Txgangsta : You're making no sense. If homosexuality is "bad", how can it exist? The basic mechanism of evolution is survival of the fittest; bad traits are weeded out or the line goes extinct. Yes, if a species is entirely homosexual it may die out, but no species is entirely homosexual so that's a specious point.

ZeroTails : Actually, depending on your state, you don't have to be 18 to consent. Some states allow people as young as 16 or 17 to consent to sexual activities. And some countries around the world allow even younger people to consent.

Mold and Crumbs : If war and murder are bad, why do they exist? Perfection is little more than an unobtainable ideal.

Honestly, as far as I've ever been able to tell, heterosexuality and homosexuality come down to which gender your physically attracted to. And given that the majority of sexual intercourse is based on sexual attraction.

Frodlex : War and murder are not inherently bad, but this is from an evolutionary standpoint, not a moral one. There are no morals to evolution; even the concept of bad doesn't work, hence why I put it in quotations.

Mynamescox44 : Many Darwinists do advocate for mandatory sterilization of certain bits of the population, usually the mentally retarded. They also usually advocate mandatory euthanasia for anyone who cannot pull their own weight. Darwinists are usually not that common though. Gay couples adopting doesn't have weight on genetic reproduction. "Better for society" is dubious and irrelevant toward "darwinian fitness". Also, it took my aunt and uncle three years to adopt a baby girl. There are plenty of people wanting to adopt. If we include adoption of kids outside the western world, then that's a different story.

Mold and Crumbs : I don't make sense? You just asked "If homosexuality is 'bad', how can it exist?" Biological anomalies happen constantly. Giraffe's long necks need a super-heart to pump blood, and it can't compensate if the giraffe lays it's head down for too long. The giraffe is so tall that when giving birth the baby may injure itself in the fall. These are bad things, yet obviously exist. I think the charitable reading of your comment is that bad traits are weeded out, so that any serious thing is removed. This is simply not the case. The giraffe's height and long neck come with significant advantages, and minor set backs. Something in humans could also create major advantage, yet create minor set backs. Rationality, in all its glory, has set backs. People that are really intelligent are often diagnosed with mild social disorders. However, those set backs are not nearly as great as the benefits, even for those people. One of humanity's great traits is sex. It has ups and downs too. A Darwinist will argue that homosexuality is a downside to a species having a strong emotional desire for intimacy and an aggressive sex drive. The cost-benefit for the species is certainly positive, but the costs are still costs.

@Everyone

I think there may be a moral assumption everyone is taking for granted here. Morality is not simply a "I should not harm others" thing. If that were the case, suicide would be entirely acceptable, and those in pain over the loss of their loved ones should be called selfish. I think that a "don't harm" principle is entirely deficient. The question should be "what good does X do for my community?" Suicide is now bad, and the loved ones have a right to mourn. But also it expands morality to the communal level. To be moral is not simply about what one individual does, but it's about how individuals impact communities by acting or refraining from action.

Txgangsta : I put "bad" in quotations because it's a word that has no business being used in this context. All adaptations have tradeoffs: such is the nature of mutations. Every trait has a cost. Advantages and disadvantages are relevant respective to the biotic and abiotic conditions they inhabit. Giraffe necks are advantageous only so long as there is tall vegetation to feed on. Secondary adaptations of the neck make use of it in mating and territorial behaviour. This is not a biological anomaly. I don't know what that means. Either a trait provides a species with advantages that outweigh the disadvantages, or either it or the species itself won't survive.

A Darwinist, or anyone who understands evolution, will most certainly not argue that homosexuality is a downside to a species. You must be thinking of Social Darwinists who do not.

I'll make this simple. Homosexuality has been observed in a wide range of animals, including, for example, birds. That means humans and birds share this trait. There are only two explanations for this. It can divergent or convergent evolution. Divergent evolution means there was a common ancestor that passed down the possibility of homosexuality to both birds and humans. Since the last common ancestor for birds and humans lived 300-350 million years ago, that means the trait survived at least 300 million years. A trait that sets a species back in terms of reproduction cannot exist for long unless it has some sort of advantageous trade-off; 300 million years is impossible. Either the homosexuality provides some sort of advantage or you've just disproved evolution by natural selection (in which case you should publish your results and collect your Nobel Prize). Conversely, if the prevalence of homosexuality is due to convergent evolution, that would mean birds and humans evolved the capacity for homosexuality independent of one another but to fill similar evolutionary needs. So while homosexuality appears to directly lower fitness, there must be some reason it is maintained within species.

A popular explanation for why homosexuality is maintained is kin selection. This especially works in social structures, where homosexuals can increase a group or family's overall fitness without contributing to the overpopulation of the area. Ironically, this no longer applies to human societies where IVF means that homosexuals are quite capable of passing on their genes. It's interesting that you tell us to think morally, implying that homosexuality is immoral because it harms the community. There is no evidence of this harm. Again, if homosexuality lowers the overall fitness of a species, it will either be shed from the gene pool, or the lines containing it will die out. That is the basis of evolution by natural selection. And it's a rather nasty thing to imply. I wonder if you also think that disabilities are immoral, since they should also lower a community's fitness. What about choosing not to reproduce?

The thing about humanity is that we're past the need for massive reproduction. Our species isn't at threat of dying out. We face the opposite problem: there are too many humans on this world given the amount of resources we consume. Whether or not one has children is no longer relevant to the fitness of the species.

ZeroTails :

Certainly.

Anal fissure. Anal cancer. Fecal incontinence, and anorectal sepsis are all things people have gotten from being gay- or really practicing butt sex. I'm actually in a bit of a pickle though because I THINK (from the sex ed teaching I've been talking too) That butt sex is wrong. . . but. . . I'm just not sure?

I have a lot of evidence that says Butt sex should be safe if practiced properly. . . I also have evidence that suggests it's a bad idea, and. . . I kindof don't want to take a side till I'm completely sure? When 22% of homosexual males don't have control over their bowel movements, I would consider it a reason to avoid such practices. Problem is, even though I've run into this statistic a few times I'm not completely certain of it. And I hate to be against something only to find myself supporting it 6 months later. I will say this though, if I were a woman. . . I can't imagine how enthusiastic I would be about being penetrated back there! Especially since it's almost always painful the first/few times. Maybe the body is trying to warn you not to damage the sphincter muscle? Maybe a good comparison is smoking! Some men actively love butt sex with their wives because of the pain it causes them. . . I really can't support that in the very least. Maybe after I've had more time to think about it, I'll be more certain. Maybe I'm being too open minded and not giving myself enough salt, if I'm completely honest.

I would suspect that there are many psychological factors in which a gay male is unfulfilled because of the neglecting of biology. This is probably most noticeable in aspects where other males are fulfilled in having biological children and sharing them with a wife. However I'm not well studied in this aspect at all. And honestly, finding research on these sorts of things is hard to begin with since we have a mostly liberal media that wants to make every group of people feel good and homosexuality has only looked better in public light in recent generations.

Zlinqx :

I would like your attention for a minute if I may.

I didn't intend for this debate to go beyond the medical aspects, and I kindof wanted to keep a focus on the STD aspect of it. I don't really want to open this topic to everything else simply because I'm too understudied beyond all of that stuff. I can quote STD and other issues caused by butt sex well and have plenty of links or other reference sources. But I don't like debating anything I have a poor grip on.

It's been three weeks since my last reply. I had preferred you had kept this in the medical section, but in order to continue this as a debate. . . I'm going to need to research stuff pretty thoroughly in order to feel solid in my convictions.

This may surprise you, but I am actually not 100% certain that anal sex is a bad thing. I have statistics on the effects that it has on people, and it seems to make sense to avoid it biologically (I don't think I'd enjoy it if I was a girl!) Then again it might bring about some sense of pleasure that is harmless if practiced right- maybe. I really don't know at this point.

At any rate, I didn't want this thread to be placed in the debate forum. And If I'm going to talk about homosexuality, I would like to have studied more than just the anal sex risk, and STD aspect of it.

I am not happy with you moving this thread. But I can kindof understand why you would move it here. . . so I'm going to offer a truce (for this moment)


I am willing to have a homosexuality debate with you- with proper resources- in this debate forum. But it's going to be after Christmas sometime in January if that's okay with you. Can we set some kind of a date?

Sword legion : There are two main reasons I moved this thread. The first is because you didn't directly link your sources (if your main purpose is for it to be educational you need to do so). The second is because you went on to draw the conclusion that this is a reason homosexuality should be condemned and how you went on to discuss how it shouldn't be socially acceptable. Nothing in the data you provided says that homosexuality is the actual cause of these STDs, it's a risk factor. If you had wanted it to stay in the health forum, you should've just talked about the data and let people draw their own conclusions. This goes into another discussion and therefore I moved it. I didn't move it solely because it is a highly controversial subject (though that plays into it as well). Like I said though, you would've been free to bring it up with one of the globals or an admin if you didn't agree, that's part of the reason they exist.

About Anal Sex, it isn't this incredibly dangerous thing. It's more risky than standard vaginal sex because there's a higher risk of something being transmitted IF one of the people are already infected. However like you said if practiced using condoms that risk is eliminated. If both of the people do not have STDs there also isn't a risk. Furthermore like I've argued for most of our discussion in this thread, I think this increased risk mainly stems from that people are less likely to use condoms when practicing anal sex (because of there being no risk of a pregnancy) so I think that's a huge factor in why the data looks the way it is. When some sort of infection does happen that would likely stem from traces of feces in the anus. That is however different to STDs and is something that can be prevented with good hygiene.

You don't have to feel forced to discuss it with me, but don't be surprised of it being the direction the thread takes when you draw that conclusion independently from those statistics and spend a large part of the thread arguing in favor of that viewpoint. Either way I'm fine with discussing this at a later date, however I've been very busy myself recently and around early/mid January is when my winter breaks ends, and school starts for me again, meaning I'll probably be pretty busy myself with school, work and whatnot. I can't guarantee super quick replies.

Zlinqx :

I discussed this with User. He said if I want it to be an article in the medical forum. . . then that's where it should go. I was not prepared for the debate to be anything but a medical outlook on the subject. I have no research, therefore I have no basis to judge the topic on other outlets. This article was pretty much nothing but a small test.

I spoke to User. . . and a few other mods about it. I wrote this as a medical article citing the CDC, the New England Journal of Medicine, and the Chicago department of public health. I have about 20 links in my favorites bar right now to some of the statistics I use, and another 20 or so links to articles discussing the non STDs risks of anal sex along with some women's description of it and why they hate it as well as the pain that occurs in some of the process.

If I were to link everything that I have at once, the page would literally be full of links, and I don't necessarily want to deter people from taking the issue head on due to the sheer size of my article. Which is actually something that I even had to deal with here.

For a dedicated moderator, I would like it if maybe you did something about silverhyruler or even pokemonfan1000? I know you like a clean debate, but at least these two people should clearly not be posting in here. Aside from the fact that one of them is a lurking rereg.

Also, there are over 200 different kinds of HPV IIRC, and about 40 of them are capable of transferring from skin to skin. Condoms will not keep you safe from HPV or Herpes. Condoms are not the answer to everything. In fact, many of them are not even made for the tighter butt hole.


I'm not certain I can discuss this topic beyond medical risk. I don't have study outside of it, but since I'm not going to bother Van or someone as busy as Yuna just to move the thread back to me. . . I'm going to ask you to close it.

Ready or not then. . . I will make a debate thread for discussing all aspects of homosexuality in the future. You can go ahead and close this. I have spoken about the medical risks associated with homosexuality. I have done what I've wanted.

Sword legion : So you could've used footnotes or something similar and linked them all at the end or do what I did and make clickable links, whichever you thinks looks better. You can state that you're citing all of the sources (and I believe you) but that doesn't matter if you're not actually sharing those sources. Another important part is denoting where you're actually referring to what statistic in stead of just posting a bunch of links making it hard to tell which link refers to what point of the post. That's one of the single most important things to keep in mind if you're writing a medical article. You're also spending a large part of the original post arguing how it is natural to condemn homosexuality and saying that it is the cause of these conditions, drawing a conclusion without actually using the statistics. You say it is a medical article but it isn't really written the way one should be.

That has lead to warnings and it will be looked into if it keeps happening, whether or not you feel I'm doing my job properly as a moderator otherwise is unrelated to this topic. Again feel free to bring it up with the higher ups or by all means PM me if you feel something needs to be brought to my attention. I'm human, and do occasionally miss things and I apologize for that.

However mentioning that you think someone is a rereg has nothing to do with anything of this. We mods actually look into a lot of things unbeknownst to most non staff users. If you think you have conclusive evidence that someone is a rereg though feel free to pm staff.

Yes and skin to skin means there doesn't actually have to be sexual intercourse of any kind involved. They don't strictly infect someone through sex as is the case with Herpes. It's another point of which people need to be educated in. That goes the same for people of any orientation.

I meant as in you can pm the global or local inbox, that's generally the best way to go about matters like this and will often times be faster than just PMing a single user as they are being checked regularly. Either way, I'm closing this since you asked me to.