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I wonder about all of this.
Mike Hollinshead told me sometime ago about the
British system of family where only the elders were allowed to marry and the
younger brothers and sisters became bachelors and spinsters with the job of
caring for the children of the first born. That way the family was
able to accrue status and capital but the younger siblings became human
sacrifices for the good of the family.
Then there is my British American slang word
dictionary. I sent one of the online lists to the Futurework over
the difference in the meaning of the word "Public Schools" which like "liberal"
and conservative mean the opposite in America and the UK. There was
also the interesting use of such terms as "arse" and "fanny" which had some
different meanings as well.
"Fanny" in British slang according to the
dictionary means vagina while in the US it means buttocks.
Now that causes some interesting thoughts when
thinking about what the word homosexual could mean. Is it possible
that we have been seeing differently because homosexual in England is what we
mean by heterosexual in the US?
The homosexuals in America are stereotypically what
you say but so are the heterosexuals. Since there are so many more
heterosexuals here, there are many more choruses and orchestras broken up by
them and heterosexuals even put up monuments saying that homosexuals are damned
and doomed to hellfire even though they were dragged to death behind pickup
trucks until the skin was no longer on their bodies. I don't know any
American homosexuals who have done the reverse.
If our homosexuals had anywhere near the
same amount of aggression as the American heterosexual male then you
might have a point but our homosexuals are known as basically delicate, artistic
and sensitive, stereotypically. They have as good a
language as the Jews you admire, are highly intelligent and are multi-cultural
as well as being represented in the complete racial and political
spectrum. They are clannish in the same way that Italians, Irish,
Blacks, and the English are clannish as well. They help each other
in difficult situations since they are usually the underdog. Just
like the Russian artists now in the US.
Well don't have much more time for
this. But I would suggest that 1. we have a problem of reverse
language or 2. that there is just a need to know you neighbor a little bit
better to strike a treaty from a place of equality and freedom and learn to
appreciate the gifts of each.
As for genetics. I can't see from my
experience, that it is not genetic. If I were to judge people by who
are the most artistic, sensitive, creative, intelligent, peaceful and generally
the most fun to be around then I would have chosen homosexuality as would
several of my other heterosexual friends. But, we were
not. We love women and we are the minority, in our sexuality,
when it comes to not liking aggression or preferring the passive mode in
literature. It also is bad business to air such
views. We don't have much sensibility for angry Gods who must
kill their sons in order to assuage their anger towards their creation
either. Our Gods don't do such things. To each his
own. But genetics will eventually point out whether those who have
abused and oppressed were just discriminate or were homicidal just as it has
with African Americans. I have great awe and fear for the judgement
of history. Art has taught me that.
Ray Evans Harrell
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, October 24, 2003 3:02
PM
Subject: RE: [Futurework] More
hardwiring.
Harry,
At 09:38 24/10/2003 -0700, you
wrote:
Keith,
I've
always thought that the lot of homosexuals is not so much gay as sad. Even
the name "gay" is a little sad.
Yes, I think so, too. I
think almost all of them are fairly sad when they are in their 60s from those
I know here -- one or two are very bitter. Some, like the ones Ed mentioned,
are supposed to live in warm loving partnerships but I think these are very
thin on the ground. The two couples I knew well round here, one male and one
female, have both broken up with a great deal of acrimony after having lived
together for many years in one cases and several years in the other. Whenever
the BBC have a TV documentary here on homosexuality they almost invariably
show a domestic scene of the same two men. They are both in their early 60s,
slightly dumpy, very smart and handsome, both with neat toothbrush moustaches.
The clip usually shows one of them playing the piano with the other singing
or, sometimes, tending the orchids in the conservatory behind. I've seen this
same clip at least three times and I haven't seen a domestic scene of another
male couple. I think the BBC must only have this one in their library! I've
seen plenty of lesbian couples filmed in BBC documentaries. I don't believe
there can be all that many male relationships that persist for long. Although
individual lesbians are thinner on the ground than male homosexuals I think
that there are probably many more lesbian couples than males. I think the
cultural aetiology of lesbians and gays are quite different. In the case of
one of the lesbian couples I know, one of them actually showed my partner and
I round their house once and, to my great surprise, even their bedroom. This
was beautifully furnished with all sorts of silky drapes. I put my arm round
her waist and led her to the bed. All in fun, of course, and she took it in
good heart -- I was always ribbing her about her "marriage". But then,
sadly, they split. I met the one I'm talking about in an art shop in town some
months ago and she told me about the break-up -- the other had gone off with
another -- and cried, so I just hugged her for ages with all the other
customers in the shop swilling around, pretending not to take any notice. I
couldn't do that for a male gay. Mind you I've danced with an Indian man quite
intimately at a multi-cultural dance some years ago. Which reminds me I now
have the photo of you and I in warm embrace when you were here in Bath. At
least I have my arm round you. You are waving one of yours about as though
trying to escape. Your son is in the background looking on rather quizzickly.
There we are then. When I've worked out how to scan a colour photo, or have
asked a friend to help me (I'm a real computerphobe), I'll do so and send it
to you.
One grows orchids in
This is not to
say that individual homosexuals who are talented do not have a pretty good
life. Just that the majority seem to be trapped in the kind of lifestyle
that is required of them.
I get that impression,
too.
Prison behavior is
not homosexuality, but what I've called the "hole in the wall" behavior. One
that makes the best of a poor situation.
True. I knew
someone once who'd been in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp and he told me that
when he was released at the end of the war the army took him and his friends
off to "recreation" for several weeks until he'd readjusted and was then
allowed back to his wife in England.
Keith
Harry.***********************************
Henry George School of
Social Science
of Los Angeles
Box 655 CA 91042
USA
Tel: 818 352-4141 : Fax: 818
353-2242
***********************************
From:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On
Behalf Of Keith Hudson
Sent: Thursday, October 23, 2003 11:32
PM
To: Ray Evans Harrell
Cc:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [Futurework] More
hardwiring.
- Ray,
- A useful (and encouraging) news item you posted.
- Yes, the tide is turning and we're beginning to get some objective
research (and sense) into this business of homosexuality. In recent
decades, homosexuals have been very clever in branding those of us who
don't like to see rampant homosexuality around us as being "homophobic".
People like me don't fear homosexuality, except that we would rather keep
them from being too influential on our children or our grandchildren at
their critical puberty and adolescent stage of life which could restrict
their future experience of the wonderful joys of the other sex and the
procreation and raising of children. It would be more accurate to call
homosexuals "gynophobic" (sexually, that is). I am no more anti-homosexual
than I am anti-married couples who decide to have no children (as is the
case of one of my children) or only one child. Both (as wide-spread
phenomena these days in all so-called "developed" countries) occur in many
social mammals when they are overpopulated, and are indicative of a
highly-stressed society -- which, at present, doesn't want to replenish
itself.
- There have always been homosexuals -- but only in small numbers, not
in the large minority found today (even glorified) in developed countries
(10% or thereabouts?). Homosexuals are often delightful people and
creative, too. I know several such in the world of music, but I also know
other much older homosexuals who have lost their sexual vigour and their
looks and are now very lonely people -- some, quite bitter in temperament
(which, to my mind, is rather convincing evidence that they made a bad
mistake in their youth which deprived them of continuing happiness in
life).
- Let's call a spade a spade and call homosexuals unfortunates.
- Keith Hudson
- At 22:21 23/10/2003 -0400, you wrote:
- <<<<<
- SEXUAL IDENTITY HARD-WIRED BY GENETICS, STUDY SAYS
- LOS ANGELES (Reuters) Sexual identity is wired into the genes,
which discounts the concept that homosexuality and transgender sexuality
are a choice, California researchers reported on Monday.
- "Our findings may help answer an important question why do we
feel male or female?" Dr. Eric Vilain, a genetics professor at the
University of California, Los Angeles School of Medicine, said in a
statement. "Sexual identity is rooted in every person's biology
before birth and springs from a variation in our individual genome." His
team has identified 54 genes in mice that may explain why male and female
brains look and function differently.
- Since the 1970s, scientists have believed that estrogen and
testosterone were wholly responsible for sexually organizing the
brain. Recent evidence, however, indicates that hormones cannot
explain everything about the sexual differences between male and female
brains. Published in the latest edition of the journal Molecular Brain
Research, the UCLA discovery may also offer physicians an improved
tool for gender assignment of babies born with ambiguous genitalia. Mild
cases of malformed genitalia occur in 1 percent of all births -- about 3
million cases. More severe cases -- where doctors can't inform
parents whether they had a boy or girl -- occur in one in 3,000
births.
- "If physicians could predict the gender of newborns with ambiguous
genitalia at birth, we would make less mistakes in gender assignment,"
Vilain said. Using two genetic testing methods, the researchers compared
the production of genes in male and female brains in embryonic mice --
long before the animals developed sex organs. They found 54 genes produced
in different amounts in male and female mouse brains, prior to hormonal
influence. Eighteen of the genes were produced at higher levels in
the male brains; 36 were produced at higher levels in the female
brains.
- "We discovered that the male and female brains differed in many
measurable ways, including anatomy and function," Vilain said.For example,
the two hemispheres of the brain appeared more symmetrical in females than
in males. According to Vilain, the symmetry may improve
communication between both sides of the brain, leading to enhanced verbal
expressiveness in females. "This anatomical difference may explain why
women can sometimes articulate their feelings more easily than men," he
said.
- The scientists plan to conduct further studies to determine the
specific role for each of the 54 genes they identified. "Our findings may
explain why we feel male or female, regardless of our actual anatomy,"
said Vilain. "These discoveries lend credence to the idea that being
transgender feeling that one has been born into the body of the
wrong sex is a state of mind.
- Reuters, October 20, 2003
- >>>>
- Keith Hudson, Bath, England, <www.evolutionary-economics.org>, <www.handlo.com>,
<www.property-portraits.co.uk>
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Keith Hudson,
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