the *** sex & religion thread (quote, youtube)

[Voice_of_the_Soul12,13,01]

Originally Posted by toretorden

How is it against our survival instincts as living beings to have same-sex-sex? :p

If you're a guy, you have a G-Spot up your ass, you know. It's not there by accicent.

For a living being to continue its existence, it must reproduce. Sex is meant for more than just pleasure. It's meant for the continuation of the species.

HOWEVER, what makes humans different from other animals is our self-destructive nature. No other animal will have sex just because it feels good. No animal will kill another animal for pleasure or personal gain. I could go on. But I digress.

I'm not condemning homosexuality. I'm just saying it goes against our basic survival instincts. But hey, as I said, we all do things that go against self-preservation. We smoke, we drink, we kill each other, we kill ourselves, we wage war, and that's to name a few. I smoke even if it's bad for me. But why do I do it? It feels gooooood. THAT'S what makes humans unique; we do it because it feels gooooood.

I dunno how..... well, I do KNOW how from what I've read, but apparently getting ****ed in the ass feels good. I say, if no ones getting hurt, do it.

[dac]

Originally Posted by Voice_of_the_Soul12,13,01

For a living being to continue its existence, it must reproduce. Sex is meant for more than just pleasure. It's meant for the continuation of the species.

HOWEVER, what makes humans different from other animals is our self-destructive nature. No other animal will have sex just because it feels good. No animal will kill another animal for pleasure or personal gain. I could go on. But I digress.

I'm not condemning homosexuality. I'm just saying it goes against our basic survival instincts. But hey, as I said, we all do things that go against self-preservation. We smoke, we drink, we kill each other, we kill ourselves, we wage war, and that's to name a few. I smoke even if it's bad for me. But why do I do it? It feels gooooood. THAT'S what makes humans unique; we do it because it feels gooooood.

I dunno how..... well, I do KNOW how from what I've read, but apparently getting ****ed in the ass feels good. I say, if no ones getting hurt, do it.

Monkeys masturbate...

[Guybrush]

Originally Posted by Voice_of_the_Soul12,13,01

For a living being to continue its existence, it must reproduce. Sex is meant for more than just pleasure. It's meant for the continuation of the species.

HOWEVER, what makes humans different from other animals is our self-destructive nature. No other animal will have sex just because it feels good. No animal will kill another animal for pleasure or personal gain. I could go on. But I digress.

I'm not condemning homosexuality. I'm just saying it goes against our basic survival instincts. But hey, as I said, we all do things that go against self-preservation. We smoke, we drink, we kill each other, we kill ourselves, we wage war, and that's to name a few. I smoke even if it's bad for me. But why do I do it? It feels gooooood. THAT'S what makes humans unique; we do it because it feels gooooood.

I dunno how..... well, I do KNOW how from what I've read, but apparently getting ****ed in the ass feels good. I say, if no ones getting hurt, do it.

Sorry man, I led you on - I thought you might answer something like this.

You contradict yourself a bit here. If homosexuality is against our "survival", that would mean that the only good thing about sex is reproduction. The logic being, if you can't reproduce - sex is a waste of energy that could otherwise be spent on something that helps you survive. Yet you do admit that we have sex for pleasure (not just reproduction) and pleasure in itself doesn't help us survive, but it's a "biological way" of rewarding us for doing things that do raise our fitness .. And men are sexually compatible and can certainly have sex for pleasure ..

But then you think we're the only ones that do that. I can tell you now, as a biologist, that homosexual intercourse is very common in the animal kingdom, especially with larger social mammals as ourselves and lots of animals also masturbate, as pointed out in part by dac. Examples of masturbating animals are dogs, rats, monkeys .. A few examples of animals who participate in homosexual activities can be wolves, ducks, orcas or giraffes.

By evolutionary theory, sex between same sex individuals in general must have an overall positive effect on fitness, otherwise there would be selection against it. Some of these species indulge in a lot of homosexual behaviour. Giraffe populations have been studied where almost all of sexual intercourse with penetration (>90%) was between males. These animals likely use sex as a way to form alliances, strengthen bonds and in other ways ease social interactions between individuals. Bonobos are masters at this. The resulting higher fitness comes from this social smoothening.

So, to sum up - the most likely reason human males have a g-spot up their butt is to make them sexually compatible with other males which in turn smoothens social relations, something that would generally increase fitness back in the times when this adaption came around. Also, homosexual behaviour is common in many species of large mammals (like us humans) and while it may be considered "unnatural" by religious teachings or culture, there's no real biological reason for assuming it is.


(Note that I'm talking about homosexual behaviour, not homosexuality. The animals I'm talking about are not exclusively having sex with members their own gender, but also with the opposite sex, so they reproduce normally. I think people have a need to define themselves as either *** or straight, even though they might be better described as 80% straight and 20% *** or vice versa. The point is that an 80% straight person probably doesn't live out the slightly *** side of his or her persona. If it wasn't for this labelling, I think homosexual behaviour would have been more common, like it has been in old cultures in Europe.)

[sleepy jack]

Originally Posted by dac

Monkeys masturbate...

And dolphins have sex for fun too.

You don't even really have to reply to him from the biological perspective. Homosexuality isn't a threat to the our survival because we don't need more people right now.

[Guybrush]

I see where you're coming from, sleepy jack, but I find the view that homosexual behaviour is somehow unnatural to be a very widespread misconception. It irks me a bit when people try to support that idea with biological arguments just like I'm sure it might annoy a fireman to see someone write something absurd on fire safety in homes.

[sleepy jack]

Oh I completely understand that. I'm just saying the base of his argument (homosexuality is a threat to our survival) is bullshit.

[Voice_of_the_Soul12,13,01]

I didn't say it was a THREAT. I'm just saying that it goes against our survival. But after reading what you [toretorden] had to say, I didn't think about it like that.

[Guybrush]

When I grew up, I was told that homosexual behaviour was unnatural. It wasn't until I started uni as an undergraduate in biology that I learned that people had actually tried to observe and explain the behaviour rather than just dismissing it as abnormal ..

I don't know what they teach kids in school nowadays (even though I'm only 26).

[khfreek]

They completely ignore homosexuality when they talk about it.

[Guybrush]

Personally - and this is just an opinion - I roughly think of sexual orientation as a gradient with 100% heterosexual and in one end and 100% homosexual in the other. Most people are somewhere between those two with the majority leaning towards the heterosexual end .. And then, just like you get a minority who are very tall or very short, you get people who are on the homosexual end of this gradient.

Let's just say as a thought experiment that it was caused by one mutated gene. If that gene caused a preference for the same sex and in turn less productive output for individuals possessing it, then it should be selected against and probably disappear through evolution. If homosexuality is merely a result of something that we all possess (more like what I described above) - a genetic makeup that has been selected for, then it shouldn't. (Homosexuality still has a genetic component, though, and runs in families.)

As I posted earlier, in modern society, sexual orientation is usually a very important part of our identity - how we define ourselves. Thus, I think there is a strong tendency to stick to your side of this gradient and think of yourself as completely (100%) homo- or heterosexual - even if you're not.