What's the purpose of homosexuality in humans?

[Cuddly]

Sorry, I didn't mean to almost start anything. I have no interest in derailing the topic, as I find it very curious.

*tries hard to come up with a question or theory to continue the discussion*

*fails*

[Virge]

Sorry, I didn't mean to almost start anything. I have no interest in derailing the topic, as I find it very curious.

*tries hard to come up with a question or theory to continue the discussion*

*fails*

You didn't start anything Cudiddley. All you did was make me take a stand on an issue I'm surprised took 7 pages of comments to come up. The good part was I left here and went to another post where I cut and pasted the exact same comment above in response to someone putting science into a religious thread. You saved me a lot of typing!
http://gayspeak.com/showpost.php?p=465651&postcount=33

[Borg69]

So... memechose... wasn't I supposed to remind you later about something I'd said earlier in this thread about pre-Christian pagan Greeks (and other civilizations) being mostly bi ?

Is it later yet?

[Virge]

So... memechose... wasn't I supposed to remind you later about something I'd said earlier in this thread about pre-Christian pagan Greeks (and other civilizations) being mostly bi ?

Is it later yet?

yeah it is later... I'll be typing... In the meantime just watch some of this and keep count of how many heterocentric biases you count in the first ten minutes... and up to this date this is the best version of human sexuality ever presented to the public... and it's 30 years old.

[MikeW]

That is the simplest description. Undoubtedly it wasn't wholly black and white. The culture/society was most likely highly sophisticated, and no one saw the non-procreating members as a 'bad' thing or 'odd' or 'usual' or for that matter as just another pair of adult hands.

No doubt there was strong familial ties between everyone in a tribe - blood and otherwise. So this is no different than if your aunt or uncle lived in your house staying at home to babysit the kids when mom and dad went out for a night on the town, or paying a little rent to make ends meet...

As I've said before, the problem is, that "non breeding" is an assumption. The fact is we do not know whether or not there were "non breeders" in the times memechose is referring to... before agriculture and civilization.

Personally I doubt it. I doubt hunter-gatherer people experienced their sexuality the way we do. At all.

That's why I asked the question (yet to be answered), when did the differentiation from pan sexual, as in bonobo, to 'straight', 'bi', and 'gay' sexuality take place?

The bonobos use sexuality as a language, apparently. It's one of their means of communication with one another and has little to do with being either male or female.

So at what point does this begin to matter? Is it when we climb down out of the trees?

Think about that. Think about how most animal 'babies' become fairly independent (at least mobile) VERY quickly.

That's not the case with human children. It takes, what, 18 months at least? So, if you're a hunter gatherer, you've got to carry the little papooses around. You have to watch them so they don't get et by something. It takes YEARS for them to become independent enough to go out and spear a fish or club some dumb animal, right?

Still, here's the interesting thing: They can begin breeding at what, 12--13 years old?? Something like that. I mean, yeah, today even most 'archaic' societies don't start quite that young... but in days past it most likely would have been so.

Anyway, I'm just saying that if we think that the way we experience our sexuality, subjectively, as gay men in todays modern world, is the *SAME* for pre-agricultural males, that is one hell of a huge assumption. No way to prove it either.

[Virge]

Yes... believe it or not... homophobia has very real purposes when you trace it back to its origins.

Start this music while you read....



This goes back to 11th grade ancient history... One day we were dealing with Attila (the Hun) and the Roman ambassadors sent to him by the Roman emperor and specifically a guy named Priscus who left a written record of some of the things he learned about Attila and the Huns. Priscus spent a lot of time talking to a greek who'd been captured, enslaved, set free and stayed with the Huns rather than return home. Boring stuff until a detail came up that made the rest of the class giggle and make jokes. Attila had issued a decree that NO man in his armies or under his protection could have sex with a man or boy until he had produced six sons old enough to become soldiers.

My mind made a few connections.

Alexander the Great insisted all his men take wives in every city they conquered and did the same himself in spite of nearly all of them being accompanied by catamites who were more or less soldiers in training. In Alexander's army men with several sons could have extra catamites

After his conquest of China, Genghis Khan made it forbidden for Mongol men to have sex with boys or men until they had either eight or twenty two sons, there are two versions.

All this tied in to something done by my boyhood hero, Octavian (Augustus Caesar) In 18 BCE a census showed that Rome was on the verge of becoming a city of non Romans. The wealthy and semi-wealthy Romans were having less children than the non-citizens who lived there. Naturally Octavian didn't want the non citizens to take over Rome so he made up some laws to prevent it. They were Lex Julia de Pudicitia et de Coercendis Adulteriis Octavian placed great honors and privileges on married Romans who produced three sons

Also in Octavian's Julian Laws of Chastity and Repressing Adultery (for Roman citizens only) were prohibitions against being single and of marriage age, being married and childless, being homosexual and the use of male prostitutes (even though when he was 18 to 30 he screwed them by the dozen)

Do you see a connection to homophobia yet? It's okay if you don't. Try this.

Imagine you're one of the priestly class in a band of superstitious settlers in a sorry piece of land surrounded on all sides by hostile enemies. How would you get your men to stop screwing men and produce more sons?

Real simple. Just write Leviticus 20:13 "If a man also lies with a man, as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them."

And the rest up to today is just a little bit of history repeating....

[Bowyn Aerrow]

As I've said before, the problem is, that "non breeding" is an assumption. The fact is we do not know whether or not there were "non breeders" in the times memechose is referring to... before agriculture and civilization.

Personally I doubt it. I doubt hunter-gatherer people experienced their sexuality the way we do. At all.

That's why I asked the question (yet to be answered), when did the differentiation from pan sexual, as in bonobo, to 'straight', 'bi', and 'gay' sexuality take place?

The bonobos use sexuality as a language, apparently. It's one of their means of communication with one another and has little to do with being either male or female.

So at what point does this begin to matter? Is it when we climb down out of the trees?

Think about that. Think about how most animal 'babies' become fairly independent (at least mobile) VERY quickly.

That's not the case with human children. It takes, what, 18 months at least? So, if you're a hunter gatherer, you've got to carry the little papooses around. You have to watch them so they don't get et by something. It takes YEARS for them to become independent enough to go out and spear a fish or club some dumb animal, right?

Still, here's the interesting thing: They can begin breeding at what, 12--13 years old?? Something like that. I mean, yeah, today even most 'archaic' societies don't start quite that young... but in days past it most likely would have been so.

Anyway, I'm just saying that if we think that the way we experience our sexuality, subjectively, as gay men in todays modern world, is the *SAME* for pre-agricultural males, that is one hell of a huge assumption. No way to prove it either.

Its the safer assumption, considering if we assume they did not have gays back in the day, only bis then we need to question if gays really do not exist at all and the fundermentalists are right, we need to be cured of our disease.

The only difference between prehistoric homo-sapiens and modern homo-sapiens is the amount of knowledge we possess. We have the same brain and body, the same potentials. They only lacked a long history of discovery and trial and error to build their civilization upon.

Even then, we see a rather rapid gathering of information, especially if we look at the chips off stone tools and the evolution of stone tools. Granted it took a few thousand years to go from a crude simple broken rock to the finely chipped arrowheads such as we see with the clovis people, however we do see lots of trial and error, various type of rock and stone were tried. No doubt various tools to shape stone were tried as well. Unfortunately Deer/Elk horn, bones and wood decay rapidly.... What few knapping tools that do exist also show a systematic trial and error process through the ages.

Same mind processing information, just later peoples had more information to work with. They passed down information via oral tradition, father taught son, mother taught daughter.

They had the same brain we do. They were not wired differently from us.

As for when Bonos adopted bisexuality as a communication tool for - well just about everything, and human lines went another way - there is no real way to know. While genetically we are close, we are several species distant, they stays in forests, our ancestors decided to try their luck in the savanna.... that ecological difference ended up having huge impact on everything - from walking up right, to hairlessness, and no doubt on the expression of sex and sexuality of the species.

That unknown chain of ancestors (How many links are their???) Most likely were different in their expression of sexuality and their use of sex. Humans, as in homo-sapiens have been using sex pretty much the same way from the very start. Including the more horrific aspects such as rape.

And Modern Gay sexuality.... what are we talking about gay marriage?

http://www.gayrightssite.com/tl1.html

27 BCE The Roman Empire begins with the reign of Augustus. The first recorded same-sex marriages occur during this period.

:eek: Damned Romans invented all the cool stuff first, like homosexuality I guess! :biggrin:

I all honesty I hear a lot of people tell me that homosexuality is a new thing and it didn't exist back in the day, not like homosexuals do today - mind you. Oh sure the Greeks and Romans had their baths... but they didn't like try to pervert society with gay marriage and... oops.....

I suspect that the basic ways humans express sexuality as a species today is how it was expressed 195,000 years ago. They may not have had the words we do, or the expressions like pansexuality,but humans were giving and taking in marriage, and having love.

And no doubt there were young men and women who were like 7-up - never had it, never will (Straight intercourse) because lets face it 'ew' straight sex - ew, ew, ew, ew.....:tongue:

[ETOTE]

Yes... believe it or not... homophobia has very real purposes when you trace it back to its origins.

Start this music while you read....




And the rest up to today is just a little bit of history repeating....

^awesomeness,

[Virge]

Guys... my brain is about to go into a total boycott of seriousness for about seven hours. Today is July 24th, 2014 and... don't go hiring a band or throwing confetti... but his day has possibly been --with some hesitation in speaking prematurely --- the greatest day of my life.. but for sure it's a milestone at the least. I need to do a bit of private time celebration... with my liquor of choice, moderation of course, one drink.. in a 32 ounce Thermos mug. LOL.

it's really weird but it should have dawned on me today was going to be a special day this morning at 4:45 when I was out running with the dogs. The sun wasn't up but it was light enough to see everything. The temp was warm but all of a sudden I was in air that was as cold as winter. Naturally I looked up at the sky and then I saw it to the north as far as I could see left or right. It was snowing from the clouds but the snow was melting before it hit the ground and coming down as a misty drizzle. It was one of the most amazing sights I've ever seen and one I'm going to remember.

I'll get back to all this in the morning.... thanks for it all.

[Virge]

ETOTE posted a sex identity test today and with it came some very interesting graphs, terminology and test results. Click on this graph to enlarge and look at the percentages and variances in people who otherwise bit into the gay -- bi -- hetero labels.



Take the test BUT BE PREPARED FOR BIZARRE RESULTS!!!!!!!!!! My came up so far off base on a few things that I know there's something wrong with the test itself. It told me I was a closet case and not able to form loving relationships with men.

If you come up with flaky results PM me and I'll work with you to contact the guy who put out this test.
http://flexuality.wordpress.com/take-the-test/