Homosexuality: Nature or Nurture?

[Sprinal]

1. hopefully is becoming less, and perhaps it is possible to avoid (though I cant speak from experience)

2. I didnt know they were THAT rare, I mean there are specific places to find potential partners

3. one plus is all the sex you want without worrying about kids

4. one negative would be..kids somwhat difficult to obtain

My point was really based on the prejudice i've seen from people I know at school as well as the prejudice that I have seen on gay people that my mother is friends with. I added the points there simply because I did not really think that I could put it in by itself.

Anyway though the Prejudice outside of major cities (outer suberbs of Sydney Aus) is still vary high.
True in major areas they probably would not be that hard to find. But it would still be about 10% in my estimates.

Well, the question isn't if being gay is a choice, but if you can be conditioned(nurtured, raised, take your pick) to be gay. Just because you weren't born with a disposition, doesn't make it less real

Ok you have an interesting point. But as I have always been brought up in a fairly neutral familly and ended up not gay. So unless someone had always been pushed to be gay I cannot see how that could be the case.

I do not believe that I am right. I just can't see any evidence to the contrary.

 

[Varya]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_in_animals
This is relevant to our interest.
So according to this, homosexual behavior with animals is primarily not a preference for same-sex sex, but could be because of lack of mates, or to show dominance. However, there are exceptions, with for example 8% of male sheep preferring sex with other males, without regard to accesses to females
So there is a president for non-environment induced homosexuals with animals, but it's rare.

 

[Verp]

I think people are getting a little confused on the Nature Vrs. Nurture argument.

Nature: It is encoded into your genome. You have no choice, it just Happens.
Nurture: Through influncing outside factors it occurs.

now for a complex argument.

it is impossible to BE homosexual in normal conditions with 'nature'. you are not born homosexual and there are no gene's, genetics, hereditary traits, or influcing factors biologically to make a person homosexual. Your body is Designed from the ground up for the sole purpouse of reproduction, to find some one of the opposit sex and procreate.

the idea of 'Homosexuality' is purely a psychological one, or 'nurture' in this case. It is some ones choice to be homosexual or not. However, it is not as simple as 'i choose to be gay' or 'i choose to be straight'... Several psychological things and trama alter your prefrences, choices, and desires so that your choice and options shift.

Instead of asking ones self 'am i gay/straight?' they may ask themselves 'Should i be happy?' in which happiness is relations with some one of the same sex. Their feelings on the matter may be so very strong that, although the choice exists, they do not see it. Instead they identify with the choice that best suits them 'i am gay/straight'.


my stand point on the thing...
It is impossible to be Homosexual.
your body is designed to procreate and the body influences the mind.

It is impossible to be Hetrosexual.
Your mind finds sexual attraction in any features regardless of sex.

we are all varying degrees of Bi-sexual.

This doesn't hold up I'm afraid, since homosexuality is a common occurrence in nature. I can't leave a source, but I'm pretty certain I've read they have proven that homosexuality is in fact genetic.
Of course, being homosexual doesn't allow for you genes to survive evolution, but there is quite a possibility that the same gene that can cause you to become homosexual is beneficial in another way. So having the gene is beneficial, however only a few will actually become homosexual, when the gene is dominant. Not saying I know what that benefit is, just that there is a possibility.

acctually incorrect, homosexuality in nature is never by design of biology. It only happens due to influncing outside factors which force it to happen. some species of female Frogs, for instance, only adopt homosexual tendencies when a lack of males exist in the population. Penguins, probably the most famous Homosexual coupling in nature, Again only occur when there is lack of one sex over the other.

in almost every single case of homosexuality in nature that you can find you'll see that it Only occurs because of outside influence. i have yet to see one case where an animal of any type actively searches out a same sex relationship when these outside influences don't exist.

This is a very old view concerning homosexuality in the animal kingdom -- it has since been refuted by several observations of homosexuality occurring in hundreds of species across the globe without any particular outside influence.

 

[ericthered88]

If we accept evolution as true, which many people do, then it can't possibly be nature. Natural selection would have weeded out any genes that produced homosexuality long ago, if any such genes ever existed which has never been proven. As one post stated, even fairly strict Christians and the like sometimes have children who end up homosexual, and I'm sure that gay couples who adopt children have some that turn out straight, so it's not necessarily nurture either.

Since it definitely isn't nature, and nurture plays a somewhat limited role, it can only be concluded that, whether influenced by external factors or not, homosexuality is a choice.

 

[Varya]

1. hopefully is becoming less, and perhaps it is possible to avoid (though I cant speak from experience)

2. I didnt know they were THAT rare, I mean there are specific places to find potential partners

3. one plus is all the sex you want without worrying about kids

4. one negative would be..kids somwhat difficult to obtain

My point was really based on the prejudice i've seen from people I know at school as well as the prejudice that I have seen on gay people that my mother is friends with. I added the points there simply because I did not really think that I could put it in by itself.

Anyway though the Prejudice outside of major cities (outer suberbs of Sydney Aus) is still vary high.
True in major areas they probably would not be that hard to find. But it would still be about 10% in my estimates.

Well, the question isn't if being gay is a choice, but if you can be conditioned(nurtured, raised, take your pick) to be gay. Just because you weren't born with a disposition, doesn't make it less real

Ok you have an interesting point. But as I have always been brought up in a fairly neutral familly and ended up not gay. So unless someone had always been pushed to be gay I cannot see how that could be the case.

I do not believe that I am right. I just can't see any evidence to the contrary.

Well, if it's environmental, it probably still means that people with "genetic disposition" towards homosexuality runs a larger chance. And Being "raised gay" is also probably not the way to "trigger" homosexuality. The factors might be subtle things that affects our subconscious.

 

[Pyro Paul]

I think people are getting a little confused on the Nature Vrs. Nurture argument.

Nature: It is encoded into your genome. You have no choice, it just Happens.
Nurture: Through influncing outside factors it occurs.

now for a complex argument.

it is impossible to BE homosexual in normal conditions with 'nature'. you are not born homosexual and there are no gene's, genetics, hereditary traits, or influcing factors biologically to make a person homosexual. Your body is Designed from the ground up for the sole purpouse of reproduction, to find some one of the opposit sex and procreate.

the idea of 'Homosexuality' is purely a psychological one, or 'nurture' in this case. It is some ones choice to be homosexual or not. However, it is not as simple as 'i choose to be gay' or 'i choose to be straight'... Several psychological things and trama alter your prefrences, choices, and desires so that your choice and options shift.

Instead of asking ones self 'am i gay/straight?' they may ask themselves 'Should i be happy?' in which happiness is relations with some one of the same sex. Their feelings on the matter may be so very strong that, although the choice exists, they do not see it. Instead they identify with the choice that best suits them 'i am gay/straight'.


my stand point on the thing...
It is impossible to be Homosexual.
your body is designed to procreate and the body influences the mind.

It is impossible to be Hetrosexual.
Your mind finds sexual attraction in any features regardless of sex.

we are all varying degrees of Bi-sexual.

This doesn't hold up I'm afraid, since homosexuality is a common occurrence in nature. I can't leave a source, but I'm pretty certain I've read they have proven that homosexuality is in fact genetic.
Of course, being homosexual doesn't allow for you genes to survive evolution, but there is quite a possibility that the same gene that can cause you to become homosexual is beneficial in another way. So having the gene is beneficial, however only a few will actually become homosexual, when the gene is dominant. Not saying I know what that benefit is, just that there is a possibility.

acctually incorrect, homosexuality in nature is never by design of biology. It only happens due to influncing outside factors which force it to happen. some species of female Frogs, for instance, only adopt homosexual tendencies when a lack of males exist in the population. Penguins, probably the most famous Homosexual coupling in nature, Again only occur when there is lack of one sex over the other.

in almost every single case of homosexuality in nature that you can find you'll see that it Only occurs because of outside influence. i have yet to see one case where an animal of any type actively searches out a same sex relationship when these outside influences don't exist.

This is a very old view concerning homosexuality in the animal kingdom -- it has since been refuted by several observations of homosexuality occurring in hundreds of species across the globe without any particular outside influence.

acctually it is not.
I only know of 1 species which homosexuality occurs due to lack of outside influence.

Sheep.
and it is hard to really build an argument off of that considering the amount of selective breeding and genetic alteration that has occured with sheep.

No where else in the animal kingdom has there been observations of prolonged Homosexual prefered behavior occuring. every example of homosexuality behavior seen is either 'Mocking' seen in younger more inexperienced members of the species (see homosexual behavior in komodo dragons) or due to other factors such as a lack of the opposit sex(see Penguins).

 

[DanDanikov]

It is a preference. That's what sexuality means - sexual preference.

I disagree. For many people it becomes something they consider core to their identity. It isn't something they choose, it's something they are assigned (whether by genes or by upbringing) and they have a right not to be questioned on it. Consider the appropriateness of questioning someone's taste in music, or perhaps why they smoke, over questioning someone's sexuality.

The problem right now is that there's still a huge fight for it to be 'ok' to be anything different, let alone allow for change, and I think that's partly responsible for this important self-identification, rather than just having certain preferences. I suspect this is common to most divisive issues.

 

[Varya]

Not saying outside influence doesn't affect it, but the fact that different species has different approaches to homosexuality still means that there is a genetic disposition towards homosexuality. Homosexuality might be triggered by circumstances, but that doesn't mean it's not genetics

acctually it says quiet the opposit.
because homosexuality does not naturally occur in nature in normal circimstances, it means there is no genetic disposition towards it. All doccumented cases of homosexuality in animals that i have seen are purely because of outside influncing factors.

Case in point...
why don't you see homosexual female penguins?
if it was a genetic disposition, then you should see homosexual female penguins too...
but you don't.

If it was purely environmental, all different cases of homosexuality would be unique. If penguins during certain conditions become homosexual, those conditions are determined by genes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_in_animals
This article states that there are some cases of animals being born homosexuals, sheeps are the most notable examples.
Also elephants often form homosexual relationships, even though they do not form heterosexual relationships

 

[Vault101]

If we accept evolution as true, which many people do, then it can't possibly be nature. Natural selection would have weeded out any genes that produced homosexuality long ago, if any such genes ever existed which has never been proven. As one post stated, even fairly strict Christians and the like sometimes have children who end up homosexual, and I'm sure that gay couples who adopt children have some that turn out straight, so it's not necessarily nurture either.

Since it definitely isn't nature, and nurture plays a somewhat limited role, it can only be concluded that, whether influenced by external factors or not, homosexuality is a choice.

regardless of weather its nature or nurture I dont think "choice" is the right thing to call it, "choice" implys that the person has decided that that is what they WANT even if they could swing the other way

and that hardly seems the case with this, people "realise" they are gay, they dont "choose: to be gay regardless of where it somes from, and many go through alot of pain trying to deny it, if it were a choice there would be no such pain

 

[Snowy Rainbow]

It is a preference. That's what sexuality means - sexual preference.

I disagree. For many people it becomes something they consider core to their identity. It isn't something they choose, it's something they are assigned (whether by genes or by upbringing) and they have a right not to be questioned on it. Consider the appropriateness of questioning someone's taste in music, or perhaps why they smoke, over questioning someone's sexuality.

The problem right now is that there's still a huge fight for it to be 'ok' to be anything different, let alone allow for change, and I think that's partly responsible for this important self-identification, rather than just having certain preferences. I suspect this is common to most divisive issues.

I wasn't suggesting it was a choice. Homosexuals prefer the same sex - they don't choose to, but they do.

I myself am pansexual, so preference isn't a problem for me XD

 

[teebeeohh]

mostly nature but of course your upbringing also plays a role. If your very first role models keep hammering into your skull that homosexuality is bad for 20 years you are more likely repress and deny any feeling you may have.
On the other hand i also know a guy who decided to exclusively go for men at age 16 just to freak out everyone who shared a locker room with him.

 

[Snowy Rainbow]

If we accept evolution as true, which many people do, then it can't possibly be nature. Natural selection would have weeded out any genes that produced homosexuality long ago, if any such genes ever existed which has never been proven

By that ludicrous logic, there wouldn't be anyone born without genitals -- they are unable to procreate and couldn't pass that gene on.

Fact: mutations occur.

 

[icaritos]

A lot of studies seem to indicate that there is no specific gene that controls homosexuality. Instead it seems that hormonal releases by the mother during the development of the fetus may be responsible for our sexuality. This means that hormonal imbalances during pregnancy may be primary cause for homosexual tendencies. So not genetic, but still something a person is born as.

 

[boosh-boosh]

The sexual orientation of humans falls into three categorys [sic].

Though I think your post was quite marvelous and evidently well researched, I'm a bit iffy about the above statement. Only three sexual preferences? What about asexuality? What about the recognition of there being more than two genders?

And in regards to OP: I believe it to be nature, but whether or not you will be open, comfortable, or even happy to acknowledge it is all down to nurture.

 

[General BrEeZy]

I haven't heard anything of sexual orientation being bound to our genetics...but nurturing has to be a huge factor for anyone to notice at an earlier age. being rased by a homosexual couple will probably increase their chances of "developing" any attractions to the same sex. and just because you think that someone of the same gender is attractive, does that mean youre homosexual? i (being male) know what makes guys look good, whether its their human appearance or their style, clothes or other things, but i dont want to have sex with them. hell to the no! in fact im straighter than mick jagger!

always an interesting topic to discuss. keep it clean people.

 

[holy_secret]

Nature, you can't be forced to be gay if the straight, the same way lots of gay people are forced to be straight. You either are, or your not (or bi-sexual but lets not get into all that)

We're always excluded from the conversation.
I'd say it's a combo of both. If you follow the bisexual theory (everyone's born bisexual), I would say tha the preference comes from what you're comfortable with. Like with experience and the innate taste which everyone has.

So let's say you're bisexual. You have sex with a woman the first time. You love this girl. And then you get on with your life. Somehow, the brain will create a signal connection in your head between intimacy and sex (two very nice things), which will make you think "cute girl is nice = feelings from before".
We had this talk in school, and our teacher mention this, but with bigger words (doctors will probably know. It's the same things as getting bitten by a dog = bad connection and fear for dogs).

Just what I think.

 

[Verp]

I think people are getting a little confused on the Nature Vrs. Nurture argument.

Nature: It is encoded into your genome. You have no choice, it just Happens.
Nurture: Through influncing outside factors it occurs.

now for a complex argument.

it is impossible to BE homosexual in normal conditions with 'nature'. you are not born homosexual and there are no gene's, genetics, hereditary traits, or influcing factors biologically to make a person homosexual. Your body is Designed from the ground up for the sole purpouse of reproduction, to find some one of the opposit sex and procreate.

the idea of 'Homosexuality' is purely a psychological one, or 'nurture' in this case. It is some ones choice to be homosexual or not. However, it is not as simple as 'i choose to be gay' or 'i choose to be straight'... Several psychological things and trama alter your prefrences, choices, and desires so that your choice and options shift.

Instead of asking ones self 'am i gay/straight?' they may ask themselves 'Should i be happy?' in which happiness is relations with some one of the same sex. Their feelings on the matter may be so very strong that, although the choice exists, they do not see it. Instead they identify with the choice that best suits them 'i am gay/straight'.


my stand point on the thing...
It is impossible to be Homosexual.
your body is designed to procreate and the body influences the mind.

It is impossible to be Hetrosexual.
Your mind finds sexual attraction in any features regardless of sex.

we are all varying degrees of Bi-sexual.

This doesn't hold up I'm afraid, since homosexuality is a common occurrence in nature. I can't leave a source, but I'm pretty certain I've read they have proven that homosexuality is in fact genetic.
Of course, being homosexual doesn't allow for you genes to survive evolution, but there is quite a possibility that the same gene that can cause you to become homosexual is beneficial in another way. So having the gene is beneficial, however only a few will actually become homosexual, when the gene is dominant. Not saying I know what that benefit is, just that there is a possibility.

acctually incorrect, homosexuality in nature is never by design of biology. It only happens due to influncing outside factors which force it to happen. some species of female Frogs, for instance, only adopt homosexual tendencies when a lack of males exist in the population. Penguins, probably the most famous Homosexual coupling in nature, Again only occur when there is lack of one sex over the other.

in almost every single case of homosexuality in nature that you can find you'll see that it Only occurs because of outside influence. i have yet to see one case where an animal of any type actively searches out a same sex relationship when these outside influences don't exist.

This is a very old view concerning homosexuality in the animal kingdom -- it has since been refuted by several observations of homosexuality occurring in hundreds of species across the globe without any particular outside influence.

acctually it is not.
I only know of 1 species which homosexuality occurs due to lack of outside influence.

Sheep.

Oh, yeah, because if you don't know about something, it certainly doesn't exist. There are certainly no pair-bonding species like albatrosses or swans mating with the opposite sex and returning to their same-sex partner to have some more sex and raise their chicks. There are certainly no animals such as male orangutans or fruit bats giving each other fellatio in the wild. There are certainly no wild gay dolphins having wild gay orgies.

Also, I do believe that you edited this into your post:

also... Homosexuality being genetic?
Genetics identify Protein chains and Nothing else...
it is impossible for a purely psychological thing like Sexuality to be influenced by Genetics.

You need to learn yourself some behavioural biology and human sexuality.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOY3QH_jOtE&feature=BFa&list=PL848F2368C90DDC3D&index=15

This is a good place to start.

 

[Polarity27]

I think it's complicated. Definitely nature for the extremes on the Kinsey scale, the absolutely straight would not ever touch someone of the same sex no way no how people and the absolutely "gold star" gay would not ever touch someone on the opposite sex no way no how people.

It's those of us in the middle for whom it's a bit more complicated. I identified as straight for most of my life until I got into a supportive environment that let me explore my sexual attractions without fear and let me come out to myself and others as bisexual. I'd always had feelings about women, I'd just hidden them under either the "everybody's occasionally curious" or "I don't think she's like *hot* hot, I just wish I looked like that" veneer. I didn't have a crush on my boss, I just "admired" her a lot-- no matter that her paying attention to me made my heart race just like a crush on a male would, and no matter that I sought gossip on her very ambiguous social life in the hopes that I'd find out she was a lesbian. I think nature made me bisexual, nurture gave me the ability to express it.

That, and for a lot of women, sexual attraction is fluid. I think I was pretty far to the straight end of the scale as a teenager, now I'm almost exclusively interested in other women and if I had the opportunity to have another relationship, I would only seek a woman.

 

[Pyro Paul]

Not saying outside influence doesn't affect it, but the fact that different species has different approaches to homosexuality still means that there is a genetic disposition towards homosexuality. Homosexuality might be triggered by circumstances, but that doesn't mean it's not genetics

acctually it says quiet the opposit.
because homosexuality does not naturally occur in nature in normal circimstances, it means there is no genetic disposition towards it. All doccumented cases of homosexuality in animals that i have seen are purely because of outside influncing factors.

Case in point...
why don't you see homosexual female penguins?
if it was a genetic disposition, then you should see homosexual female penguins too...
but you don't.

If it was purely environmental, all different cases of homosexuality would be unique. If penguins during certain conditions become homosexual, those conditions are determined by genes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_in_animals
This article states that there are some cases of animals being born homosexuals, sheeps are the most notable examples.
Also elephants often form homosexual relationships, even though they do not form heterosexual relationships

i think you greatly misunderstand exactly how genetics work.

Homosexuality in rams have been linked to a lack of agressiveness. Genetic mutations have occured in certain rams which have caused a segement of their brain to convert Testosterone into Estradiol. These rams are not homosexual in that they try to mate with males, but rather that the Rams are passive and do not refuse being mounted.

They are not homosexual, they are passive and do not deny advances. Leading ideas provided by Merck Manual of Veterinary Medicine and other farming and veternary studies link this behavior to poor husbandry and breeding more then anything else.

Elephants are acctually one of the few animals in the animal kingdom which have psychological bonds. homosexuality seen with in elephants is much like homosexuality in humans as prefrence plays a much larger part in it then predisposition. However, it should be noted that in almost all of the examples of homosexuality seen in elephants is acctually examples of Bi-sexuality as the elephants, when allowed, will mount and mate with females.



suffice it to say... you're wrong.
you can not have a genetic dispoition to a psychological stand point. (outside of certain extremes)

 

[invitationofchaos]

It could be both. I mean, the environment you live in can sometimes have a more drastic effect on a person than natural cause-and-effect. It does feel a bit difficult to pin it as one or the other, something as a persons' sexuality is not always a binary choice......