Originally Posted by reddeath26

How can one be homosexual if they do not actively identify certain people in society as belonging to the same gender? Lets say person A is attracted to persons B, C and D. If they live in a culture which defines these people as belonging to the same gender, then they are quite possibly homosexual. If they do not belong to a culture which assigns them with the same gender they are no longer homosexual. How does this work? As their genetics are not changing from example to the next. All that is changing is the Genders they identify as being present in society. Which is the first reason why even if genetics has an impact on who you are attracted to, on its own it does not make someone homosexual.

They are homosexual because they are attracted to the same sex, not the same gender. The gender may or may not reflect that which their anatomy does, however, a female who has a higher testosterone level is not a biological male, and a male who has a higher estrogen level is not a biological female. Homosexuality means those who are attracted to the same biological sex, not those who are attracted to like-gender people judged as according to society standards, or cultural influences as you are stating. As far as thinking you are something in your mind (eg: a male thinking that he was supposed to be a woman as according to society's gender roles) and being something in actuality. Sure, technology allows the ability to almost completely change from male to female and female to male through surgery. But it is not a complete transformation with all the internal parts such as the womb for the man. And I don't believe they remove the whole womb and everything related in a woman for a woman to become a man. With that being said, if they had the technology to surgically transform me and give me features that would make me resemble a vampire, would I be an actual vampire even if I thought I was a vampire in my mind?

Originally Posted by reddeath26

The same applies very much to the rest of the animal kingdom. As we do not have sufficient means of communicating with them and discovering their understandings of sexuality we are dependent on the person/people observing them to assigning values. As such any observed instance will be very much dependent on the culturally defined understandings held by the person who is observing said behaviour.

I don't think it takes very much culture to realize that an animal outside of humans is homosexual when it engages with the same type of physical anatomy in sexual acts. Likewise, a male anatomy that engages with a female anatomy is heterosexual. You can say that sexual actions do not decide it all you want, but the fact of the matter is...anatomy is all that matters when describing orientation. Homosexual, Heterosexual, Pansexual, Asexual, Bisexual, ALL have sex in the word. Why would sex preference not define the words if sex is inside the very word itself?

• Homosexual-Same Sex
• Heterosexual-Opposite Sex
• Bisexual-Both Binary Sexes
• Pansexual-All Sexes
• Asexual-No Sexes

The list above is not cultural...except maybe pansexual, as that indicates there is more than a penis sex and a vagina sex to choose from as opposed to bisexual. Pansexual is really the only gender defined term in that list. The rest are completely and directly related to physical genitalia. In fact, I don't think I have even heard of an animal outside of a human being pansexual myself.

Originally Posted by Sinziana

A homosexual is someone who prefers a mate of their own gender. This isn't cultural, it is definite. It's the meaning of the word, homo meaning homogenous, the same. If a male bear has sex with another male bear it'll still be a homosexual act. Even if it's okay in a culture for homosexualism to exist, it'll still be homosexualism.

It is a choice.

*sex, not gender.
Also, this is how it is defined in your Western culture, but let's not be so centric and close minded in a debate about other cultures. In the West, a person is homosexual if they have relations of someone with the same sex, but in other cultures, this does not stand true.

Defining sexuality is a very modern tradition. In Ancient Greece, one could not be homosexual because they did not have the concept of homosexuality. They simply have relations with whom they were attracted to, and it was not defined. In other cultures, one might be considered homosexual if they are attracted to a transgendered person who was originally the same sex as their partner; this is not true of the west. In other cultures, they have more genders than we account for.

Please, do not be so ethnocentric.

Originally Posted by Kris

*sex, not gender.
Also, this is how it is defined in your Western culture, but let's not be so centric and close minded in a debate about other cultures. In the West, a person is homosexual if they have relations of someone with the same sex, but in other cultures, this does not stand true.

Defining sexuality is a very modern tradition. In Ancient Greece, one could not be homosexual because they did not have the concept of homosexuality. They simply have relations with whom they were attracted to, and it was not defined.
Please, do not be so ethnocentric.

What about the ancient greek word paiderasste describing the action of homosexuality as Western Culture knows it? ;)

@sinziana: To my knowledge, homosexualism is not a word. The proper word to use would be homosexuality.

Umm, Well.. I was straight 3 years ago. Now I'm bi...
so, I don't believe this.

The findings make sense. People just don't want to stomach them. Naturally homosexuality in the wild would be a birth defect or a gene that didn't develop right in the womb. Thus, as time goes on Evolution will probably cancel the defect since there is nothing to be gained from it on natural basis.

Originally Posted by Runes

The findings make sense. People just don't want to stomach them. Naturally homosexuality in the wild would be a birth defect or a gene that didn't develop right in the womb. Thus, as time goes on Evolution will probably cancel the defect since there is nothing to be gained from it on natural basis.

I can list two benefits of homosexuality in animals other than humans.

1. Natural way to control population growth since those that are homosexual will not reproduce.

2. Nannies of a sort to help look after the offspring but have none of their own. So, kind of like a community raiser of children.

So your unfounded claim that being homosexual is a birth defect is completely ridiculous. The second unfounded claim you made about homosexuality eventually being cancelled out is entirely false, as homosexuality in animals has existed long before humans took root on this Earth, and is still around today after all the evolution that has gone on. When exactly (at least give us a workable timeline of 1000 years) are you proposing that homosexuality will be disappearing?

Originally Posted by Fallacious

I feel a little bad that I saw this topic and instantly had a mental image of a zombie going "They're fabulous!"

Hahaha! Oh my.