Posted on 09/12/2007 2:10:02 PM PDT by presidio9
An individual's body motion and body type can offer subtle cues about their sexual orientation, but casual observers seem better able to read those cues in gay men than in lesbians, according to a new study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
"We already know that men and women are built differently and walk differently from each other and that casual observers use this information as clues in making a range of social judgments," said lead author Kerri Johnson, UCLA assistant professor of communication studies. "Now we've found that casual observers can use gait and body shape to judge whether a stranger is gay or straight with a small but perceptible amount of accuracy."
Johnson and colleagues at New York University and Texas A&M measured the hips, waists and shoulders of eight male and eight female volunteers, half of whom were gay and half straight. The volunteers then walked on a treadmill for two minutes as a three-dimensional motion-capture system similar to those used by the movie industry to create animated figures from living models made measurements of the their motions, allowing researchers to track the precise amount of shoulder swagger and hip sway in their gaits.
Based on these measurements, the researchers determined that the gay subjects tended to have more gender-incongruent body types than their straight counterparts (hourglass figures for men, tubular bodies for women) and body motions (hip-swaying for men, shoulder-swaggering for women) than their straight counterparts.
In addition, 112 undergraduate observers were shown videos of the backsides of the volunteers as they walked at various speeds on the treadmill. The observers were able to determine the volunteers' sexual orientation with an overall rate of accuracy that exceeded chance, even though they could not see the volunteers' faces or the details of their clothing. Interestingly, the casual observers were much more accurate in judging the orientation of males than females; they correctly categorized the sexual orientation of men with more than 60 percent accuracy, but their categorization of women did not exceeded chance.
The findings build on recent research that shows that casual observers can often correctly identify sexual orientation with very limited information. A 1999 Harvard study, for example, found that just by looking at the photographs of seated strangers, college undergraduates were able to judge sexual orientation accurately 55 percent of the time.
"Studies like ours are raising questions about the value of the military's 'don't ask, don't tell' policy," Johnson said. "If casual observers can determine sexual orientation with minimal information, then the value in concealing this information certainly appears questionable. Given that we all appear to be able to deduce this information to some degree with just a glance, more comprehensive policies may be required to protect gays against discrimination based on their sexual orientation."
The findings also are part of mounting evidence suggesting that sexual orientation may actually be what social scientists call a "master status category," or a defining characteristic that observers cannot help but notice and which has been scientifically shown to color all subsequent social dealings with others.
"Once you know a person's sexual orientation, the fact has consequences for all subsequent interactions, and our findings suggest that this category of information can be deduced from subtle clues in body movement," Johnson said.
Reference: Kerri L. Johnson, Simone Gill, Victoria Reichman, and Louis G. Tassinary "Swagger, Sway, and Sexuality: Judging Sexual Orientation From Body Motion and Morphology", Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 93, No. 3, pp. 321–334.
Video available at: http://www.apa.org/journals/supplemental/psp_93_3_321/Supplement1.mov
Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by University of California, Los Angeles.
At the State Department, the forces of decency work in the Bureau of Security and Consular Affairs, an office whose name sounds to Hawkins Fuller "like a C.I.A. front: the little publishing house in Vienna, the art dealer in Rome." At Fuller's own interrogation, he's asked to walk across the room, then read aloud from Somerset Maugham. But there's nothing swishy about this Navy veteran, and when the lie detector is brought out his pulse holds steady.
So old Joe was right about something. But do you think he knew about Roy Cohn?
I agree that who we are is far more complex than we may ever understand fully. But, although my statement sounded simplistic, in practice it really isn’t. Nature plays a part, but much of a person’s identity forms based on outside influences including how other people react to him or her.
For example, if other people tell you you’re attractive, you identify as attractive. If other people tell you you’re unattractive, you identify as such. If they tell you you’re smart or stupid or anything else, you begin to identify that way. It’s not such a big leap to see that the same goes for many other characteristics, such as sexual orientation.
There was a good article posted here awhile ago that described how someone grows up being taught to believe that he or she is homosexual. If you like, I’ll try to dig it up for you.
P.S. I don’t have a favorite color. Is that unusual? :-)
This study is crap. It did not indicate whether the individuals who were being video taped were randomly selected or if they had any foreknowledge of what was being studied. If those being videotaped were told that it was a study to determine if people could tell whether someone was gay or not by the way they walked then the study was compromised.
Also the conclusion is not supported by the result. The sample size was far too small, the group of study observers were of a non representative group as was those who were being videotaped. This is one of those wonderful liberal studies built and designed to achieve a specific result which is to feed a false impression to the public.
What is particularly misleading is that the 60% number is stated without defining what it really means which is a mere 10 points above chance. It means that a machine flipping a coin could’ve came nearly as close as those observers. That is a horrible result and does not tell us a whole lot about anything concerning the studies goals and certainly nothing that would allow one to reach the conclusion stated in this article about don’t ask don’t tell. Also since they segregated male hits and female hits, did they also segregate gay, male, and female observers?
What passes for social science today is so weak as to be worthless.
“For example, if other people tell you you’re attractive, you identify as attractive. If other people tell you you’re unattractive, you identify as such. If they tell you you’re smart or stupid or anything else, you begin to identify that way. It’s not such a big leap to see that the same goes for many other characteristics, such as sexual orientation.”
Sorry, never worked for me, never worked with me.
None of these things are automatic or given, at all. They are possible reactions but they always take many forms of reinforcement, internal as well as external for one to choose to agree with them and have equal opportunity for being rejected, by internal as well as external forces (other people and their rejection of those characterizations to us).
Identity CAN be influenced by how other people react to us, or try to make us react to them, but with our internal resources and counter influences of other people - people providing a different influence - one set of influences do not make a fixed and automatic influence that will set our identity, and in fact, with internal will and fortitude, good parenting or both, we CAN consciously decide to accept or reject external influences - their influence is only an influence, its ability to determine identity is not fixed as unavoidable.
I had (still have) a dark mole over one eye, very big ears as a child and was called “Dumbo” by childhood friends and my siblings, mercilessly, and was often one older brother’s punching bag and ignored completely by another older brother as not worth the time of day to consider. I was also quite a “book worm”, on the skinny side, equally interested in reading science or science fiction books as playing sports with my brothers. The worst part of our playing sports together was that they couldn’t stand it when I beat them - that wasn’t supposed to happen. My family thought, and said, my social life in Jr. High was going to be difficult (comments made behind my back as well as openly, and often as snide jokes at dinner time) because I was this skinny, huge-eared, shy, bookish kid (getting 9th grade 7th month math scores in 5th grade). They weren’t the only ones, it was the universal view of family and my peers in the neighborhood.
Low and behold, 7th grade came and I soon had a “steady” girlfriend, became a class officer, beat my brother (2 years older) as the winner between the last two couples in a dance contest at my first Jr. High School night-time dance and was soon considered by others to be in the “in crowd” - skinny, bookish, big-eared and all. I had never changed during that whole time. Why? I had NEVER accepted ANYONE’s external characterization of me as my own, AND I NEVER HAVE. Some of my acquaintances I admire the most are black Americans I know who are conservative. When I hear their stories they each had more than enough bigoted influence to think they were worthless and more than enough “black anger” influence to destroy their intellectual honesty in hatred against those who tried to make them feel worthless. They relate some of their conservatism now to the fact that they did not self-identify with the identities many, including many in the black community, tried so hard to influence them towards. Many of their constant influences could easily have brought them to be Jessie Jackson clones or depressed failures. Their unwillingness to let those external influence be the controlling influences of their identity allowed them to preserve their intellectual honesty, without which they would not be conservative today.
The influences of other people are only influences, it is not a given that they are determinants - it is more complex than that.
Actually a pretty good indicator is how you order coffee in a coffee shop. Straight males tend to order their coffee plain and simple, such as “black” or “cream, no sugar.” Homosexual men tend to order their coffee “complicated” like a woman. Using fancy adjectives to describe how you want your coffee like “grande vanilla skim half-soy latte” is a sure sign you really know your way around the lingerie department at Macy’s.
I can’t find the article that explains how a person is led to believe he or she is homosexual. I thought I had it bookmarked, but I don’t. However, I believe I summarized the article fairly accurately in my previous posts.
I do agree that nature plays a role in how a person reacts to external influences. But I also believe nurture trumps nature. And I believe so because I’m with my own children 24/7, with little exception, and I can trace practically every behavior they each exhibit to an external influence, such as an earlier experience, amount of attention from us parents, a TV show, a video game, and so on. As newborns, each one seemed to be born with a unique personality, but I even question how much was inborn and how much was simply a reaction to the world (mommy, daddy, birth order, home life, family stress, etc.) around them and my reaction to each of them at different points in life.
Children learn to identify with their mothers and fathers in different ways, and if a child identifies more with the parent of the opposite sex, he or she may exhibit behaviorisms upon which society used to frown and now simply labels as homosexual. Sure, many boys have been called “sissies” growing up, and they didn’t turn out to be gay. But there would need to be more external pressures besides just name-calling. A person probably can’t even fully remember all the external forces that have helped to form his or her psyche.
That doesn’t mean we have no control over ourselves. I agree with you that we can consciously decide to accept or reject outside influences. But much of our personalities are formed in our early years as little tots when we’re not as capable in making conscious decisions. As we grow older and more knowledgeable, we can begin to change to our own will. When adults engage in any type of sexual behavior, they are making a conscious choice.
Btw, I’m glad to hear you did well in your school years. (I did not do as well... lol.) I think the fact that you were able to beat your brothers in sports and perform well in math at school had something to do with your confidence level. Now the question is: How much of those skills were inborn, and how much learned through experience in your early years? Even athletic ability can be learned beginning in an early age.
I’ll always be certain that sexual orientation is determined by outside influences, experiences, environment. I don’t believe people are born with a sexual orientation. I’ll go even further: An entire generation could be brainwashed to believe that homosexuality is the norm, with heterosexuality as unusual, if the media, the schools, and parents worked together to influence them in that way from an early age.
So, you and I agree that individuals are a mixture of nature and nurture. I just think nurture is more powerful.
Adding to my post above: I’m curious, what’s your occupation? Our occupations (experiences) probably have led us to two different views.
Mine was in marketing, advertising, and journalism-in-advertising. I had to take a lot of Psych courses years ago, too, for those majors. That could be why I view outside influences (like the media) as so powerful.
“I can’t find the article that explains how a person is led to believe he or she is homosexual.”
I have read such articles. They explain theories and opinions, they do not explain proofs, nor do I believe is it possible to do so.
And, for each that explains nurture and influence as singularly driving factors, as I said, the anecdotal evidence is substantial - too many, under the proposed driving influences to become “gay” do not have a “gay” sexuality. If nurture and “influence” alone were absolute and sufficient determinants, that would not be so.
My entire life experience demonstrates that neither nature or nurture “trump” each other. They each present influences, initial limitations and initial advantages, either of which can be outweighed over time by countervailing influences (influences in nurture that present themselves as and are explored by humans as counter to other influences; and that exploration is conducted by attributes that themselves are part nature and part nurture (mental ability for critical thinking and pre-existing accepted values).
Thus, life is a dance between nature and nurture, choreographed by our dynamically shaped identity. It is neither “fixed” by nature or by nurture, for aspects of one can always act as counter-forces to the other.
“As newborns, each one seemed to be born with a unique personality, but I even question how much was inborn and how much was simply a reaction to the world (mommy, daddy, birth order, home life, family stress, etc.) around them and my reaction to each of them at different points in life.”
It is a combination, for nature has some measure in determining part of their “reactions” and the developing reactions, partly attributable to nature and partly attributable to what induced them, themselves contribute to the development of other “reactions”, again subject to some part-measure of genetic-presented greater susceptibility (not absolute, particularly as the person ages, as age can bring the knowledge of the power of the will to use in forming reactions to “influences”, no matter how great or small).
In time, knowledge itself, external from our “reactions” can play a profound role in our “reactions”, even to the extent that, with knowledge, a very small “influence” (small in strength and force of presentation and duration), can be given very great force in shaping our “reactions” and thus our developing identity; as well as some other influence (though extremely brief in duration) can be a “eureka” moment in our developing “reactions” and identity.
If you want to acknowledge the best you can do for your children, you should quit examining the surface presentation of, and your perceived results from, “your influence” and focus instead on concentration of helping them develop their most important “skill”, critical thinking, and use your moral guide to helping them chose good “reactions” to conditions they meet, fostering their critical thinking skills to judge “influences” with greater and greater thinking of their own. You give them that ability by gradually (as they age) increasing reason above command as the basis for what guidance you do give them.
“Children learn to identify with their mothers and fathers in different ways, and if a child identifies more with the parent of the opposite sex, he or she may exhibit behaviorisms upon which society used to frown and now simply labels as homosexual.”
This is not “science”. Far, far too many “single” parents, male and female, have raised opposite-gender children, on their own, with such children NOT identifying as “gay” as adults.
Children are much more adaptive than such non-science portrayals allow. What you actually see in children of single-parent households is that children immediately self-identify themselves as male or female and they “identify” with same-sex role models that ARE presented to them, in whatever form, and where ever they observe them. Boys who have lost their fathers at a very young age will see themselves (identify) with uncles, grandfathers, male teachers and ministers as well as much-older brothers, for role models. Girls who have lost their mothers will do the same with their closest female relatives and female adults in parental/control roles over them. How much will they do this. It is in part their choice, in part family inducement or failure and in part availability - none of which are givens, but any and all of which can play a role.
Even when both parents are present from birth, the time-commitment possible from either parent can present a will-driven “reaction” in the child to use non-parent role models from the adults, outside of mother and father, from among the normal outside-the-household adults that children always have around them. It is not ever a given that even in every household of two-parent families, every single one of their children will have every emphasis of their identity from their parents, or even their same-sex parent as role models. For sometimes normal, sometimes what seems to the child as positive, reasons they chose to go beyond what is presented by either parent, even at times at a very young age.
Additionally, I have known many a parent that have said that a child of their own gender was always more the child of the other parent than them, from birth; yet in spite of the constant identification more with the parent of the opposite gender, the child did not identify as “gay” as an adult.
Why?
Its more complex than simple algorithms of - take one of this and two of that and voila - the child will be “gay”, and the complexity demonstrates neither nature or nuture “trumps” either one in the process, no matter how many unprovable theories postulate otherwise.
I’m sorry, you seem confused with my arguments. In them you have not seen me ever argue that “gay” is determined by “nature”, as if some genetic component determines it.
However, unlike you, as much as I do not accept that “genetics” determines it and makes it set (there is no “gay” gene or set of genes), I do not accept that nurture alone does either. Why? Our complex formation of our identity itself demonstrates that - it is formed by nature and nurture - and sexuality is but one component of that.
As our basic identity (”I AM”) is not absent of either nature or nurture, no dominant component of that identity can be either.
It is a complex dance between the two that starts at birth, and while one may lead at times and in some fashion, neither one can determine the long path of it on their own; they eventually work together, with “success” measured by the identity (our consciousness) itself.
I knew Takei was gay, but is Nimoy???
My work has been in IT, while my academic education was in Political Science and Psychology. Apparently, I did not respect the “influences” that the politically-biased psychology and political science professors tried to foist on me.
I’m sorry, you seem confused with my arguments.
No, I'm not confused with your arguments at all. I understand what you're saying. You and I agree that people are a complex mixture forming through both nature and nurture. We only disagree on one point: I believe nurture overrides nature, whereas you believe the two help form a person’s identity together on a more equal level, correct?
There are people here who believe nature trumps nurture. (I’m talking about the Bell Curve crowd.) But, you're not one of them. You're saying nurture plays a part, that there's a mixture with nature sometimes trumping nurture and vice versa at different points in life, but that both are always at play.
On the other hand, I am saying that nature plays a smaller part.
Neither of us is a scientist with access to a lab and government funding, so we can rely only on what our own experiences tell us. (Besides, I don't buy into every government-funded study, anyway.) And what I've seen tells me that nature plays an important role, but nurture is far more important.
Let's remember that the original topic was more specifically "sexual orientation," which, imho, is a word that only sounds scientific but really just describes a person's feelings. You and I probably would agree that emotions like sadness, happiness, desire, etc. are innate. But what makes us feel sad or happy or filled with desire results more from conditioning. Nature is involved, too. Again, I'm not saying that nature isn't involved at all! But conditioning is more powerful in determining what we like and dislike. Much of what attracts us is a result of conditioning - the people we grew up around, the media, all the sights and sounds that surround us. Do you agree?
Another point: Babies are not born with sexual feelings. They're each born with the reproductive equipment of a male or a female (rarely both), and there are innate differences between boys and girls. But they're not born with sexual desires. And young children aren't sexual, either, UNLESS they've been conditioned otherwise. (Watch young children behave; they behave like their parents and other people around them and often like the characters on TV shows or video games.) People don't have real sexual feelings until puberty.
I was having this discussion with family members not long ago: They were insisting that a relative was born gay. Their evidence? "He liked ballet when he was a little boy." Now, what is wrong with a boy liking ballet? Furthermore, his father was a gambler who was out of the picture most of the time. Yes, I know other men whose fathers were not in the picture, and they didn't become homosexual. They identified with other male role models. But, just by chance, this one did not. I think identifying with different parents and other role models has more to do with outside circumstances and chance than nature.
P.S. (Whew! I'm writing a thesis here. Sorry this is so long, but I'm responding to a long post.)
If you want to acknowledge the best you can do for your children, you should quit examining the surface presentation of, and your perceived results from, “your influence” and focus instead on concentration of helping them develop their most important “skill”, critical thinking, and use your moral guide to helping them chose good “reactions” to conditions they meet, fostering their critical thinking skills to judge “influences” with greater and greater thinking of their own. You give them that ability by gradually (as they age) increasing reason above command as the basis for what guidance you do give them.
That's all sound advice, but I really don't need advice on how to raise my children. In fact, I should be giving advice. My kids are nice kids. However, no one is perfect. There are circumstances beyond one's control that affect his or her parenting skills.
I homeschool my kids, so I have more control over what they see and do than I would if they were in school. Many parents like to believe that the behaviors their children exhibit are all according to nature. There have been times when I've thought so, too. That line of thinking lets us parents off the hook. But, the fact is, we parents play a much larger part in our children's intellectual and emotional development than many of us are willing to acknowledge.
Again, I see you reaching for a cut-and-dried black and white answer - "more equal level". I do not believe the amount of "influence" of either nature or nurture is possible to be completely quantified in every conceivable venue of such influence. So, no, "more equal level" is not quantifiable. Some genetic aspect MIGHT be more equal and some nurture influence MIGHT be more equal, and vice-a-versa in a dynamic interplay that cannot be quantified in every case, because the quality itself (subjective, associative, will) is going to play a role itself, on reflection of either form of "influence", when it recognizes that element and when it chooses to reflect on it. Thus, how can the totality of it be described as a simple, "more equal level"? It can't, unless humans gave up their humanity and became robots.
"You're saying nurture plays a part, that there's a mixture with nature sometimes trumping nurture and vice versa at different points in life, but that both are always at play." Again, yes and no; you are still looking for greater precision than what I think exists. I don't think one can say that "genetic influences" are completely dominant ("trump") in every fashion, in every way at some point in life and then later are "trumped" by nurture-influences. I have tried to state the complexity of it as "dance", throughout life, and in that dance, a third element, the will, has a role as well.
"On the other hand, I am saying that nature plays a smaller part."...Right, I clearly understand that, and respectfully disagree that "smaller" as a quantity or quality cannot be objectively deduced, in every way.
"Let's remember that the original topic was more specifically "sexual orientation," which, imho, is a word that only sounds scientific but really just describes a person's feelings."
I see, so "sexual orientation", "heterosexuality" or "homosexuality" is a "feeling"?
"But conditioning is more powerful in determining what we like and dislike. Much of what attracts us is a result of conditioning - the people we grew up around, the media, all the sights and sounds that surround us. Do you agree?"...Not in the slightest. If that were true, I could not be a conservative in my family (always the black sheep), among my friends or even in the United States. So, you have no ability to gain knowledge beyond your own personal experience, and even with that knowledge no will or no ability to make choices? That's sad.
"Another point: Babies are not born with sexual feelings. They're each born with the reproductive equipment of a male or a female (rarely both), and there are innate differences between boys and girls."
Finally, we agree on something. Gender is gender and each gender is different.
"But they're not born with sexual desires. And young children aren't sexual, either, UNLESS they've been conditioned otherwise. People don't have real sexual feelings until puberty."
Great, more we can agree on.
"But, just by chance, this one did not. I think identifying with different parents and other role models has more to do with outside circumstances and chance than nature."
I don't believe we roll the dice. Now, I am not demanding that "chance" as you call it, was determined by nature or by nurture, but, at an age with no "sexual" feelings or experience, you think that means that therefore (lack of "sexual knowledge"), the "role model" could only have been an "influence" and could not have possibly been the "choice" of influence (even a remote and impersonal influence) the developing person identified with, for reasons that person could not even explain to you if they had been asked.
Sorry, I did not mean to sound preachy with the advice. And, I am very glad to hear you are homeschooling your kids. I think that if I had kids in public school, my health would be wrecked just from the constant mode of anger I would be in. Public schools today are not "academies", they are indoctrination mills, socially and politically.
I get it. I understand what you're saying. You're right - it is a complex dance of nature, nurture, and free will. I just happen to believe that, at a young age, nurture is far more powerful.
I see, so "sexual orientation", "heterosexuality" or "homosexuality" is a "feeling"?
Homosexuality is either a feeling or a behavior based on feelings. Do you know of any reliable scientific evidence that concludes it is anything else? Heterosexuality, on the other hand, is just the natural state of human life.
So, you have no ability to gain knowledge beyond your own personal experience, and even with that knowledge no will or no ability to make choices? That's sad.
That's not what I said. I never said people don't have free will and cannot gain knowledge or make their own choices. I only reject the notion that homosexuality is biological and innate.
you think that means that therefore (lack of "sexual knowledge"), the "role model" could only have been an "influence" and could not have possibly been the "choice" of influence (even a remote and impersonal influence) the developing person identified with, for reasons that person could not even explain to you if they had been asked.
Again, I agree that nature plays a role. Just not as big a role. I'm sorry, but I don't think we'll reach 100% agreement.
However, I see we agree on a few things, such as this:
Public schools today are not "academies", they are indoctrination mills, socially and politically.
That's because they recognize the power of social conditioning on young, vulnerable minds. ;-)
Well, in fact, in so many indirect ways you did, by insisting that simply if an "influence" was present that is was defacto a determinant. Thus, no external knowledge (not even observations of others with different "influences") and no reflection on that knowledge, or formulation of reason to respond differently, concerning an influence.
"Homosexuality is either a feeling or a behavior based on feelings."....Heterosexuality, on the other hand, is just the natural state of human life." The fact that in the expression of something, you express it with your "feelings", and it reflects your "feelings" does not make the foundation of it simply the "feelings". If it did, then it would have to be true for "heterosexuality" as well, but its not. The error in your assumption is that "feelings", the feelings you are talking about, are not causes, except in the most basic sense - I feel hungry so I feel I must eat, I feel thirsty so I feel I must drink. If human relationships, from family on outward had no more complexity (in "feelings") than that, we'd still be in the stone ages.
"That's because they recognize the power of social conditioning on young, vulnerable minds."
I think conservatives, and particularly people of faith have always known that. It's just that now they see that some of our worst enemies know that and they are running our schools.
wow. never knew those were the lyrics. yikes
Remember, here's what I said in post #166:
>>>>> "That doesn’t mean we have no control over ourselves. I agree with you that we can consciously decide to accept or reject outside influences. But much of our personalities are formed in our early years as little tots when we’re not as capable in making conscious decisions. As we grow older and more knowledgeable, we can begin to change to our own will. When adults engage in any type of sexual behavior, they are making a conscious choice. <<<<<
Heterosexuality is rooted in our biology. So-called homosexuality is based on little more than feelings, emotions. What else can it be based on?
The error in your assumption is that "feelings", the feelings you are talking about, are not causes, except in the most basic sense - I feel hungry so I feel I must eat, I feel thirsty so I feel I must drink.
How about: A person is attracted to someone, so he feels he must act upon it. What causes a person to be attracted to another? Partly nature, partly social conditioning. Heterosexuality is a part of our biology - we agree on that, right? Homosexuality must be mostly a result of social conditioning, in the vast majority of cases.
“How about: A person is attracted to someone, so he feels he must act upon it.”
That’s the rub. Is “homosexuality” or “heterosexuality” the attraction, or the “behavior”. So, if someone (”gay”) merely “stops the “behavior” but never loses “the attraction”, and never desires an “attraction for the opposite sex” are they really “heterosexual”, or simply a non-practicing “homosexual”? And, just what IS a “heterosexual” doing when they are “acting on THEIR feelings? Is it merely their “behavior”. I don’t think so. I don’t think one could be “conditioned” and one not, and I reject the opposite view because it would mean that “heterosexuality” is merely, simply “conditioned”.
I can’t continue this, and I wish you well, but I am not worried that I do not see totally black and white proof, of the degree of differences of influence, and their weight between nature and nurture, in the development of our identity and even many of its major components like “sexuality”. For me, I do not need hard and fast answers for something I believe is very complex, filled with too many could-influence-either-way variables, dynamic in its course and with the total variable of human volition thrown into the mix, prominently. Keep well and keep your kids out of school. LOL
I guess this means I get to have the last word. :-)
Seriously, we haven't changed each other's viewpoint, but thank you for the conversation, anyway.
And here's the last word...
I don’t think one could be “conditioned” and one not, and I reject the opposite view because it would mean that “heterosexuality” is merely, simply “conditioned”.
Heterosexual is what we are because that's how we're made. However, there's a certain amount of social conditioning toward heterosexuality, too, which makes perfect sense because that's how human life is supposed to be.
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