Perhaps, then, the disgust is cultural. That could be true. However, you definitely have to agree that the desire is not there for most people as most people just do not do it -- perhaps there are amounts of natural curiosity but the notion of having outright sex with the same gender seems so utterly alien.
And I already agreed that the desire is not there for most people. However, there seems no basis to have a disgust for others merely based on them having different desires. And why do men not have disgust that women who are heterosexual if the desire is so alien? After all, most guys seem to understand a lesbian's desire (and even find two women together as a "turn on"). Instead, it is only gay men they find "disgusting"; and as previously mentioned, the same disgust among women against lesbians just isn't there.
It is unnatural to the majority and the fact that homosexuals have correlations in their brains it does imply that it could be caused through differences in brain development. More studies need to be done.
I didn't say that it wasn't differences in brain development. The question is when does that brain development take place, why does it take place, and is it reversible. Or is it even the same in everyone? And the question of it being the same seems to be highlighted by the fact that it is a minority of gays that appear able to alter their sexual orientation to any measurable degree.
But we need to treat it as it is... A topic where it is both normal and sensical to be heterosexual; it serves the purpose of procreation for the species and the preservation of the species. Homosexual is counterproductive as it goes against the natural instinct to reproduce.
Except, I don't see much of a "natural instinct" to reproduce in humans. Plus, you comments seem to ignore that homosexuality occurs in many animal species. Then there is the fact that many homosexuals desire to reproduce. Not to mention the theories that homosexuals in various animal populations (including humans) are not counterproductive; with at least part of the idea being we would not see homosexuality in so many species if it did not have a purpose.
Not to mention, again, lesbians are not viewed the same by society as male homosexuals -- yet they are equally, or as those that actually provide birth are possibly more, important in the procreation process. Again, this merely reinforces that much of the "disgust" about homosexuality is an expression of the male ego.
That seems true but it is not -- people when asked about their life and asked if they had ever been "severely saddened" by something respond ifferently; people these days take the deaths of their parents and other loved ones much harder. When I was in a Psychology class I learned about this extensively and retained most of it because it was utterly fascinating. We later brought it up in a social sciences class where we dealt specifically with the generational differences in political viewpoints.
Such a study would be interesting to see. It would be especially interesting to see it in light of culture. When I was a child it was not considered at all acceptable for men to cry; and this even appeared to extend to death and mourning. It was considered a weakness for a man to be emotional. Whereas society today has realized this type of repression of feelings is a bad thing and, while men are still expected to control their feelings, it is now acceptable for men to cry in some situations.
It also does not change the fact that the perception of mental illness has changed greatly over the last 50 years.
It was really hammered to all hell and it became pretty obvious:
The previous generation simply had a different attitude towards things. Lt's put it simply:
Can you ever envision yourself really relating to and understandign where teh average German was coming from in 1936?
Significant differences in attitude and society exist. They are facts.
Today Americans are horrified at 4,000 deaths in Iraq; in Japan in the 1940s and in america as well families were even displaying monuments to their dead kids that were like badges of honor.
But I don't see this as being equivalent. In WWII we were fighting our second war against the Germans in 25 years. We were at war with Germany and Japan, not just against they're governments. Iraq (and even Afghanistan), by contrast, the war was sold to the public on the idea that the people wanted to be free, they were simply controlled by an evil government. In Iraq, we even personified the government in a single person, Saddam Hussein. In Afghanistan it was, and is, the Taliban that was the enemy.
We won both "wars". Which also points out that the we have not fought an all out war since WWII. Americans were all personally invested in WWII. Almost everyone had a relative fighting, everyone was effected by rationing, black outs, scrap metal (and other) drives, and by the bond drives. Today, the average American feels no personal connection to Iraq.
We are currently at peace, at least diplomatically, with both Iraq and Afghanistan. Instead we are fighting Al Qaeda and the Taliban, not the Iraqi or Afghan people; so it make no sense that we would hate these people. Though, even while saying this, we don't care about the Afghans or Iraqis that have been killed in the war, even those that were innocent bystanders. We consider them merely an unfortunate side effect of the horrors of war. Not to mention, there are Americans (and we see several on the forums here) that "hate" Muslims, that don't want to understand them, and feel we should be at war with them.
And as far as not caring the same about the death of Americans in this war, much of that can be traced back to the government. Pres. Bush didn't want people to see the human cost of the war; he's ordered that the press are not allowed to take pictures of dead soldiers or of the coffins coming home. The idea of shrines for the fallen dead has been discouraged at the highest levels.
But to use perhaps a better example, growing up the Russians were though of as evil and the enemy. To younger people today, they may not appreciate this fully, as Communism fell so did America's hate for the Russian people; they were no longer our enemy. The Chinese, to a degree, have started to become the replacement "enemy". While they are not there yet, I suspect that if we were to go to war with China they would quickly become "hated" in the same way the Japanese and the Germans were.
