Re: OT: What? the clean-shaven outnumber the bearded?"YerUgly Mug," etc.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Stone Gordonssen" <stonegordonssen@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Thursday, May 22, 2003 6:59 PM
Subject: Re: OT: Re: What? the clean-shaven outnumber the bearded?"YerUgly
Mug," etc.


> >Well exactly.  I have heard, however, some of my liberal gay friends
refer
> >to it as a "chosen lifestyle."  I had just read the article in the New
> >Yorker some years ago about "The Homosexual Brain," which tried to show
> >that
> >homosexuality is not a "chosen lifestyle" but a genetic predisposition.
> >When I brought this up, my friend exploded and said that he found this
> >premise threatening.  If it's a genetic predisposition, then it can be
> >"fixed" in the future by genetic tampering.  He preferred, he said, to
> >stick
>
> I can't speak for others, but, given there is no non-biased proof why I
(or
> anyone) is gay, I see this most often as a lose-lose situation. If I
support
> the idea that it's a choice, then rapidly anti-gay groups will say "Ah ha!
> You can and should change yourself to fit our norm." If I support the idea
> that it's genetic, then the same groiups will say "Ah ha! A birth defect
> like Down's Syndrom". Well, I've always been attracted to men, even as a
> child (no, I was not molested, etc. etc. - I was 18 when I had my 1st
sexual
> encounter), so I am 100% convinced I was born gay. However, I'm also not a
> "mistake" create by the universe.
>
What's wrong with the idea that it is caused by factors in childhood.  This
would go some way to explaining why identical twins do not always share the
same orientation.  And by 'factors', I do not mean trauma, or molestation,
but more subtle ones.  Possibly, there is a genetic factor as well.