Do you disapprove of homosexuality?

[migrendel]

I'm not here to discuss my views on the morality of homosexuality, because I think they are well-known at this point. I'd like to point out something that has been bothering me. Some people defend homosexuality on the basis of not being a chosen affiliation. I fail to see the relevancy. Such a position seems to maintain that homosexuality is prima facie wrong, but the mitigation of its inherent nature makes it acceptable. I think choice does not matter one bit, because even if one chooses consciously to be one, there is nothing wrong in that either. I know that I have chosen every single sexual partner I have ever had, though not every desire, and I feel justified in the chosen characterisitics of my sexual orientation. In the end, the issue of choice obscures the fundamental question of the acceptability of the practice. But what do I care about other people's approval?

[falling apart like the ashes of American flags]

it doesn't bother me one bit in the slightest.

[dazzleman]

I disapprove personally, but if someone else is homosexual that's their business not mine.  Let's say I'm tolerant of it but I don't approve.

Homosexuals should understand that other people don't have to believe that homosexuality is normal.

That's generally my position.  It's not for me to approve of the private lives of other people anyway, unless they're asking me to sustain their choices in some way (such as welfare clients who choose to have 11 kids, and then demand public support).  Then I have to approve or disapprove.  But if they're not asking me to sustain their choices, I don't make it my personal business to pass judgment on their private lives.

[Max Power]

No, not all.

[ian]

No.

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

Absolutely not, whether or not it is a choice

[Dave from Michigan]

yes

[opebo]

I'm not here to discuss my views on the morality of homosexuality, because I think they are well-known at this point. I'd like to point out something that has been bothering me. Some people defend homosexuality on the basis of not being a chosen affiliation. I fail to see the relevancy. Such a position seems to maintain that homosexuality is prima facie wrong, but the mitigation of its inherent nature makes it acceptable. I think choice does not matter one bit, because even if one chooses consciously to be one, there is nothing wrong in that either. I know that I have chosen every single sexual partner I have ever had, though not every desire, and I feel justified in the chosen characterisitics of my sexual orientation. In the end, the issue of choice obscures the fundamental question of the acceptability of the practice. But what do I care about other people's approval?

Great post!  As usual I could not agree more.

However I would like to suggest that anyone who thinks their approval or disapproval of homosexuality is anything more than a personal preference should be fed to the lions.  Mind your own business.

[patrick1]

Homosexual acts gross me out but I don't really disapprove of them.  What people do in their own time is their business just don't expect me to watch Queer as Folk anytime soon.

[opebo]

Homosexual acts gross me out but I don't really disapprove of them.  What people do in their own time is their business just don't expect me to watch Queer as Folk anytime soon.

Oh come on - they're the same acts men and women perform together!  Or do you find heterosexual oral and anal sex repulsive as well?

[patrick1]

Homosexual acts gross me out but I don't really disapprove of them.  What people do in their own time is their business just don't expect me to watch Queer as Folk anytime soon.

Oh come on - they're the same acts men and women perform together!  Or do you find heterosexual oral and anal sex repulsive as well?

I am attracted to women.  I  find two dudes with each other PERSONALLY distasteful.  Lesbianism also doesn't do anything for me either.  It is not the acts per se but the aesthetics to be more precise.

[opebo]

Homosexual acts gross me out but I don't really disapprove of them.  What people do in their own time is their business just don't expect me to watch Queer as Folk anytime soon.

Oh come on - they're the same acts men and women perform together!  Or do you find heterosexual oral and anal sex repulsive as well?

I am attracted to women.  I  find two dudes with each other PERSONALLY distasteful.  Lesbianism also doesn't do anything for me either.  It is not the acts per se but the aesthetics to be more precise.

Believe me there are some Thai ladyboys here who are a lot more feminine than some line-backer big-boned American women.

My aesthetic is for femininity, which usually corresponds to the genetic predisposition for same, but not always.

[patrick1]

Homosexual acts gross me out but I don't really disapprove of them.  What people do in their own time is their business just don't expect me to watch Queer as Folk anytime soon.

Oh come on - they're the same acts men and women perform together!  Or do you find heterosexual oral and anal sex repulsive as well?

I am attracted to women.  I  find two dudes with each other PERSONALLY distasteful.  Lesbianism also doesn't do anything for me either.  It is not the acts per se but the aesthetics to be more precise.

Believe me there are some Thai ladyboys here who are a lot more feminine than some line-backer big-boned American women.

My aesthetic is for femininity, which usually corresponds to the genetic predisposition for same, but not always.

I don't like d!ck (besides my own of course) to put it bluntly.  Ladyboys are the most disgusting thing and it makes me want to puke.   I find it gross. But hey whatever floats your boat

[migrendel]

We have a cultural tradition of sexualizing androgenes that is tens of centuries old. From the cult of the Greek epicene and the Cypriots' worship of the Venus Barbata to our modern-day veneration of such asexual women as Marlene Dietrich and our fascination with "metrosexuality", it has incredible staying power. I daresay that the contrast between the refinement of the feminine and the animal-like, chthonian fierceness of the masculine has created our fractured and contradictory system of aesthetic values. By embracing this, opebo fallen for one of the oldest sexual archetypes, the amalgam of female virago and boyish epehebe, and that just shows that there's nothing new under the sun.

[bullmoose88]

Morally, the act is wrong, but its not my place to judge or society to legislate. Its between the individual and God.

[Frodo]

We have a cultural tradition of sexualizing androgenes that is tens of centuries old. From the cult of the Greek epicene and the Cypriots' worship of the Venus Barbata to our modern-day veneration of such asexual women as Marlene Dietrich and our fascination with "metrosexuality", it has incredible staying power. I daresay that the contrast between the refinement of the feminine and the animal-like, chthonian fierceness of the masculine has created our fractured and contradictory system of aesthetic values. By embracing this, opebo fallen for one of the oldest sexual archetypes, the amalgam of female virago and boyish epehebe, and that just shows that there's nothing new under the sun.

good post -i wonder sometimes if my attraction to women who have certain 'masculine' characteristics like being assertive, self-confident, vocal, opinionated, and non-deferrential, with an animal-like love of sex for its own sake (and not just procreation), not to mention being somewhat older than me is a somewhat less extreme version of Opebo's attraction to androgynous ladyboys.  i won't go through all my sexual fantasies, and preferences for women who don't follow the typical vanila, white-bread cultural norms that the vast majority of men here follow either consciously or subconsciously, (examples of those norms include those women who shave their legs and arm pits to keep them silky smooth; go on a diet so as to fit that perfect Barbie-doll image that they are reared since childhood to emulate, as well as retain that aire of youthfulness by whatever means necessary, and the like) except just to say that i am not that far from Opebo, though i place greater emphasis on maturity. 

emotional maturity is among the most prized aspects that i am looking for when i search for someone with whom i wish to enter a long-term relationship, and more often than not i look for women who are in their mid-to-late twenties -maybe even early thirties.   this is why i am still single -all the ones i want already have boyfriends or husbands, and the women who are available (or at least the ones i see here on campus) still tend to act like children, as if they need someone to protect and care for them ALL THE TIME.  there are men who like being in that role of quasi-father figures -i don't.  i wonder sometimes where that leaves me in the long run..... 
 

     

[migrendel]

Nothing out of the ordinary at all, Frodo. As I said, it's been with us for almost as long as civilization.

Here are some example of this: Aphrodite was, in all accuracy, hermaphroditic. Aristophanes referred to her as Aphros, a male Cypriot name. On Cyprus, she was worshiped as the Venus Barbata, a woman with a beard and male genitals, to whom sacrifices would be made by people dressed in the garb of the opposite gender. Dionysus, gestated by Zeus in his thigh after he murdered Dionysus's mortal mother, Semele, dressed in female clothes. Greek reliquaries generally depict him as wearing a hairnet and a female toga. At his festival, Ithyphallos, a dance was performed by both men and women dressed in the opposite gender's costume. Marriage rituals were equally interesting: at Cos, the bride wore a fake beard, at Athos, the groom wore a gown, and at Sparta, the bride wore men's boots and shaved her head.  As this all shows, we inherited the aesthetic sensibilities of the Greeks, whose eroticism was based upon ephebophilia and an abiding respect for the epicene.

[KEmperor]

I disapprove personally, but if someone else is homosexual that's their business not mine.  Let's say I'm tolerant of it but I don't approve.

Homosexuals should understand that other people don't have to believe that homosexuality is normal.

This is pretty much my position as well.

[opebo]

We have a cultural tradition of sexualizing androgenes that is tens of centuries old. From the cult of the Greek epicene and the Cypriots' worship of the Venus Barbata to our modern-day veneration of such asexual women as Marlene Dietrich and our fascination with "metrosexuality", it has incredible staying power. I daresay that the contrast between the refinement of the feminine and the animal-like, chthonian fierceness of the masculine has created our fractured and contradictory system of aesthetic values. By embracing this, opebo fallen for one of the oldest sexual archetypes, the amalgam of female virago and boyish epehebe, and that just shows that there's nothing new under the sun.

good post -i wonder sometimes if my attraction to women who have certain 'masculine' characteristics like being assertive, self-confident, vocal, opinionated, and non-deferrential, with an animal-like love of sex for its own sake (and not just procreation), not to mention being somewhat older than me is a somewhat less extreme version of Opebo's attraction to androgynous ladyboys.   

Thanks for the lovely discourse migrendel.  I should note that my dabbling with ladyboys is perhaps 2 or 3% of my sexual activities.  And as for actual boys even less - though if effeminate enough that can be fun also.

Frodo, your sexual tastes are very interesting and a bit atypical, though in many ways quite different from me.  For example as you note I prefer partners younger than myself - in that respect I think I am a very typical male.  As for masculinity and femininity, my ladyboys are typically sort of 'hyperfeminine', in a way almost a charicature of the feminine.  And when it comes to girls, I think of my taste as being the most feminine type, but come to think of it definitions of femininity are rather subjective.  For example I think of delicate, angular waifs as the most feminine - but many would call them 'boyish'.  Others might find zaftig women with large breasts and ass to be the most femine, but for me they seem too stocky or solid to be feminine. 

And while I definitely do not like the brash, agressive type you describe, I don't like the coquettish type either.  Some hard to describe quality of genuineness, self-possession, and humour attracts me - usually best revealed in a smile.  Perhaps down to earth, empathetic, ironic, or just plain intelligent.  In some ways I suppose that the people I like best are at once transcending gender roles intellectually, while playing them all the more intensely in a physical manner.  Perhaps self-consciousness or self-awareness is what I'm talking about.  Please forgive the stream-of-consciousness blather, but it is hard to formulate ones aesthetic ideas absent a classical education.