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date/time Monday, August 13, 2012,10:42 PM
Own thoughts
Been preparing a presentation on homosexuality in the midst of all of my exams. Yes, suicidal i know.
Kinda regretted not studying during the weekends and instead comforted myself that i slept alot so i can sleep less this few days? A bunch of bull cos knowing me i'd still sleep like a pig. Oh well. It was a good rest. Think lack of sleep and the stress making everyone annoyed, sad, whatever, and me sensitive.
So apparently, after doing the presentation, i feel so strongly that i decided to write all my thoughts about the topic in case
1. i forgot and i cant present on wed, since i'm not planning to prepare a script and
2. i kinda like to remember what i thought. LOL that sounds like i will forget my own thoughts. Not really. But i like to marvel at the details.
So anyway, what is homosexuality?
The definite term is having romantic attractions towards people of the same gender but some defines it as your actions/ behaviours towards your sexual orientation.
And according to American Psychology Association, "In other words, someone does not have to be
exclusively homosexual or heterosexual, but can feel varying degrees of
attraction for both genders. Sexual orientation develops across a person's
lifetime—different people realize at different points in their lives that they
are heterosexual, gay, lesbian, or bisexual."
I like that definition.
Because you can be married and still be attracted to a same gender.
And it's not something new, because tadah! In ancient greek, there has been writings about pederasty, in which i think it is something that has gotta do with same male gender relationship.
However, the difference is that the greek society did not distinguish sexual behaviour by the gender but by the role of each partner played, either dominant or submissive.
What i understood was that perhaps in the ancient greek society, a marriage is not between a male and a female, masculine and femininity, but instead dominant and submissive.
Masculinity and dominant are usually ASSOCIATED with the male gender, but they definitely do not equate to the male gender.
So maybe in the society, the gender does not matter, and the clear distinction arrives from the dominant and submissive social roles.
But in our society, masculinity, dominant, adulthood is so often associated with the male gender that we began to equate them.
Therefore, the social stigma exists when you do not go with the norm and you began to have romantic attractions towards people of the same gender.
This is where the cause of homosexuality comes into the picture and proves its importance.
The views of homosexuals are of weird, not normal, and people tends to shun those that are out of the norm. And moreover, homosexuals are associated with AIDS.
Havent done much research on the social stigma, but from everyone's understanding, there has always been a strong discrimination against homosexuals.
I shan't repeat how much i feel that is redundant 'cos i believe in free will.
So if the cause of homosexuality is proved to be not a case of a choice, but probably cause of genetics/environment, there is a high probability that homosexuals will gain wider social acceptance and protection against discrimination.
Often, people thinks homosexuality is a choice. I mean, come on, life is full of choices. But it was left up to a gay to argue, of cos he would say it's not. Why would you, make a choice that entrusts you to the judging eyes of the public, and the discrimination.
In stronger terms quoted from a website, "Why would anyone choose to
be something that could cause them to be scorned by society, rejected by their
families, deny them rights and subject them to possible violent hate crimes?
It may not be, but the choice to act on it, is.
So extensive studies have been made and some researchers with the use of twins have tried to prove that homosexuality is affected by genes, by environment.
The National Mental Health Association says,
“Most researchers believe sexual orientation is complex, and that biology plays
an important role. This means that many people are born with their sexual
orientation, or that it’s established at an early age.”There is an interesting study made on a pair of twins, Patrick and Thomas. They were both born by the same womb, fed, changed, educated similarly, but there was a significant difference between them.
According to the article,
''Patrick is social, thoughtful, attentive. He repeatedly addresses me by name. Thomas is physical, spontaneous, a bit distracted. Just minutes after meeting me outside a coffee shop, he punches me in the upper arm, yells, "Gray punch buggy!" and then points to a Volkswagen Beetle cruising past us. It's a hard punch. They horse around like typical brothers, but Patrick's punches are less forceful and his voice is higher. Thomas charges at his brother, arms flexed in front of him like a mini-bodybuilder. The differences are subtle - they're 7-year-old boys, after all - but they are there.When the twins were 2, Patrick found his mother's shoes. He liked wearing them. Thomas tried on his father's once but didn't see the point.
When they were 3, Thomas blurted out that toy guns were his favorite things. Patrick piped up that his were the Barbie dolls he discovered at day care.
When the twins were 5, Thomas announced he was going to be a monster for Halloween. Patrick said he was going to be a princess. Thomas said he couldn't do that, because other kids would laugh at him. Patrick seemed puzzled. "Then I'll be Batman," he said.
Their mother - intelligent, warm, and open-minded - found herself conflicted. She wanted Patrick - whose playmates have always been girls, never boys - to be himself, but she worried his feminine behavior would expose him to ridicule and pain. She decided to allow him free expression at home while setting some limits in public.
That worked until last year, when a school official called to say Patrick was making his classmates uncomfortable. He kept insisting that he was a girl.'' Link: http://www.boston.com/news/globe/magazine/articles/2005/08/14/what_makes_people_gay/?page=2
So what went wrong? They were just kids.
No one knows yet, and i don't. But what i feel is that, perhaps not everything comes down to a choice. What if some things were meant to be that way? You can't fault a kid for being him.
From my understanding of the article, there is a high chance that he will have a different sexual orientation than other kids his gender.
But even if it is a choice, if it's not a choice. They didn't make it, they made it. It's theirs. So who are we to judge? I really hate discrimination. If research studies to prove that it's not their choice, no matter how screwed up that reasoning is, helps them to be accepted into the society, i'm all for it.
Because why must we prove something just to release them from so called choice, and seen as mistake in our eyes, when we cant deem what a mistake is? A difference from the norm? A unique out of the many? Being different doesnt mean that it's wrong.
And oh no, i gotta finish up the ppt by tonight and my cheatsheet for biostat. Abrupt end, but all my thoughts ended that way.
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