Bradley Felton <zim@pobox.com> wrote:
> I'm not sure I understand your objection. Let me try to spell my point out
> more clearly:
I understood what you said, but I don't think it is accurate. You are making educated guesses from what you believe to be true, but I don't think there is evidence for your theories.
> The "normal" mating pattern for humans has the young males competing with
> each other to "get laid",
Yes, but you seem to assume that they want to get laid with a female. I do not believe that this is the motivation for gay males.
> The prize for the winners is a bit of
> sexual experience, which will make them more impressive to the next female
> they mate with. Eventually most of them will impress a female enough to
> form a semi-permanent, largely monogamous partnership.
You are assuming that finding a female and reproducing is the goal for
all genetics. You therefore assume that gay males are only practicing
with males for when they finally get a female.
>
> Males who are highly valued in the mating game have the opportunity to try
> out more mates than males who aren't, gaining experience in the process.
>
> Evolution naturally found a way to take advantage of this situation: Males
> who were willing to fool around with other males could build experience
> that would mark them as experienced mates to the females, without having to
> compete directly with the other males for the privledge.
You assume that males don't compete for male mates. In animals where homosexuality is seen (all higher mammals) the straight males fight over female mates and the gay males fight over male mates.
> The downside to this strategy was that a propensity to have sex with males
> tended to stick with them even after they had found a female mate, which
> means they didn't tend to settle into the same, largely-monogamous
> relationship that the straight males did,
This seems to indicate that the gay gene is not evolved for reproductive purposes. I thought this was what you were claiming earlier.
> but rather continued to have sex
> on the side with other gay males. This increases their risk of disease,
> which is the natural limit on this stratedgy.
You seem to think that gay animals (and maybe humans) have more STD's than straight animals. I no of no evidence for this.
> If there were no STD's, we
> would all be gay (or "bi", as we would say today).
The only way this could be true is if more gays are born, and the gay gene could over-compete with the straight gene, and that diseases kill most of the gay population down so that they don't outnumber the straights. We would see such a pattern in nature if it existed.
> The current memetic environment that encourages gays to only have sex
> with other gays is, of course, devastating to this stratedgy.
With all this talk about gay genes, I'm suprised that you still assert that gay males override their natural interest in females by choosing to be gay. Scientific research shows that gays don't choose to act gay, but really are attracted one way over the other.
> If my shotgun approach didn't answer your objection, please try again....
Sorry, I think it raised a whole bunch of new ones. I just don't see homosexuality as means to achieve heterosexual mating. I don't see STD's being specifically oriented toward one orientation over another. I don't see everyone turning gay, except that the gays get wiped out by disease at a faster rate than straights. I don't see gay males dating females except where peer pressure forces them to act gay.
Interesting conversation though. I just wonder if being cooped up in a cubicle all day asserts the same influence on me that overcrowding does on a rat...
-- Harvey Newstrom <mailto:harv@gate.net> Author, Engineer, Entrepreneur, <http://www.gate.net/~harv> Consultant, Researcher, Scientist. <ldap://certserver.pgp.com>