm, i could very well imagine that.)
also, see first statement.

 

[Esotera]

America would most likely no longer exist unless it could accept that heterosexuals were an essential (albeit taboo) section of their society. You'd have a really weird caste system; rich homosexual couples would probably pay heterosexual women to bear children for them, the government would have to simultaneously encourage & discourage reproduction.

And the WBC would probably come up with something even more retarded like "God Hates Kids". Also there would be laws against Charlie Sheen

 

[chadachada123]

I personally consider most people's sexuality to be dependent on the environment they were raised in. Most of us, if born into a world that supported homosexuality, would be homosexual, or if born into a straight world would be straight, and if born into a world that didn't support either, would almost certainly be bisexual.

We're human, we're geared toward pleasure, regardless of the gender of the pleasure-giver.

So...that's my input, take from that what you will, OP.

 

[Technomage333]

Well if I had to guess, given that you're not just setting this in modern day...the human race would be extinct because no one could reproduce and there were no workarounds like artificial insemination in 1200 B.C.

 

[newdarkcloud]

Let's start with the obvious fact that the population would be significantly lower unless science evolved in this world faster than it did in our own (Since hetero couples would be "ousted" the moment the woman conceived).

This might lead to slower Urban Development, but I honestly could not be very sure of that. I'd imagine science would still evolve as it did, but it would be slower.

Honestly, assuming population didn't change too much, I doubt most other things would change too much.

 

[Haratu]

A more valid and interesting discussion is the effect on society if women just cloned themselves, then gave birth to their direct offspring, and did not bother with men... This is more of a futuristic issue rather than a historical one.

I should note that one species of skinks in Australia have the ability to do this naturally and have no males in their species. They encourage asexual reproduction through homosexual exitement.
It is known that some other species of fish, birds and reptiles are also capable of this in unusual circumstances but do not rely on it and prefer heterosexual reproduction.

 

[Crazy]

One problem: We won't reproduce. Therefore, that is an equation to death. We don't want that. No, I won't roll with it!

 

[ThreeWords]

Is every student of social science an idiot, or only the ones who ask for help on the internet?

I don't mean to be horrid, but I keep seeing ignorant and frankly insulting questions asked by people who claim to be studying how societies work. Of anything, the degree of stupidity apparently involved makes me wonder whether the term science is correct...

 

[Gluzzbung]

I reckon we would get a culture like the Greeks developing where each person has a lover of their own gender and have a spouse that they would live with a have children with, they don't even have to like eachother.

 

[EventHorizon]

Last part of this masterpiece :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Forever_War
...takes place in such "setting".

Darn. Beaten to it. But on topic, unless we were all cloned or all the *cough* components needed to reproduce were routinely donated, the population would be much smaller.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

2. No kids, human race is dead with first generation.
/quote]

Yep. Im all for people being gay. But the whole gay with kids thing is retarded to me. Kids are man and woman. Especially when perfectly good parents (man&woman) are discriminated because they may be overweight, and they let gay people adopt instead. Again, before retards *****, im all for people being gay, i have relations that are both a gay uncle and lesbian aunt, but the kid thing i dont agree with. Mostly as the non biological parent can leave without paying a penny.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Plus, kids for me, is that i want to make something with my wife. A combination of our DNA's, sounds romantic. But thats what having a child is about. Yes gay people can adopt. But if everyone is gay, who is having kids and why? It would end up as a huge factory pumping out kids for no reason.

 

[OldRat]

Well now, you've placed yourself in a bit of a pickle. If you go with the "homosexuality doesn't really change anything about a person except his sexual preference" version, which you apparently are, and somehow roll with reproduction still happening, then I guess bugger all. I really don't know what you were expecting, considering you pretty much deny all possibility of any mentionable change with that already.

If, on the other hand, you're actually expecting long answers about how the world would be such a different place on some fundamental level, then you're opening a huge can of worms by insisting gay people are different on some fundamental level other than sexual preference.

My suggestion? Pick a different topic. Especially since you are doing something (viewing "gayness" as a direct sliding scale) you, yourself, admit doesn't work. This whole thing is way too vague and obscure in headachingly-many ways to get you a decent grade.

EDIT: just noticed this.

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?

Okay, yeah. Sorry. That's it, this is over. With that, you've proven that you really, really don't comprehend the issue you're trying to work on. Sorry, but really do pick something that's less likely to earn you some serious hate and/or horrible grades.

 

[BlackSaint09]

I would be faboulus at day and...
I dont know what i would be at night okay?
I wanted to write sex hungry sombrero worshipping cock-a-too but that wouldnt have gone well with the joke...

 

[Terminal Blue]

Is every student of social science an idiot, or only the ones who ask for help on the internet?

I was a social science student until a few months ago and I'm.. well okay, you got me..

snip

Now I think about it, what you could actually do which would actually be both imaginative and meaningful is to look at real trends in gay lifestyles and family life, and extrapolate those, for example looking at a future scenario in which a much higher proportion of relationships are same sex and what demographic and social changes might occur in response. You could use this as a platform to look at particular issues in LGBT demographic research.

I could even try and give you a reading list for that if you wanted.

Kids are man and woman.

Why?

If those overweight people want to adopt a child, they have no biological connection to it either. If they could just make one themselves they probably wouldn't be looking at adopting, would they? Your argument makes no sense.

I wasn't raised by my birth parents, and I'm on the edge of finding this argument pretty offensive.

 

[DRes82]

Actually, after thinking about it for a few minutes...

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

You sound like you mean to propose that gay people are not like the 'other humans who have inhabited the world for all it's existence, so far'.

You seem to imply that being gay can make all of your other choices in life different, and that's kinda wrong, eh?

Yeah, I'm gunna stick to my first post. It would nothing changes, unless you buy into stereotypes.

If he's implying these things, he is correct. Being gay does, in fact, make you different from other humans that inhabit the world. That's why its such a controversy these days. People don't like stuff that is different.

Also, OF COURSE being gay would make your other choices in life different, and no...thats not wrong. Thats just life.

The thread isn't insulting...its an interesting hypothetical question.

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

Honestly, straight people don't form "straight communities" or have "straight parades". You're using Hugh Hefner as an example to say that straight people are too outspoken about their sexuality? Really?