LDS Scientist/Biographer Presents Findings on the Science of Sexual Orientation

[stemelbow]

I do think the bottom-up source is a comin'.  Sorry Elder Oaks.  I know you don't want it but it's coming. 

[california boy]

2 hours ago, RevTestament said:

I have stated in this forum that I believe there is an epigenetic component to homosexuality. However, this presentation would lead one to believe that the brain is sexed by the time of birth by epigenetics. However, there are cases of many children changing their sex identity after they reach puberty - in other words males who feel they are female deciding they are male after reaching puberty and vice versa. These cases seem to contradict the simple presentation that sexual imprinting is determined by the time of birth by epigenetics. I believe that epigenetics continue to shape many aspects of our lives long after we are born. In other words environment plays a large role. Therefore, I consider this talk to be simply one more assault on the truth by those who wish to believe gays are born gay. I believe the truth is much more complicated, and that environment does play an important role. Therefore, I believe it is incumbent on society to provide a healthy heterosexual environment for each child which includes male and female parent role models, and decreased exposure to all things homosexual - pornography, TV relationships, etc. This is not a message our society currently wants to portray, and so we continue to see efforts to try to make the "born gay" narrative stick even though there is mounting evidence against it. I see the current paradigm portrayed in print and on TV as being detrimental to our society as a whole, and contrary to God's will. It is one thing to treat gays civilly, but another thing to splash it all over TV down to a TV show I recently saw with guys doing it. The latter I have a big problem with. I am sure that will make me unpopular, but that is the truth as I see it. Kids need more and better role models, but they have less - with most marriages ending in divorce and almost a majority not getting married in the first place. I believe there is a lot of hurt in modern relationships, and this hurt and lack of love gets spilled over into perceptions of maturing children. Many just can't find natural affection anymore. It's no wonder that homosexuality is blossoming since it seems to have a strong component of outward physical attraction.

Yeah because we all know that there were no homosexuals in the world until TV or magazines were invented and started to glorify it.  

Getting Mormon fundamentalism to fit sometimes takes on the role of a comedy.

[california boy]

1 hour ago, Gray said:

This is why I'm fervently trying to give up the "natural man" and to become gay. I'm tired of my heterosexuality (my "natural man") making me an enemy to God.

Just watch Will and Grace.  Evidently that program is single handily turning America gay.

[california boy]

1 hour ago, Johnnie Cake said:

Elder oaks married a post menopause woman. Surely marriage can be for companionship too, right? 

Actually we have learned today that 'The only thing that counts in evolution is successful reproduction."  So evidently getting old is against nature.  As soon as we quit being able to have children, we should all just die.  Our genetic value to humanity is finished.  If you can't have children, you can not add anything of value to the human race.  It is only about reproducing.

[Danzo]

3 hours ago, cinepro said:

I have a relative who is unable to have children.  Low sperm count, or at least he claims.  I've explained to him that his inability to have children can't be genetic but instead it must be something he is choosing to do, because there is no genetic advantage to his being unable to have children.  Heck, if everyone was unable to have kids, the entire human race would die out in one generation, so it obviously can't be biological. 

It's just logical.

I think you may be confusing genetic with biological.

They are not the same thing.

[The Nehor]

1 hour ago, california boy said:

Just watch Will and Grace.  Evidently that program is single handily turning America gay.

Tried it. Did not work.

[rockpond]

4 hours ago, smac97 said:

So it sounds like the Church is trying to listen to the best scientific and medical evidence available. 

-Smac

Nothing in the quote you provide supports such a conclusion.  In fact, Oaks noted that he chose one "suggestion" from scientists that fit our doctrine.

[rockpond]

3 hours ago, Johnnie Cake said:

Elder oaks married a post menopause woman. Surely marriage can be for companionship too, right? 

Yes... when Oaks' prescribes celibacy to our LGBT brothers and sisters it is worth noting that he married at the age of 20 and, after being widowed at 65, he was single for just two years before marrying the 53 year old Kristen McMain.  They have not reproduced (which I wouldn't normally mention but it seems important to those who don't think gay couples should marry).

[Hamba Tuhan]

I am happy for a dentist-turned-historian to have and share his opinion on this topic. For what it may be worth, after two postgraduate degrees in history (MA and PhD) and several years working as an editor for an academic history journal, I can honestly say that I don't know a single professionally trained historian who would agree with him.

[Gray]

2 hours ago, california boy said:

Just watch Will and Grace.  Evidently that program is single handily turning America gay.

I'll try binge watching that, in between The Bird Cage and To Wong Fu...

Edited October 19, 2017 by Gray

[california boy]

13 minutes ago, Gray said:

I'll try binge watching that, in between The Bird Cage and To Wong Fu...

You are already gay.  You are just in denial.  Those two shows alone would cause anyone to question his heterosexuality.  Be strong.  For the women's sake.  Someone has to fulfill the very reason for our evolution.

[kllindley]

12 minutes ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

I am happy for a dentist-turned-historian to have and share his opinion on this topic. For what it may be worth, after two postgraduate degrees in history (MA and PhD) and several years working as an editor for an academic history journal, I can honestly say that I don't know a single professionally trained historian who would agree with him.

But what would you or I know about the issue? Only LGBT people who have left the Church really understand homosexuality and how oppressive and misguided the Church is. And the straight members who know the "truth" of our experience better than we do. 

You and I don't get to disagree. 

[california boy]

39 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

Tried it. Did not work.

Humm, that is usually enough.  You might try subscribing to Vogue.  That should put you over the top.

[Gray]

5 minutes ago, california boy said:

You are already gay.  You are just in denial.  Those two shows alone would cause anyone to question his heterosexuality.  Be strong.  For the women's sake.  Someone has to fulfill the very reason for our evolution.

I've been told that gay men are neat. If I'm gay I'm totally busting that stereotype wide open

[The Nehor]

8 minutes ago, california boy said:

Humm, that is usually enough.  You might try subscribing to Vogue.  That should put you over the top.

Wait, they still make magazines? How delightfully retro.  

[kllindley]

36 minutes ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

I am happy for a dentist-turned-historian to have and share his opinion on this topic. For what it may be worth, after two postgraduate degrees in history (MA and PhD) and several years working as an editor for an academic history journal, I can honestly say that I don't know a single professionally trained historian who would agree with him.

Wow. Just read the whole transcript. It's aweful. Is this what passes as scholarship in scientific history? I'm not a trained historian, but this isn't science by a long shot. Maybe this is a new field that abandons the rigor of both science and history to promote culturally popular narratives. 

[california boy]

12 minutes ago, Gray said:

I've been told that gay men are neat. If I'm gay I'm totally busting that stereotype wide open

We do have standards.  What can I say.  You might not be up to the task. You just might not be gay after all.  Maybe you are just metrosexual, which as we all know is the gateway drug to being gay.  Keep working on it buddy.  

[Button Gwinnett]

40 minutes ago, Gray said:

I'll try binge watching that, in between The Bird Cage and To Wong Fu...

I'll save you some time, according to some on this board, you can just "choose" to be gay if that's what you're after

[Button Gwinnett]

1 hour ago, The Nehor said:

Tried it. Did not work.

Dude you're going about it the wrong way, you have to  first "choose" to be gay

[RevTestament]

1 hour ago, california boy said:

Yeah because we all know that there were no homosexuals in the world until TV or magazines were invented and started to glorify it.  

Getting Mormon fundamentalism to fit sometimes takes on the role of a comedy.

I believe we do know there was less gayness going on a hundred years ago. There are many simple hunter, gatherer societies where it was/is non-existent. There are also cannibalistic societies which used homosexual rites as a passage into cannibal hunting - something I'm sure you will shy away from, but yes, that was definitely before TV and magazines. That doesn't mean it was not a societal issue. While you may think this type of analysis a comedy, I assure you, I do not. I refer you to a recent work about the issue of physical attraction among gay men.  http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00918369.2011.540184?src=recsys&journalCode=wjhm20

There was also a book by two gay men, but I can't seem to remember it right now.

[The Nehor]

27 minutes ago, Button Gwinnett said:

Dude you're going about it the wrong way, you have to  first "choose" to be gay

The rules keep changing. Why does it have to be so complicated?

[Button Gwinnett]

13 hours ago, RevTestament said:

I believe we do know there was less gayness going on a hundred years ago. There are many simple hunter, gatherer societies where it was/is non-existent. There are also cannibalistic societies which used homosexual rites as a passage into cannibal hunting - something I'm sure you will shy away from, but yes, that was definitely before TV and magazines. That doesn't mean it was not a societal issue. While you may think this type of analysis a comedy, I assure you, I do not. I refer you to a recent work about the issue of physical attraction among gay men.  http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00918369.2011.540184?src=recsys&journalCode=wjhm20

There was also a book by two gay men, but I can't seem to remember it right now.

And we know that within Roman history homosexuality was as common and a non issue as what toga one is going to wear today.  Many men, including emperors, had wife's as well as male, both adults and boys & female lovers.  It was just not that big of a deal.  The emperor Hadrian even make his male lover a god.

im not advocating we return to what Rome did, im just pointing out that it's a relatively recent phenomenon that society has become so homophobic.  The societal pendulum is actually just swinging back to where it's actually been in human history 

Edited October 19, 2017 by Button Gwinnett

[Hamba Tuhan]

2 hours ago, Button Gwinnett said:

And we know that within Roman history homosexuality was as common and a non issue as what toga one is going to wear today.  Many men, including emperors, had wife's as well as male, both adults and boys & female lovers.  It was just not that big of a deal.

The second half of what you have written completely undercuts your first claim. Having a wife plus male and female lovers does not equal homosexuality as it has been defined. You are right that same-sex behaviour has been with us since the dawn of time (and virtually always as part of a sexual smorgasbord as you described above; otherwise, humanity would have died out). The response of societies to this reality has been almost infinite in its diversity, over both space and time.*

What is completely new is not 'homophobia' but homosexuality and its necessary companion heterosexuality. The development of a concept of fixed, gendered sexual identities has a completely known genealogy and appears to be unique in all of human history. Literally every professionally trained historian whom I personally know agrees with this point, including the queer ones.

I understand why this demonstrable historical reality is unwelcome for personal and/or political reasons, but it is what it is.

-----

* Just two examples from my part of the world:

• In many societies, living arrangements were clearly demarcated between women's and men's compounds. Women, girls, and young children of both sexes lived in the women's compound. Men and older (around age 5+) boys lived together in the men's compound. Married men visited the women's compound in order to have sexual relations with their wives, but they also had unlimited sexual access to the unmarried boys and young men in the men's compound.
• In a number of societies where marriages were arranged between men and the future bride's parents, if the girl wasn't yet old enough to perform the roles of a wife or even if her parents just wished to keep her around a bit longer, the parents would provide a male sibling to the future husband as a sexual proxy until the marriage took place.

Edited October 19, 2017 by Hamba Tuhan

[kllindley]

13 minutes ago, Button Gwinnett said:

And we know that within Roman history homosexuality was as common and a non issue as what toga one is going to wear today.  Many men, including emperors, had wife's as well as male, both adults and boys & female lovers.  It was just not that big of a deal.  The emperor Hadrian even make his male lover a god.

im not advocating we return to what Rome did, im just pointing out that it's a relatively recent phenomenon that society has become so homophobic.  The societal pendulum is actually just swinging back to wear it's actually been in human history 

But only in the last 150 years had same-sex sexuality become an identity and orientation. 

[RevTestament]

5 minutes ago, Button Gwinnett said:

And we know that within Roman history homosexuality was as common and a non issue as what toga one is going to wear today.  Many men, including emperors, had wife's as well as male, both adults and boys & female lovers.  It was just not that big of a deal.  The emperor Hadrian even make his male lover a god.

im not advocating we return to what Rome did, im just pointing out that it's a relatively recent phenomenon that society has become so homophobic. 

When I see two men doing it on TV - a TV series - I would say that this society has gotten past "homophobia." I do not fear gay men. I have been to a gay night club... I do not perceive a desire to promote heterosexuality on a societal basis as homophobic, but I am sure you disagree.

Yeah, I know the Romans were a profligate society, so let's become one! Yeah, that is the solution! Really? I note they fell to the Teutons, which sadly seemed to have adopted their profligate ways. I don't think adopting the ways of the mother of harlots is the correct attitude.