Sexuality and all forms of contact and communication play roles in animal (including human) culture as important to survival as reproduction. Bonobos are fascinating examples of how we primates are inherently social and exhibit complex, rich behavior, that has allowed us to survive. I’m not proposing that we model human behavior or morality on animals. But neither should we ignore the significant connections and parallels. One point was that calling homosexuality and other putatively “immoral” behaviors “unnatural” is absolutely fallacious. To the contrary, when we actually study nature, rather than imagine it the way we please, it appears it’s quite natural to primates, like breast-feeding.

Another point was for tolerance – acceptance even – from religions for something that seems to be natural, ‘normal’ from a biological standpoint. What if we decided eating, sleeping, going to the toilet was unnatural, immoral, ugly, intolerable? Let’s make room for who we really are, insofar as it doesn’t hurt anyone. What reason can the gods, who we’ve created in our collective minds, really give for why 2 men or women can’t love each other, given that it hurts really no one? Give me a better reason than “because my book/god says so”. Killing, war, hierarchy, aggression…fine, let’s try to rise above our apparently somewhat natural tendencies or animal nature. But why repress love? People will still have plenty of children, so that’s a red herring. Life will still go on, but there will be one less group for us to hate, oppress and deny happiness to.

I’d like to look down less on religion, but it seems to have brought so many problems to humans. Not all religious people are violent, intolerant, hateful and war-like, but nearly all wars, hatred, intolerance, and violence in history is justified through religion, which has played along, if not led the way. I’m trying to learn more about religion, but it seems to provide support for quite a lot of irrationality, precisely because it’s a matter of belief – in that which can’t be printed or held – and not reason.

ok, done.

What I was laying out here is a basic theory or philosophical position, without much detail. As I stated, I am basing it upon Qur’anic concepts, and not scientific research. But science also yields only raw data that must be interpreted, and nobody has held an “orientation” in their hand or printed an image of it, so for me to be convinced it exists (or is worth anything as a concept), philosophical work is required.

My main intent with this blog is to defend the Islamic position (and not necessarily the views of certain Muslims, however esteemed or otherwise knowledgeable). I can largely leave the other stuff to other folks.

Islam does not teach that sex is ONLY for reproduction, but clearly that is its main purpose. How can a rational mind conclude otherwise? Are you going to tell me that “science” says otherwise? But tell me what benefit a sperm has if it’s going to go up a colonic passage. Sorry to be crude, but it’s a serious question.

I don’t know much about animal antics, but here again is a religio-philosophical question: to what extent should we model our behaviour (or morality!) on other species? You didn’t quite make clear whether you think homosexuality in humans exists to limit reproduction. If so, why homosexuality and not (simpler) asexuality (and what implication does this have for people’s chosen actions)?

About “aberration” – no doubt, it is a contentious choice of word, but I used it to mean a phenomenon that requires an explanation, as opposed to one inherent to the design of the human. The quoted definition about “disorder” approximates to this, but I’m sure you realise that no dictionary is perfect! I won’t get into the debate right now about “medical…consensus”, but in brief I would reiterate that it is a philosophical position and not based solely on empirical research.

I think this debate requires serious scientific research, but what I was sketching was a religious view. I see you’re not particularly interested in that, and seem to look down on it, but it has a significance to me and many others. And that’s my speciality. I have (some) scientific training too, and certainly am interested in the intersection of methodologies. But surely I can’t go into everything at once!

I’m not terribly interested in your feelings about me, but whether I confirm or deny your theory, I presume your assumption will be the same. And this very answer can be taken in the way you want. One writer here says he has SSA. Another says he doesn’t. And a third chooses to be vague because it’s more fun!

I think your latter points might make more sense in the context of other posts, so feel free to share more feedback as you feel like. Maybe shorter comments will be easier to engage with though…

Your view of what you call SSA as an aberration from nature isn’t scientifically defensible, at all. And when we’re talking nature, we’re talking science, not belief. It seems like the view is based on the erroneous assumption (common to some religions, e.g. “be fruitful and multiply”) that sex is purely employed by nature for reproduction. Reproduction – good, sex for anything else – bad. A god that worries that humans aren’t reproducing enough is a blind god, indeed.

What could be termed homosexuality appears in various species throughout nature. Our genetically closest living relatives – chimps and bonobo – are quite pan-sexual. It is, therefore, no surprise that we are too. Homosexuality/SSA seems to be *universal* in some form to all human societies. So, the view that its an aberration from nature, human or more broadly, couldn’t be further from the truth. In some species (e.g. mice), homosexuality seems possibly to be triggered or encouraged by conditions of overpopulation. That might make sense, no? Nature can’t sustain – doesn’t “want” – limitless reproduction and finds ways to fit populations to their environment and available resources.

Why, then, isn’t everyone gay, if it’s not unnatural? Why doesn’t everyone look or act the same, congenitally? Why are some people very talkative, others quite shy, seemingly from temperament at birth? In a population, there’s distribution curves of certain characteristics. Having features which a minority have doesn’t make an individual aberrant; it may be perfectly *normal* as part of the distribution within a population. Sometimes, a majority feature or homogeneity may be maladaptive and create a disadvantage for survival. There is no evidence that nature designed us to be homogeneously heterosexual, and quite a bit of evidence to the contrary.

from Webster’s:
Main Entry: ab·er·ra·tion
Pronunciation: “a-b&-’rA-sh&n
Function: noun
Etymology: Latin aberrare
1 : the fact or an instance of being aberrant especially from a moral standard or normal state
2 : failure of a mirror, refracting surface, or lens to produce exact point-to-point correspondence between an object and its image
3 : unsoundness or disorder of the mind
4 : a small periodic change of apparent position in celestial bodies due to the combined effect of the motion of light and the motion of the observer
5 : an aberrant individual

You’ll notice, aberrant isn’t a biological term. Having to do with humans (#1, #3), it’s a moral term, and thus relative and totally dependent on cultural belief. The ‘disorder of the mind’ definition, in terms of homosexuality, hasn’t been scientifically sustainable and isn’t accepted anymore by the medical/therapeutic community consensus.

I get the feeling you’re a person that experiences SSA and feels some shame, assumably due to your upbringing. Hence your mentioned discomfort with the ideas of “gay” identities, orientations, and gay communities. You don’t feel good about what you find inside yourself, so you project that self-dislike to others outside you. You’re right that some of these constructs stem from political reality and necessity, as well as history. They are constructs, not absolute realities. I get the sense that you take for granted, in your ability to identify as SSA, the hard-won rights and opportunities for which, frankly, you owe thanks to the gay rights movement. You seem quite dismissive of people you really ought to respect and appreciate, since their struggle and sacrifice allowed your perspective to emerge and be heard.

That said, your perspective is interesting. And I do agree whole-heartedly that people shouldn’t be forced into boxes. But I think you’re directing your blame for this, ultimately, the wrong direction. People haven’t been put in boxes by the gay rights movement so much as they find themselves put in boxes by society and hegemony. Simply pretending you aren’t in a box doesn’t liberate you from it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT#Controversy

>Don't let the fundamentalists drive a wedge between
>trans Muslims and other queer Muslims. Even those of
>us who are heterosexual ought to be straight allies
>for lesbian, gay, and bi Muslims who often have to
>struggle for survival and live in danger of death.
>Especially in Iraq these days, where the
>fundamentalists taking over the country, what's left
>of it, are drawing up lists of gay Iraqis and
>methodically assassinating them. Trans Muslims, beware
>of being used to persecute your homo brothers and
>sisters.
…
>Work for queer liberation in Islam. For ALL queers.
>
>In solidarity,
>Sister Janna

You might wonder what is meant by "being used" so here's a bit of what was written beforehand…

>As we discussed in some depth here last month, beware
>of Islamists that allow transsexual transition. They
>are suspected of using transgender for ulterior
>purposes, namely to crush homosexuality. They imagine
>by taking a lesbian and making her a man, or taking a
>gay guy and making him a woman, the "problem" of
>same-sex orientation will be "solved."
>
>A red flag should go up in a tranny's mind seeing
>that, an alarm should go off. Remember the Benjamin
>Standards of Care? The conservative Islamist anti-gay
>approach to transgender is a total violation of those
>standards. What a tragedy it would be for a gay man to
>be pushed into genital modification surgery only to
>realize later he's really a man after all. Expect a
>rash of suicides if this happens much. The BSOC were
>instituted to prevent such tragedies based on a
>misunderstanding of transsexualism and gender
>identity.

So really there can be an overlap of issues, but it does seem that political strategy plays a big role in the idea of GLBT.