The problems with homosexuality

Guybrush · 12-07-2010, 04:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nine Black Poppies

It always troubles me a wee bit when a discussion of sexuality comes down to genetics as I'm troubled by biologism in general. The approach seems subject to being overly deterministic, subject to marginalizing other significant factors (I'm more a social constructionist in this sense), and tends to gloss over the fact that the act of scientific discovery itself isn't entirely objective or outside the reach of sociocultural interpretation.

To wit, if a series of genes were isolated as being a high indicator for homosexuality, could there not be people who engage in homosexual behavior or identify with the associated culture who don't have those genes? And if such people were to exist, would they be somehow "less" gay? Who's qualified to make that determination? Etc.

To be clear, I'm not ruling out a biological component in the formation of sexuality, nor the importance of that component in shaping a society that is--for better or worse--biologistically minded. It's just a statement like that (the quoted one) strikes me as dangerous because it plays to an oversimplification of human behavior along one axis, which is always open to exploitation.

I understand what you mean and to some extent agree, but I think to understand the "problem" you describe, you have to look at reality and sciences in a sort of hierarchy.

Say physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, sociology.

This is bottom up starting with the most fundamental (physics), so biology is based on chemistry which is based on physics. People dealing with society or the way people think should be aware that there is no scientific theory which explains how emotions, thoughts and behaviour can have an independent existence. They are a products of our biology which is a product of evolution. That means that homosexual behaviour is a product of evolution. This is not a sociological argument, rather it is a conclusion from a more fundamental level of science and is something social sciences have to relate to, just like biology has to relate to gravity.

If you think biology looks simple or deterministic, it's probably because biologists generally don't study the effects certain genes have on society. That's a job for sociologists. Studying the effects of certain genes on thoughts, emotions and mental health should generally be a job for psychologists. Both sociologists and psychologists should make sure they have their biological foundation in order.

So, to the point. Because biology is fundamental to psychology and sociology, any pure psychology/sociology attempt at explaining homosexuality without biology will fail at describing the truth. However, psychology and sociology are not fundamental to biology, so explaining homosexuality from a biological point of view works just fine. It will not contain the extra understanding you would get from including psychology and sociology, but you can explain in general terms why homosexuality exists and f.ex how much of it is caused by genes. Generally, biologists don't draw on social studies theory to reach the conclusions in their studies. When I read your post, it seems like a complaint against those who think the only thing worth knowing about homosexuality is what you can determine from biological theory. I would agree that's complaint-worthy and for a whole picture of what homosexuality is, we need to add the social fluff. However, a more dangerous error is when social sciences and the like fail to include biology. It's like building a house of cards and any rustling in the foundations (biology) can tip it.

To add a little extra to the conversation, to me, the biggest irritation about biology and particularly evolution is that it's something almost all western-worlderners think they understand when they really don't. In essence, people love to abuse it, as has been demonstrated twice within a relatively short amount of posts in this thread.