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Gosh, Harry, I didn't think that maintaining a
population was a problem for any society today.
Selma
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, October 26, 2003 3:42
PM
Subject: RE: [Futurework] More
hardwiring.
Selma,
I suspect that a society that doesn't encourage its
reproductive characteristics won't be around for very
long.
Harry
I haven't been following this thread too
carefully but has anyone brought up the fact that all human beings are
biologically both male and female? All humans have both male and female
hormones, and the Xs and Ys don't always come out the way we think they're
supposed to.
My position is that, if we lived in a society
which did not judge the issue, we would all be bisexual in varying
degrees.
Selma
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, October 24, 2003 5:48
PM
Subject: Re: [Futurework] More
hardwiring.
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
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