Homophobia, nature or nurture?

[TheVat]

I've forgotten the original topic, but perhaps this is relevant:

Q.  What is the difference between a chickpea and a garbanzo bean?

A.  Donald Trump never had a garbanzo bean on his face.

Stupid joke, right?  It's funny partly for the wordplay, partly because it references Trump's alleged activity at a Moscow hotel, and partly because there are cultural stereotypes about the decadence of the rich.  It's partly driven by the same notion of excess that informs the classic joke that's been around since the seventeenth century usually called "The Aristocrats."   I won't tell it (it's filthy), and you've all probably heard it.  Both jokes, and others like them, assume that certain sexual acts between people that are less "proper" or "normal" than others are a sort of degradation.  The ordinary person, bound by middle-class morality, is invited to look down on this degradation and enjoy a laugh.

Maybe some homophobia (and this would definitely be in the category of learned) is a result of social stratification - there's a sort of middling mainstream where you don't have much power, so historically the options for feeling okay with your lot were to look up at the powerful and see their excess and corruption, and look down on groups that have been downtrodden, judged as lazier or deviant or just stupid (or various combinations of those).  Classes of people in the middle were in the least secure position, so there developed ways to punch up AND punch down.

I don't know, just playing around with this, and dinner beckons (would you believe chickpeas are involved?)

[MigL]

No one seems to want to address the logical inconsistencies of the argument being presented by some.

Homosexuals cannot help liking who, and what, they like; they are born that way, and conversion therapy does not work.
Heterosexuals like who, and what, they do because of learned behavior, and being reasonong beings, can change their likes and dislikes.

Can INow, or Phi, please explain this line of reasoning to me as I do not understand it.
One of the above, bolded statements must be false.

Edited February 17, 2023 by MigL

[zapatos]

13 minutes ago, MigL said:

Homosexuals cannot help liking who, and what, they like; they are born that way, and conversion therapy does not work.
Heterosexuals like who, and what, they do because of learned behavior, and being reasonong beings, can change their likes and dislikes.

I don't believe that is quite what they are saying. Their argument is more along the lines of:

Both homosexuals and heterosexuals cannot help liking who they like; they are born that way.

Additionally, both homosexuals and heterosexuals have learned behavior, and being reasoning beings, can change their learned likes and dislikes.

One example of a learned behavior is a prejudice against homosexuals, which is often exhibited by expressing a disgust of homosexual sex acts.

Edited February 17, 2023 by zapatos

[iNow]

7 hours ago, zapatos said:

The show Fear Factor was popular because it showed people doing things that others found 'distasteful', or whatever word we want to use. For example eating insects. Is that being prejudiced in some way?

Technically, yes. Insects are an excellent source of protein and even the ONLY source of protein in some locales. 

Just bc we fancy rich Americans prefer steak and pork and chicken and various artery clogging preparations of them does not make them better than insects or grubs or various other bugs that help millions survive. 

They’re just more familiar … more comfortable … like boys doing things with girls instead of boys doing things with boys.

It’s called Fear Factor because the response is rooted in fear. Why do so many people still fear two men loving and being intimate with one another?

[Intoscience]

17 hours ago, iNow said:

Nobody is forcing anything. How would we? Weird comment dude.

Ok, forcing is a bit strong. Suggesting would have been more appropriate. 

17 hours ago, iNow said:

Is there a good reason for your distaste? As noted above, lots of people also used to find interracial couples distasteful. There’s a reason that was silly, and the same applies IMO to distaste for homosexual activities.

Well, I cannot offer you a reason which is why I was interested in whether it was learned or something innate. All I can say is I find the idea of gay/lesbian sex acts distasteful. My prejudice is towards the act, not the people. Thinking about or watching either 2 men or 2 women engaging in sexual acts is a big turn off for me personally. I'm more than happy to explore why this is so, I'm not so happy that I'm being told my sexual likes or dislikes are outdated and therefore silly and should change. 

Yes, if my attitude towards people participating in such acts was prejudice then this is silly and outdated and I would do well to change this attitude. 

I think MigL has made a good point about the lack of consistency and I'm interested to hear further responses to this.  

5 hours ago, zapatos said:

I don't believe that is quite what they are saying. Their argument is more along the lines of:

Both homosexuals and heterosexuals cannot help liking who they like; they are born that way.

Additionally, both homosexuals and heterosexuals have learned behavior, and being reasoning beings, can change their learned likes and dislikes.

One example of a learned behavior is a prejudice against homosexuals, which is often exhibited by expressing a disgust of homosexual sex acts.

I don't agree they are saying it this way. Or I'm certainly not interpreting it this way. It seems to me that the 2 (my bold) are being conflated, possibly so when suits. 

To me they are saying that all sexual preferences are learned not innate unless you are gay then its innate. That we (heterosexuals) should change our attitude towards our dislikes to accommodate the likes of gays/lesbians. If you don't change your likes then you are prejudice towards those people. 

Please correct me if I'm wrong and at the same time correct MigL on his point. 

14 hours ago, Phi for All said:

It sounds like we're working with different definitions of "prejudice". If you're judging a particular sex act with distaste, and assuming you've never actually engaged in said act, aren't you pre-judging it to be distasteful? Or is this a binary problem, where sex acts are only either enjoyable or distasteful?

I'm not arguing that I'm prejudice towards the act/s. I'm arguing by being prejudice towards an act does not automatically qualify me as being prejudice towards the people engaging in the act/s.

I'm also not arguing that my dislikes have a valid reason for being such. I'm even open to investigating how/where my likes and dislikes originate from and whether there is a valid reason for them. I'm not however open to being told that my likes and dislikes are outdated and I should change them to suit or fit in with modern cultural attitudes. 

Edited February 17, 2023 by Intoscience
spelling

[dimreepr]

3 hours ago, Intoscience said:

Well, I cannot offer you a reason which is why I was interested in whether it was learned or something innate. All I can say is I find the idea of gay/lesbian sex acts distasteful. My prejudice is towards the act, not the people. Thinking about or watching either 2 men or 2 women engaging in sexual acts is a big turn off for me personally. I'm more than happy to explore why this is so,

The definition of tolerate automatically means that you don't like it, you don't have to look.

3 hours ago, Intoscience said:

I'm not so happy that I'm being told my sexual likes or dislikes are outdated and therefore silly and should change.

It's not your likes that are important, everyone's happy with their likes, it's the attitude towards your dislikes that should change.

 

[Intoscience]

15 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

The definition of tolerate automatically means that you don't like it, you don't have to look.

It's not your likes that are important, everyone's happy with their likes, it's the attitude towards your dislikes that should change.

 

How so? My attitude towards my dislikes should change? For who and for what reason? 

What do you mean my attitude towards my dislikes anyway???

I have stated what I dislike and I have also stated that I don't know the root cause of my dislikes, and I'm open to gaining an understanding of this.  What is wrong with this attitude?

Are you saying I should change my dislikes to likes, to make someone else feel more comfortable, or conform to modern culture or trend? That would be just silly, and hypocritical.  

 

[TheVat]

Could we stipulate that personal taste, if not shared callously or translating to prejudicial action, is what it is and best left alone?  

As for the topic, it seems reasonable to say homophobia is learned. The strongest prima facie case for that has been touched on here: those who aren't raised with anti-LGBT biases in their culture do not seem to be homophobic. (while they may have personal tastes and things they prefer not to do or watch, as is characteristic of all humans)

I would speculate that language, in many modern nations, still serves to transmit homophobic memes.  C___s___er is still a common term of insult towards men, where I live.  Many political forums had posts disparaging male Trump toadies as "s__ing on Trump's d___."  Language tends to be a repository of cultural biases.

 

[sethoflagos]

This story is probably entirely fictitious, though I am acquainted with the individuals involved.

A 'Johnnie Just Come', let's call him Kevin, was introduced to Lagos with a visit to the notorious Club 69.

After a short while, the 'shop steward' of the female patrons asked him if he'd like the company of one of them.

Kevin replied that he wasn't interested as he was gay.

"But there are no gay Nigerian men. How are you going to manage?"

"Prayer and cold showers" replied Kevin.

Ten minutes later she returned with a guy in a pink shirt in tow.

"I thought you said there were no Nigerian gays"

"He's from Ghana"

Bottom line (no pun intended) is that if there is a demand for a service, the market will provide it irrespective of any third party tutting and expressions of disgust. Which suggests that the tutting and expressions of disgust are no more than posturing. 

[iNow]

13 hours ago, Intoscience said:

To me they are saying that all sexual preferences are learned not innate unless you are gay then it’s innate.

I believe we’ve located the source of the misunderstanding..

[CharonY]

18 hours ago, MigL said:

Homosexuals cannot help liking who, and what, they like; they are born that way, and conversion therapy does not work.
Heterosexuals like who, and what, they do because of learned behavior, and being reasonong beings, can change their likes and dislikes.

I think I mentioned it earlier, but sexual preference is likely not hard wired, but rather developed early on, which is similar but not exactly the same. 

The second thing is that having a sexual preference does not automatically result in disgust (or lack of disgust) of certain sexual acts or preferences. That simply does not follow. As others have mentioned, there are plenty of heterosexual acts that folks might be disgusted about, and conversely, there are identical acts and for some, only the knowledge whether the actors are of same sex would make it distasteful (or not). The flexibility in perception shows to me that the behaviour is and can easily be modulated by context and experience.

 

And if we look at the reaction itself, the feeling of disgust is usually unconscious (or close to it), and there is little immediate conscious control over it. However, it is also well known that disgust of specific things has a learned component. I.e. it is heavily modulated by learning/experience. There is some deep-seated basis, not doubt but how we learn how something is disgusting or not, is highly flexible and as by far not as much ingrained as sexual preference. I.e. conflating these elements simply does not make a lot of sense to me. 

I will also add that studies also suggest that heterosexual men, on average, have a (much) more positive attitude towards lesbianism and, as also mentioned a couple of times, these negative attitudes kind of dissipate with direct experience. One think I am actually now curious about is how homosexuals perceive heterosexual advances or intimate situations between heterosexuals. If it is really ingrained, and if it was really tie to sexual preference, it should be a fairly equivalent situation. Not sure whether there are studies about that, as most studies have focused on heterosexuals and their attitudes (talking about research bias here).

Also, I wanted to add a few related points here. The discussion of nurture vs nature has very deep roots, but research has shown that it mostly makes little sense in the vast majority of behaviours. The concept of instincts is not that much in use anymore, for example. The more we understand how neural correlates for certain types of behavior are formed, the clearer it becomes that these are developments that happen to complex interactions between the genetic material, developmental environment and associated factors. In the area of neuroethology the idea is therefore much more to figure out how these mechanisms create behaviour. The hope to uncover genetic basis of behavior often now hinge on either very simple systems (say fruit flies) or by trying to isolate rather inflexible behavioral patterns and even this tens to be rather complicated.

As I mentioned before, even sexual preference might not be a perfect example of it. We still do not know everything that goes into it, except that there seems to be a genetic bias, but clearly it is not exclusively controlled by genes.

So for the most part the nature or nurture discussion is really not useful at all. However, that makes OP a bit tricky, as it is placed in the ethics section. There is a kind of assumption that "natural" behavior are somehow ethical as one it is presumably something we cannot do anything about. But rather obviously that is not a good argument to make.

[StringJunky]

'Deviant' humans is one thing, but what on Earth are we going to do about the Bonobos?  

[dimreepr]

On 2/17/2023 at 11:43 AM, Intoscience said:

How so? My attitude towards my dislikes should change? For who and for what reason? 

What do you mean my attitude towards my dislikes anyway???

I have stated what I dislike and I have also stated that I don't know the root cause of my dislikes, and I'm open to gaining an understanding of this.  What is wrong with this attitude?

Then I'm not sure why we are talking about it, in the first place.

Perhaps it's like a posh person serving caviar at a very expensive dinner party, just for the chance to say "it's an aquired taste, my dear", because they know you won't like it, because they didn't when they heard about it, and therefore I am so much less nieve than you, ergo more sophisticated.

I don't like any sex scene, especially with dolby, because I hate the sound of kissing 😝; I've never felt the need to find out why, I just put my fingers in my ear and pretend it's not happening.

I don't rewind the tape in order to collect data/evidence of why I should be outraged

On 2/17/2023 at 7:41 AM, Intoscience said:

I'm not arguing that I'm prejudice towards the act/s. I'm arguing by being prejudice towards an act does not automatically qualify me as being prejudice towards the people engaging in the act/s.

Why not?

Any prejudice, will automatically lead to an assumption of some sort...

[Intoscience]

On 2/18/2023 at 1:08 PM, dimreepr said:

Why not?

Any prejudice, will automatically lead to an assumption of some sort..

Maybe, but why assume one would make an automatic assumption about the person involved? Certainly why would anyone be automatically prejudice towards a person of a differing taste to your own?

On 2/17/2023 at 9:34 PM, CharonY said:

I think I mentioned it earlier, but sexual preference is likely not hard wired, but rather developed early on, which is similar but not exactly the same

So if this is true then why can't gay people learn to like the opposite sex?

It seems to me that extreme activists are expecting heterosexual people to change their "learned" likes and dislikes. 

I've been asked why I don't like gay sex? why I find it distasteful? That I should change my out of date attitude. 

This approach towards me seems to insinuate that I'm homophobic. All I'm asking is why should I change my views, my tastes?

I'm not prejudice towards gay people in any form other than I have differing tastes in sexual activities, so what?

[iNow]

6 hours ago, Intoscience said:

All I'm asking is why should I change my views, my tastes?

Because the one’s you’re expressing here are borderline bigoted and we should always seek to extinguish such positions. 

Nobody is asking you to abandon your own heterosexual preferences and become a practicing homosexual. The hope is only that you’ll work on discarding the visceral disgust you feel at the mere thought or mention of how two males engage intimately with one another. 

[dimreepr]

6 hours ago, Intoscience said:

So if this is true then why can't gay people learn to like the opposite sex?

Why should they? 

If it is an acquired taste, it automatically mean's you don't like it and that it requires, some sort of, force to make you taste it again.

[CharonY]

10 hours ago, Intoscience said:

So if this is true then why can't gay people learn to like the opposite sex?

I think you are missing the point of not conflating sexual preference with disgust reactions.

Sexual attraction, either to same or opposite sex is likely established early on (with both, genetic and environmental components). Learning to be disgusted by sexual acts (which can include those that align with sexual orientation) on the other hand is highly flexible and variable. Highly malleable behavior usually points towards learned behaviour. I.e. you can learn to find something disgusting or not disgusting, but it is almost impossible to change your sexual orientation.

And again, your argument only makes sense if you conflate these elements. Also, as I mentioned, I have not seen good data on disgust behaviour of homosexual folks, so we do not even know if there is symmetry. One could speculate for example that most homesexual individuals are more habituated to heterosexual behaviour (simply because it is more common) and therefore have a way more attenuated disgust reaction than heterosexuals who are not or infrequently exposed to homosexual individuals.

I think much of it stems from the tendency to assume that whatever unconscious behavior we have is innately "natural" as we are kind of forced to see ourselves as a guiding post of sorts. However, we really should look at it from a population level. And even there cultural influences are inevitable making it very hard to really define anything that is "natural". We used to be in the habit of defining an almost arbitrary threshold for "normal" but I think folks (especially older ones) are now struggling with the shifts in these threshold not only by cultural changes (which also can be whimsical) but also increasingly by science, as now we start to look into things that we never thought of before.

And the reason why we did not look into it, is because of our erroneous assumption of what is "normal" and thus biasing our approach to studies.

[TheVat]

49 minutes ago, CharonY said:

And again, your argument only makes sense if you conflate these elements. Also, as I mentioned, I have not seen good data on disgust behaviour of homosexual folks, so we do not even know if there is symmetry. One could speculate for example that most homesexual individuals are more habituated to heterosexual behaviour (simply because it is more common) and therefore have a way more attenuated disgust reaction than heterosexuals who are not or infrequently exposed to homosexual individuals.

I would join in that speculation, based on personal knowledge of gay people who were bisexual at some point in their lives.  I would guess the reverse, straight people who were bisexual or "experimented," would be less common.  Survey data, from different decades, would be interesting to find, though such research might face challenges in terms of honesty of reporting.*   I know of several gay people, and lesbians, who wanted to be primarily in a same-sex relationship but also wanted to have children and were not averse to procreative sex to achieve that.  I didn't have the impression that there were major hurdles of disgust for them to vault over.  (for those who did face such hurdles, AI came to the rescue) 

 

 

* an old joke about the Kinsey studies went something like:  90% of men masturbate, and 10% of men lie on questionnaires.

[MigL]

On 2/18/2023 at 8:08 AM, dimreepr said:

I don't rewind the tape in order to collect data/evidence of why I should be outraged

Nobody is going to take life advice from anyone who still watches movies on VHS tape.
That is not Hi-Def streaming, Blu-ray, or even standard DVD, but 4 generations old  !!!
Keep up with the times, Rip Van winkle.

On 2/17/2023 at 4:34 PM, CharonY said:

I am actually now curious about is how homosexuals perceive heterosexual advances or intimate situations between heterosexuals. If it is really ingrained, and if it was really tie to sexual preference, it should be a fairly equivalent situation.

Back in my younger days I tried picking up lesbian couples in bars/clubs I frequented ( the 'hunt' is often more thrilling than the 'kill' ).
These were the 'lipstick' lesbians you might see in a Porn film, not the 'lumberjack shirt', croppped hair type, and needless to say, it never went well because they knew, that if they so chose, they could have had any man in the place.

6 hours ago, iNow said:

Because the one’s you’re expressing here are borderline bigoted and we should always seek to extinguish such positions. 

And who made you the bigotry arbitrer ?
I have often stated how ridiculous it is when these sorts of labels get thrown around.
So what if he doesn't like anal sex and is heterosexual ?
Does he have to tell his wife he likes it simply to satisfy your standards for bigotry against homosexuals ?
Are you going to put us all in a room where we chant over and over "I like anal sex", and in between pray to God for forgiveness and the strength to change ?
Are we then going to do the same with homosexuals, all chanting "I like vaginal sex", and praying to God, because we certainly can't have them remain bigoted ?

Actually they already have 'canps' like described above all over the Southern US, that bastion of anti-bigotry; they are camps for conversion therapy.

Edited February 20, 2023 by MigL

[iNow]

4 hours ago, MigL said:

And who made you the bigotry arbitrer ?

I don’t need a special badge or patch on my jacket to point out the obvious 

4 hours ago, MigL said:

So what if he doesn't like anal sex and is heterosexual ?

This is irrelevant since we’re discussing his disgust of others doing that. 

[MigL]

2 hours ago, iNow said:

This is irrelevant since we’re discussing his disgust of others doing that. 

Are you sure you're in the right thread ?
I believe he explicitly said the acts 'disgust' him(self), not others practicing those acts.
At which point you accused him of bigotry.

I think that 'special badge' has gone to your head and is clouding your judgement.
Maybe the jacket patch ...

[Intoscience]

18 hours ago, iNow said:

Because the one’s you’re expressing here are borderline bigoted and we should always seek to extinguish such positions. 

Nobody is asking you to abandon your own heterosexual preferences and become a practicing homosexual. The hope is only that you’ll work on discarding the visceral disgust you feel at the mere thought or mention of how two males engage intimately with one another

Lets just get some things straight first,

I never used the word disgust, I used the word distaste

From the Oxford dictionary:

Distaste - mild dislike or aversion.

Disgust - a feeling of revulsion or strong disapproval aroused by something unpleasant or offensive.

And in all honesty I probably sit somewhere in between the 2 definitions. - A mild feeling of revulsion towards the act of gay sex.  

I also stated that same sex gender (gay/lesbian), male or female, sex acts, I find distaste towards. 

It is you who is conflating between my dislike for the act and dislike towards the people who engage in such. Thus accusing me of "borderline bigot" for the latter,  something I'm not. 

So I'm asking, what is so offensive about my personal likes and dislike which requires me to "discard the visceral disgust" that I seem to suffer from?

17 hours ago, dimreepr said:

Why should they? 

If it is an acquired taste, it automatically mean's you don't like it and that it requires, some sort of, force to make you taste it again.

Sorry you have lost me again.

I was asking, if I'm asked/required to change my sexual preferences then why shouldn't others do the same?

14 hours ago, CharonY said:

I think you are missing the point of not conflating sexual preference with disgust reactions

I have never ever used the word disgust. I have just been honest and open about my personal sexual preferences. I never  commented on people who engage in sexual acts that I find distasteful, i.e. I have no desire to watch, imagine or engage in. The only point I made was that I have gay friends who I care dearly for, and that I respect them no differently than I would anyone else.  

What is so wrong about this?

Honestly I can't understand why my personal preferences have any bearing on anyone else. I'm not the one, who is advocating that my preferences should be adhered to by others, why should they?

I'm asking why my personal preferences in themselves are offensive? 

Please explain this to me.  

Edited February 21, 2023 by Intoscience
spelling

[dimreepr]

4 hours ago, Intoscience said:

Sorry you have lost me again.

I was asking, if I'm asked/required to change my sexual preferences then why shouldn't others do the same?

No one is asking you to suck on something that you find distasteful, especially if you're "normal".

It's the insidious nature of culture, that if enough people innocently say "that's distasteful" it has an effect on their neighbours/neighbourhood, who then require otherwise innocent people to acquire your taste.

It's a simple question of balance, is your distaste more important than their taste???  

[Intoscience]

16 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

No one is asking you to suck on something that you find distasteful, especially if you're "normal".

It's the insidious nature of culture, that if enough people innocently say "that's distasteful" it has an effect on their neighbours/neighbourhood, who then require otherwise innocent people to acquire your taste.

It's a simple question of balance, is your distaste more important than their taste???  

"that's distasteful" and "I find that distasteful"  are 2 different statements and potentially mean 2 very different things. 

The first is stating something as a belief, an assumption that it is fact or true for all. The latter is stating a personal opinion that holds no bearing to anyone else and assumes nothing. 

I agree that attitudes can influences others and culture can be influenced by those attitudes. We see this going on all the time. But my attitude is very clear, I've stated my personal opinion based on my personal tastes. I have not at any point by statement or insinuation claimed that my tastes and distastes should be shared by others.

Yet I have been asked to change my personal tastes because my personal tastes may offend others based on the current cultural climate? How and why?

This I do take issue with because I don't understand why my personal tastes has anything to do with anyone else. Unless of course by virtue acting out my personal tastes causes harm towards others.   

  

[dimreepr]

3 minutes ago, Intoscience said:

This I do take issue with because I don't understand why my personal tastes has anything to do with anyone else. Unless of course by virtue acting out my personal tastes causes harm towards others.

That's the insidious nature of the innocent joke, not everyone gets it but we all feel the need to laugh, even if we find it distasteful (for a reason we're not entirely sure about).

That feeling only grows with the respect we give to the joker.