I also think it's hot when two dudes kiss, but only if both of them are straight.
woah. that's like some a the same paradoxal stuff that I find in my experience.
Brains, though - that's my major turn-on. If a person is smart and also funny, he need not even be corporeal: I have had many a crush on members of this board because they make me laugh and think in equal measure.
No way! Okay, check this out. Is this guy attractive to you?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbMMe8PS9tUsame montage, this time in Andy Warhol Marilyn Monroe colour schemeSince this original thread is about homosexuality, the question is, is there an evolutionary advantage? It would seem there is one since, by its very definition, homosexuality would have bred itself out if it weren't tied to something else.
Careful... If homosexuality expresses it's self as a side-effect of some other trait being expressed, this doesn't automatically mean that there is any evolutionary advantage whatsoever to homosexuality. There might be an advantage to the other 'sibling' or 'linked' trait, but it's still a different trait or group of traits entirely. I don't fault you for running with this idea which is peddled by evolutionary biology, but the theory of evolution, especially as it gets reduced down to the lay person's level, has issues. Biology is at least one order of magnitude more complex than this theory accounts for. I won't expound on that except I'll say that it's short sighted to assume that there's a reduced chance of homosexuals procreating. That really needs to be quantified. In so many, if not all cultures, to some degree or other, procreation is not 100% linked to sexual attraction. Marriage and kids serve all sorts of functions in different cultures, and people get married and have kids for all sorts of reasons. To say that in a given culture, much less all cultures, that homosexuals are less likely to procreate... that really needs to be quantified... Even in cultures where homosexuality is an accepted thing in some way or other, (for instance I recall something about this in some native American tribe or other) and where there are non-procreating roles and unions for homosexuals, you're still gonna find some (many? most?) homosexuals who stick to the traditional roles and who procreate. If we're gonna define a homosexual as someone who eschews cultural norms about marriage and does not get married or does not procreate, then what we're talking about measuring is some sort of end result of a very complex process, only part of which is biological, in which case it's really ridiculous to talk about evolutionary advantage in a strictly biological sense... If you're gonna talk about evolutionary advantage, you have to do so in the concurrent contexts of biological evolution and cultural evolution... these are two different environments... there is some overlap between the mechanisms in these, in that expression of DNA (which it's self is highly affected by environment) can and does ultimately affect how the brain processes information (culture,) but I would say that these two *concurrent* evolutionary mechanisms are more different than similar (ideas evolving in cultural environments vs. genes evolving in biological environments.) Further, homosexuality may be a single end result which can be arrived at via any one of many different combination of traits, some of those combinations involving biological traits, some not.
disclaimer: I have no idea what my point is any more at this point, so I may contradict it in the following:
Um.. so anyway, my guess is that homosexuals are like, just kinda a normal variation on the spectrum... on one end you have super feminine or super masculine, and on the other end, super butch or super twink. If we didn't have diversity on the spectrum, then, the whole spectrum would red or blue shift one direction or the other, and get all lopsided.
Since this original thread is about homosexuality, the question is, is there an evolutionary advantage? It would seem there is one since, by its very definition, homosexuality would have bred itself out if it weren't tied to something else.
okay... it might be tied to *everything* else, or at least, a whole plethora of other traits.
So... I guess, we could say that homosexuality is simply any location on the spectrum that's left of center. And I guess, you could be left of center in some of your traits and right of center in other of your traits.
The person who's smack dab in the middle, who has the least amount of statistical variation in all of it's traits... that's got to be a boring person. Give me someone who is three standard deviations away from center, on both ends of the spectrum simultaneously. And a goat. Now that's cookin' with fire!
Rawrrrr!