Can sexuality change over time?

And if they turn out to be, they always were.

I do understand the difference, but I just don't see how you can model someone's sexuality. You earlier pointed out that heterosexuality is what is normal, but if sexuality is purely the result of "psychological modelling" then there can be no normal.

Sexuality is entirely hormonal and has nothing to do with psychology although traumas and such certainly can cause you to repress your instincts.

No, that is a bogus theory. I grew up with a smoking father and never have I ever felt the urge to smoke. In fact, when I was a teenager and all my friends smoked and thought they were cool, I found them disgusting.

It was not like my parents had alcohol at home that often, but on the very rare occassions they did, I was allowed to taste a zip. This had an effect of de-dramatisation as I was not very curious on the substance when I grew older. I had friends who came from very strict, Muslim households and these were actually the worst drinkers.

I believe in the opposite; if you are too "no-no" about something, your child will rebel against that "no-no" in his/her teens and maybe develop a bad habit.

 

Homosexuals have a deficit/excess of certain hormones that "screws up" their urges.

Ooooh, you have got to be kidding me! Sexuality is not a "personal preferece" it is a natural instinct. Liking chicken is a personal preference, but hunger and need for nutrition are natural instincts. You can be conditioned in childhood to dislike chicken, but not to ignore hunger.

I have no idea why you would bring up this Pawlovianism in a discussion about sexuality though. It would make sense if we were talking "homophobia", but the topic is homosexuality.

 

You can change your opinion at any moment because that's all it is. If you had knowledge you'd likely have a Nobel prize.

you can state this all you wish. Nobody is debating the specifics. We haven't established that environment plays a role at all. The fact that you hold the opinion that environment is the only factor doesn't mean that opinion is fact. You may feel that way to in the deepest sincerest way, but that doesn't equate to your feelings reflecting facts. Sorry.

The "theory" that it is strictly environmental has very little merit.

incorrect. You are probably going to get more dishonesty and bias due to culture effecting the science.

 

I am going to have to call complete and total bullshit on that one. Hormones discriminate. If they didn't the human race would have gone extinct Long ago.

This can't even be called a hypothesis. It most certainly isn't a theory. You have absolutely zero support for this claim. Your so called "theroy" is that something happened sometime after birth but you don't have the first clue what it was.

You do realize I could present demonic possession as a "theory" and academically speaking it would be equal to yours right?

You can't just claim that something happened in the brain or in the environment that caused homosexuality. And expect to have any credibility in the discussion.

If you can't tell me what happened exactly when in any subject you have no idea if environment even plays a role at all.

You see a theory has to have support a hypothesis has to be an educated guess. What is your education in Behavioral Sciences? Are you a laymen? Whose model are you using if you are a laymen? What process by which does homosexuality become so entrenched in a human's psyche that they believe they were born that way?

Don't give me crap about cultures with biases. Paying lip service the culture is not science.

Our culture once believed that crap too but we place science in higher esteem then our tradition.

Are you really trying to say it is "science" that appeals to tradition that supports your so-called Theory?

 

what makes you believe that?

this doesn't matter first explain why you believe what you believe. There are people that believe gay folks are possessed by demons. There are also people that believe gay people are pretending to be gay two besmirch the name of some deity that they worship. There are some people that believe gay people are part of a cabal to summon Lucifer.

People believe some wacko crazy ****. You first need to explain why you hold your beliefs and if it's based in reason we can have a discussion.

 

How? Explain. Don't just make baseless claims.

So above you're saying it's not modeling but now you're saying it's modeling?

Are you saying that having sexual attractions is like being drawn to alcohol? I'm pretty sure it's one of the most basic instincts to be attracted. It's how populations come into existence.

 

Poly is right. Sexual attraction is chemical and thus cannot be engineered from the outside.

If homosexuality is purely the result of Pawlovian conditioning or whatever your argument is, then it would mean it is possible to uncondition homosexuality too, right? This is an old - and since long rebutted - belief. We no longer use electro-therapy to "unmodel" gayness because we now know it comes at birth.

 

I don't think babies are sexually attracted to anyone. It would have to come on during puberty.

 

Yeah, of course. But this does not really change the fact that you are born into your sexuality.

 

Well, until we have some evidence of that, I would have to stay with "we don't really know" and all of this is just guessing.

 

Thing is that we actually do have some evidence speaking for the prenatal hormone theory.

 

Theory. What evidence is there of this prenatal hormone. As far as I know, there has been no "gay" gene found???

 

Contrary to what people outside academia often seem to believe, a theory is not just about throwing wild guesses. First you have a hypothesis and if that hypothesis holds in experiment it becomes a theory.

Of course there is no "gay gene" and no one is making that argument either. The theory is that it is chemical, there is a huge diffetence between hormones and genes.

 

And where is the evidence of this? Link please!

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/articles/21094885/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3296090/
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2012/12/homosexuality-may-start-womb
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...crease-chances-baby-gay-claims-professor.html
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prenatal_hormones_and_sexual_orientation

 

Ahem . . .

"But she adds that to go from changes in gene expression to why someone is attracted to a person of the same sex is a question for which science may never fill in all the blanks."

Lots of "ifs, maybes, and buts" in there!

 

High levels of testosterone in your system make your more muscular and manly and low levels of testosterone make you slightly gay. Male pattern baldness (MPB) is directly linked to dihydrotestosterone (DHT) made from testosterone by 5-alpha reductase. You can keep your hair longer than manly men, if you are more womanly or girlish than normal.

 

There have been intense research on this and as I see it, it makes more sense sexuality being pre-natal than post-natal.

 

Come on ChrisL the concept of a trait being genetic doesn't mean it has to be observed in infants.

As far as it being eithe genetic or environmental perplexed me. I don't doubt genetics has am influence but that dosen't negate environmental influence or even an idiopathic influence.

Why does it have to be all or nothing?

 

I disagree. Behavior doesn't manipulate hormones in that way. You can wear makeup and dresses and talk like a lady that won't make your hair grow back.

I'm not feminine or girlish in the least. I have normal levels of testosterone for a man my age. As men get older the testosterone decreases. If it was linked in the way you described to hormones there would be very few young men that are gay, we'd see the biggest number of gay men discovering their sexuality in their 50s and 60s.

 

The highlighted part seems quite peculiar, why was kissing her so extraordinary ?
Why the pimp refference at such an early
age ?

This seems a very strange account.

Most people do not spend much time thinking about or being repulsed about things they give little thought to, unless they are in denial.

 

I don't really know what you are aiming at here. The highlighted part is out of context when focusing only on it and ignoring the rest of the post and the topic as a whole.

Ever hear of a JOKE?

what the f?

Repulsed? Me? Ab..wait....what?

 

Well, it is actually quite the opposite -- hormones manipulate your behaviour and eg having low T will most likely make you more feminine. In fact, there is a observable difference between a "male brain" and a "female brain". Sometimes, a male fetus can develop a "female brain" though and vice versa which is partially the explanation for trans-sexuality.

In fact, many gay men have a "female brain" too.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2008/jun/16/neuroscience.psychology

 

I agree, that hormones typically work that way but it is more complex than that. However I'm not an endocrinologist.

The female brain thing is...debatable. i do believe women's brains are different, but whether that is a result of hormones or a cause of them is up for debate.

The homosexual men's dynamic is strange. In the dating pool, masculine men are highly sought after. Often masculine men like other masculine men. I'm an outlier I prefer less manly men. I don't know if it's as straightforward as effeminate guys have women's brains.

 

I have no background in natural sciences whatsoever and just share the information I have read myself into out of pure curiousity.

Hmmm.

I always believed in the pop cultural stereotype of gay couples always consisting of one "masculine" and one "feminine" (same for lesbians) and had thus kind of thought to myself that "testosterone-gays" are attracted to "estrogene-gays" and vice versa lol.