Legislation for gay marriage is approved in the UK House of Commons!

[Violet]

WOWOWOWOWOW SO CLEVER. Not answering questions is great. So let me propose another, should straight people give and receive oral sex or masturbate each other at all?

Nope, there's only one way to have sex, and that's with penis and vagina. Missionary style.

[DeistPaladin]

I'm basing 'natural' and 'normal' in this instance on the physical anatomy. God / nature / evolution, your preference, did not equip our bodies for same gender sex.

I'll never forget the time I first realized I'd fallen in love with a man. In addition to being really cute, he and I hit it off well and bonded almost from the point we met. At first I was in denial about it, insisting we were just really close friends. A shrewdly observant other friend of mine noticed the signs before I acknowledged them. He was confused by it because he knew all my previous love interests and other pursuits to be female but I was exhibiting the same behavior toward this other man.

One of the signs that made me acknowledge what I was feeling was when we were at a restaurant together and this cute girl came up to him and struck up a conversation, flirting with him (I later learned he was oblivious). I felt a sudden surge of jealousy ("bitch"). I turned and walked away wondering "what the hell was that?" I wasn't jealous of him. I was jealous over him.

It took me months to come to terms with it and act on my feelings. I'd always thought I'd had a liberal view of homosexuality but a lot of programming from the 80s was hard to shake completely. Looking back, I can tell you that it's not my bisexuality that's unnatural. Indeed, the experience is completely the same on an emotional level. The only difference is the physical mechanics of the consummation (and even this is more a variation on a theme). It's the programming against it that is artificial.

Like many bisexuals, I didn't discover my versatility until later in life. Because, unlike with those who are gay, we are genuinely attracted to the opposite gender, we can easily direct all our sexual energy in that direction. Any time prior to him that I'd admired a man, I'd always told myself that's what I wanted to be. It's what I call the "lust into envy" formula.

Same gender affections is quite natural. It's homophobia that's an artificial construct.

I'm tempted to go into a dissertation on anal sex, oral sex and a thing called "frotting" but we're not in Area 69.

[A Theist]

[NoraBrimstone]

You're offering? No thanks. I'm afraid I'm going to have to turn you down.

WOWOWOWOWOW SO CLEVER. Not answering questions is great. So let me propose another, should straight people give and receive oral sex or masturbate each other at all?

He's obviously more of a sock guy.

[DeistPaladin]

If I'm understanding you correctly, you can easily enough resist your attraction to other men. But if you chose to be with another man, then wouldn't you say that would be a lifestyle choice for you instead?

You don't quite understand me correctly but I'll try to be as clear and concise as I can.

Bisexuality is, from my experience, often misunderstood by both gays and straights. It is not having two sex drives working at once. I have one sex drive and gender is negotiable. All things equal, I prefer females. Most bisexuals have a preference. Even the men I find "hot" are more the slender rather than the buff.

So perhaps you can see that it's not quite accurate to talk of "my attraction to men". It's more accurate to say I have a desire for sexual gratification, as everyone who is not asexual does, and I appreciate the potential beauty and sex appeal of both genders.

This is why it's not a contradiction that I classify my sexuality as "monogamous bisexual". I tend to only have one partner at a time but were something, God forbid so to speak, to happen to my wife, my next partner might be of either gender. Smart betting money would say female but who knows.

I still believe that they are a mental disorder that can be treated...

How fortunate for me that modern psychology relies of qualified and peer-reviewed opinions and not religious woo that forms yours.

You are welcome to your opinions that same gender affections are a mental illness but this is not an opinion shared by those who know what they're talking about.

By the way, WERE I to look at sexual orientation with the same prejudice you do (I don't but I'm making a shoe-on-the-other-foot point), I would say YOU and those who are either gay or straight have a mental illness. Specifically, I would call it a sort of partial color-blindness of sexuality. You poor thing! You can only appreciate the beauty of one gender. It's like people who can only see shades of red or shades of green. And how this must inhibit your life, since it restricts your choice of partner. How much happier I've decided for you that you might be if only. Perhaps if we could treat you like a second class citizen until we make you loathe yourself enough that you seek some kind of quackery treatment to "cure" you.

...or maybe we could live and let live, allowing each to pursue happiness as we choose at harm to no one else, and let professional psychologists decide what constitutes a mental illness.

[Tiberius]

[A Theist]

Ok, but my question was really in line with romantic relationships, rather than just friends. Do you accept that people can have romantic relationships which are not based on sex? Furthermore, would you support same-sex relationships that were strictly celibate, or would you still find them wrong / unnatural?

Regardless of celibacy, I would still find romantic relationships between same gender couples to be unnatural. I would also add that since natural physiology does not support same gender sex, I believe it's a lifestyle that people choose for themselves rather than being born gay or lesbian.

I imagine that it would have always been a cultural thing...A rational thinking culture would realize that gay / lesbian sex and relationships are unnatural and would rather legitimize the natural relationship between a man and a woman.

I'm not sure I understand your logic. If marriage is defined by culture, then rationality has nothing to do with it; it's purely democratic...how people feel at the time. It wouldn't matter if people found gay relationships unnatural, it would only matter if they thought that people who were gay deserved the right to marry each other. So I'm not sure how you can switch between saying marriage is defined by culture, and then say that it is somehow dependent on rationality. It seems to suggest that you actually think marriage is set in stone, and that if the culture redefined it, you would disagree. So I don't think you've really answered the question; who do you think marriage is defined by? That is to say, who could stand up and say "gay marriage is perfectly normal" and you would have no choice but to agree with them?

I mean that a rational thinking culture would consider that same gender sex and relationships are biologically unsound and unnatural and would not embrace it. I have to say that no one could convince me that gay relationships are normal. The physical anatomy just doesn't support it. I still believe it's a mental disorder.

But...from your answer in (3) you state that marriage is defined by culture. The culture at the time was that marriage was only between men and women of the same race. So, how can't interracial marriage be considered a perversion of real marriage in those terms?

The difference between interracial marriage and gay marriage is that our anatomies don't support same gender sex.

Again, I think this is confused by your answer in (3), which doesn't seem to accurately reflect your beliefs here. You claim culture defines marriage, but you consistently argue from a position which seems to place nature higher than culture.

I think that in some cases a culture would take its cue from nature.

***EDITED TO FIX QUOTE BOXES - DeistPaladin***

[DeistPaladin]

Regardless of celibacy, I would still find romantic relationships between same gender couples to be unnatural. I would also add that since natural physiology does not support same gender sex, I believe it's a lifestyle that people choose for themselves rather than being born gay or lesbian.

You are free to believe whatever woo and crackpottery you like but stop making definitive statements about nature, what physiology does or does not support, etc.

You are neither a biologist nor are you a medical doctor.

You are not qualified to make statements about what nature or physiology does or does not support.

In future, please preface all your ignorant and unfounded beliefs which are completely unsupported by and in contradiction of professional and scholarly opinion with the qualifier "I believe" without any justifying "since this or that is true".

[Violet]

[Dee Dee Ramone]

Ok, but my question was really in line with romantic relationships, rather than just friends. Do you accept that people can have romantic relationships which are not based on sex? Furthermore, would you support same-sex relationships that were strictly celibate, or would you still find them wrong / unnatural?

Regardless of celibacy, I would still find romantic relationships between same gender couples to be unnatural. I would also add that since natural physiology does not support same gender sex, I believe it's a lifestyle that people choose for themselves rather than being born gay or lesbian.

You talk about what is natural or not, well monogamy is hardly natural and marriage itselves is a cultural phenomenon.

You think it's a choice, a lifestyle, it's not. But okay, still...why oppose the 'lifestyle'?Does that lifestyle restrict your freedom in anyway?

The answer is no and yet you rely on the government to forbid people to do what they want. Sounds like Russia to me.