Definition of Homosexuality

This is kind of interesting, we all know what comes with homosexuality (same sex relations, big girls with short hair, guys drinking pina coladas, techno) but determining an actual definition is trickier than that. For starters, by defining the phenomenon, you are in part explaining it. Here’s what I came up with:

1. A psychological condition affecting sexual preference of an individual which ultimately causes the individual to remove himself or herself from active reproduction and the human gene pool.

2. With an increased number of cases, it became an alternate lifestyle choice many unaffected people would take on in order to cope with other social problems and/or deficiencies.

I think that sums it up well, anyone care to take a crack at defining homosexuality?

Men who play tummy sticks?
(From movie the Wedding Crashers.)

I LOLed.

How's this metaphysics?

Or biggoted stereotyping perhaps.

Three guys go to see a witch doctor about their problems.
One has a smoking problem, one is an alcoholic and one is gay but wants to change.

The doctor puts a curse on them, if any of them indulge their habits again they will die.

Two days later the alcoholic dies because he gave in and had to drink.

The next day the gay guy and the smoker are walking down the street together. The smoker sees a cigarette lying and the ground and stops to stare at it.

The gay guy looked at him "if you bend over and pick that up we are both dead"

I'm going to be charitable and assume you're just largely uniformed and not deliberately trying to be offensive. I'd say three out of four of those are just as common for heterosexual people as homosexual.

Furthermore, I'm not sure that describing it -- inasmuch as you list a few stereotypes rather than actively describing any actual homosexual activities (which you'd be hard-pressed to do here at UM since they are all per se sex acts, and those aren't allowed) -- does anything like explaining it.

And I think you're making a mistake in assuming that "homosexual" describes a person, probably because it makes defining a group of people easier for you. Certainly it's not expected for straight people to define themselves solely through their sex acts. Homosexuality describes /actions/ that an individual may take once, occasionally, or consistently and either concurrently or consecutively with a member of the other sex. When you extend it to anything else, you run the danger of mistaking the term for "effeminate" or "non-main-stream" which is exactly what you're doing above.

--Jaylemurph

lmao !

the real defining ? 2 people of the same sex who happen to love each other. ( not to mention natural and science is closer to proving that than any other explanation)

definition of homosexuality according to Webster:

"sexual desire or behavior directed toward a person or persons of one's own sex."

Not a big deal. I'm pretty sure we all already knew it.

Test Subject, why are you worried about it?

Homosexuality is NOT a psychological condition.
A psychologic condition is where a person's mental well being is endangered or not functioning properly.
If you've got a perfectly healthy body (regardless if it's a male or female one), there is no affect to mental state.. hence it's not a psychologic condition.

Also, I wanted to add as human beings, we are NOT defined by our sex gender.
If our personality doesn't match the sex gender we're given, it doesn't mean we are lesser human beings!

How do you mean by this? An "increased number of cases" of what? Who are you referring to as "unaffected people"?

Interesting responses. Firstly, the "same sex relations, big girls with short hair, guys drinking pina coladas, techno" comment was not a part of the definition, so let's get that out of the way right now.

OK, so it seems none of you really know what the hell you're trying to say either. I worked in the Navy for 6 years, and the homosexuality phenomenon boggled my mind the entire time. For starters, people ARE defined by their sexual preference. That's not my decision, that's the way it is. A big deal is placed on that these days, and gay people afre definitely the catalyst...parades and such. I've known a lot of homosexuals from the Navy and they flaunt it profoundly (obviously I wasn't USA Navy lol).

THe other thing I noticed a lot of was a wide variety of these homosexuals who would get drunk and all of a sudden be straight...furthermore some of these people were gay one year and straight the next. THat's the second part of my definition right there. IF you don't think there are a lot of people who act as homosexuals just to "fit in" then you don't know a damn thing about what you're saying.

The overall response to me here was ignorant and bordered insulting (Lt Ripley). THis is a psychological phenomenon...that's for sure, so I posted it in the forum about psychology. Now it's moved to off-topic where it won't go anywhere.

THis board is a great place to discuss almost any topic. I was looking for a discussion on the homosexuality phenomenon but that did not happen due to a lack of intelligent response. Many of you aren't really willing to touch this subject in terms of discussion, probably it's a topic that's still too sensitive, that's certainly the impression I get from many of the replies. (LOL again @ "Homosexuality is NOT a psychological condition.")

For the record, what amazes me about the phenomenon isn't the desire one may have to pursue sexual relations with a member of their same sex. WHat amazes me about it is the large group of people who dedicate their lives to it. So many people are "gay" and that's pretty close to the first thing they would even tell you about themselves. Many of these people aren't monogomous, it seems to me being "gay" is something they've taken on as a way to present themselves, whether or not they were "homosexual" in the first place.

You do what a lot of people do, and that's let your anecdotal experience serve as some sort of working definition. Which is fine, if you don't want to delve too deeply in the subject, or if you're willing to let people who know more about the situation over-ride your opinion.

But it's in equal measures rude and silly to tell me or Lt. Ripley that you know better than we do what it is to be gay because you formed a few opinions from seeing a few gay people in the Navy. Heaven knows, I could say some asinine things about some Canadians I've seen, but I doubt you'd let those stand as clinical definitions of your countrymen. At least, I'd hope not.

Besides, you seem to be willing to turn complex pyscho-emotional responses caused by a wide variety of things into simple cause-and-effect relationships. It might be an attempt on your part to understand them better, but it's also simplifying them out of reality. You certainly won't challenge your beliefs by doing that, nor would you learn anything insightful, either.

In the end, it looks a lot like your attempt to "discuss what the definition of homosexuality is" is closer to "wanting people to back up the conclusions you've already drawn". If you don't want people to challenge that here, you'd be best served by closing the thread.

--Jaylemurph

After reading down through this thread, this post sums it all up, and uses common sense and actual factual remarks.

Test Subject, you seem not to have any other reason to believe in what you do, with reference to "being Gay," other than the personal experiences you encountered in the Navy, or - and through - your life. You haven’t done in-depth research into cause and effect; born or nurtured. You haven’t taken into account backgrounds, be it social or locational. What you have done is taken a few individual cases and formed a personal opinion upon the given topic. Which is fine from a personal perspective. But to try and sum up a topic, and by saying: Is once again a personal opinion, not a given fact. I personally don’t define a person by their sexual preferences, so it can’t be, “the way it is!”



Strange, some people who I know seem to be a little jolly, and in some cases a little “Gay,” when they get drunk, but I wouldn’t say they are actually gay and pretend to be straight.

Your whole conclusion is simply personal opinion and nothing more. Which is fine, as personal opinion goes. But to try and put your opinions as fact is simply wrong.

LOL thats just wrong man,LOL

I didn't say sexual preference, I said sex gender.

The genders of our bodies doesn't necessarily indicate what kind of people we'll be AT ALL, and if the sexual preference of that person is heterosexual - it's simply a coincidence that the sexual preference matches the sex gender of that body.

I already said my reason for making that statement.. are you able to say why you disagree?
Our male or female bodies DO NOT dictate what kind of people we should be. Just because you choose to define someone by what you see, doesn't mean they should comply with your opinion. Neither should they choose to comply with the sex gender they're given.
They can reason just as well as anyone else of what their identity is, and sex gender is irrelevant
Can you honestly tell me a heterosexual male prefers women because he has a male body? Or how about a straight woman preferring men because she has a female body. Does that make sense to you? Well it's the same for homosexuals and bisexuals!

Our sex genders DO NOT NECESSARILY dictate what preferences we have! Now that seems realistic to me, and psychologically safe too!
I don't see a case for a psychological condition here.

I really don't think sexual orientation is reversible, unless they had tendencies for both men & women.
In my experience, homosexuals often choose to comply to a "straight society" for the sake of acting their given sex gender role, and sometimes in an attempt for societys approval.
There are many reasons why homosexuals are back and forth with sexual orientation, and I think a main reason would be lack of a secure identity.

That's the impression I get of them as well..

roflmao best joke i have heard in ages

almost as good as this - what's the difference between a straight man and a gay man ? 6 beers. ( 12 if your a drunk)

Come on guys.. this isn't the jokes & humour thread.. I'm not sure those concerned would like to be defined as just a joke or humour either, considering the thread topic.

the definition of homosexual is a person who has lust for someone of the same sex

I love that joke. So true.



What, homosexuals don't get to love their partners? Man, I've been doing it *all& wrong since I was 25, then.

...I bet you say stuff like that and get all bent out of shape with people of any preference who sleep around.

--Jaylemurph

Great. Get all the straight guys paranoid that the gay guys want to get them drunk so they can do them.

sexuality is arousal. so homosexuals are aroused by same sex, but could POSSIBLY be aroused by opposite sex, that doesnt make them bi though, i know but it depends

An individual who is exclusively attracted to members of the same gender.

Human sexuality isn't a polar situation; attraction isn't an "either/or" thing, so almost no people are "exclusively attracted" to anything. It's only human cultures that defines things in such dualistic terms.

--Jaylemurph

I would consider such an individual to be bisexual, no matter how common or uncommon it is.

Actually it is fairly clear that nature did it first.

No, you're confusing gender and sexuality -- unless you know more and have done more research than Alfred Kinsey and virtually every other sexual scientists since. From the Wiki article on Kinsey's reports:



[emphases mine]

Affliction may be right, but I think it's useless to try to apply simplistic labels on something as complex as human sexuality. If nothing else, this thread has shown that despite some people's attraction to such labels, they simply don't work very well. (In fact, it can be argued -- and has been done by people far smarter than me -- that the whole point of such labelling is an attempt to contain and control whatever a society deems as aberrant behaviour. That is has consistently failed in every culture says something.

--Jaylemurph

It is fairly obvious that the purpose of sexuality, attraction, is a part of nature to ensure reproduction.
Not so much into going backwards thousands of years and trying to make it into a magical mystery trip as so many for so long have seemed determined to do.

It is just sex.

I suppose, if you see man as nothing else besides some sort of organic machine. Our species long ago past the point where individual procreation is an imperative -- so it's more than a bit simplistic and pointlessly moralistic to say that sex exists only as a biological imperative to reproduction for us. And if you've had sex even once for fun, it sort of makes you a hypocrite to suggest otherwise.



If you don't care, and aren't willing to learn about these things, don't bother yourself with people who do. As you pointed out above, sex is a basic human impulse, and as such, is the source of lots of human behaviour and the basis for much of man's artistic expressions, both of which warrant study, exploration and appreciation -- if for nothing else, for better understanding of ourselves.

I'm not sure what such a judgmental, simplistic attitude towards sex accomplishes, really, but it seems rather dull. And it seems a little silly to go around insisting everyone adopt your anti-inquisitive attitude.



Any other vast swathes of the human experience you'd like to denigrate? Maybe a dismissive statement about art just being pretty? A comment about the uselessness of poetry?

--Jaylemurph

Same sex relationship.


Two lesbians in bed, one say's to the other "i must be frank with you" "that's not fair" said the other "it was your turn to be frank last night."

Would you stop whining if I send you some blow up unicorns to play with to kick it up a notch for you?

What with that "sex is just for procreation" bit, you sound like you need a little more play than I do...

--Jaylemurph