In our discussion on racism, Zairik said:

I think this is a legitimate question. In fact, it was only after pressure by homosexual lobbyists did the American Psychological Association remove homosexuality from its list of sexual disorders. What is considered "disordered" and not is subject to intensive political, philosophical, and social considerations.

There is an ambiguous, sticky, line between what is considered "disordered" and what is not, when it comes to psychology. When does average melancholy (sadness) become "depression?" When does creative other-worldly thinking become "schizo-affective personality disorder?"

Typically, the criteria that are loosely used to determine what is a "disorder" and what it is not are as follows

1. Statistically abnormal (something that is rare)
2. Feelings, thought-processes, and/or actions that disrupt an individual's ability to function in every day life.
3. Actions that cause harm to others or disturb the social order.
4. Feelings, thoughts, actions that cause the individual a high level of anxiety.

Most psychological disorders have more than one of these criteria, but hardly ever have all of them. It is evident just in reading these loose criteria that they are open to wide variation in interpretation and diagnosis.

The differences between pedophilia and homosexuality? Studies show that pedophiliacs are most often the victims themselves of pedophilia, suggesting that pedophilic urges and actions are the result of some psychological trauma (something that is not "supposed" to happen). Moreover, pedophilic actions do cause harm to victims--both psychological and physical.

I believe that homosexuality is at least subtly different. There is no conclusive evidence that homosexuality is either the direct result of purely psychological factors (abuse, lack of father-figure, broken family) OR the direct result of biological factors (chemical or genetic factors). However, consensual homosexual behavior does not seem to cause substantial psychological or physical harm to parties involved. In fact, an embracing of homosexuality and homosexual behavior may in fact relieve anxiety of homosexuals.

I freely admit that even using the above criteria, you might still agree that homosexuality is a disorder. Or, you might just disagree with the criteria for what makes a disorder a disorder (as I take issue with).

I think this is a fascinating debate and something worth talking about. However, I want to stress that psychological evidence does not settle it one way or another--psychological disorders are not something that are clear cut. I also want to ask again that we keep a level of respect in this conversation. Conversations about sexuality can get quite heated...

Well, I'd say that one must look at how one defines a disorder. I'll use what you stated, it seems pretty good.

1. Statistically abnormal (something that is rare)

They say 1 in 10, so no, I wouldn't say that it (Homosexuality) is all that rare. There are a pretty good number of open homosexuals, and I bet even more "closet" ones.

2. Feelings, thought-processes, and/or actions that disrupt an individual's ability to function in every day life.

Unless one thinks that sexuality (homo, hetro, or bi) itself disrupts everyday life, which might not be that far off, then no, it doesn't fit this either.

3. Actions that cause harm to others or disturb the social order.

This would probably be where people could take issue. To some, yes, homosexuality does disrupt the social order. To others, no, it doesn't.
I'd say to the former, rather, I'd ask, how does someone in the persuit of happiness (a right endowed to us) really adversely affect you?
And gays don't harm anyone, either with their physical force or sexual feeings, more than anyone else does. If you want to bring your relgion into it, thats fine, but I don't see how you can use that in a psycological debate so much.

4. Feelings, thoughts, actions that cause the individual a high level of anxiety.

Here is the other one that people could point out. Being homosexual can cause all of those, but merely because they are gay, but because of how others who think this is a serious problem view them. The stigma against them. All that fact could point to, as far as I can see, would be that its further information and proof that homosexual behavior isn't a choice.

All should be compared here with all other “sexual preferences.”

(to make clear, I disagree with all sexuality other than heterosexuality)

There is also:
Asexuality
Autosexuality
Kinsey scale
Monosexuality
Bisexuality
Beastiality
Necrophilia
Pansexuality
Paraphilia

You have to take all of this into consideration, it's not just hetero/homo/bi like most might think.

Dictionary definition of "disorder":

Source

This isn't a form of sexuality, its a lack thereof.

I've seen the wiki article, I'm not conviced.

This isn't a sexuality, its a classification of a person's level of bi-sexuality/homosexuality/heterosexual.

You really disagree with monosexuality? Are you sure about that? Also, this isn't really a sexuality, you are still a hetro or a homo, it just a classifiction that is the opposite of bisexual.

This isn't really a form of sexuality, its essentially bisexuality, just without the need for sex.

Thats an action, not a sexuality. Zoophilia is the sexuality.

Thats not a sexuality, its a form of paraphilia .

This isn't really a form of sexuality, its having a fetish of some sort. I'm not sure how to classify this.


Its probably not the best idea just to copy and paste from wikipedia. ;)

Why is homosexuality more recently becoming more accepted? Is it a choice? Are you born that way? Even if it was proven people are born homoseuxal, aren't people born with disorders? Proving it is a disorder or not will not change my opinion about it being wrong, but what I want to know is why it is being held in a different light than other less accepted and discouraged preferences/orientations/fetishes/ect, some that might even be considered disorders.

Elightenment. It used to be acceptable way back in the day, in the civilzations (Greece) that we consider to be founders of civilization. I would say it just became unacceptable with the advent of Christanity, at least as far as the west is concerned. In the east, I don't know.

That is up for debate, but now I'm seeing more an more infromation leading the to idea that one is born that way.

Yes, people are born with disorders. But I think the point here is to discuss if homosexuality is a disorder. I'd argue that it is not, so the fact that people are born with disorders has nothing to do with this subject.

But I think it does have something to do with the subject because if it is proven people are "born homosexual" then people will use that to justify their lifestyle, and without a doubt more people will accept the idea of homoseuxality (and if it's widely accepted then how could it be a disorder anymore?). Disorders are relative.

It was considered a disorder.
What proved it not to be a disorder?
Or was it just pressure, and there is no other reason?

Pedophilia is an imbalance of power & therefore there isn't true discernible consent. Its like the snake eating its own tail. It has no merit on any level beyond the sexual gratification of the controlling older partner. Its repulsive.

Homosexuality is different. I have met happy, supportive homosexual couples. I've even met a few heterosexuals of this description.

I have more of a problem with sexual promiscuity in general. No one physically needs another being per se for sexual gratification. You seek another because you want more than what you can do for yourself on a sexual level, by forming a relationship with another. Sexual partners shouldn't be disposable freely. Not to mention the increased health risks.

Bestiality and necrophilia lack consent.

Whether or not people are "born homosexual" or whether or not homosexuality develops in youth/adolescence, evidence seems to clearly bear out that for the vast majority of homosexuals, homosexuality is not a choice. And in fact, research also shows that most "reparative therapy" (therapy that aims to try to change sexuality) is only temporarily and superficially effective for only a small percentage at best, and psychological damaging at worst.

Yes, in the sense of how we define what is ordered and disordered--a tricky question indeed.

Deltasix did a pretty good job of going through each criterion and showing how homosexuality does not necessarily fit the scientific idea of psychological disorder. Granted, there is some grey area. However, growing scientific knowledge human sexuality has shed light on homosexuality. That growing body of knowledge, which seems to suggest that homosexuality does not fit the standard criteria for psychological disorders, helped pushed it out of the disorder classification. The reason for the lobbying was mostly that the APA did not have access to that. knowledge. The lobbying occurred more to educate rather than simply to coerce.

Let me be clear that there is a wide consensus within the psychological community that sexuality is largely something not chosen--not simply with homosexuals, but with paraphilias (necrophilia, pedophilia, etc.) as well. That's not to say that sexual acts are not choices--they are of course, at least to some degree--but that rather one's orientation is not chosen.

Not that I agree that people are born that way, but I want to point out that if it is proven sexual orientation is NOT a choice then people will have to hold homosexuality around the same level they would other less accepted sexual orientations. This brings up the question, is it ok just because there isn't a victim?

(again I'm not supporting any of these)

Is there a connection between these different sexual orientations?
Do victims of on sexual orientation such as pedophilia grow up to be homosexual?
You're not born abused, does that seperate pedophilia and beastiality?
I don't know what drives people to do these horrible things.

Check out this transcript.

Link

Homosexuality is a natural phenomenon.

Interesting information...

Freud suspected that everyone was a little gay. For him, yes. Sexuality is a big mess of a thing with no clear, fixed, biological distinctions.

But if you're asking between pedophilia, bestiality, and homosexuality, I'd say that by and large, no. Deltasix pointed out that pedophilia and bestiality aren't even sexual orientations.

Victims of pedophilia (which is again, not a sexual orientation but a true sexual disorder), often grow up to become pedophiliacs. However, the majority of pedophiliacs are in fact of HETEROsexual orientation (many are married), even if the children that they abuse are sometimes boys. It's a complex situation. But does sexual abuse as a child lead to homosexuality? There doesn't seem to be a clear causal relationship there.

Bestiality is a deviant sexual behavior, but it operates very differently than pedophilia. In fact, bestiality is a sexual practice that often occurs out of a lack of adequate sexual partners (a sociological phenomenon) rather than some persistent psychological disorder. Bestiality is a very different from both pedophilia and homosexuality in terms of how it develops, why it occurs, and what drives it.

Few people, if anyone, does. That's why it's important for more research to be done. It's easy to say "that's repulsive" without trying to understand what is really happening here.

From a limited, unique perspective...

Yes, bisexuality is a practice due to inadequate supply of sex partners as exhibited by practices within prison. No, it's not a disorder per se. If Freud things everyone is a bit gay, I tend to think it is because of the fact that many people have a side of them opposite to their gender.

As to pedophilia... that is something that does affect sexual orientation, I feel after having talked to some "victims". It also tends to make them more open regarding sexual matters and a bit insensitive or numb. This is by no means representative of all vicitims. And the instances were it actually promotes homesexuality is probably based upon the bad experiences in early age that led to disliking certain aspects of behaviour or treatment they'd received. Children from a verbally abusive childhood may not have been molested but still driven to an attraction to the same gender... based upon associative distrust.

Beastiality... well... can't really talk very well on this topic, but feel that it's not too far from why people are driven away from sexual relations with other people... that there is a basic distrust there... after having been hurt or "burned" pretty often. Sometimes it could be lack of sexual partners or certain influences like a kind of peer pressure.

There are even those that simply do not have any real interest in sex, because either they are very intelligent and see it as rather crude behaviour or that they too had been deeply heart-broken or having lost trust enough to be open to intimacy. For those that wish to focus solely on careers or intellectual pursuits, they'd even see lust as a distracting aspect, kind of like how hunger for food is annoying when in the midst of something deemed as important.

i don't have much to add to this except a couple of points.

1. homosexuality exists in the animal kingdom too. as far as i know pedophilia and necrophilia don't.

2. although homosexuality is becoming more accepted now and as delta said some say 1 in 10 are homosexual... it was actually much more widely accepted in pre-christian roman times according to a lot of historians now.

back then it was assumed that you were bisexual, that everyone was. apparently if you went to a brothel (which was also socially accepted) you would be offered both men and women without question.

go back further to ancient greek times, and before that and again bisexuality assumed, and the norm.

so i'm not gonna give an opinion really, but throw an idea up that hetrosexuality is the disorder ingrained into society by centuries of religious and social oppression.

The desire for reproduction must also be a disorder then. ^_^

sex isn't only about reproduction.

But it sure has alot to do with it. And seeing how we uh...wouldn't be here if it wasn't for sex throughout the centuries, and people were having hetrosexual sex long before christainty was thoughtup, yeah, I don't think so.

i think you misunderstood me. anyway it was only a thrown up idea, not saying i believe it.

food has a lot to do with nutrition but food still has a lot of variety and great taste. it's about more than nutrition.

But it's basis is survival, thus you eat it.

Same with sex. It's basis is survival of your species, thus you have heterosexual sex.

but we're not machines, and we do things for fun and enjoyment, as do animals. is eating un-nutritional food for enjoyment a disorder?

oh and i still think you're misunderstanding me. i'm not saying hetrosexual sex is the disorder, but the shunning of embracing sexuality as a whole thing.

What a great line-- a thought to challenge the norm. I agree with Kate here not because I agree that heterosexuality might be a DISorder, but rather because it might not necessarily be ORDER.

Someone brought up the point that there is homosexuality in animals but not necrophilia. This is a strangely important distinction. Whereas homosexuality in animals often occurs because of "crossed wires" (often the homosexual animals attempt to copulate in hopes of actually producing), this is not the case with humans.

For Freud, sexuality in humans is strangely plastic (as in elastic, malleable). All humans, he figured, were biologically hardwired with a basic sexual drive, but the target to which that drive aims is NOT fixed biologically, but psychologically and sociologically.

I am of the mind that he is partially right. I would not go so far as to say that our sexual aims/targets are completely psychologically and sociologically fixed, but they are not biologically fixed as well. I believe that most people are born with biological predispositions, and psychological and sociological pressures push them one way or another (or leave them in the middle).

Both of these quotes assume that species are ORDERED to survive. True evolutionary biology does not necessarily say that this is the case. Species are not DESIGNED to survive--survival is not the purpose of life--it is a byproduct, an accidental occurence of the laws of nature.

Remember that for Darwin and for evolution, survival is ultimately a matter of random chance-- not of purposeful effort.

This is the true threat of darwinism to religion--darwinism ultimately says that all of existence happens by chance. There is no real ORDER. Everything has happened as a result of mere random chance.

If we are to stick to science then, we cannot say that we are "given" a sex drive "in order to" survive. We might say this if we believe that there is a God who gives order and purpose to humanity. But if we are to stick with pure science, we really ought to say that we have survived because we happen to have a sex drive that happens to result in procreation much of the time.

It can become, yes. Its called an eatting disorder.

Early on though, I doubt it was sociologically. I'm talking about the times before the real creation of human civilization. Our species would be very short lived indeed if hetrosexual sense was a disorder.

sorry, yeh that is exactly what i meant.

delta, you're arguing in extremes. i know there are eating disorders, but enjoying a bar of chocolate every now and then for the taste and nothing more... is not a disorder.

Yeah, I know. But you were talking about hetrosexuality as a DISorder. Thus that is how I approched your statement.

yeh i appoligise, i was misunderstood because i explained my point badly. psycholopher got the idea though and explained it rather better. :P

to add the the discussion a little too, i was wrong about my earlier comment of animals not displaying necrophilia. i looked it up to check it out.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-human_ani...ity#Necrophilia

Agreed. However, just because we survived does not mean that sex/reproduction represents some sort of "order" to humanity as a whole.

I have always understood order to be the norm, or normality. As we are not all dead/never concived, then hetrosexuality is the norm, or normal. Thus it does represent some form of "order."

that's exactly my point though, really... in ancient greek and roman times bisexuality was the norm.

Now that I understand your statement, okay, it makes more sense. I'm not sure I agree though. Factoring biological factors, no, I don't think its the case. And factoring in pyschological factors, then it would have had to be strong enough to change the actual pathways of thought over the years, because many many studies show that bisexuality (even repressed) is far from the norm today.

Order implies design, purpose, and/or logical arrangement. From an evolutionary perspective, nothing in humanity (or any of nature for that matter) is ordered--including sexuality.

Kinsey found that the majority of males in his study did not identify themselves as 100% heterosexual. He found that some sort of bisexual orientation (not practice) WAS in fact the norm. That study was done in the early 50s. I'd imagine that the liberalization of sexual attitudes since then would provide even more surprising results today. Do you have studies that show that bisexuality is far form the norm today?

I'm very familar with Kinsey's study. I'll find some of the studies, I was talking to Gen Sucide about them a few months back.

that's right it's much further from the norm than it was, or it's at least suppressed/repressed.

however, we see even in short terms how law can effect morals and "pathways of thought". for example... in the US the age of consent is 18 and someone might think it's immoral for say... a 25 year old to have sex with a 16 year old. in england the age of consent is 16 and so people would look on it differently. in italy it's 14 and people there might not blink an eye at it.

so if we see how laws can affect people's morals and thoughts and opinions, then why can't 2000 years of christianity be a strong enough factor to change "pathways of thought" on sexuality? it's at least worth considering.

Among animals
Necrophilia appears to be common in animals, with a number of confirmed observations. Kees Moeliker made one of these observations while he was sitting in his office at the Natuurmuseum Rotterdam, when he heard the distinctive thud of a bird hitting the glass facade of the building. Upon inspection, he discovered a drake mallard lying dead about two meters from the building. Next to the downed bird there was a second drake mallard standing close by. As he observed the odd couple, the living drake picked at the corpse of the dead one for a few minutes and then, without provocation, it mounted the corpse and began copulating with it. The act of dead rape lasted for about 75 minutes, in which time, according to Moeliker, the living drake took two short breaks before resuming with copulating behavior. Moeliker surmised that at the time of the collision with the window the two mallards were engaged in a common motif in duck behavior which is called rape flight. "When one died the other one just went for it and didn't get any negative feedback -- well, didn't get any feedback," according to Moeliker. This is the first recorded case of homosexual necrophilia in the Mallard duck.

Source: Guardian, Research News, 2/8/05, Donald MacLeod. "Necrophilia among ducks ruffles research feathers".

Ugh! I was hoping these weren't wild ducks but domesticated with personality disorders or something like that. I've learned too much. I find the world repulsive again!. >_<

This is probably a reach....

But instinctively, the mallard may have known it's mate was dead, but the act of breeding is more than lust, in that it may have been an impelling force to procreate in spite of it sensing death.

Or maybe it was just hoping for a reaction from it's mate when all other attempts failed. :) {Sorry it that was a bit tasteless, it's prolly just Rancer-esque}

....... Nope! Doesn't help. >_<

My only hope is that this is just a modern occurence. An impact of human intrusion on natural effect. A stress reaction to the modern world.


Disgusting!!!

Necrophilic homosexual rape. I mean..EEEEWWWWWWWWW!!!

I have been warped by this topic. No wonder people fear to tread it.

Maybe the surviving bird was the submissive in flight, acting in revenge?!!

Honestly though, how much can we compare ourselves to animals? You would get offended if someone compared you to a raping duck, wouldn't you? People claim animals show us a natural order. Since when have you heard of a female devouring her mate? We're not stupid animals. What's natural? Sex is for reproduction (not just pleasure). Breasts are to feed babies (not just for a mate's pleasure). We are born with a will to survive (not just to indulge ourselves in everything). Are we no better than Pavlov's drooling dogs?

We are animals, just on a certain level above dogs. We can look at what we came from (animals) and see how our natural order does compare to those. Its quite high, actually.

But I still stick to my points.

Well if that duck acted in revenge then we're less different from animals than we might think. It implies a sense of justice.

Why do I come back to this thread?

It's a fairly interesting topic because "disorder" is relative, and society is debating whether certain orientations are acceptable or not.

You know, this debate reminds me of "Moral" (or victimless) crimes. Some view them as lesser because there is no victim.

To some degree, but not completely. Typically speaking, post-traumatic stress disorder is recognized almost universally as a disorder. Same thing with something like schizophrenia. Those are disorders that across times and cultures are prevalent, recognized, and deviant.