LGBT identification is more than 10x more common in Gen Z than in the Silent Generation. How can that be possible if sexual orientation is not malleable?
Good question. “T” is not an underlying orientation, except perhaps in the case of autogynephelia (though that is not to deny the existence of gender dysphoria, or anxiety with a gender inflection).
Women, according to the sex research, do not exhibit a category-specific pattern of arousal. (that is, women who report being straight, bisexual, and lesbian all experience, physiological arousal to stimuli of either sex.) This makes it very easy for young women, given social pressure to be LGBT, to opt in to being “bi.”
I think that those two factors account for quite a lot, and both are very subject to social contagion and leftist propaganda. They at least need to be factored in! All that social contagion is also compatible with there being a true 2 to 3% who are homosexually oriented.
Don't know about 'most', but there are definitely subgroups that are confused, both due the types of people in those subgroups who are susceptible to social influence, and the ambiguity of the labels themselves.
In the scientific studies, one paper expressed skepticism that there were any email bisexuals. Then the same guy, Michael Bailey later reported that he saw or did a good study that proved there were.
Yes, bisexual guys definitely exist, though they are probably the most uncommon orientation. I've hooked up with a few who went on to have fruitful heterosexual marriages.
Though there are also probably many gay men in denial.
Gun to my head, I am probably 4.5 on the Kinsey scale, though I tend not to advertise as such, for various reasons.
It's a number of factors. First, polling for bisexual shows massively overrepresented results. One poll put the figure at 13%, and the majority of this category are people who are attracted to both sexes, but only date the opposite sex. Second, non-binary. According to one poll, 2.1% are trans or non-binary and in another poll found that 21% of LGBT+ described themselves as asexual, pansexual, or something else. Some of this is opting out of sex entirely. Another portion is self-ID for social purposes- a girl will be a girl, but they/them in terms of self-ID, yet still prefer men.
Note: At the time the DSM-5 was first introduced in most Western countries the rate of trans women was 1 in 20,000 and 1 in 80,000 for trans men. As the article states, identity is malleable, sexual orientation is not.
Most polls massively oversample WEIRD psychology results. More scientific polls like NHIS show the figure to be lower.
Finally, there might a genuine shift. Monozygotic twins with the same in utero conditions, show that if the first twin is gay, then there is a 40% chance that the second twin is gay. If sexual orientation was purely genetic and in utero this shouldn't happen. It's far more likely that individuals begin life as more malleable, but showing strong inclinations one way, but at a later stage of development (probably early), sexual orientation becomes 'fixed'.
There probably is some shift- just nowhere near as much as reported. My guess would be that sexual orientation becomes fixed before Tanner Stage 2.
I'm curious about your thoughts. If homosexuality does exist as a predisposed category for some of our Christian brothers and sisters, which I see as self-evidently the case, then what are the implications for constructing a sexual ethic from natural theology?
I've heard some make the argument that homosexuality evolved in order to provide a celibate class of individuals to assist in the day to day operations of a community; however, in order to practically apply this principle, if we are going to construct a sexual ethic from a natural theology, then we would need a radical reshaping of current human social structures in order to make it feasible for homosexuals, while remaining celibate, to find community with one another in the assistance of Christian society.
Thanks for the thoughts! I agree that Christian sexual ethics must make this accommodation. Folks in the side B discourse have done a lot of work in this area. But generally, having space for celibate individuals interacting with families, mutually supporting one another would be very important.
As far as radical reshaping is concerned, Protestants would need to create religious orders of a sort, à la Catholicism.
Wesley Hill’s books. Spiritual friendship is about forms of community outside of marriage, and his memoir is the prime description of celibate, gay Christian experience.
Before reading this essay or the cited articles, I predicted that Men's sexual orientation would be virtually unmalleable, and that women would be much more malleable. My prediction was correct. I am just here to gloat.
Lol. For real, though, this stuff is super complicated. Even just how an image can cause arousal, is something that we do not actually have a good understanding of. For anything, not just sex.
Ha ha ha! Yes, makes perfect sense. Women’s sexuality is more in motion first, which makes it open to sexualizing a relationship with either sex. (at least for some individuals.)
But yes, why aren’t we puzzled by the fact that people are aroused at all? The Greeks were. The more ascetic ones thought it was a kind of suffering to be subject to sexual desire at all. But today’s Christians have a hard time acknowledging that desire is given, and imposed upon us. We do not choose our desires.
Why should I believe sexual orientations are a real thing other than appeals to authority which I no longer trust to do their lies over the years and the fact they are influenced by lobbyists with their own agenda? It’s a term made in the 19th century and never appeared before then. Why not say that view of human nature is wrong
Great question. I spoke to this more in my essay about sexual orientation not being a social construct.
But it’s not an appeal to authority, but to evidence about physiological arousal in response to sexual stimuli. What gives someone a hard-on is not an appeal to authority. 😉
I think it’s possible to separate the real scientific advances and understanding human sexuality since Freud, from the bad liberationist ideas that have appeared since Freud. Though I see why that would sound suspicious!
I have been wondering during your series of posts on the subject about the fact that gay men report an unusually high rate of having been sexually abused as children, and we also have anecdotal evidence from the priest sex abuse scandals that numerous victims became gay. I can believe that orientation can be very difficult to change, but these examples provide evidence of a certain kind of change to orientation.
LGBT identification is more than 10x more common in Gen Z than in the Silent Generation. How can that be possible if sexual orientation is not malleable?
Good question. “T” is not an underlying orientation, except perhaps in the case of autogynephelia (though that is not to deny the existence of gender dysphoria, or anxiety with a gender inflection).
Women, according to the sex research, do not exhibit a category-specific pattern of arousal. (that is, women who report being straight, bisexual, and lesbian all experience, physiological arousal to stimuli of either sex.) This makes it very easy for young women, given social pressure to be LGBT, to opt in to being “bi.”
I think that those two factors account for quite a lot, and both are very subject to social contagion and leftist propaganda. They at least need to be factored in! All that social contagion is also compatible with there being a true 2 to 3% who are homosexually oriented.
Transgenderism and women claiming to be bisexual account for most of the increase in self-identified LGBT people, but there's been a huge increase in homosexuality as well. 12% of Gen Z men identify as LGBT, and I don't think the majority of them are trans. https://news.gallup.com/poll/656708/lgbtq-identification-rises.aspx#:~:text=More%20than%20one%20in%20five%20Gen%20Z%20adults%20identify%20as,are%20at%205%25%20or%20less.
What makes you think self-identification maps well on to underlying orientation?
Are you saying most self-identified LGBT people are confused?
Sounds plausible to me, but that contradicts what Joel was saying in the article.
Don't know about 'most', but there are definitely subgroups that are confused, both due the types of people in those subgroups who are susceptible to social influence, and the ambiguity of the labels themselves.
Do you think there's really such a thing as a bisexual man? Or are they just gays in denial?
In the scientific studies, one paper expressed skepticism that there were any email bisexuals. Then the same guy, Michael Bailey later reported that he saw or did a good study that proved there were.
Yes, bisexual guys definitely exist, though they are probably the most uncommon orientation. I've hooked up with a few who went on to have fruitful heterosexual marriages.
Though there are also probably many gay men in denial.
Gun to my head, I am probably 4.5 on the Kinsey scale, though I tend not to advertise as such, for various reasons.
It's a number of factors. First, polling for bisexual shows massively overrepresented results. One poll put the figure at 13%, and the majority of this category are people who are attracted to both sexes, but only date the opposite sex. Second, non-binary. According to one poll, 2.1% are trans or non-binary and in another poll found that 21% of LGBT+ described themselves as asexual, pansexual, or something else. Some of this is opting out of sex entirely. Another portion is self-ID for social purposes- a girl will be a girl, but they/them in terms of self-ID, yet still prefer men.
Note: At the time the DSM-5 was first introduced in most Western countries the rate of trans women was 1 in 20,000 and 1 in 80,000 for trans men. As the article states, identity is malleable, sexual orientation is not.
Most polls massively oversample WEIRD psychology results. More scientific polls like NHIS show the figure to be lower.
Finally, there might a genuine shift. Monozygotic twins with the same in utero conditions, show that if the first twin is gay, then there is a 40% chance that the second twin is gay. If sexual orientation was purely genetic and in utero this shouldn't happen. It's far more likely that individuals begin life as more malleable, but showing strong inclinations one way, but at a later stage of development (probably early), sexual orientation becomes 'fixed'.
There probably is some shift- just nowhere near as much as reported. My guess would be that sexual orientation becomes fixed before Tanner Stage 2.
I'm curious about your thoughts. If homosexuality does exist as a predisposed category for some of our Christian brothers and sisters, which I see as self-evidently the case, then what are the implications for constructing a sexual ethic from natural theology?
I've heard some make the argument that homosexuality evolved in order to provide a celibate class of individuals to assist in the day to day operations of a community; however, in order to practically apply this principle, if we are going to construct a sexual ethic from a natural theology, then we would need a radical reshaping of current human social structures in order to make it feasible for homosexuals, while remaining celibate, to find community with one another in the assistance of Christian society.
Thanks for the thoughts! I agree that Christian sexual ethics must make this accommodation. Folks in the side B discourse have done a lot of work in this area. But generally, having space for celibate individuals interacting with families, mutually supporting one another would be very important.
As far as radical reshaping is concerned, Protestants would need to create religious orders of a sort, à la Catholicism.
Are there any good books or articles you would recommend from some of the side B discourse?
Wesley Hill’s books. Spiritual friendship is about forms of community outside of marriage, and his memoir is the prime description of celibate, gay Christian experience.
I think the point about men's sexual preferences being much less malleable than women's would support the evolved celibate class hypothesis.
Before reading this essay or the cited articles, I predicted that Men's sexual orientation would be virtually unmalleable, and that women would be much more malleable. My prediction was correct. I am just here to gloat.
Lol. For real, though, this stuff is super complicated. Even just how an image can cause arousal, is something that we do not actually have a good understanding of. For anything, not just sex.
Ha ha ha! Yes, makes perfect sense. Women’s sexuality is more in motion first, which makes it open to sexualizing a relationship with either sex. (at least for some individuals.)
But yes, why aren’t we puzzled by the fact that people are aroused at all? The Greeks were. The more ascetic ones thought it was a kind of suffering to be subject to sexual desire at all. But today’s Christians have a hard time acknowledging that desire is given, and imposed upon us. We do not choose our desires.
Why should I believe sexual orientations are a real thing other than appeals to authority which I no longer trust to do their lies over the years and the fact they are influenced by lobbyists with their own agenda? It’s a term made in the 19th century and never appeared before then. Why not say that view of human nature is wrong
Great question. I spoke to this more in my essay about sexual orientation not being a social construct.
But it’s not an appeal to authority, but to evidence about physiological arousal in response to sexual stimuli. What gives someone a hard-on is not an appeal to authority. 😉
I think it’s possible to separate the real scientific advances and understanding human sexuality since Freud, from the bad liberationist ideas that have appeared since Freud. Though I see why that would sound suspicious!
I have been wondering during your series of posts on the subject about the fact that gay men report an unusually high rate of having been sexually abused as children, and we also have anecdotal evidence from the priest sex abuse scandals that numerous victims became gay. I can believe that orientation can be very difficult to change, but these examples provide evidence of a certain kind of change to orientation.
In the city of Sodom and Gomorrah, all the men were homosexual rapist. Explain how a city had a 100% homosexuality rate if orientation is fixed.