Theory of Gayativity - Page 19

CaptainCourtesy · 06-24-08, 03:56 AM

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Originally Posted by Ethereal

Distinctions are not relevant in and of themselves. They must have a basis in logic and these do not.

Yeah, they do, as I have shown.

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How so? If one wishes to assert their physical dominance over another individual why choose rape over physical violence if not for the attainment of sexual pleasure?

Because of the humiliation associated with rape. Some will choose this. Just because you would not does not eliminate it.

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This also brings us to another point. If people are able to wantonly engage in sexual activity with no regard for their "orientation" then why speak of orientation at all? Doesn't this infer that we are sexually blank slates if circumstance can cause people to act a manner contradictory to their orientation?

Kinsey would argue that sexuality is not either or, but on a range between heterosexual and homosexual. He may be right. However, as with all traits, one can behave out of character.

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It is a way to achieve both sexual pleasure and physical dominance.

Depending on the situation.

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So, you could achieve sexual intimacy with a toddler? There should be no reason you couldn't given your assessment.

Straw man argument. We're not talking about pedophilia, here.

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Paedophilia and bestiality are sexual preferences. Their status as disorders does not negate this fact.

No, they are not, and yes it does.

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Rape is about the attainment of sexual pleasure as well. If one wished soley to achieve power and dominance over another individual they could just as easily beat them with a bat or tie them to the back of a truck. The benifit of rape is that if affords the rapist pleasure while suiting their ulterior motive of asserting dominance. This is a fact.

No, it is not a fact, but, please, provide evidence that shows that it is.

Rape is a form of dominance, power, and humiliation. It is more psychologically damaging that getting beaten with a baseball bat. The benefit of rape is that it humiliates the victim, psychologically.

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Is sex not also a way to achieve pleasure? If dominance were the only consideration then sex as a means to achieve it would be nonsensical.

Out of context, and another straw man. Here is what I said:

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And as I asked before, is not sex one of the ways to achieve dominance? It is, certainly, the choice of some.

Please show where I claimed that dominance was the only consideration in regards to sex.

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People who engage in sexual activities because of mental issues are not a negation of my stance. When you can explain the substantive difference between a bisexual and a heterosexual who willingly, and with sound mind, engages in homosexual activity then you will have negated my position.

I already have, several times, you just refuse to accept it. Your position is negated.

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I believe the dictionary has already taken the liberty of defining attraction...

Your definition does not describe the nature of attraction and how it occurs and develops. Try that one for the Pulitzer.

Ethereal · 06-24-08, 04:29 PM

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I answered it. Repeatedly. There is no dodge. You just don't LIKE my answer. That's not my problem.

Whichever one is sexually attracted to both males and females.

The reason I do not LIKE your answer is because there is no way for you determine, with any amount of true accuracy, which one is "sexually attracted" to both males and females except by observing their actions, which are identical. The fact is, as this question has demonstrated, you and Captain cannot identify a substantive distinction between these two examples. So, because you are incapable of making such a distinction you resort to semantics and fixate your position on the ethereal qualities of "attraction" and "orientation" which you bend and warp to suite your agenda as the debate progresses.

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Humiliation in front of a group has a HUGE bearing on the effectiveness of the method. And no, physical violence does not have the same effect.

This is merely conjecture on your part. Once you've been raped and had a broom handle shoved up your anus then you can speak to the relative effectiveness of both methods. Until then, common sense will dictate that both acts are equally painful and humiliating and as such equally effective in asserting one's dominance.

Furthermore, common sense must dictate that people do no wantonly disregard their sexual orientation (something you put much stock in) in order to achieve goals which can be easily achieved through other means. If you believe people are capable of so readily acting in a manner contrary to their orientation then there is no reason to speak of it as it is merely an abstract concept which can be mutated and bent in order to suite specific environmental circumstances.

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They are not of an age I consider capable of informed consent, so no.

Hello! Answer the question without providing a legal or moral qualifier. Legal and moral consequences notwithstanding, could you have sex with a toddler, yes or no?

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No, I was talking about being paid enough to set my family up for life.

I misinterpretted what you meant by "set up", for some reason it carried a negative connotation in my mind. Apologies.

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In just about any sexual relationship there is something to be gained other than *just* sexual gratification. So they are all irrelevant.

Unless we're actually talking about reasons people have sex when they AREN'T attracted to the person they're having sex with.

This is why I cannot stand lengthy debates. People always forget the context of our discussion. The context revolves around a paradox I have identified - that men in prison will willingly engage in homosexual sex despite their "orientation", consequently, I believe this is a negation of your theory that orientation is inalterable and that it is, in fact, largely dependent upon environmental factors.

So, given this context it is irrelevant to conisder people who are coerced into sex, have mental issues, are desperate, or stand to gain something these men do not. These men are not going to recieve an exorbitant amount of money to have sex with another man in prison, so why bother considering such a scenario? It is irrelevant. Let's remain within the context of the discussion, i.e., men who willingly and actively seek out homosexual sex in prison. The only motives worth considering are motives that can be feasibly applied to these men, some of which are currently under discussion. Can we agree?

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No. But then there's a lot of men I wouldn't have had sex with either if those were the only reasons to.

And, yet, you believe that other equally raional people are willing to do just that in order to achieve said ends?

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To what?

Nothing. It was my mistake.

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I disagree. Do you have a research link to prove that a man who isn't attracted to women will NEVER rape a woman? Have they DONE research on that?

Admittedly, I do not have such a study, but unless you have proof that the converse is true then we must apply common sense. Suppose, we did do such a study, and polled rapists asking them, "are you attracted to women?", what do you suppose their answer would be? I would venture to say that the reason such a study has never been conducted is that the answer to that question is evident, much as it would be for paedophiles.

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I think I do have some idea.

Conjecture. You have no idea.

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You're the one who brought it up as some kind of qualifier, not me.

Someone who attains orgasm by inflicting pain on others has no bearing on orientation. The sex or species or age of their victim is inconsequential to the nature of their orgasm.

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So, coercive sex is when you get something out of it other than sexual gratification? Is that what you're telling me?

No, certainly not. Coercive sex is characterised by force. If someone in prison is engaging in homosexual activity out of a need to belong they are most likely being coerced in some manner. If you are speaking to someone who is trying to belong for reasons other than their safety or well-being then it is a ridiculous example as there are plenty of ways to belong to a group other than sex, unless it is not given to them as an option, in which case they are being coerced.

1069 · 06-24-08, 07:40 PM

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Furthermore, common sense must dictate that people do no wantonly disregard their sexual orientation (something you put much stock in) in order to achieve goals which can be easily achieved through other means.

People do this all the time.
For many people- maybe most people- sex is sometimes nothing but a means to an end.
Sex is not sacred to everyone. To many people, it's sometimes just the easiest way of attaining a goal. There may well be other ways, but they're not "easy". They're more difficult and less certain, and do not yield immediate results.
If one does not think sex is particularly important, then one does not have much problem "wantonly disregarding" one's sexual orientation when it benefits one to do so. To some people, sex has no more significance than a game of tennis, no more relevance than sticking one's finger in someone else's ear.

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Someone who attains orgasm by inflicting pain on others has no bearing on orientation.

You mean, a rapist?
If rape is irrelevant, then why'd you bring it up?

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The sex or species or age of their victim is inconsequential to the nature of their orgasm.

It's painfully obvious that you're just talking out your butt.
Please stop.
You have no knowledge or comprehension of these things you're speaking of.
You're beginning to sound more and more pompous and silly.

Ethereal · 06-24-08, 10:19 PM

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People do this all the time.

Prove it.

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You mean, a rapist?
If rape is irrelevant, then why'd you bring it up?

Sigh...No, I don't mean a rapist. Rivratt was refering to individuals who attain orgasm exclusively through inflicting pain, intercourse need not occur for this particular brand of sicko to attain orgasm and as such they are not comparable to a rapist given the context of our discussion.

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It's painfully obvious that you're just talking out your butt.
Please stop.
You have no knowledge or comprehension of these things you're speaking of.
You're beginning to sound more and more pompous and silly.

Ad hominem nonsense. Typical.

1069 · 06-24-08, 10:23 PM

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Sigh...No, I don't mean a rapist. Rivratt was refering to individuals who attain orgasm exclusively through inflicting pain, intercourse need not occur for this particular brand of sicko to attain orgasm...

Right. That's what I said: a rapist.

Ethereal · 06-24-08, 10:38 PM

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Right. That's what I said: a rapist.

Whatever. I don't have time to hold your hand and explain to you the difference between a rapist and person who gets off simply from beating someone. You win, I lose, great job. Here's your prize...

CaptainCourtesy · 06-25-08, 03:03 AM

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Originally Posted by Ethereal

The reason I do not LIKE your answer is because there is no way for you determine, with any amount of true accuracy, which one is "sexually attracted" to both males and females except by observing their actions, which are identical. The fact is, as this question has demonstrated, you and Captain cannot identify a substantive distinction between these two examples. So, because you are incapable of making such a distinction you resort to semantics and fixate your position on the ethereal qualities of "attraction" and "orientation" which you bend and warp to suite your agenda as the debate progresses.

I never answered your question because I was busy debating other issues you were presenting. I would be happy to answer it, now. As a reminder, here is your question:

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Here's a test, one man willingly has sex with both men and women, whereas another man willingly has sex with both men and women, which one is bisexual and what's the substantive difference between the two?

And the answer to your question is...impossible to say because their is not enough information. It also highlights the weakness of your position. You are looking at this issue, sexuality, sexual behavior, and sexual orientation as a black or white issue. It is absolutely not black or white. There are many components that go into one's sexual behavior. Sexual orientation is one. Situations are another. Attraction is another. Too many factors that go into one's sexual behavior to, narrowly, construe them as you are, or to answer your question in absolute terminology, with the information given.

This is not an issue of absolutes.

Ethereal · 06-26-08, 04:19 AM

Although I appreciate your enthusiasm for debate, I would request that you and I maintain our own specific dialouge in the interest of contextual continuity and time management. It's hard enough for me to adress all your points and Riv's without you and I creating a whole new context. So, if you don't mind, I will just resume the specific points that you and I were initially discussing.

Agreed?

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You are refusing to listen because you do not want to. The argument is not semantical and I have explained, quite clearly, the difference between sexual behavior and sexual orientation. If you refuse to accept these facts, that is your problem.

These are not facts. Orientation and sexual identity are not tangible, quantifiable, or deterministic. They are abstract concepts that have no substantive worth or value. Your claim of factuality is based off of the presumed infallability of psychologists, and needless to say they are not infallible.

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Further, one's sexual orientation is unalterable; sexual behavior is not. I would like to see you present evidence that sexual orientation can be altered...and please do not post anything from NARTH. Nothing from there has any credibility. You are basing your entire argument on "exceptions proving the rule".

I would be equally impressed if you could provide evidence that proves sexual orientation cannot be altered. Also, I have no idea what NARTH is or why you think I would cite something which you could so readily identify as biased. I am an honest person with a sincere interest in scientific and intelletual factuality; that is all.

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I can be aggressive with someone. That doesn't mean I am an aggressive person. I may mean I behaved aggressively in that situation. This analogy is similar to sexual behavior. Because someone behaves, sexually, in a certain way, does not denote their sexual orientation. There are more components that go into sexual orientation, that just sexual behavior.

So, what if you were exclusively aggressive? Then could you be considered an aggressive person?

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Wikipedia does a good job of defining sexual orientation. I will highlight the important passages for you:

Sexual orientation refers to "an enduring emotional, romantic, sexual, or affectional attraction toward others. " (being sexually attracted to members of the opposite sex) to exclusive Sexual orientation is usually thought to be classifiable according to the sex or gender of the persons whom the individual finds sexually attractive. The most common forms exists along a continuum that ranges from exclusive heterosexualityhomosexuality (being sexually attracted to members of the same sex) and includes various forms of bisexuality (being sexually attracted to members of either sex). There is also a much less common orientation, asexuality, being sexually attracted to members of neither sex.

Most definitions of sexual orientation include a psychological component, such as the direction of an individual's erotic desire, and/or a behavioral component, which focuses on the sex of the individual's sexual partner/s. Some prefer simply to follow an individual's self-definition or identity.
More recently, some scholars of sexology, anthropology and history have argued that social categories such as heterosexual and homosexual are not universal. Different societies may consider other criteria to be more significant than sex, including the respective age of the partners, whether partners assume an active or a passive sexual role, and their social status.
Sexual identity and sexual behavior are closely related to sexual orientation, but they are distinguished, with identity referring to an individual's conception of themselves, behavior referring to actual sexual acts performed by the individual, and orientation referring to "fantasies, attachments and longings." Individuals may or may not express their sexual orientation in their behaviors. People who have a homosexual sexual orientation that does not align with their sexual identity are sometimes referred to as closeted.

I have highlighted an equally important passage for you to consider.

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Notice that sexual orientation has to do with several components, behavioral being only one. Behavior and orientation are different, Behavior is action. Orientation has to do with desires. Orientation may not be expressed in their behaviors. It's all clear, Ethereal. Behavior and orientation are different, and one can behave, sexually, in ways that do not match one's orientation.

What is it that you don't understand about semantics? There is nothing tangible, quantifiable, or deterministic about orientation, hence it is not substantive. It is merely an abstract concept established by psychologists in an attempt to describe something they cannot accurately quantify or determine.

I also find it contradictory that you claim this is not a matter of absolutes yet you espouse the absolute immutability of an abstraction. You cannot use examples of people bending, warping, and disregarding their orientation as proof of its immutability, this is having it both ways. If orientation can be warped or disregarded then it does not matter, and if it does matter it is absolute. Which one is it?

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Irrelevant. Sex is an option, and it is sometimes used. You can neither deny that the possibility exists, nor that the behavior occurs. Just because there are other possibilities, does not mean that this possibility would not be chosen.

Once again, if people can so easily ignore their orientation then why bother to speak of it as if it were pertinent to anything? If orientation is so important then why would a person act in a manner contrary to it when it is not necessary?

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Numerous judicial decisions, newspaper and magazine stories, and even some scholarly articles describe the threat of "predatory homosexuals" in prison and the problem of "homosexual rape." Yet prisoners who self-identify as gay are much more likely than other prisoners to be targeted for rape, rather than being themselves the perpetrators of it.
To some extent, the talk of predatory homosexual inmates simply reflects a lack of semantic clarity. Since prisoner-on-prisoner rape is by definition homosexual, in that it involves persons of the same sex, its perpetrators are unthinkingly labeled predatory homosexuals. This terminology is deceptive, however, in that it ignores the fact that the vast majority of prison rapists do not view themselves as gay. Rather, most such rapists view themselves as heterosexuals and see the victim as substituting for a woman. From this perspective the crucial point is not that they are having sex with a man; instead it is that they are the aggressor, as opposed to the victim--the person doing the penetration, as opposed to the one being penetrated. Indeed, if they see anyone as gay, it is the victim (even where the victim's sexual orientation is clearly heterosexual).
An Illinois prisoner explained inmates' views on the question:
The theory is that you are not gay or bisexual as long as YOU yourself do not allow another man to stick his penis into your mouth or anal passage. If you do the sticking, you can still consider yourself to be a macho man/heterosexual, according to their theory. This is a pretty universal/widespread theory.

No Escape: Male Rape in U.S. Prisons - Predators and Victims

And for the entire article: No Escape: Male Rape in U.S. Prisons

Another article that describes sexual orientation vs. sexual behavior is here:

Sexual behavior is not always congruent with sexual orientation. That is, persons who are primarily heterosexual may engage in sexual experimentation with someone of the same gender (for example, during adolescence), or may engage in repeated activity when no other outlet is available (e.g., in prison). Similarly, homosexually-oriented persons may engage in heterosexual acts, marry, become parents. In neither case does the behavior define the person's enduring emotional, affectional and sexual attraction.

http://infox.lcna.org/PDF/The%20Natu...rientation.pdf

The best study on this issue was done by Wooden and Parker (1982). Here is information from their study:

Studies in criminology have found examples in prison of what social
scientists term “situational homosexuality,” i.e., self-identified
heterosexuals engaging in homosexual behavior only in situations that
preclude sex with women. Wooden and Parker (1982) is considered the
most thorough treatment of the phenomenon of male-male sexual activity
in a prison context. Through in-depth interviews, the researchers
learned that the sexual aggressors consider themselves “heterosexual”;
their targets are men they assume to be homosexual or younger
heterosexual men who are not able to protect themselves. Most of the
sexual aggressors claim no homosexual experience prior to prison, and
those released claim to resume a life of exclusively heterosexual
relations. Of the 200 men in Wooden and Parker’s study who returned a
questionnaire, 10 percent identified themselves as homosexual, 10
percent as bisexual, and the remaining 80 percent as heterosexual; over
half (55 percent) of the heterosexual group reported having engaged in
homosexual activity in prison.16 Although prison culture and populations have few parallels, these behavioral patterns offer another
example of divergence between identity and behavior.
_ __________
The researchers distributed questionnaires to a random sample of
600 out of 2500 male prisoners in a medium-security prison; 200 returned
completed questionnaires, a 33-percent response rate. Because of the
low response rate, we do not offer findings as estimates of prevalence;
however, they are instructive about the relationship between status and
conduct.
http://rand.org/pubs/monograph_repor.../mr323.ch2.pdf

Sexual orientation and sexual behavior are not the same, and one's sexual behavior may be inconsistent with one's sexual orientation.

There is not one ounce of quantifiable, tangible, or deterministic piece of information in these articles. The first article operates on the assumption that how a prisoner views themself is somehow relevant or scientific.

"Naw dawg, I ain't no homo. I just like to **** guys in the ass and pretend it's a woman."

I'm not terribly concerned with applying the benefit of the doubt to inmates who rape people.

Furthermore, the article on experimentation does nothing to establish the immutability of orientation, in fact it does the opposite. A person who experiments with another person is temporarily bisexual. They are experimenting out of some desire, fantasy, or attraction, and the very fact that this feeling can change or go away is a testament to the mutabality of orientation.

People are not heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, or any other abstract classification, we are merely sexual. Orientation is not absolute or inalterable. It is a ethereal concept that can change and change back. There is nothing wrong with this. Why are you so opposed to the idea? Is it because you don't want to admit you might be wrong or because of your agenda? Or both?

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For protection. Because of sexual acting out. Because of experimentation.

This is getting old. Your entire argument operates under the assumption that, a: orientation is real and tangible and not some ethereal concept, and, b: that it has been proven to be inalterable. Neither of these assumptions are true, so your entire argument is moot.

Ethereal · 06-26-08, 04:25 AM

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Sure. This, however, has nothing to do with sexual orientation.

Nothing has anything to do with orientation. It is merely a word which attempts to give an abstraction a false tangibility. The only true classification is that people are sexual, and that the manner in which they can express their sexuality is not absolute or inalterable. The only considerations we can make is whether or not a certain expression of sexuality is acceptable or not.

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No, it doesn't. It denotes the evidence of a disorder that was unrecognized at the time. A male who wants to and does have sex with a boy is NOT necessarily homosexual. He may be, but his desires for children are different from his sexual orientation.

Labeling it a disorder is arbitrary and inapplicable. The fact that we as a society consider pederasty to be unwholesome does not negate the fact that it is a demonstrable orientation/preference which was practiced widely in Athenian society. Labeling it as a disorder can only be used to determine whether or not said orientation is acceptable by modern standards.

Also, to suggest the applicability of modern standards to Athenian culture is to say the vast majority of Athenian men were mentally ill, which simply isn't true. It is logical fallacy to apply modern standards to ancient societies.

earthworm · 07-03-08, 01:53 PM

Being a homosexual cannot be "normal"...
Having "strange" interests, IMO, is "normal".