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In my opinion, there are some arguments that are not worth becoming involved in. The question of sexuality is one of these. You see, no matter how much scientific, psychological, physiological and just plain common logic is sited, people still claim that any sexuality other than heterosexuality is wrong. The debate against "deviant" sexual practices lingers. It lingers not because these "straight-only" arguments have any real merit, but because their debate is fueled by fear, and fear is notoriously hard to put aside, even in the face of overwhelming evidence.
Sexuality in complex creatures is a planetary invariant. Most animals have some sort of sex. They don't question why. They don't question how. They don't question the gender of who they share it with. They just have it. Period. Contrary to popular belief, not all animals have sex only to procreate. According to the growing amount of information being gathered by researchers, the number of species that engage in sex ONLY to produce offspring is the MINORITY. To date, monogamy, promiscuity, inter-species relations (yes, you read that right), self-stimulation and release, i.e. masturbation, rape (yes, you read that right too), necrophilia (yes, you also read that right and no, I'm not making this up - check Wikipedia if you don't believe me), homosexuality, bisexuality and a range of other practices have been observed. It's theorized that many species engage in sex for a variety of reasons that have nothing to do with simply creating new baby animals, for example, to strengthen the community's social bonds, for emotional comfort and reassurance, to forge alliances; the list of possibilities is a mile long. Yet humanity is still hung up on reproduction as the ultimate validator, as if propagation of a species relied solely on a sperm and an egg and nothing more. If not for the instinct-driven ability to nurture and care for young, a goodly number of the fauna on Earth, including our own race, would not have succeeded in evolving. We would have gone extinct centuries ago and no amount of breeding would have saved us.
Sexuality existed long before the argument over what KIND of sexuality was acceptable ever began. Humans and other animals managed to "be fruitful and multiply" WITH homosexuals and bisexuals in their midst, and without any of the myriad of Gods to tell us it was His/Her way. There are now approximately 6.5 BILLION people living on this planet, and heterosexuals aren't the only members of that population having children. But if you listen to the "straight-onlys", heterosexuals are the only thing keeping our species from disappearing off the face of the Earth in minutes. Am I the only one who sees the massive discrepancy of that suggestion?
Then there's the social acceptability tactic. Here's where I REALLY start getting annoyed. This is one of the most ridiculous arguments I've heard to date. Society is fluid and ever-changing. What is currently accepted as "normal" and "right" was anything but in years past, and I'm not talking huge time gaps here. Often change happens in a decade or two. For example, the practice of in-vitro fertilization was argued against vehemently, based on moral and ethical grounds, when doctors first began to perform the procedure in the late 70's. IVF is now a commonly accepted and widely performed practice among couples seeking to have children. That's a little more than 25 years ago for those who are curious to know. Women weren't allowed to vote until the 20's. Despite adopting the Fifteenth Amendment giving non-whites the right to vote in 1870, Blacks weren't given unhindered voting rights until 1965. Again, the list goes on and on. Society accepts and rejects at the drop of a hat. Popular opinion is continually subject to change. So claiming that since human society doesn't accept homosexuality as a valid act of intimacy, human society is in the right and such acts must be wrong - or what I like to call the "lemmings jumping over the cliff en mass" theory - is inane, illogical and weak-minded.
Now, I've tried to be relatively civil so far, but how can people be so stupid? How can anyone look at the world and think, for even a nanosecond, that we must continue to think in such antiquated terms as "have children for children's sake" and "relations must be between one man and one woman" when so much information is telling us otherwise? Must we continue to suffer the ignorance of a group of people who are so threatened by the pleasures of sex that they have convinced themselves it's a necessary evil solely to keep our numbers exponentially growing in a severely overpopulated world? Instead of condemning homosexuality outright, why not consider that maybe homosexuals exist as nature's way to keep population growth at bay? Better yet, why not come to the realization that there is NO NEED for us to seek a rationalization of sexual orientation at all? It exists. Period. Sexuality DOES NOT threaten us or any other species on this planet. Period.
But, you see, the nature of fear is to feed off ignorance. The ignorant are rarely interested in listening to logic, reason or science. And that, friends, is the reason why I feel this argument is not one worth becoming involved in...Not that I ever take my own advice. To accept that all my statements will fall on deaf ears, or they'll be rationalized by minds unwilling to see the facts for what they are, is not an easy one. In fact, it's damn near impossible for me to do. Despite this being the equivalent of arguing the scientific proof of a spherical Earth that orbits around the Sun to the Catholic Clergy - a thing Galileo did and was tortured, discredited and exiled for doing - I can't help but keep screaming from the rooftops and hoping like Hell I get through to someone. ANYONE.
"Can't stop the signal...They can never stop the signal." ~ Mr. Universe -- "Serenity"
Special Agent Dana Scully · Tue Dec 26, 2006 @ 09:19am · 0 Comments |
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