Heterosexuality and the heterosexual lifestyle.

[Last Conformist]

Someone tell me how it's degrading to reduce someone's lifestyle to whom they have sex with? Stupid, misleading, dishonest, I could understand, but degrading?

[MrFun]

Because unlike animals, healthy human relationships do not revolve exclusively around sex and reproduction.

[Mercator]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
No, I'm asking you, on how do we distinguish someone who is gay, and someone who is straight.

I'm open to your suggestions.

By whom you are attracted to, not by whom you have sex with.

Yeah, that is what distinguishes a lifestyle as 'straight' in my mind.

Did you have some other way of telling the two apart?

Hardly. This is one aspect of a person's lifestyle, but is not the same as the person itself. You are assuming that the two cannot be seperated.

You've got it all wrong. I consider myself straight, yet I've never had sex, nor had any sort of relationship with any woman. I don't consider my sexual preference in any way part of my "lifestyle".

[Last Conformist]

@MrFun: I'll have my distate at seeing "animal" contrasted to "human" noted.

To the point, what evidence do you have that humans are unique in having relationships that do not exclusively revolves around sex and procreation?

[child of Thor]

I would argue that i do know of guys that choose to be gay - south americans working in london, its for the money, but then it becomes normal for them i suppose?

And we all know there are gay gays who choose to be straight(for family/job etc).

Still for me at the most fundemental level it comes down to reproduction - i want to have biological kids someday.


hope thats not too offensive sounding?, but from a hetrosexual(who didn't make a deliberate decision about it) point of view thats one of my main reasons i wouldn't 'choose' to be gay if i could.


Edited by Mng... it went beyond offensive

Edit: Yes sorry about that - i wasn't paying close enough attention to my words - and offer my apologies for any offense caused - coT.

[Monk]

Originally posted by MrFun
To make the false claim that people can live happy, full lives without intimate relationships is to degrade their humanity.

Considering that you're always fighting generalizations and defending everybody's right to pursue their happiness as they like, that statement of yours was somewhat surprising. So I'm unable to live a happy, full life without a romantic relationship to another person? I'll have to regard those 21 years as an over-all failure?

[Jarouik]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi


1. I'm not the one who came up with these. I would think God has every right to be arrogant.

It is very arrogant to say you are the messenger of God and that God has the same opinions as you.

2. Not callous or disrespectful, if you believe people will be better off abstaining.

It is callous and disrespectful to force upon other people your belief on what is best for them, if you cannot base your belief on fact.

Getting back on topic: How are gays supposed to vote in this poll anyway? I'm guessing 'no'?

[MrFun]

Originally posted by child of Thor
I would argue that i do know of guys that choose to be gay - south americans working in london, its for the money, but then it becomes normal for them i suppose?

And we all know there are gay gays who choose to be straight(for family/job etc).

Still for me at the most fundemental level it comes down to reproduction - i want to have biological kids someday.


hope thats not too offensive sounding?, but from a hetrosexual(who didn't make a deliberate decision about it) point of view thats one of my main reasons i wouldn't 'choose' to be gay if i could.


Edited by Mng... it went beyond offensive

Edit: Yes sorry about that - i wasn't paying close enough attention to my words - and offer my apologies for any offense caused - coT.

It is offensive -- those gays who are closeted did not choose to be straight, since they cannot change their sexual orientation.

What they are doing, is being dishonest with themselves, and being dishonest with their family and friends by projecting outward behavior to deny that part of what they really are -- which is being gay.


And as I have said before -- humans have evolved beyond the animalistic level, in that their intimate relationships no longer revolve exclusively around reproduction.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Monk


Considering that you're always fighting generalizations and defending everybody's right to pursue their happiness as they like, that statement of yours was somewhat surprising. So I'm unable to live a happy, full life without a romantic relationship to another person? I'll have to regard those 21 years as an over-all failure?

Considering that children are incapable of romantic, intimate relationships before their teenage years in the first place, I would have to say, no that does not make you a failure because you did not have a monogamous, committed, romantic relationship by the time you were eight years old, ok???

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Last Conformist
@MrFun: I'll have my distate at seeing "animal" contrasted to "human" noted.

To the point, what evidence do you have that humans are unique in having relationships that do not exclusively revolves around sex and procreation?

It's called observations! Just look around you and you can see how much more sosphisticated relationships are between humans than they are between other animals.



honestly -- couldn't you come up with something better?

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by MrFun


It's called observations! Just look around you and you can see how much more sosphisticated relationships are between humans than they are between other animals.

Watching your typical nature docu about bonobos does not inspire me with any great faith that their relationships revolve solely around sex and procreation. I can't recall saying anything about sophistication.

And as for humans "having evolved beyond the animalistic" level, I don't even know what that's sposta mean.

[MrFun]

Animals are not capable of the same kind of love that humans are capable of -- that is what I meant.

[Last Conformist]

Probably true.

[MrFun]

woohoo -- I got a "probably" from you -- the most I would probably get from a brick wall

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by MrFun





Considering that children are incapable of romantic, intimate relationships before their teenage years in the first place, I would have to say, no that does not make you a failure because you did not have a monogamous, committed, romantic relationship by the time you were eight years old, ok???

But he's 21. So that gives him 8 years of supposed failure?

People can live until dying at 100 without an intimate romantic relationship and still lead a full life. I'm sure Isaac Newton felt relatively fulfilled before he passed on, as did Mother Theresa. There's no law or rule of life that says otherwise. It doesn't help the argument to assert this.