If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you. Oscar Wilde.
Hello, Sailors. Herein is part two of our current lesson on Homosexuality and You. Now pay attention class and you kids sniggering there in the back of the room better straighten up or you'll stay after school watching Brokeback Mountain in the A/V Lab with the Home Economics teacher Mr Filbert, who, as you all know, is fruitier than Carmen Miranda's headgear. We're going to have an adult, mature, reasonable, rational, logical discussion about men packing each others' luggage and about women drinking the nectar from each others' rose petals. There may or may not be a quiz later.
Now...in our last bloggage, we opined that homosexuality, as it makes no sense considering the agreed upon operating system of boy meets girl and therefore becoming fruitful and multiplying, must have some other rational explanation rather than the conservative religious right-wingnut view that gays and lesbians are all dirty degenerates. Even the whole "parents of children must be husband and mother" view does not hold water, as studies have shown. In fact, there is evidence that children raised by husband and husband or mother and mother are more well adjusted than children raised by what many consider to be the best (and only) option. And as I advised last episode, and as you yourself can observe, some men DO have valid romantic sexual attraction (even tho they can't engage in textbook sexual intercourse) for other men and some wimmin do have a burning desire to get under the undergarments of other wimmin. This Truth shouldn't exist as the real reason for romantic attraction is so people will mate with each other and therefore continue the species. Right?
And so we are left to ponder: What th' fudge is going on 'ere?!?!
Well, let's look at the logical reasons why a man would want (or need) to shack up with another man or why a woman would want to be bosom buddies (pun intended) with another member of that distaff race. While it is a sentimental idea that there is a woman out there for every man and vicey versy, unfortunately like many sentimental ideas, it is an idea that is several stupid shades of wrong. Most sources I culled info from give women the population advantage roughly 52 % to men's 48%. So no...there is not exactly seven brides for seven brothers here. If we tried to pair each woman to a man (of age of consent) then there would be a significant number of women in their prom dresses still sitting forlorn over there against the wall. What are we supposed to tell these females...get thee to a nunnery?
And then you factor in all the factors that go into men and women being attracted to each other in the "normal" sense and we can clearly see that...no...everybody is not destined to find somebody to love that is of the opposite gender. That's a nice thought, but it's rubbish. It's something you say to someone who is just this side of being better looking than John Merrick to make them still have hope. If you don't know who John Merrick is, google him, and remember, Google never forgets.
Grace Slick sang, "Don't you want somebody to love?" Why of course you do...and orgasms are part of reinforcing that relationship with your significant (or insignificant) other. When you shop for groceries...if they are out of the russet potatoes, you either go without...or you pick up a bag of yukon golds. So in terms of a person finding a soul, and bed, mate...hooking up with someone of the same gender makes sense, out of sheer necessity, which is not necessarily the biological mother of invention.
Now a conservative would say this is wrong, morally and ethically, not just biologically. Which is not a surprise. The term "conservative" itself describes someone who does not like change. They even fear it. There is NO change they can believe in. A leopard cannot change its spots...but a human apparently can change it's sexual orientation. And a leopard, in theory, can change into something else entirely.
Which brings up my next topic. Homosexuality as a choice...or as a new biological paradigm. (It does not need to be one or the other, we're employing complex, lateral thinking here.) In a previous blog I off-the-cuff suggested that homosexuals are mutants. Now heterosexual is a descriptive term, not very scientific. We as humans are homo sapiens. That's a Latin term, so we know science is involved here, the italics also help. That's a legitimate label. It means "wise or rational man." Why we still refer to Rush Limbaugh as belonging to homo sapiens, I'm not sure.
Now...in the Marvel Comics' X-Men comic books, movies, etc, mutants are these "people" who are born with superpowers or at least some pronounced difference to humanity. Stan Lee was a genius to create the concept of mutants as a way to explain a bunch of superpowered superheroes. I mean, high-school nerds can only be bitten by so many radioactive spiders or be genius enough to create armored super-suits or be born on another planet, etc. Not all of us can be expected to be "fortunate" enough to have our parents gunned down in front of us when we were nine years old and then spend the rest of our life scaring the fertilizer out of criminals. In those funny books, these mutants are referred to as homo superior, or "better than regular old generic man."
You may see where I am going with this, and I hinted at this last blog, so let's talk about the theory of evolution for a bit here. Evolution is a theory, not a law, although it explains a lot. Evolution does NOT prove the non existence of an intelligent designer. It is perfectly reasonable, atheists and literal-minded Xians, to entertain the possibility that instead of creating all the flora and fauna over a two-three day period and being content with the creation...that the intelligent designer has been fiddling around with creation over the eons. That creation is not a bronze sculpture, but an erector set and is mutable and changeable. The idea that an organism's DNA can mutate on purpose based on environmental factors takes as much faith as the intelligent designer idea. Of course the writers of the book of Genesis (which was not Moses, we've found that out) were retelling the myths and legends, the cultural traditions, of their people and these allegorical, metaphorical stories about woman being created from Adam's rib and Noah's flood and all that stuff was never meant to be taken literally. Creationism is like someone going around trying to dig up Paul Bunyan's skeleton.
But we do know that DNA does mutate. You're mutating as you read this. Don't get squigged out on me. The usual mutations to DNA are so subtle as it continually unknits and puts itself back together that they don't make, usually, any impact upon your genes. But sometimes they do. And it is reasonable to entertain the possibility (remember, we're building a mystery here...not trying to carve this in adamantium) that some mutations resulted in a dominant species that was better at adapting to it's circumstances than its ancestor species was and we now have only the dominant species or at least breed of a certain animal. WE are the result of the Neanderthals being nearly wiped out by Cro-magnons, but both types of pre-humans are mutations from the common ancestors, those damn, dirty apes.
I say nearly wiped out, because we still have Neanderthals. They're somewhere making their "Obama = Hitler" signs right now. But in theory, one type of organism wins out over the other similar type of organism and the "best man wins." And that's why we now have koalas, ferrets, narwhals, pygmy marmosets and a few straggling republicans that are on their way to extinction, as they are unable to adapt to a changing world. The word "Dodos" comes to mind.
And the need for a species to adapt to their environment may be why we have homosexuals. Or...shall we say homo sexualis, "naughty men," instead? Seriously folks...maybe "humans who are able to adapt their sexual orientation" is a new mutation and we are evolving to be able to adapt our sexual orientation at will, although the biological status quo suggests it should be impossible? Homo sexualis would be the best of both worlds, yes? Everybody would be able to enjoy a partnership with a sexual partner, redefining what sexual intercourse is, and still be able to mate with someone of the opposite sex for the purpose of procreation, if/when necessary. Is it, f'rinstance, due to the seemingly current overpopulation of the planet, that we are adapting to become sexually fulfilled while not having the desire to procreate, because there's just too damn many of us? Are homosexuals firing blanks because our survival is threatened? Is this a sign that we should become vegetable and subtract, rather than be fruitful and multiply, because we are trying to seat twelve when this table only serves eight?
Also, think about this: when's the last time you met a stupid homosexual? These people, consistently, are the most creative, inventive and frankly with it people alive today. TV, movies and all the other media are saturated with gays and lesbians. These people are, at best, only 20% of the world's population, yet their impact on the world is immense. Face it...these people ARE better than homo sapiens in many ways. And when you plug in there the folks who are bi-sexual (having your cupcakes and eating them, too) and transgenderism and all the other 31 flavors of sexual orientation you don't get a much higher percentage. Also, think of this: surely the number of homosexuals in the world is not consistent going back in history. I mean, the percentage of us who are going gay appears to be growing. We may be one day referring to heterosexuals as the ones coming out of the closet instead.
Oh yes, we've had historically going back thousands of years evidence of folks batting for the other team, but there is also evidence that, f'rinstance, Spartan warriors having sex with other male warriors was part of a martial (not marital) bonding process, especially when a superior would command a new recruit to grab his ankles, and may be part of a cultural phenomenon rather than just two males telling each other that they "complete" each other. We also have the example of an older male in Greece taking a younger male as his student/pupil and then pleasuring each other due to their bond. Oscar Wilde used this example to defend his lifestyle, the people in charge didn't buy it, and they sentenced him to hard labor for two years. His humorous sayings couldn't save him because the establishment were even more serious about maintaining the status quo. The conservatives made an example of him. We haven't come a long way, baby.
No, I am convinced that the number of homosexuals in the world is growing. And whether it is a conscious decision or it's how you were made, it shows a genetic adaptability that reveals that we as humans may well be the paragon of animals, even if dolphins may be wiser than us. And I say that making it a "lifestyle choice" and being born gay can be equated because being able to choose homosexuality means you are able to override the Law o' the Birds 'n' the Bees. Which we may have to rewrite to be the Law of the Birds and the Bees and also the Birds.
So, love the one you're with, even if they look anatomically similar to yourself. There's not only no shame in this...but you should be blowing raspberries at the folks still doing it the old-fashioned way. This is why, if I am having a meal with some of you homosexuals and I appear uncomfortable, it is not because I am homophobic, it is because I am in AWE of you, much the way I gape and stare at sharks in an aquarium or a white tiger at the zoo.
Selah
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