Post 30 – Posted 12/5/24
I would like to share self-reports from several gay men, beginning with Simon LeVay, a neurobiologist. Studying the hypothalamus, an area of the brain that maintains the body’s homeostasis, he compared the size of the “interstitial nucleus of the anterior hypothalamus” of deceased homosexual males, with those of males and females believed to have been heterosexual. He found this area to be smaller in the homosexuals than in the heterosexual males, it being more like the females’. His report was often taken to mean that biological causation had been irrefutably determined, although he refuted this, stating, “It is important to stress what I didn't find. I did not prove that homosexuality is genetic or find a genetic cause for being gay. I didn't show that gay men are born that way, the most common mistake people make in interpreting my work.” These differences could have been from birth or they could have developed later. There is a “biology of learning,” and thoughts and behavior can modify neural pathways and structures in the brain. LeVay acknowledged that differences in sexual orientation are also the product of non- genetic influences. Of his youth, he reported, “When I look back, I definitely see things that went along with being gay: not liking rough sports, preferring reading, being very close with my mother.” …Without further clarification, he stated, “I hated my father as long as I can remember.” It’s obvious that LeVay failed to find an identity-affirming embrace in the arms of his father. Alternately, he found male affection in the arms of a same-sex lover.
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Post 31 – Posted 12/6/24
British journalist, George Orwell, wrote: “In times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.” A time-honored principle is “The truth will make you free.” Truths don’t change or become antiquated over time, and there is nothing sinister about entertaining alternative views concerning what may contribute to the development of homosexuality. If new ideas can reduce the anguish of some men who would opt for other than same-sex sexuality, they should have that opportunity. The liberty of those who prefer same-sex sexuality and the gay lifestyle is not threatened. Why should some be so harshly critical in the face of alternative considerations? Psychiatrist, Ruth Tiffany Barnhouse wrote: “It is unquestionably time for society to stop oppressing homosexuals by abrogating their civil rights and labeling their behavior criminal. …But it is also time for homosexuals to stop shouting ‘Oppressor’ at anyone who dares to say that homosexuality is less than normal.” With conviction from a life long-lived in the gay world, author, Mark Thompson shared his well-informed truth: “Somewhere inside every gay man there's a wounded boy who stopped growing. Who simply gave up and shut down. He was not seen for who he really was, as pernicious an abuse as any devised. If he ever did reveal his shining inner self, it was humiliated, mocked, and scorned. And so, the boy took whatever of himself he could save and hid it, burying it in that twilight zone between knowing and not knowing.” SURELY, THE BEST WAYS OF MEETING THE NEEDS OF HOMOSEXUAL MEN HAVE YET TO BE DEFINED. WHEN THEY ARE, IT COULD BE A BLESSING FOR SAME-SEX ATTRACTED MEN AND HETEROSEXUALS ALIKE.
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