To wade into a controversial subject should be fun. :)
Here's a hugely loose theory.
Homosexuality is our species' solution to the problem of overpopulation.
(Please wait before you send emotional mail)
A few articles and blogs I've read lately want me to draw lines between a few points.
Recently I watched this video posted on unworthy. There's a few similar experiments. The interviewer hits the streets and asks random people "Is homosexuality a choice? or are they born that way?" The classic Nature vs. Nuture argument. The follow up question is "So when did you choose to be straight?" When people reason the question most come to a conclusion that they didn't choose to be straight. It really leads people to believe that you are born with a sexual preference.
What I don't believe is the dichotomy. Gay or Straight. Hetero or Homo. There's also Bisexual (which most people associate with being gay) which is much different. If you really want to look at the spectrum of sexual preference you can also consider beastiality and necrophilia. I mean… do you really think someone made a CHOICE to have sex with animals outside our species? or humans that are dead?
I also don't believe in appealing to ignorance. Just because people don't remember making a choice does not automatically prove you were born a certain way. Perhaps is a was a subconscious choice. Perhaps it was something subtle in the environment that formed your sexual preference.
So I look a little deeper. Specifically at Alice Dreger's TEDx talk. While she doesn't speak about sexual preferences she does speak about the complexity of anatomy and gender. While there are typical "Males" and "Females" there is a lot of variation that nature has defined in-between. She also talks about classifications and categorization as being something created by humanity (not by nature). Very rarely will nature create a dichotomy. While nature will often create "typical" things it will always create anomalies. But why? Are the anomalies mistakes? or are they version 1.2? not a mistake, just a different version to address changes in the environment?
So then it goes back to "Is sexual preference a choice? just not a conscious one?" Did the sexual preference get chosen for us? Perhaps based on an early experience? I found this article talking about early childhood experiences creating small changes in our DNA. If their theory is right it could be possible that your sexual preference WAS a choice. Perhaps executed genetically, so you didn't realize it was a choice, but nonetheless, based on an early life experience your body/genetics choose a specific sexual preference over others because of it.
So now you can say "Thanks Mom! Thanks Dad! Thanks mangy dog down the street that scared the bejeezus out of me when I was 6 months old! I am (Hetero/Homo/Assexual) because of you!!" Woohoo! You're off the hook! Your sexual preference was a choice… but perhaps not yours. It WAS a genetic thing. You just weren't necessarily "born" that way.
OK, so now you ask… How the hell does this relate to overpopulation???
Well, if you read through some of Charles Darwin's work and a number of other blurbs on "Social Learning" or "Societal Learning" there are many theories out there that explain how species start to behave in groups to address certain problems. For instance, recently I read "The Wisdom of Pyschopaths" which theorizes the world is becoming a less violent place, but a more psychopathic place in order to deal with societal changes (We can't just wander around clubbing each other to death to solve problems anymore). but how does an entire species start trending it's behaviour?? I mean this is supposed to be "learned" right? You make a conscious choice to start behaving in a certain way, don't you? and in order for approximately 7 BILLION people to all start moving in one direction of behaviour, it'd have to be a stellar training class.
Then I came across this article that theorizes that what you learn can actually be passed down to your ancestors. What if the choice you made that "Plastic is better than Paper" got taught to your child through genetics? Perhaps not that specific or not that quickly, but generation after generation we start teaching our bloodlines that something is acceptable or something is not. Of course, learning is based on your environment. The article linked above states that mice learned to fear the smell of a cherry blossom. So perhaps as humans we learned to fear homosexuality…. but why???
So here's the punchline…. and it's a loose theory at best. I've, by no means, tested this. If everything about is true!! (and most of it is just theory that has been partially explored).
What if…. millions of years ago, our ancestors armed with their survival instinct saw that homosexuality did not produce offspring and meant the end of the species. Therefore they sought to strike down anything that was homosexual to ensure the survival of the species. This learning is passed down, genetically and socially, from generation to generation. Until one day, as whole, we humans start to realize "Wow… there sure are a lot of humans on this planet and if we keep reproducing like this it's going to be disasterous". So subconsciously we start making choices, in our mind, imprinted on our DNA, passed down to our children, who slowly…. start becoming homosexual… to address the problem of overpopulation.
Of course, this doesn't work overnight. Homosexuals are oppressed, stigmatized, killed. This goes against our current "learning" that homosexuality is bad for survival. However, in the back of our heads, we all know that the overpopulation is still not slowing down. So, now we move into our current age. We are slowly learning to accept homosexuality… and slowly, but surely, more people are "born" (or perhaps choose) homosexuality because of it.
On a grand… subconscious, species scale we've made the choice to save us from overpopulation!
and now someone says "Hey!!! Homosexuals can reproduce!!! They can still get in vitro fertilization! They can still adopt!" So how does this really address the problem or overpopulation??
My thought around that is… Heterosexual reproduction is largely an accident. Heterosexuals because sexually mature, get urges, have sex and…OOPS! someone is pregnant. Homosexuals get urges, have sex and ….. hmmmm… not much happens…. UNLESS THEY MAKE A CONSCIOUS CHOICE!
and given the world we live in I think a lot of people are making conscious choices to have less kids. So, yes, I still think it's a solution to the problem.
Now you may leave hate comments or send hate mail. :)
