From: KPJ (kpj@sics.se)
Date: Fri Dec 03 1999 - 05:07:49 MST
It appears as if Robert Owen <rowen@technologist.com> wrote:
|
|KPJ wrote:
|
|> What definition do you use for ``homosexuality''?
|
|I intend to be as polite and inoffensive as possible, but
|I really must ask, KPJ, who on earth cares?
I find it rather relevant to define the terms used in a discussion, so that I
may understand what the author of a text means when using the obscure term.
Of course one can avoid defining the terms in a discussion, but in that
zolk the glorklopfs can caplophe, inzoppe whiq the dirgh,
and no-one would be any wiser.
|Sexual orientation is not a clinical entity; sexual behavior
|between consenting adults is not a clinical entity. What
|might, in some cases, be a clinical entity is an obsession
|with homosexuality, not because of its sexual content but
|because of its obsessiveness (and its latent or manifest
|correlative, compulsiveness).
One can define sexual behaviour between humans, consenting as well as
non-consenting, more easily than ``sexual orientation'' which appears
to have much fuzzier definitions, wildly differing among those who use
the term.
|The "cause" of homosexuality, and certainly this is a com-
|plex multivariate phenomenon, is only of importance for
|those individuals who are uncomfortable with their homo-
|philia (I prefer this term). There is no medical reason, per
|se, to search for a cause, because it is not a disease and
|therefore requires no cure.
It would seem hard to define the ``cause'' of FOO, where FOO lacks a
secure definition. Depending on the definition of ``homosexuality''
one could have different ``cause''s:
(a) FOO likes to have sex with BAR, both happen to have the same sex,
so one could thus identify the ``cause'' as the free will of FOO.
(If one define ``homosexuality'' as ``like to have sex with units
of the same sex type.)
(b) FOO and BAR live in a culture which minimizes the access to sex
with other sexes, and has no stigmatization of sex with units of
the same sex type, so one could identify the ``cause'' with the
cultural climate. (If one define ``homosexuality'' as ``having
sex with units of the same sex type''.)
(c) FOO and BAR live in a culture which stigmatizes sex with units of
the same sex type, using e.g. burning at the stake. FOO and BAR
still fall in love. Then one would probably identify the ``cause''
with evil daemons, mental illness, or chemical imbalance, depending
on one's religious outlook. (If one define ``homosexuality'' as
``sex crime'' or ``fornication against nature''.)
So what one means with the term has great importance to what ``cause''
one identifies. If one simply uses the term without defining the sense
which one uses it in, then people confuse other people's use of the term
with their own definition, and they start to quarrel over what the other
guy wrote.
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