This graph from Gallup shows a universal tension between religion and homosexual sex. The disapproval does vary--Hindus, for example, don't feel as strongly as Muslims--but if homosexual rights were a high priority for me, I'd wish for a secular world.
Even non-Abrahamic religions are less tolerant than secularists. This across-the-board opposition to gay sex suggests a biological basis, doesn't it? Could it be as simple as the widespread revulsion that heteros feel at the thought of this type of sex? Sexual scenarios of all sorts generate strong emotional reactions: how many times have you heard people say "gross" at this or that image?
I've been arguing for years that homophobia is a much more interesting human-science topic than homosexuality. It still seems to me that buggery is central to the issue.
ReplyDeleteCould it be as simple as the widespread revulsion that heteros feel at the thought of this type of sex?
ReplyDeleteYou mean religions simply codify the prejudices of their founders? Shocking! ;-)
I suspect that there is a feedback effect at work, too. The less tolerant a society is of homosexuals, the more likely there are to be closet cases like Ted Haggard railing even more strongly against them, which makes the society even less tolerant.
I'm with Jewish Atheist on this one.
ReplyDelete"The less tolerant a society is of homosexuals, the more likely there are to be closet cases like Ted Haggard railing even more strongly against them, which makes the society even less tolerant."
ReplyDeleteI agree, islam full of closested feaks.
"You mean religions simply codify the prejudices of their founders? Shocking!"
ReplyDeleteThere's more to it than that, JA. As John Derbyshire argues in the link posted by John (the Derb himself?), people tend to equate male homosexuality with anal sex - with some justification. Anal sex is something many people find intensely disgusting, more on aesthetic and hygienic grounds than for any traditional religious strictures.
Anonymous:
ReplyDeleteLOL, I think you're projecting a little bit there.
You know what's funny John? You spend the majority of that essay discussing sodomy, going as far as discussing how some cltures view the submissive as less than a man.
ReplyDeleteThen, in the last few lines, you tell minorities to lie back and take it.
Hilarious and a perfect example of right-wing populism or rule by lowest common denominator.
JA, the point is that the anti-sodomy verses of the Bible still resonate in a way the anti-mixed-textile verses don't. There must be some reason for that. Some more fundamental force is driving it.
ReplyDeleteAs for "projection", yeah, I tried it a couple of times at an old girlfriend's coaxing. I could take or leave, but *she* clearly liked it for its taboo-breaking qualities.
"There must be some reason for that. Some more fundamental force is driving it."
ReplyDeleteThe three reasons are gender belief system, authoritarianism, and social dominance orientation.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2294/is_2000_June/ai_66011966
Then, in the last few lines, you tell minorities to lie back and take it. - Walker Purple
ReplyDeleteI wish people wouldn't always be so darn clever in paraphrasing. I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with your take on Derb's take on homophobia, I just don't even know what you're talking about. Last few lines? Lie back and take something? Take what?
This is some clever rape metaphor and I'm far too [whatever the hip word for the blue-indigo-violet range of the autism spectrum is] to get it.
"As for "projection", yeah, I tried it a couple of times at an old girlfriend's coaxing. I could take or leave, but *she* clearly liked it for its taboo-breaking qualities."
ReplyDeleteStill got her #?
JA, the point is that the anti-sodomy verses of the Bible still resonate in a way the anti-mixed-textile verses don't. There must be some reason for that. Some more fundamental force is driving it.
ReplyDeleteI agree with that 100%.
As for "projection", yeah, I tried it a couple of times at an old girlfriend's coaxing. I could take or leave, but *she* clearly liked it for its taboo-breaking qualities.
I don't think that's typical. Just look at how much anal there is in straight porn. Most guys must at least not be totally disgusted by it.
(As for myself, meh. Not a fan. But it doesn't totally gross me out either.)
"There must be some reason for that. Some more fundamental force is driving it."
ReplyDeleteThe three reasons are gender belief system, authoritarianism, and social dominance orientation.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2294/is_2000_June/ai_66011966
If that were so, you'd expect to find people with those traits to view lesbians more favourably than gay males. That may be so, but the article doesn't argue for it. It appears not to differentiate the two groups - a common but stupid approach.
Mulling over what Derbyshire wrote, and hearing the usual horror stories about prison, etc., I wonder if buggery is the reason for homosexuality. Without it, I wonder if the gays would be more likely to display bisexuality, occasionally sleeping with a man but also having wives/girlfriends. The idea being that after a man has carried out such an act, he is forever changed and has a modified version of gender roles. Who is "the man" becomes a function, not of what we are born to be, but who is being dominated (all the time, or temporarily) and which acts one finds most pleasurable.
ReplyDeleteWithout buggery, men pleasure each other in less traumatic ways (including the intercrural sex on the urns). Thus there is none of that pleasure-trauma duality, or pleasure-thru-trauma process, or whatever, that goes on in the heads of buggery fanciers that the rest of us don't understand.
Plenty of older cultures seem to have tolerated male bisexuality without tolerating buggery. The question is, did they tolerate homosexuality as we understand it today? If a man were in love with a man and shared pleasure with, would it be expected that he would eschew women and not father any children? I'm sure it varied from culture to culture, but I'll wager that toleration of actual homosexuality is historically quite rare.
What worries me: buggery starts out in the minds of most boys as an offensive threat, plain and simple. That's the way it was when I was in junior high. Then some of the boys, who I'll wager are bisexual, decide they're going to give it a try because of our weird post-60s "everything forbidden is mandatory". Then they suddenly don't seem to be interested in girls any more, perhaps because they've been drawn into an eccentric mens-only subculture which is they feel the only place they can be accepted. But is the notion that buggery is a basic assault on human dignity still hanging in the background? Can that be the reason female "tourists" often wind up leading basically heterosexual lifestyles while the male "tourists" seem to emigrate from heterosexuality?
And no, I don't have any statistics to back this up, just hunches.
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