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Older Brothers...

Discussion in 'Chit Chat' started by xyc, Apr 25, 2006.

?

How many older brothers do you have?

  1. No Older Brothers

    26 vote(s)
    50.0%
  2. 1 Older Brother

    18 vote(s)
    34.6%
  3. 2 Older Brothers

    5 vote(s)
    9.6%
  4. 3 or More Older Brothers

    3 vote(s)
    5.8%
  1. xyc

    xyc
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    Most of you have probably heard about the research that seems to show having older brothers as a guy makes your chance of being gay increase. Supposedly, the chance of being gay is initally 2 - 4% and increases by about a third of that for each older brother you have.

    I find this research really fascinating and would like to see the results of a poll here to see if it seems to hold true even here.

    Supposedly, this research seems only to true for males with older brothers, and not females with older sisters (or brothers).
     
  2. xyc

    xyc
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    I am gay and have 2 older biological brothers.

    (Apparently, research shows only biological brothers increase the risk of being gay... adding strength to the biological cause and not the 'nurture' part of being raised with brothers. Please reply with only your number of biological older brothers)
     
  3. nisomer

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  4. It's funny -- I used to think that if I HAD an older brother growing up, I might've turned out straight. I had substantial female influences throughout my childhood, having been reared by my mother and living with two older sisters. I thought that's what made me into such a (brace yourself, Arnold) "girlie-man." I don't really think that anymore, but I don't know if I believe that sexuality is 100% genetic.
     
  5. Paul_UK

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    None. So far this isn't supporting the research.... :icon_smil
     
  6. Micah

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    Two. :slight_smile:
     
  7. Proud1p4

    Proud1p4 Guest

    No brothers, but one butch of a sister...not a lesbian, but sometimes i tell my friends we switched personalities in the womb....she took all the stereo'd guy things and i took the girls...actually its pretty funny. lol
     
  8. joeyconnick

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    I think the notion that something as complex as human sexuality could be purely genetic is ridiculous. I think the notion that human society is as it is solely because of our biology is absurd. And I think research like this is, ultimately, futile. If they do find some biological markers for homosexuality, the people who hate us will just advocate our elimination biologically. "Proving" homosexuality is an inherent, genetic characteristic is not going to dismantle heterosexism or stop homophobia. For one, some people will never believe you. For another, heterosexism is a facet of human SOCIETY. It doesn't exist because of biology and it's not going to be made to unexist by arguments appealing to biology. It's not like straight people have a biological distaste for homosexuals. Homophobia is TAUGHT and heterosexism pervades all our social institutions.

    Research money should be spent figuring out something with some real benefits to humanity.

    And notice they never search for the "root causes" of HETEROSEXUALITY. Heterosexuality is, of course, the "norm" and we're, of course, the deviants.

    Patriarchal, positivistic biomedical discourses are just plain dumb.
     
  9. LowestVocal017

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    LOL! I'm the older of the two boys in the family (I also have two sis, one's the oldest sibling, and one's the youngest. So we guys are smack dab in the mid!). Somehow, my young bro is straight and I'm gay (bi). And what's funny, I'm left-handed too...
     
  10. Chaos

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    I have three brothers, who are older. I had another one but he died after birth, so I have four older brothers. The three I know are straight and have kids...
     
  11. imad

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    One older brother.
     
  12. Proud1p4

    Proud1p4 Guest

    Here, here Joey! You've got a incredibly accurate point there...they are searching for a means of exterminating us using biology. But as you said they're searching for HOMOSEXUAL bio-markers, not SEXUALITY bio-markers in general...i mean for fuck sakes stop treating us like a disease...we dont need a cure...we dont want one. I was livid when i first heard about this a couple of months back...and i still do whenever i hear it. I mean, governement kinda has to take a neutral stance these days, but why wont they stop projects like these....who clearly constitute a anti-gay stance....i just dont get today society. (sorry for going slightly off topic)
     
  13. this-that-the-other

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    Rather than asking gay males how many older brothers they have, you need to ask how many males with lots of older brothers are gay. The research is that having lots of older brothers puts you at a higher likelihood to be gay, not the other way around.
     
  14. LowestVocal017

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    proud_2b_gay456, I think that maybe a bit out-dated. Scientist and doctors are now realizing how much they are incapable of changing sexual orientation because of it's BIOLOGICAL factors. Psychologists used to believe they can "cure" homosexuality (I think the notion is still used in China at present), but from what I've heard, present psychologists say that that junk is just pure nonsense, and really, you're right. It is! Homosexuals aren't born to make that kind of change, because it's beyond our human limitations (atleast at present). Really, all they can do is use medicine or advice to supress homosexsual feelings, but that wouldn't change his or her innate nature. If there are still any Western medicine men or scientist who still deem the very possibility of preventing homosexuality through medicine or any "cure," I can bet many other scientist will look down at them for that. I just wanted to say this before I post what I was going to post about.

    Research also says that the "Older Brother" Effect doesn't apply to left-handers like me. The weird thing about me is that I'm the older brother, I'm left-handed, yet, I'm the one who's gay. My little loving bro is straight. I don't know why it all came down to this coincidence. :confused:
     
    #14 LowestVocal017, May 3, 2006
    Last edited: May 3, 2006
  15. imad

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    I don't really see anything wrong with research in this area. Supposing that a cure for homosexuality were possible, how would that harm us? It would only increase our options.

    How do we know anything about any topic in the medical field? You can't just assume that they're wrong in doing the research because it seems like a bad idea. If it's a bad idea, let it be proven so that researchers know to look in different areas for their answers. If it's a good idea, then hooray for modern medicine.
     
  16. joeyconnick

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    The harm is in assuming that homosexuality is something to be cured. The underlying assumption in seeking to cure homosexuality is that being heterosexual is healthy/normal and that being gay is not. Why aren't there any efforts to "cure" heterosexuality?

    The whole "research into a cure" approach to homosexuality is heterosexism operating at its most insidious.
     
  17. LowestVocal017

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    And I'll also add to what joeyconnick has said. According to what you've posted, I think what you're thinking about is a discovering a way to CONVERT sexual orientation (from gay to straight, and from straight to gay, and perhaps from bi to neutral. LOL!), which maybe something terrifically cool if such an invention of technology was ever made (but I'm sure we're a WAY long way from it. Scientists first need to fully understand what causes homosexuality, and really, they've barely began finding out. All they've known is that homosexuality is a natural cause). And you're right. It will open more options to different kinds of sexual orientations for living.

    But we're talking about "curing" homosexuality, which is a completely different thing from conversion. To "cure" homosexuality is not only an insult, it is degrading and underminding, for it simply holds to the traditional narrow-mindedness, "heterosexuality is normal and the right way," which many people now-a-days discredit.
     
    #17 LowestVocal017, May 4, 2006
    Last edited: May 4, 2006
  18. LowestVocal017

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    I also want to bring this up-

    Sadly though, something as complex as human sexuality is very much biological factors (indeed, it's not purely GENETIC factors. We're nowhere close to being sure about that at this point). I don't understand why you would say it's absurd. Perhaps there's something I'm misunderstanding or misinterpretting in your post.

    Secondly, I don't blame you for the fear that if it was to be made official that homosexuality has natural-markers that causes it, society would find ways to counter-produce those markers to rid our sexual orientation. I've heard from and read about people who also argue that, so you're not the only one. This might bring some light to you, because there is afterall no escaping the reality that our human sexual orientations are indeed a cause of biology and there very well might be some markers somewhere in our genes, or horomones, or something (I'm sure you know that :wink: ). Some scientists and scientific socialists argue the opposite of your fear, which is the very fact that people would find ways in technology to alter whatever marker that causes homosexuality. They predict that if society were to learn and understand well that homosexuality is a natural cause, the bigotry would be mostly eliminated in itself, and here's their support for their argument. Until very recently, the same notion was held about left-handers (like me). People in society thought those writing with the left hand was a devilish, deviant condition that's SOCIALLY caused (in some areas of Asia, they still believe this!). This is true. Research gradually started discrediting the "deviant" theory about "southpaws." According to wha I've read, left-handers tried to supress some of that research, claiming that if the research was promulgated in society, there will be ways to "cure" it by, in your case, riding markers that might cause it. They were annoyed and/or offended with the extent the research had gone because they fear people might find a way to biologically change left-handedness to right-handedness, a similiar feeling to what you have expressed here in this thread. But see, their claim was wrong and you will understand that by looking at today. We all know left-handedness is a natural variation of dexterity, and no one's going to find a way to distroy it by finding markers or whatever. Those who attempt such thing or even think about doing so will be thought of as psychotic, and they are! So going back to homosexuality, I just wanted to say this to bring some hope to you. :wink: I mean, at present, there very well might be some people, those who don't like homosexuality, who might do something like ask their doctor to alter his or her child's homosexuality by finding whatever causes it and ridding it, but I can bet there's a 99.999% chance that they won't be able to much about the patient's child's sexual orientation.

    I say all of this because at present, in both the U.S. and the rest of the Western Earth, but ESPECIALLY in the U.S., homosexuality is still viewed by many people as a sick, deviant condition caused by a lack of male role model, overly caring moms or maternal guardians, and all those other causes of NURTURE. They're still about a moon distant away from understand homosexuality and how natural it is. The fact that there's a questioning light that says "homosexualiy is a natural, biological cause" might cause those people to want to fight it back with whatever they can because they're not ready to accept that fact. They just don't want to believe it. That's why I say there maybe some people at modern times that might go to their doctors and ask them to try to eliminate their child's gayness, and this is most-likely because they still don't fully understand homosexuality is afterall a natural variation of human sexuality. I don't know if that's actually true, that there are people who believe they can go to their doctor as a solution, but again, in any cause, doctors, psychologists, and scientists will find very little success in helping who they're trying to help, since those scientists and doctors and psychologists are incapable of changing homosexuality anyways.
     
    #18 LowestVocal017, May 5, 2006
    Last edited: May 5, 2006
  19. joeyconnick

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    No, you're not. I've yet to see any proof that homosexuality is solely biologically-based. You assume throughout your post that it is. Why? Your analogy is compelling on the surface but flawed, because left-handedness has nothing to do with emotions and who you want to hang out with and/or spend the rest of your life with. Left-handedness is simple; who we're attracted to is not. I would argue that left-handedness is very obviously a physical preference that has very little, if anything, to do with our consciousness and ability to reason, whereas sexuality is very much subject to those forces.

    Most importantly, with respect to how left-handed people in the West have become viewed as "normal" or "natural" once bio-medical discourse identified left-handedness as genetic: left-handedness does not threaten the social order. If one assigns homosexuality the same "normalness" that left-handedness currently enjoys, it throws entire social institutions into a state of panic. Religion, marriage, the law, medicine, education... all of these are shot through with heterosexism and assumptions that men and women "naturally" fit together. The backlash against the notion that homosexuality is non-deviant has been monumental. While I'm not saying there wasn't a backlash against the normalisation of left-handedness, I'm pretty sure there weren't governmental jurisdictions altering their constitutions to resist it.

    So the notion that if people were somehow able to "prove" that sexuality is an innate, unchanging facet of biology, homophobia and heterosexism would disappear, is naive at best. Homophobia and heterosexism exist, at least in part, to reinforce the notion that (monogamous mainstream) heterosexuality and binary gender are the best, most desirable, most NATURAL ways of being--the need to entrench sexual dimorphism and the polarity of sexuality are inherent in how they've been constructed (i.e. they are a facet of how fragile normalised gender and sexuality really are) and so, essentially, the need for a gender/sexuality scapegoat to help police heteronormativity is not going to go away by looking for biological "causes" of homosexuality. Heterosexism is a social construction: you can't "fix" it by turning to biology--you need to transform the way society works in order to address it.
     
  20. imad

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    I agree with joeyconnick on that last one. Prejudiced people don't care why anyone is gay. All that matters is that the person is gay. That also means, joeyconnick, that knowing the cause of homosexuality will not negatively affect us. If we obtain this knowledge, and people choose to eliminate the chance of having gay children, then let it be. I would have suffered less if I were to like girls, and so would my parents.

    Also, as appealing as the idea sounds, no one really knows homosexuality is biological. We can't assume that it is just because the idea justifies our liking for our own sex.

    Anyway, in the case of this type of research, none of that really matters. People are doing research in this area, and no harm can come out of it. Why does it matter that someone is measuring fingers and finding a recognizeable pattern? I would definitely like to know more about the specifics of homosexuality, and without these people looking into it, that can never be possible.

    To say that it's immoral to look into the causes of homosexuality is just as absurd as saying that research in robotics is immoral. There was quite a bit of noise in parts of the U.S. a few years ago because some people feared that robots and computers will take over the world. Robotic world domination seems to me as possible as world-wide homosexual eradication (ick, sorry for sounding prolix).