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Is being homophobic natural for humans or not?

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  • 21-07-2019 2:40am
    #1
    noubliezjamais
    Registered Users Posts: 253 ✭✭


    Mods feel free to move this. I was wondering. I watched a podcast on YouTube and it seems mixed.

    The answer was that repulsion towards same sex people is not biological because there's no risk of people not having kids because they aren't straight. Straight people are in the majority.

    It seems that in history, many places were ironically more liberal about being LGBT than today. The Middle East and even in my country in Africa, people found it odd but didn't bother you.

    The christenization of Europe, Africa and Islam taking over the Middle East seems to have been responsible for seeding anti-gay sentiments in people.


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    #2
    Ten of Swords
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 22,331 CMod ✭✭✭✭Ten of Swords


    It's a natural human instinct to be wary of something different or alien to you and to protect yourself if you feel threatened.

    Systemic persecution and ostracizing of a particular group of people for arbitrary reasons is an entirely social construct. Religion has been a large factor in this.

    Moderator: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender, Vegan & Vegetarian

    Category Moderator: Social & Fun



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    #3
    BemusedKettle
    Registered Users Posts: 35 ✭BemusedKettle


    Being homophobic is not natural, being an advocate of gay marriage is not natural.

    Two men can sexually stimulate each other, that's natural.

    Two women can sexually stimulate each other, that's natural.

    Being Christian, Muslim, an Irish Citizen or a Capitalist is unnatural because there is nothing in our biology that makes us one of these things, it just depends on the social structure into which we are born or are influenced by.


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    #4
    Irish Praetorian
    Registered Users Posts: 1,745 ✭✭✭Irish Praetorian


    I can imagine people having some kind of innate physical reaction and recoiling, the same way we might be taken aback if we see a spider, but I think the difference between this kind of reaction and a homophobe is that a homophobe will see a need to go further and start banning or persecuting gay people, purely on the grounds of some innate reaction.


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    #5
    Peregrinus
    Registered Users Posts: 26,098 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    Although sexual attraction and sexual expression are of course natural and innate, sexual identity is a cultural construct, and a comparatively recent one. Homosexual (and heterosexual) activity has gone since for ever, and we have always had people who were predominantly or exclusively drawn to one or other form of sexual expression. But it's only in comparatively modern times that we've come up with the phenomenon of "a homosexual" or "a heterosexual"; a person defined, even by themselves, by their sexual orientation.

    It follows that, while there are numerous historical examples of homosexual people being victimised or punished for engaging in same-sex relationships, a generalised dislike of homosexual people simply because they are homosexual, regardless of sexual activity, is a relatively recent phenomenon. Yes; humans do have a tendency to tribalism; we form ourselves into groups based on shared attributes, which can be physical or cultural, and then we reinforce the group identity by disliking other groups. But until relatively modern times it wouldn' have occurred to anybody to identify "homosexuals" as a group to hate (or to identify with) any more than we identify "masturbators" or "celibates" for that purpose. Sexual expression simply wasn't regarded as such a central aspect of human identity as it has been in modern times. Homosexuality was something you did, not something you were.


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    #6
    Annasopra
    Registered Users Posts: 40,820 ✭✭✭✭Annasopra


    Irish Praetorian wrote: »
    I can imagine people having some kind of innate physical reaction and recoiling, the same way we might be taken aback if we see a spider, but I think the difference between this kind of reaction and a homophobe is that a homophobe will see a need to go further and start banning or persecuting gay people, purely on the grounds of some innate reaction.

    What evidence is there that instant negative homophobic negative reactions are innate?

    It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone's fault. If it was us, what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things.

    Terry Pratchet



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    #7
    GreeBo
    Registered Users Posts: 27,057 ✭✭✭✭GreeBo


    ^
    tenor.gif


    How did you turn this into religion?


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    #8
    L.Jenkins
    Moderators, Computer Games Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 19,240 Mod ✭✭✭✭L.Jenkins


    Mod Note: Sorry folks but One World Order is gone on holidays for the foreseeable future.


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    #9
    branie2
    Registered Users Posts: 10,292 ✭✭✭✭branie2


    No it's not


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    #10
    Irish Praetorian
    Registered Users Posts: 1,745 ✭✭✭Irish Praetorian


    Joeytheparrot wrote: »
    What evidence is there that instant negative homophobic negative reactions are innate?


    Only as much evidence I have as to my own homosexuality and my own, let us say politely, lack of enthusiasm for the more intimate aspects of the female anatomy. Perhaps by some biological norm I ought to desire to couple with women and procreate, but for whatever reason I am taken aback at the thought of sexual congress with women, I recoil when I see an arachnid that has done me no harm and I cannot for the life of me stomach McDonnells curry powder. Are these innate aspects of my being or malleable inclinations that might be drummed out of me with much training, I am uncertain. As it stands however I am inclined to simply regard them as aspects of myself and so long as they do not run riot (such as me going out and shagging every cute clerk I see, or bombing every nook and cranny I can find with pledge or upturning the late night currys of the drunken throngs) I am content to view them as aspects of my personality to be embraced or held in check as needed. I am not one for the kind of 'retraining' methods that have been failing applied to gay people, particularly amongst more 'Evangelical' elements in the new world. By the same token I do not care to peek into men's minds in order that I might drum out every impulse they have which might displease me - I am content so long as such impulses do not endanger my legal rights and the well-being of my sexual-kin.


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    #11
    Annasopra
    Registered Users Posts: 40,820 ✭✭✭✭Annasopra


    Im still not convinced at all that homophobia is innate and noone here has convinced me.

    It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone's fault. If it was us, what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things.

    Terry Pratchet



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    #12
    Peregrinus
    Registered Users Posts: 26,098 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    Joeytheparrot wrote: »
    Im still not convinced at all that homophobia is innate and noone here has convinced me.
    Nobody has even tried to convince you, SFAIK. There seems to be general agreement in this thread that homophobia is not innate.


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