A Rant.

[Kai]

I personally hold that the perfect ideal is a mixed sex couple

Why?

Biology.  We've evolved in a setting where children are raised by mixed sex parents supported by an extended community.  That's my assumption as the ideal setting for a child.

Do you have any evidence for the family setting/gender arrangement of Austrailopithecus afarensis or even Homo erectus? Or furthermore, even the rift valley Homo sapiens sapiens? I think you are making up many just so stories without evidence for evolutionary process. Not only that, but you fail to give evidence about /why/ it's ideal. What is it about that setting that is ideal, and what is it about same sex parenting that's not ideal? Repeating the above isn't going to cut it.

You are right, I don't know how any of those species lived.  I only know what most people know about that sort of thing.  And the reason I am saying it is ideal is not because of any inherent superiority to the arrangement, just because we have evolved into that environment.  As has been said before the brain is a black box in a lot of ways, that includes childhood development.  I wont start in on gender archetypes or the oedipus complex or any of that because there's a good chance a lot of that is funny hats and not the useful sort.  There are also a lot of obvious factors that are more important in measurable ways.  It just makes sense to me that in an evolutionary scenario the way things have been for a very long time is going to be the ideal situation.  

(also yes I do know that I am basically just repeating what I already said.  I am hopefully also clarifying it.  I want to make it clear that I am in no way trying to imply that children of same sex parents are being disadvantaged by the fact their parents are the same sex.  Any more so than children of mixed race parents are being dsadvantaged (as an example of something else that can be a challenge for the child but that doesn't mean it should in any way stand as an obstacle to it occuring.)

That's funny, because it sounds like the same sort of shallow mask over bigotry that I was ranting against. My bad.

[Shai Hulud]

You are right, I don't know how any of those species lived....
(also yes I do know that I am basically just repeating what I already said.  I am hopefully also clarifying it.  I want to make it clear that I am in no way trying to imply that children of same sex parents are being disadvantaged by the fact their parents are the same sex.  Any more so than children of mixed race parents are being dsadvantaged (as an example of something else that can be a challenge for the child but that doesn't mean it should in any way stand as an obstacle to it occuring.)

That's funny, because it sounds like the same sort of shallow mask over bigotry that I was ranting against. My bad.

I don't know that that rises to the level of bigotry, even of the masked variety.  I'd say it's more on the order of a mistaken belief.  Mind you, I'm not going to try to defend it, because I vehemently oppose the kind of reasoning Babylon is using here.  Also, it certainly can be a mask for bigotry, sometimes.  But I don't see anything he's said that we shouldn't give him the benefit of the doubt that it's an honest mistake.  I haven't seen you provide any evidence to support your side either, Kai. (BTW, Kai, I'm reading your remark as sarcastic there, is that right?)

First of all, Kai, you should take the time to explain to him the mistake in his reasoning, and you can probably do this better than I can, but I'll give it a shot.  Babylon, you said, "the reason I am saying it is ideal is not because of any inherent superiority to the arrangement, just because we have evolved into that environment."  But this is a misunderstanding of how evolution works.  Evolution happens on a far grander scale than societal evolution.  It is much more akin to geological time, and the passage of a few thousand years is really a blink of an eye in evolutionary time.  So even though the mother/father nuclear family is the dominant norm in Western society in recent memory, it really has nothing to do with how the human family is "naturally" supposed to be.  For instance Prof Lloyd DeMause says:

The problem with the overly monolithic conception of a "patriarchy" wherein men dominate women both in society and in the family is that while no Bachofen-style "matriarchal" society has been found,4 there is little evidence that until modern times fathers have been very much present in historical families. In our promiscuous chimpanzee ancestors, fathers were quite absent in child-rearing, so there are no "families[.]"

At the end of the day Babylon is wrong about this objectively about the idea that the patriarchal nuclear family evolved.  This is the same fallacy that the social Darwinists made a hundred years ago, human society moves so much faster than evolution that social changes cannot be considered natural selection, they are human selection.  

Moreover, whether or not it is natural is an entirely separate question from is is good for the child.  Short answer: it is.  Study after study shows that same sex couples raise kids that are just as well adjusted as opposite sex couples.  

So when we really analyze it, the idea that the mother/father combination is somehow superior vanishes into thin air, and what we are left with is just an irrational prejudice.

[Kai]

Thanks, because I didn't feel like wasting my time. Which is what it feels like when I actually go about explaining things, since people seldom consider arguments and are willing to overcome their ignorance.

[NotPublished]

I really feel like crying ...

I was arguing with my best friend, she thinks its horrible that I want to raise a child and that my limit should be "I can be an uncle, but I can't have children" ... I really flipped after that. I told her to stop and I don't want to talk any further but she pushed it ... Who is in the wrong, me or her? And it went really sour after that .... tl dr version - "Its just all about you? Other people have to abide by what you want?" .. minus all the other crap.

Fucking hell what the hell is friendship

... Ok good I'm over that shit, I'm ready to kill a Mother fucker.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I was arguing with my best friend, she thinks its horrible that I want to raise a child and that my limit should be "I can be an uncle, but I can't have children" ...

What the hell?

[P3nT4gR4m]

A friend is just an enemy you haven't fallen out with yet.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

No, I'm really curious here.  Why does his friend think he can't raise kids?

[P3nT4gR4m]

Selective homophobia? Liek "I can get my head around the fact that yo're teh gh3y and still accept you but onoez keep away from babiez!"

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Selective homophobia? Liek "I can get my head around the fact that yo're teh gh3y and still accept you but onoez keep away from babiez!"

He's gay?  (I'm a little slow sometimes.)

Wait.  This should stop him from raising kids?  OH, I GET IT.  She's one of those "homosexuals are all also child molesters" assholes.

NP, she is not your friend.  She does not have your best interests at heart.  Dump her and find some friends that don't think you're a monster.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Well, I was assuming he's gay otherwise that post makes no sense to me either.

Also I would like to take this opportunity to confess a tinge of selective homophobia myself. I'm fine with it until I see two guys kissing, then I'm all, like "Eeeeeeeew!"

Unlike a lot of people, tho, I know this is my issue and don't use it as the cornerstone of my belief about what's right and wrong. Homophobia is like arachnophobia - it's not the fucking spiders fault. I've no doubt most people would look at a lot of shit I do and want to claw their own eyes out and bleach the sockets - fuck 'em and their petty prejudices

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Well, I was assuming he's gay otherwise that post makes no sense to me either.

Also I would like to take this opportunity to confess a tinge of selective homophobia myself. I'm fine with it until I see two guys kissing, then I'm all, like "Eeeeeeeew!"

Unlike a lot of people, tho, I know this is my issue and don't use it as the cornerstone of my belief about what's right and wrong. Homophobia is like arachnophobia - it's not the fucking spiders fault. I've no doubt most people would look at a lot of shit I do and want to claw their own eyes out and bleach the sockets - fuck 'em and their petty prejudices

Two guys kissing doesn't bother me, though it used to.

[P3nT4gR4m]

TBH it doesn't get me in the pit of my gut, like it used to.

Two girls kissing, OTOH, I'd be in hog-heaven if they made that shit compulsory

[The Good Reverend Roger]

TBH it doesn't get me in the pit of my gut, like it used to.

Two girls kissing, OTOH, I'd be in hog-heaven if they made that shit compulsory

Doesn't do a thing for me, unless they both happen to be kissing me.

[NotPublished]

  Doesn't do a thing for me either.

Yeah I am gay.

Its shitty...

[LMNO]

It shouldn't be surprising that any display of eroticism turns me on.


That much said, there is plenty of non-erotic displays of sexuality out there.





I swear, HBO's "Real Sex" series makes my penis scream and try to hide itself behind my taint sometimes.