The Gay "Germ" Hypothesis

[Z...]

Same-sex attraction is the result of arranged marriages? I think this guy is just trolling for grant money. He dedicated another paper to the theory that the evolutionary origins of lesbianism is men being sexually excited by women sleeping with other women, but only when it's just about a fling for all involved.

The evolution of female same-sex attraction: The male choice hypothesis

Prevalence studies indicate that about one in five women experience some degree of same-sex attraction. The evolutionary origins of such attraction ar…

www.sciencedirect.com

Sure.
Rather then anything else my point is that same sex attraction doesn’t seem to have happened with adoption of agriculture or pastoralism and that seems to be basic premise of this germ hypothesis.
Using the same shtick we could also theorise that zoophilia especially men having sex with sheep which seems to be pretty common across the globe in pastoral cultures is a result of viral infection. However I can think of far more plausible explanation In other words I am not convinced.
My observation is that human sexuality is generally pretty fluid and there are just different gradation on the scale of this part of human experience.

 

[JGeropoulas]

Yes, this is true. I don't think that homosexuals are actually thinking about others at all when they fail to realize that heterosexual people have something like an instinctive aversion to such differences. They aren't thinking about their own advantages, either, when they try to force acknowledgement of their lifestyle. That "forcing" only engenders deep revulsion that may be kept under wraps for a time, but will eventually explode outward with possibly dire consequences.

I don't see a good outcome for the way these issues are being handled in the present time. It's one thing to be homosexual and private about it; something else to demand that this part of the self take center stage. Most heterosexual people do not make an issue of their sexual preferences; it's private, and the overt declarations of gays that "I'm gay! You must embrace me and my lifestyle or you are a bad person" is the direct wrong way to go about this.

I agree but the assertion of a gay identity was a needed counter-reaction to social and legal prohibitions which had been shaming and oppressive. But as with other social liberation movements, such transitional, confrontive attitudes served an important purpose, but are not helpful as ongoing, permanent attitudes because they're obnoxious and disruptive by nature. Many gay people have never identified at all with the "gay movement", "gay lifestyle" or "gay culture", or at least they've ceased to after settling into their true identity and mature relationships. Judging all gays based on stereotypical media images/sound bites is equivalent to judging all heterosexuals based on stereotypical teenage antics and excesses. The perpetuation of the victimhood aspect of legitimate movements (i.e. gays, blacks, women) is likely what the CIA efforts have focused on to promote social divisions and prevent productive integration of those movements into a healthier society.

 

[JGeropoulas]

In our modern world with its great availability and variety of personal social interactions, this is certainly something to be considered. If a heterosexual male spent enough time with gay male friends, I would not be surprised if they succumbed to overt and implicit encouragement to 'dabble'.

One could argue that this would only happen to bisexuals or closeted gays. This "curiosity" principle parallels, though differs from, the "fear" principle that leads to many gay people, after spending a lifetime with heterosexual culture, to "succumb to overt and implicit encouragement" to "outgrow" their homosexual "phase" and settle down, marry and have children. Peer pressure, curiosity, cultural conformity and fear are definitely forces to be reckoned with.

 

[Approaching Infinity]

Agreed. The inherent "aversion" would be for an overt display of an "abnormal" behavior, AND in todays' society, the blattant and forceful normalization of such. It is hard to imagine an instinctual avertion to a human being without knowing his or her sexual orientation (there could be an aversion, but perhaps linked to other factors, an association with someone toxic, an instinctual defense mechanism, etc.) The "aversion" comes when there is a feeling of being forced to accept something as "normal and cool", different from what it really is, IMO. In the example you gave (and I would have some of my own which are very similar), that's the case, I think.

I wonder if anything can be gleaned from other aversions people have that seem to be natural. I'm thinking of people with deformities and noticeable diseases. You just have to observe young children (and even adults) to see how common it is for people avoid, taunt, and be disgusted by people with noticeable deformities, whether congenital or acquired. As a personal example, when I was young, perhaps 8 years old, I was at an outdoor pizza restaurant. The smell of melted cheese was quite strong. I then noticed another young boy who had what looked to be severe third-degree burn scars on all his exposed skin (face, head, arms). I remember feeling immediately disgusted, and for some time afterward the smell of that kind of cheese made me nauseous - the link between the cheese texture and his scar tissue was etched into my mind. At the same time, I felt guilty for reacting in such a way. I was never one to make fun of kids with noticeable differences like that (Down's Syndrome, birth defects, etc.), but the disgust was a totally automatic reaction. And I had always noticed the behavior of other kids and adults towards people like that: the shocked, horrified looks on the faces of adults, grabbing their kids to bring them closer and out of the way of deformed person, the taunts and teases of the other kids, etc.

Just found this paper. It too is evolutionary, but it may have some basic facts to work with:

Disgust as an adaptive system for disease avoidance behaviour - PMC

Disgust is an evolved psychological system for protecting organisms from infection through disease avoidant behaviour. This ‘behavioural immune system’, present in a diverse array of species, exhibits universal features that orchestrate hygienic ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

ABSTRACT

Disgust is an evolved psychological system for protecting organisms from infection through disease avoidant behaviour. This ‘behavioural immune system’, present in a diverse array of species, exhibits universal features that orchestrate hygienic behaviour in response to cues of risk of contact with pathogens. However, disgust is also a dynamic adaptive system. Individuals show variation in pathogen avoidance associated with psychological traits like having a neurotic personality, as well as a consequence of being in certain physiological states such as pregnancy or infancy. Three specialized learning mechanisms modify the disgust response: the Garcia effect, evaluative conditioning and the law of contagion. Hygiene behaviour is influenced at the group level through social learning heuristics such as ‘copy the frequent’. Finally, group hygiene is extended symbolically to cultural rules about purity and pollution, which create social separations and are enforced as manners. Cooperative hygiene endeavours such as sanitation also reduce pathogen prevalence. Our model allows us to integrate perspectives from psychology, ecology and cultural evolution with those of epidemiology and anthropology. Understanding the nature of disease avoidance psychology at all levels of human organization can inform the design of programmes to improve public health.
...
2. THE UNIVERSALITY OF DISGUST
Disgust is a fundamental part of human nature. Darwin was the first to propose that disgust is expressed universally [14] and many studies since then have supported this proposal [15,16]. Though there has been no systematic cross-cultural survey of the objects and events that elicit disgust in humans, the available data suggest that there is a universal set of disgust cues. These include bodily wastes, body contents, sick, deformed, dead or unhygienic people, some sexual behaviour, dirty environments, certain foods—especially if spoiled or unfamiliar—and certain animals [11,17,18]. Objects that have contacted any of the above can also become disgusting. Further, certain types of immoral acts are widely described as disgusting. Contact with disgust elicitors, real or imagined, is associated with (i) a characteristic facial expression that is recognizable across cultures [16,19], (ii) behaviour patterns that include withdrawal, distancing, stopping or dropping the object of disgust and shuddering [20,21], (iii) physiological changes including lowered blood pressure and galvanic skin response, recruitment of serotonin pathways, increased immune strength [22,23], and (iv) reports of negative affect including nausea.

 

[Renaissance]

I think back to what Lobaczewski said about there being instinctive aversions to DIFFERENCES.

Now, why would that be hard-wired into human beings? Obviously, the most dangerous of predators to the human is the psychopath and they usually are so LIKE us (via their mask) that there is no instinctive warning.

Since we know that evolution of species is bunkum, we still have something of a puzzle here and a germ theory can certainly be in the running as an explanation for some homosexuality. Though I still don't really get the aversion.

Perhaps our sexual center powers something very similar to a magnet, which would drive both attraction and repulsion. In this way it could be more of an electromagnetic repulsion that is often interpreted through emotional or cognitive lenses.

 

[Cyre2067]

What has that got to do with humans and their higher brains? And how many gay animals are there relative to the numbers in entire animal kingdom?

Like with humans, it's a small percentage of species that actually engage in 'homosexual' behavior. I use single quotes because the behaviors are apparent and manifestations varied. That article gives some examples, birds that will mate with same-sex partners but also may later mate with an opposite-sex partner... a beetle that deposits sperm on another male after copulation, but this may be to hijack the carrier's chances of successful reproduction with the depositer's gametes - who knows.

There could be pathogens that are mimicking the process in animals, in fact, if the hypothesis is true this is what we'd expect. But folks have looked at all these behaviors in terms of evolution and adaptation rather than look for pathogens informing the process.

In our modern world with its great availability and variety of personal social interactions, this is certainly something to be considered. If a heterosexual male spent enough time with gay male friends, I would not be surprised if they succumbed to overt and implicit encouragement to 'dabble'.

In an exclusively male environment, like in prisons, for example, many men do 'dabble.' That can be explained by a variety of factors without resorting to a pathogen being passed around the group. Female sexuality is also much more plastic than male. My own experience of homosexuality is more like a very strong preference for the male of the species with an occasional preference for a female. The way I've described this previously is that I'm attracted to maybe 1 out of 10 guys I pass on the street, whereas it's more like 1 out of 1000 women. What seems to be true is that more men are gay or straight than bisexual whereas women are more open to experimenting with homosexuality, especially if there's a trauma or ideological bend in that direction.

Another point I've not seen brought up is that the infection must occur early and gay adults might not be the reservoir for the pathogen. I wasn't exposed to gay men at all in my youth, to my knowledge, quite the contrary. As a kid, my adult point of contact was generally my mom, or teacher, or mom of a friend and from K-6th those folks were exclusively heterosexual and more often than not, women. If it's a bug, it may be something common that has a specific effect on individuals, and/or something naturally occurring in the human microbiome.

The impetus for Cochran seems to be the rationalization of homophobia. We don't need much more than in-group bias to explain that. I'm also noticing a lot of conflation of homophobia with traditionally prudish views on sex and sexuality. It's one thing to have a natural aversion to orgiastic expressions of the LBGTQIAK+ rainbow which include such things as 'drag kids' or public sexual exhibitions at street fairs and parades - and quite another to be like homosexuality itself is fine as long as people don't talk about it in my presence. Those aren't the same things, imho.

 

[Laura]

The impetus for Cochran seems to be the rationalization of homophobia. We don't need much more than in-group bias to explain that. I'm also noticing a lot of conflation of homophobia with traditionally prudish views on sex and sexuality. It's one thing to have a natural aversion to orgiastic expressions of the LBGTQIAK+ rainbow which include such things as 'drag kids' or public sexual exhibitions at street fairs and parades - and quite another to be like homosexuality itself is fine as long as people don't talk about it in my presence. Those aren't the same things, imho.

Both good points. I don't even know if I would call those views "traditionally prudish." From my perspective, it's exactly what Adaryn wrote:

Re: the aversion thing. Well, unless we're talking platonic love (which must be even rarer in homosexual circles than in heterosexual ones), the sexual practice itself is objectively brutal, repellent and unnatural, yes? <snip>

Personally, I couldn't care less about other people's sexuality and what they do privately, so long as the free will of all involved parties is respected, and as long as I don't see it (doesn't matter if they're homo or hetero, I just don't want to see it or hear about it). What makes me cringe is the proselytism, propaganda and people flaunting their homo/bi/tri/whateversexuality in everybody's face.

How about that just being respect of a person's privacy?

 

[Scottie]

My observation is that human sexuality is generally pretty fluid and there are just different gradation on the scale of this part of human experience.

My own experience of homosexuality is more like a very strong preference for the male of the species with an occasional preference for a female.

Those are both pretty interesting statements to me, because as a hetero male, I'm 1000% certain that there is no fluidity in my sexuality. I have had "opportunities" in other directions, and I had no desire to "dabble". I like women... like, A LOT.

Having said that, I don't really care what floats other people's boats. Who people love and what they do in their private lives is their own business - although I would definitely draw the line at pedophilia, so that's not exactly a hard and fast rule that ignores every single detail.

Well, put more simply, I don't care if someone is gay. We have a number of gay group members, and they are all generally good and interesting and intelligent people who struggle with the same stuff that everyone else struggles with.

Frankly, I was a bit underwhelmed by this theory. It's interesting as a hypothesis, for sure. Whether or not it's true is another question entirely. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if certain beloved "Bad Guy Intelligent Designers" decided to muck around with us to create a maximum amount of negative energy to hoover up. Considering current social/cultural mayhem alone, that seems pretty likely.

But then that's nothing new. I think the C's have indicated that viruses and that sort of thing have been used to tinker with us, probably for a whole variety of reasons.

Ultimately, I can only say: Well, whatever! I still have my crap to deal with, and I'm gonna carry on dealing with it - whatever its source. And everyone else can do the same. The more we work on ourselves, the less we are defined by genetics, social nonsense, and so on... and the more opportunity we have to become something greater than the sum of our parts, no matter who designed them.

 

[bianca etezete]

Just some loose thoughts...
Beforehand: I realized that it is not so easy for me to express this, I am german and, well, you know, with the backcloth of National Socialist Germany and WWII we have some special kind of guilt cult surrounding all Nazi Germany Past Themes here for some time and it is getting worse now (or at least it seems to be so for me).

To say it loud and clear: I do not have anything against gays or lesbians, I do not think that homosexuals are worth less or whatever nonsense, I have gay and lesbian friends and it (their homosexuality) simply is never the topic of any conversation. It just doesn‘t matter at all.

But in my mind „gay germ theory“ translates to disease. I know that this may sound harsh and nasty to someone gay but it is not meant to sound like that. Disease is not something you acquire purposely, on a concious level. And as someone who was struggling out of being infested with pathogenes in several organs for the last seven to eight years and who is finally healing well and going back to former „normal“ (health-wise, not awareness-wise) condition, I can definitely say, that those germs that almost ruined my stomach, small intestine and adrenals DID change me. My whole behaviour, and by that I do not only mean depression. In a nutshell: The more I got infested, the more my personality changed to something really explosive, mood-wise.

Now that I am almost fully healed (the proof pudding is still being eaten, so to say, it is a month now that I finally got rid of my health consuming germs, and all seems well up to now) and in the word healing I include the gathering of knowledge on the way aswell, I can definitely say that I felt somehow pilot-operated and therefore I am inclined to give the gay germ theory a possibilty.

I remember that someone said years ago that homosexuality IS a disease, but he meant a mental disease/disorder and I also remember to have discarded his theory at once, nonsense.

But now, with all the gender gaga going wild in the open and everything, I wonder whether it might be both together: the germs AND the propaganda, e.g. for „pansexual“ being the new hot thing now – according to Miley Cyrus and others who influence the youth. Maybe the whole gender propaganda is some kind „MK Ultra going public“ program; the germs pathing the way to being perceptible to that sexual orientation and the propaganda is for „guiding“ you through the „transition“ from hetero- to homosexual).

Well, after thinking about it, that theory works with peeps who „discover“ their homosexuality as more or less adults or at least youths. But what about the little children? I have a friend whose son is gay (he is 28 now), and she told me that she could tell for certain when he was a baby, a toddler of almost three years! She kept her thought secret, and waited how he developed, and then at the age of eight years EVERYBODY around that child knew it. She said, maybe even her son knew it at that time. And nobody, not even him, talked about it at that time, so he was not exposed to pro gay propaganda at all. Hmm. So the germs alone can do this by themselves?

There is a motionpic that jumps up in my mind, it is from a at least 20 year old documentary about wildlife, can't remember the title, but it is well known - at least here in Germany. In that documentary there is a certain parasite portrayed, don't remember which, and it infests snails in a very bizarre way. It wanders to one of the snails eyes (you know those teleskopic head extentions) and makes the eye behave super eye catching, no pun intended, because the eye starts to pulsate very in your face style and so it attracts certain birds who will eat the snail and be the final host of the parasite. Goal reached. How cheeky is that? THAT is a way of getting what you want.

I hope this not noise, thanks for the truly inspiring discussion so far.

 

[Jones]

As a personal example, when I was young, perhaps 8 years old, I was at an outdoor pizza restaurant. The smell of melted cheese was quite strong. I then noticed another young boy who had what looked to be severe third-degree burn scars on all his exposed skin (face, head, arms). I remember feeling immediately disgusted, and for some time afterward the smell of that kind of cheese made me nauseous - the link between the cheese texture and his scar tissue was etched into my mind. At the same time, I felt guilty for reacting in such a way. I was never one to make fun of kids with noticeable differences like that (Down's Syndrome, birth defects, etc.), but the disgust was a totally automatic reaction. And I had always noticed the behavior of other kids and adults towards people like that: the shocked, horrified looks on the faces of adults, grabbing their kids to bring them closer and out of the way of deformed person, the taunts and teases of the other kids, etc.

I have a similar experience - probably around 10yo. A girl that I went to school with had been badly burnt on the face, chest arms and hands by a kerosene lantern that she lifted down of a shelf and dropped on herself. In those days my lunch of choice was Vegemite sandwiches and I liked Vegemite spread thickly. I sat with the girl and a few others at lunch time. I felt aversion to her scarring and her hands hadn't been fixed yet as the joints were fused and fingers claw like. I gave her one of my sandwiches one day and the thick Vegemite oozed out on to her hand and she was licking it off. Afterwards she used to also bring Vegemite sandwiches. For a while I after I couldn't stomach Vegemite - I'd associated it with my aversion to her scarring.

I wonder if burn scarring mimics the presentation of some contagious disease and the aversion is an instinctive or genetic memory in the same way that we can stop and prop at a stick on the ground from instinctive or genetic memory of snakes?

Back to homosexuality - I think promiscuity drives the extreme acting out that is disrespectful of the comfort of others. The more acting out, the more promiscuous the individual because extreme acting out is an availability signal. And if thats the case and the germ theory is correct, is it that the promiscuous and those that are acting out are more likely to be those that are infected?

I see the extreme acting out and garish outfits and make up as a power play, along the lines of the C's quote mentioning that it's about power rather than sex. An attitude of 'this is who I am and this is what I'm doing without any regard or sensitivity at all of how that might impact others' is in itself an aversive to those who yearn for a mentally, emotionally and physically healthy society. In the terms of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People it's a win/lose strategy rather than a win/win and an uncooperative game in the terms of economic game theory. In that respect, I guess there are also lies, coalitions and ultimately 'so long sucker' moves.

I'm also reminded of the paper on The Role of Play in Hunter Gatherer Societies where there's a report about 'pride' and how a hunter was not allowed to develop too much pride because it was recognised that:

“When a young man kills much meat, he comes to think of himself as a big man, and he thinks of the rest of us as his inferiors. We can’t accept this. We refuse one who boasts, for someday his pride will make him kill somebody. So we always speak of his meat as worthless. In this way we cool his heart and make him gentle.”

So, I reckon what we're seeing today in the LGBT community is too much pride!

So the germs alone can do this by themselves?

I think the basic message is that germs may account for some examples or a certain percentage of homosexuality.

 

[bianca etezete]

I'm also reminded of the paper on The Role of Play in Hunter Gatherer Societies where there's a report about 'pride' and how a hunter was not allowed to develop too much pride because it was recognised that:

“When a young man kills much meat, he comes to think of himself as a big man, and he thinks of the rest of us as his inferiors. We can’t accept this. We refuse one who boasts, for someday his pride will make him kill somebody. So we always speak of his meat as worthless. In this way we cool his heart and make him gentle.”

So, I reckon what we're seeing today in the LGBT community is too much pride! [my, etezetes emphasis]

I think the basic message is that germs may account for some examples or a certain percentage of homosexuality.

this is funny. at the beginning of thinkíng about this topic here I got the pic of the LGBT-pride parades - and that pride is marked a sin in the bible.

 

[Carl]

Just found this paper. It too is evolutionary, but it may have some basic facts to work with:

I think at this point the ideas of "we evolved to do this cool thing because it protects against X" and "we were created to do this cool thing protects against X" are more or less interchangeable.

I mean whether some mammal evolved sneezing to get dust out of in it's nostrils, and passed it down to us, or a benevolent designer bestowed sneezing on mammals (and then re-used that piece of code on us) for the same purpose, it really makes little difference to our reading of things right?

But then that's nothing new. I think the C's have indicated that viruses and that sort of thing have been used to tinker with us, probably for a whole variety of reasons.

Ultimately, I can only say: Well, whatever! I still have my crap to deal with, and I'm gonna carry on dealing with it - whatever its source. And everyone else can do the same. The more we work on ourselves, the less we are defined by genetics, social nonsense, and so on... and the more opportunity we have to become something greater than the sum of our parts, no matter who designed them.

After thinking about it more, and in a similar vein to what I just wrote above, yeah, it really doesn't matter.

I mean we've known about 4d manipulations this whole time. That we can be manipulated to do almost anything they want. So what does it matter if its a virus doing the dirty work, or some beaming technology, or whatever the hell they have.

Still just the same basic problem to deal with, and in a way the same basic solutions.

Say promiscuity is a compelling vice that you're at war with. You could look at it as an internal motivation thing, or a beaming thing, or a genetic programming thing, or a spirit attachment thing, or a virus thing etc., doesn't really matter. For example, cleansing your body with clean diet, fasting, good sleep, is likely to, over all, 1) Raise your FRV and make you less susceptible to evil frequency wavez, 2) set more energy aside to use as willpower in defeating such a thing, 3) give you better regulated brain chemicals, more desire for life and creativity, 4) give you a "purer spirit", and 5) probably help get rid of nasty critters.

And if we are living in a hyperdimensional world of which we only see a few dimensions, then it's likely that all of those potential manifestations or causes of what ails you are actually just different facets of the same problem, I.E. if you could see that problem as a construct in the field of pure information with all dimensions, you'd see it's just one "thing". Blind men with the elephant comes to mind.

Similarly the solution given would act on all facets of this problem simultaneously, if you could see it in all of its dimensions.

 

[Z...]

In that documentary there is a certain parasite portrayed, don't remember which, and it infests snails in a very bizarre way.

It’s a fluke - a flat worm of Trematoda order - they have very bizarre life cycle.

 

[JGeropoulas]

In reading some posts, it seems that evolution-oriented "survival of the fittest" and the animal reproductive function of sex is given disproportionately more weight than compassionate cooperation and the human bonding function of sex (which seems to be of a higher order than biological reproduction). Such pro-evolution-oriented thinking (e.g. need to reproduce, adaptive role of disgust, tribal need for cohesion, etc.) seems to be at the root of heterosexual peoples' bias that non-heterosexual people (largely viewed as stereotypical effeminate men) are fundamentally defective and inferior--a belief refuted by modern and historical examples (Alexander the Great was hardly a fumbling, hysterical wimp).

Putting aside for a moment this gay germ-theory conjecture and the debunked Theory of Evolution, zoom out to consider this from an Intelligent Design perspective: If our Designer chose to create--for whatever reasons we might theorize--hundreds of "unnecessary" varieties of birds, butterflies, fish, flowers and faces with a dozen different eye colors, isn't it conceivable that same Designer also created a few varieties of human sexual attraction? If anything characterizes our physical reality, it is its bounteous diversity. Only 8% of the global population have blue eyes but no one views that as a sickness to be healed or prevented--in fact their rarity makes them all the more appreciated and valued. (Or maybe I'm just unaware of groups that gouged out blue eyes, believing them to indicate demon possession!)

It's entirely possible that homosexual people as well as heterosexual people could both be the result of intelligent design--AND both be targets of germ-hacking to warp them, impede their development and cause division in society. This nefarious mechanism of hacking humanity is the real issue we need to continue exploring.

 

[Jones]

If our Designer chose to create

There could be more than one designer and each designer could be hacking the design of another designer - being at the level of designer doesn't necessarily guarantee benevolence or an STO orientation. This also might explain diversity.

I don't think the discussion is anti intelligent design. I do admit to relying on some of the terminology of the theory of evolution and that's an error made for lack of being up to date on or fluent in intelligent design terminology and not representative of taking a position against it. Perhaps I should have said 'design feature' instead of using the word 'adaptive'.

This nefarious mechanism of hacking humanity is the real issue we need to explore.

These germs might be one of those mechanisms, and it could be a form of biological warfare. I don't think any group is immune from having it's pathological variants in individuals or those that are susceptible, for whatever reason, to such influences.


There's this from Lobaszewski:

One phenomenon all ponerogenic groups and associations have in common is the fact that their members lose (or have already lost) the capacity to perceive pathological individuals as such, interpreting their behaviour in fascinated, heroic, or melodramatic ways.

So if a cohesive tribe serves an educational function as a product of experience and previous learning - the reason why we are here, then I don't have an issue with it. We have seen no evidence that the majority of the LGBT group or their supporters are aware of ponerology, in fact we're seeing quite the opposite, as we do in most groups. So there is little by way of immunity from it's influences.

I don't see this topic as 'gay bashing' as I suspect you might be. It might help some.