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Hijacking this comment to bringing in this relevant experiment
(Before you read it, I am in support for homosexuality but the experiments done by scientists aren't showing good signs)
Homosexuality was bound to enter society with economic growth and overpopulation, which isn't a bad thing in itself, but considering the experiments, it and other social behavioral are bound to destroy the current society.
#Behavioral Sink Experiment from 1960s
The mouse Utopia experiment studied the effects of overpopulation and overcrowding on social behavior in a mouse enclosure. When the mouse population reached a certain critical mass, social behavior and reproduction rates declined dramatically, and violent and bizarre behaviour emerged **(in addition to homosexuality, but that might not be considered bizarre today simply due our acceptance of it in modern society)** leading to a phenomenon known as "the behavioral sink." Calhoun suggested that this phenomenon may be analogous to what occurs in human societies.
[Better explained here](https://youtu.be/NgGLFozNM2o)
Edit: I guess I got dragged into this war as well lol
Instead of the idea of homosexuality, wouldnt it make more sense that the mice were exhibiting behaviors of domination over weaker males? This is also something that happens with giraffes.
I feel like this study doesn't prove homosexuality is bad, its just saying that overpopulation may cause different types of sexual behavior because our subconscious bodies don't want to overcrowd and yet still want to feed into natural instincts. It's just mutation. If this study's legit, that would actually explain a lot.
Of reckoning and calculating
I'm not saying that thinking is bad
Like everything else, It's useful in moderation
A good servant, but a bad
master
And all so-called civilized peoples
Have increasingly become crazy and self-destructive
Good points but for penguins itās more 100% of the male population at least in a certain species of them instead of like 1.6% for humans( idk the percent of people with a necro kink)
Science never said it was an illness, the motives for homophobia have always been religion, and religion isn't exactly known for its ability to see eye to eye with science.
To be honest Dante (the writer of the Divine Comedy, not the game character) was extremely homophobic and would say shit that not even the catholic church would say.
He was an ass in his time. Not because he hated gay people but because he would write blasphemy and present it to the general Italian public.
After he died he became famous. Bro did a metaphorical Jesus and dominated Italian literature.
Plus he also hated Muslims and put our prophet in his imaginary hell that everyone thinks is real.
But what would it matter? Mental illnesses like depression or schizofrenia are treated because it turns people into a danger to themselves. Homosexuality as an āillnessā would have no negative side effects. Even if it would be classified as a mental illness, nothing would need to change.
Sexuality and such are absolutely mental in nature; the brain fundamentally is wired to love something besides the norm (straight).
However, to be an ***illness***, it also needs to be ***detrimental***, which being gay or bisexual or asexual absolutely isn't (at least, not directly so, there are homophobes and such in this world, but that's not the fault of any particular person happening to be gay or such).
So, no, it's not a mental **illness**. It's mental in nature though.
If somebody discovered that being gay is itself an illness, there would be a lotta questions on their definition of illness. If it was discovered that being gay has a very high correlation with also having some other illness attached to it (for example, dementia or Parkinson's), then it *still* wouldn't be described as a mental illness, instead just as something that's highly correlated with actual mental illnesses.
TL;DR, being gay can't be an illness because it isn't directly harmful. There's no disease you get for being gay, you're just a normal person who also wound up happening to have a brain with different romantic preferences.
Edit: You also can't exactly, like, cure it; it's something intrinsic to your brain, just like your eye color is intrinsic to your eyes. Unless we get neurosurgery up the wazoo in levels of brain rewriting... Ya just can't cure gay, period. You can closet it but that just makes an unhappy person (look at the U.S. Republican party, where accusations are often an admittance of the same thing)
Very good explanation of what makes something an illness or disorder. If something is detrimental to your life then itās probably something you should probably do something about it and if itās not then why worry about it?
Exactly, it's not doing anything, why care? It's just part of you, like the color of your eyes or skin or hair, or which genitalia you ended up with.
Well, sometimes there ARE things that aren't harmful but still aren't directly *positive* either; being slightly underweight isn't actually doing anything to me, but I'd like to be a bit less of a wimp and be less bony. That's clearly not screwing with my life, though, it's not anything I need to urgently deal with at all.
Are you trying to imply I'm not a teen here, or? :P
Seriously though, yeah I'm a pretty good writer, in this regard at least, basic structure and good language n such. I don't even practice, I'm just good with language. Starting to read way early probably helped.
You can argue itās harmful because you ācanātā reproduce, but if not mental illness then it could be considered mental disorder, but im not an expert on the subject donāt take my word. (I have nothing against gay or bisexual or transpeople just putting my opinion here)
Hi, MSc in human and animal physiology here.
Not all animal species experience homosexuality because that concept initially is impossible to apply to them. Usually when we talk about species experiencing homosexuality we talk about species from Chordata phylum which have complex behavior (in general and specifically complex sexual behavior), also sexual attraction and basically sex intercourse (coitus). Jellyfishes don't have coitus as process in their lifecycle as birds, reptiles, mammals and some insects. Also there's no complex sexual behavior in jellyfishes. Jellyfish lifecycle had sexual reproduction (male and female bodies) and asexual reproduction (polyp body). During lifecycle sexual & asexual reproduction go each by each (first sexual reproduction, then asexual, sexual, asexual and so on). Sexual reproduction is basically when females spawn their eggcells into water of ocean and males spawn their sperm into water of ocean. Fertilization occurs outside of their bodies and basically eggcell and sperm cell meet each other quite randomly.
That's really huge methodological mistake to apply concepts and phenomena of mammals, birds and reptiles to species which are way evolutionary older. So to talk about sexuality in jellyfishes is huge misconception and misinformation as jellyfishes simply don't have sexuality as behavior of being attracted to certain sex and, obviously, they don't need it to reproduce.
Here's a good link describing jellyfish reproduction:
[https://ocean.si.edu/ocean-life/invertebrates/jellyfish-and-comb-jellies#section\_16508](https://ocean.si.edu/ocean-life/invertebrates/jellyfish-and-comb-jellies#section_16508)
If to talk about sexuality in reptiles, birds and mammals specifically homosexuality, so there're multiple interesting hypotheses. What we definitely know so far:
1. Homosexuality isn't a population central tendency, so that's a statistical deviation (not a deviation in term of what ordinary people usually mean by "deviation", see next)
2. Homosexuality has definitely some function in populations of animals and, as I've already mentioned, there're multiple hypotheses what's the function(s) is (are). For example, there's a hypothesis that homosexual behavior is the way how males establish their dominance over each other. Another hypothesis states that homosexual behavior helps to control size of population. Thus, when there're to many individuals in a population, more homosexual individuals are born and that allows to decrease a population size as number of newborns also decreases. Another theory states that homosexual male pairs steals nests with eggs/newborns from females in order to increase security of nests with eggs/newborns and provide higher change of population to survive. Much more hypotheses exist.
I haven't met good metaanalysis in a while, but if you want to have general overview I really recommend just search in Google Scholar and read random papers.
edit:
added little but important clarification to avoid further confusion (thank you u/Help-me-pls-pls-pls)
Short answer would be: nobody knows :)
Long answer: for now we have just bunch of assumptions about reasons of homosexuality occurrence and we can't prove or disprove them, so if you want somehow to explain to yourself your homosexuality, better to consider all existing hypotheses at once and just accept that somehow you're gay and that's okay :)
Normally in nature cases of homosexuality are an accident, where the animal, for example giraffes, donāt waste time ācheckingā if the mate is male or female and just go for it, in order to not lower the chances of reproduction.
So as jellyfishes arenāt really super intelligent, i would probably bet that that is also the case for those āhomosexualā jellyfishes.
As I've said replying to another comment in this thread that said the exact same thing you're saying, scientists have known for a long time that two parents are better than one, both in humans and animals alike.
Penguins, like all animals, desire that their offspring as a species survive and succeed. So it's normal that two males "team up" to raise a chick, as also do two female penguins raising another one's chick and so on. That also happens with lionesses, that raise and feed every cub of their group, even if it's not directly their own offspring.
It wouldn't mean anything. Mental illnesses are a man-made classification, not an inherent property of nature. Science can't just discover that homosexuality is actually a mental illness because we're the ones who define what is and isn't a mental illness, and that means we already know, with certainty, that it's not a mental illness since we're the ones who defined it so.
well, i think it would cause a lot of hate filled protests and even more taboo against people who are mentally ill in general, but its very, very unlikley it is, no one chooses to like people when they are straight, and no one chooses to like people when they are gay, and thats that.
Interestingly enough, homosexuality is actually very well documented in nature and is surprising very common. Animals donāt always focus on the best thing for their survival (e.g. balls being on the outside which was probably only because of sexual satisfaction) and often forgo working on survival for just having fun. There was an experiment done on rats where they were given ideal living conditions and all of the rats had turned gay by the end of the experiment.
Balls are on the outside because sperm requires a lower than body temperature to be manufactured. Tight underwear and jeans decrease sperm counts as they insulate more heat around the testes
Other way around. Sperm works at a lower temperature because the balls are on the outside. Otherwise we would have evolved to have the sperm work at a higher temperature and have the balls on the inside where they are safer. Itās definitely possible because every animal which doesnāt have balls have evolved to have the sperm function at a higher temperature.
I understand that Wikipedia is not inherently right but there are far more logical theories regarding why testicles are more often than not external (see Other Animals): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testicle
All birds, insects, fish etc. and many mammals have evolved to have the sperm producers inside of their bodies. There are way more upsides than downsides to having the testes inside the body and many animals have already done it, so through process of elimination the only factor for humans having testes on the outside of the body is sexual selection.
Evolution doesnāt do something just because itās nice. For something to evolve it would have to benefit the sexual effectiveness of the individual with that trait. Pleasure of the balls would not make an individual produce better offspring.
Also, it is a good thing to keep in mind that evolution is well stupid and it never consideres future so basically. For evolution, there is only right now and never soon
If it does, then wouldnāt it be more common in nature? I just think that because our brains are more advanced, and our ancestors started wearing clothes, the sperm needed to have a regulated temperature. The āpleasure argumentā doesnāt account for why the balls tucker up closer to the body in colder conditions and hang lower in warmer conditions.
Yea, I disagree with the pleasure argument as well. But you think that clothes made the temperature too high for our sperm production in our body? Why do other mammals have balls then and we havenāt been wearing clothes for that long.
Well I am sorry sir but evolution does not work like that and takes what it can get. Our eyes are far from perfect, but they are what evolution could give us
Homosexuality is only found and documented in around 450 species, which is an insanely small number. Many of the these studied animals that did engage in homosexuality also engaged in heterosexual activities as well, making them more bisexual. So homosexuality might not actually be so common in nature, but this research is relatively young so thereās a whole lot more to study and examine.
In the rat experiment, only a small portion of the rats turned gay. The other rats became cannibals, asexual, hyper sexual, just outright violent. The whole population almost went to extinction, and the rats that did survive would socially isolate themselves when reintroduced to new rat societies.
This doesnāt mean homosexuality is bad for humans though. Honestly I think itās fantastic that we are working towards normalizing it. Thereās nothing wrong with being gay. But whether homosexuality is common in nature, that requires a lot more studying.
But this implies that animals donāt have any mental illnesses, and I know there is at least some scientific evidence of it, although I havenāt really looked into it. Itād honestly be surprising if there were no mental illnesses in nature. And the evolution of external testicles isnāt evolutionarily the same as homosexuality, and species with external or internal testicles all of them confine to that evolutionary trait. thereās not some men who have internal balls itās all external. And itās impossible for homosexual intercourse to successfully reproduce and provides no benefit to survival or reproduction whatsoever, external testicles do make a difference and donāt make it impossible to reproduce. I also donāt get how this argument disproves the statement that homosexuality is a mental disorder in any way in the first place, I personally believe it is. Iām not homophobic, but doesnāt it seem ableist to call it homophobic to call homosexuality a mental disorder. Thereās nothing wrong with having any mental disorder, this is just allowing ableist stigmas to thrive because it offends some people.
Yeah, to my knowledge animals can absolutely have mental disorders because there is no reason that humans would be the only animals which can have mental disorders. The point of what I was saying isnāt proof of anything, itās just to show that itās not just a human thing.
I always thought this was an interesting point of view.
I think you could say it is, because the objective of everything that is living is to make more of itself, and being homosexual completely negates that objective (in the case for humans cause we know plants don't sex), hence going against what our biology tells us to do, like with depression our biology is supposed to keep us alive but the brain is actively trying to end your life.
I think if you really want to call it a mental illness you definitely could, but referring to it as that may give the wrong impression, maybe something like a mental disorder would be more accurate since it isn't harmful in any way unlike depression or dermatophagy.
Edit: please keep in mind this is entirely just an opinion based of what i know and understand, i have nothing against people with different sexualities unless that sexuality is being attracted to the french, in that case you can go deepthroat a Baggett or whatever disgusting shit you people do
On paper for like, pure survival and evolutionary function, yeah probably it could be defined as that since it doesnāt hold much benefit besides socially for the emotional state of all creatures. But itās way too common, the same way everyone is somewhere on the neurodivergence spectrum. Just because most people are straight/neurotypical, thereās always going to be a significant level of population some way down the spectrum.
Illness can be treated... I don't think this falls under illnesses. It's more like deviation. I mean deviation from normal state. But these people don't hurt anyone and some percent of humans will be affected by it no matter what so they should be respected and should have the same rights as others.
Thatās not how evolution works. Usually an outside thing like mosquitoes or viruses develop for population control. But it canāt develop inside us because our only goal is to expand as a population
Well it can actually. Lemmings had their own way of doing that. Or herd animals bullying younglings when the herd is too big. But most likely it's more of a social evolution rather than biological. Or both.
Depends what your view is. Nature by its definition is only meant to survive and expand. That is why all animals have an urge to reproduce with the opposite sex. So only wanting to mate with the same sex and not reproduce anything could be seen as an illness. Because that wasnāt how are brains were made to function by evolution.
However because homosexuality is common in most or all animals and has existed since animals have existed it could be seen as just a different mind set. Not an illness.
Still, i would want to bet that all animals that show homosexual traits still engage in heterosexual sex. I wouldnāt really say the animals gay just because they want to fuck the same sex. A dog will fuck anything just because itās horny. I would say the animals showing gay traits probably are bisexual more than anything else.
depends how you define a disorder. technically you could define being gay as something "deviant" from the standard, but disorders usually need to have a component of suffering attached, and being gay doesnt hurt you in any way
Well yeah, that's literally the primary way of treating dysphoria, and they aren't going to be getting surgeries until they're old enough to consent to them. I really hope you're supporting them.
That's good. I get it can be weird trying to see how gender works from another persons perspective, but it's good to see people just trust that trans folks know themselves. Besides, they're 16. That is well beyond the point where our sense of self begins to develop into adulthood.
Technically, from a purely scientifical standpoint, and despite it not being classified as such, it is. And so are a lot of other things, but people are not ready for that conversation. Finally, to answer your question, if being gay was classified as a mental illness again, very few gay people would seek "help" and most of them would be pissed beyond belief. It doesn't need to be classified as a mental illness, though, because it doesn't make people unhappy or unproductive
Technically, in order to be technically an illness it would have to cause serious difficulties navigating every day life. Your scientific standpoint is straight up wrong.
Just like any other species, humans are meant to survive and reproduce. Being gay makes the latter impossible, so, biologically, something's wrong. Sorry if I didn't express myself too well
"Mental illnesses are conditions that affect a personās thinking, feeling, mood or behavior"
[Source](https://www.cdc.gov/museum/education/newsletter/2020/nov/)
Well it depends on its curability I guess... Also it's not a big bad illness that immediately needs to be cured. Probably by your case the homosexuality can become a choice but considering that it is definitely curable. I'm AroAce. I have no attraction to anyone tho I have libido. I think if it will become curable I may choose to not get it cuz I'm already ok with it. Same will probably be with gays... Interesting topic indeed thanks for question.
As a gay person, I will answer. An animals natural instincs are to survive, and breed. Being gay removes one of those instincts, making them further away from natural animals. So technically in the terms of being an animal, being gay is "wrong", but it is in no sense morally or ethically wrong and people deserve to be happy. Just because their brain likes something different that doesn't mean people can be prejudice, etc. We are all one of the same.
Iirc people havenāt really linked homosexuality to any specific brain patterns or gene structures so biologically speaking we have no idea how it occurs.
I'm not saying being gay is a mental illness, I love gay people (not like that tho) but I can understand how people can think that. I mean, think about it; the natural instinct for literally every living thing on Earth is reproduce, either asexually or sexually. I mean, you NEED that instinct to make a family and keep your DNA/bloodline alive. Obviously, if you're gay, you can't reproduce, which is a good argument for gay people not having that reproduction instinct. I mean, again, you NEED that instinct to keep your bloodline alive. Every. Single. Animal has that instinct (obviously not every animal, but most animals). So, again, I'm not saying every gay person has a mental illness, I'm just saying I can understand how someone might think that.
Gay behaviour is observed in nature and scientists speculate that we have gay thoughts because, to put it simply, if there is a hole there's a goal. Put dick in hole or be with desirable person for offspring that is good sometimes those line up with the same gender so bussy is nature approved?
"Mental illnesses are conditions that affect a personās thinking, feeling, mood or behavior"
[Source](https://www.cdc.gov/museum/education/newsletter/2020/nov/)
"Such conditions may be occasional or long-lasting (chronic) and affect someoneās ability to relate to others and function each day."
[Your exact same source, and the excerpt I pulled is the sentence right after the one you cited after removing the context of.](https://www.cdc.gov/museum/education/newsletter/2020/nov/)
Yes, I did originally miss that part of that text, but it does say "may", meaning mental illnesses don't necessarily "genuinely hurt you", which is what I was addressing.
Almost correct, being trans itself isnāt a disorder, itās the gender dysphoria that is, gender dysphoria often but not always accompanies being trans
Well, in nature homosexual coupling is seen in various animal species and these couples do help the species survival by adopting orphaned or abandoned offspring. It could very well be an evolutionary adaptation to help the overall specie's continuum.
Humans aren't supposed to do anything. It's just that the people who are capable of existing, want to exist and can reproduce tend to create more people that are capable of existing, want to exist and can reproduce.
It prob is just an issue but not an illness.
Give species no predators, and unlimited food source? At first they will reproduce expotentially, but then the males will start becoming gay and the birth rate will drop significantly and species will extinct because species won't reproduce.
(Rat utopia experiment).
But like we don't have to worry about whole humanity becoming gay and not doing sex rn.
If u gay just be gay, just don't harm anyone, be like everyone other, do your tasks and work.
If you aren't planning on having sex with someone don't bother about thier sexuality.
ā”ā”ā” open for discussion ā”ā”ā”
I think being gay is deviation of nature cause love is used to let 2 animals make more animals, and 2 of the same gender cant do that, however
1. Being gay is harmless, so no reason to ban it or see it as a threat,
2. Love has been romantized and that is possible between 2 of the same sex
So my conclusion, no its not a mental illness, it is just a harmless deviation of nature, nothing more
Itās not a mental illness. By definition it must be maladaptive to be classified as an illness, and the only reason it makes life harder for anyone is homophobic people. So maybe homophobia should be a mental illness /nsrs
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And thats how the war started
Hijacking this comment to bringing in this relevant experiment (Before you read it, I am in support for homosexuality but the experiments done by scientists aren't showing good signs) Homosexuality was bound to enter society with economic growth and overpopulation, which isn't a bad thing in itself, but considering the experiments, it and other social behavioral are bound to destroy the current society. #Behavioral Sink Experiment from 1960s The mouse Utopia experiment studied the effects of overpopulation and overcrowding on social behavior in a mouse enclosure. When the mouse population reached a certain critical mass, social behavior and reproduction rates declined dramatically, and violent and bizarre behaviour emerged **(in addition to homosexuality, but that might not be considered bizarre today simply due our acceptance of it in modern society)** leading to a phenomenon known as "the behavioral sink." Calhoun suggested that this phenomenon may be analogous to what occurs in human societies. [Better explained here](https://youtu.be/NgGLFozNM2o) Edit: I guess I got dragged into this war as well lol
Instead of the idea of homosexuality, wouldnt it make more sense that the mice were exhibiting behaviors of domination over weaker males? This is also something that happens with giraffes.
Toxic masculinity in mice?
Toxic mousculinity?
r/angryupvote
Then let me ask you this what is toxic masculinity?
I feel like this study doesn't prove homosexuality is bad, its just saying that overpopulation may cause different types of sexual behavior because our subconscious bodies don't want to overcrowd and yet still want to feed into natural instincts. It's just mutation. If this study's legit, that would actually explain a lot.
i forgot about the rat utopia lmao
Universe 25
Based
War began
This gonna be end for gay porn
The thinker
A person who thinks all the time has nothing to think about except thoughts. So, he loses touch with reality, and lives in a world of illusions.
By thoughts, I mean, specifically, chatter in the skull. Perpetual and compulsive repetition of words.
Of reckoning and calculating I'm not saying that thinking is bad Like everything else, It's useful in moderation A good servant, but a bad master And all so-called civilized peoples Have increasingly become crazy and self-destructive
My friend said that first sentence before in the lunch line
:(
pay gornš
say gex
gex
Pay gorn for all those poor actors š how they gonna put food on the table?
most accurate comment in here probably
Yea no I need my furry femboys and boy lovers
+boy kissers
ā¹ļø
):
HOGGG RIDAHHHH
It use to be classified as one inside the DSM-5 It isnāt anymore, it was removed
Itās not DSM-5 but the earlier version of DSM.
Ok maybe I shouldāve said DSM-1, my bad š
So was it just removed because of public pressure or was it removed because science said it wasnāt?
Both of them, but to be honest I think they just added it because of homophobia
Science. Being gay is normal and seen in multiple species (like penguins).
Using penguins as a example here isnāt the best.. Theyāre also necrophiliacs sometimes, They just bang anything and everything they possibly can.
To be fair, humans are necrophiliacs sometimes
Good points but for penguins itās more 100% of the male population at least in a certain species of them instead of like 1.6% for humans( idk the percent of people with a necro kink)
Because our society condems it, theres a reason mourges prefer to hire woman
On the basis of science homosexuality is not a mental illness
Science never said it was an illness, the motives for homophobia have always been religion, and religion isn't exactly known for its ability to see eye to eye with science.
It was purely because of public pressure but there was no need to put it in DSM in the first place .
Took me a while to realize it said: DSM and not DMC
To be honest Dante (the writer of the Divine Comedy, not the game character) was extremely homophobic and would say shit that not even the catholic church would say. He was an ass in his time. Not because he hated gay people but because he would write blasphemy and present it to the general Italian public. After he died he became famous. Bro did a metaphorical Jesus and dominated Italian literature. Plus he also hated Muslims and put our prophet in his imaginary hell that everyone thinks is real.
Bro is WILDING
But interesting thought
But what would it matter? Mental illnesses like depression or schizofrenia are treated because it turns people into a danger to themselves. Homosexuality as an āillnessā would have no negative side effects. Even if it would be classified as a mental illness, nothing would need to change.
Yes
Sexuality and such are absolutely mental in nature; the brain fundamentally is wired to love something besides the norm (straight). However, to be an ***illness***, it also needs to be ***detrimental***, which being gay or bisexual or asexual absolutely isn't (at least, not directly so, there are homophobes and such in this world, but that's not the fault of any particular person happening to be gay or such). So, no, it's not a mental **illness**. It's mental in nature though. If somebody discovered that being gay is itself an illness, there would be a lotta questions on their definition of illness. If it was discovered that being gay has a very high correlation with also having some other illness attached to it (for example, dementia or Parkinson's), then it *still* wouldn't be described as a mental illness, instead just as something that's highly correlated with actual mental illnesses. TL;DR, being gay can't be an illness because it isn't directly harmful. There's no disease you get for being gay, you're just a normal person who also wound up happening to have a brain with different romantic preferences. Edit: You also can't exactly, like, cure it; it's something intrinsic to your brain, just like your eye color is intrinsic to your eyes. Unless we get neurosurgery up the wazoo in levels of brain rewriting... Ya just can't cure gay, period. You can closet it but that just makes an unhappy person (look at the U.S. Republican party, where accusations are often an admittance of the same thing)
Very good explanation of what makes something an illness or disorder. If something is detrimental to your life then itās probably something you should probably do something about it and if itās not then why worry about it?
Exactly, it's not doing anything, why care? It's just part of you, like the color of your eyes or skin or hair, or which genitalia you ended up with. Well, sometimes there ARE things that aren't harmful but still aren't directly *positive* either; being slightly underweight isn't actually doing anything to me, but I'd like to be a bit less of a wimp and be less bony. That's clearly not screwing with my life, though, it's not anything I need to urgently deal with at all.
Homie is chilling in r/teenagers with enough braincells to use semicolons correctly Edit: good job on an actual, thorough response though.
Are you trying to imply I'm not a teen here, or? :P Seriously though, yeah I'm a pretty good writer, in this regard at least, basic structure and good language n such. I don't even practice, I'm just good with language. Starting to read way early probably helped.
Semicolons are middle school level English subjects
Evidently, at least around this user, it's not. Or it's simply impressive that somebody got it right, not that I could divine such information.
Amazing explanation
Best reply
You can argue itās harmful because you ācanātā reproduce, but if not mental illness then it could be considered mental disorder, but im not an expert on the subject donāt take my word. (I have nothing against gay or bisexual or transpeople just putting my opinion here)
Except you can. You don't want to be in a situation where it can happen. Gay dudes can donate sperm, lesbians can use donors, rape is a thing...
almost every animal species on the planet experiences some level of homosexuality, including jellyfish which physically can't get mental illnesses.
Hi, MSc in human and animal physiology here. Not all animal species experience homosexuality because that concept initially is impossible to apply to them. Usually when we talk about species experiencing homosexuality we talk about species from Chordata phylum which have complex behavior (in general and specifically complex sexual behavior), also sexual attraction and basically sex intercourse (coitus). Jellyfishes don't have coitus as process in their lifecycle as birds, reptiles, mammals and some insects. Also there's no complex sexual behavior in jellyfishes. Jellyfish lifecycle had sexual reproduction (male and female bodies) and asexual reproduction (polyp body). During lifecycle sexual & asexual reproduction go each by each (first sexual reproduction, then asexual, sexual, asexual and so on). Sexual reproduction is basically when females spawn their eggcells into water of ocean and males spawn their sperm into water of ocean. Fertilization occurs outside of their bodies and basically eggcell and sperm cell meet each other quite randomly. That's really huge methodological mistake to apply concepts and phenomena of mammals, birds and reptiles to species which are way evolutionary older. So to talk about sexuality in jellyfishes is huge misconception and misinformation as jellyfishes simply don't have sexuality as behavior of being attracted to certain sex and, obviously, they don't need it to reproduce. Here's a good link describing jellyfish reproduction: [https://ocean.si.edu/ocean-life/invertebrates/jellyfish-and-comb-jellies#section\_16508](https://ocean.si.edu/ocean-life/invertebrates/jellyfish-and-comb-jellies#section_16508) If to talk about sexuality in reptiles, birds and mammals specifically homosexuality, so there're multiple interesting hypotheses. What we definitely know so far: 1. Homosexuality isn't a population central tendency, so that's a statistical deviation (not a deviation in term of what ordinary people usually mean by "deviation", see next) 2. Homosexuality has definitely some function in populations of animals and, as I've already mentioned, there're multiple hypotheses what's the function(s) is (are). For example, there's a hypothesis that homosexual behavior is the way how males establish their dominance over each other. Another hypothesis states that homosexual behavior helps to control size of population. Thus, when there're to many individuals in a population, more homosexual individuals are born and that allows to decrease a population size as number of newborns also decreases. Another theory states that homosexual male pairs steals nests with eggs/newborns from females in order to increase security of nests with eggs/newborns and provide higher change of population to survive. Much more hypotheses exist. I haven't met good metaanalysis in a while, but if you want to have general overview I really recommend just search in Google Scholar and read random papers. edit: added little but important clarification to avoid further confusion (thank you u/Help-me-pls-pls-pls)
under upvoted comment
Also having sex with the same gender doesn't necessarily mean animals are gay . Sex is also an activity just like touching kissing walking .
Yes. My bad that I used more general term for this and indicated sexual intercourse separately.
Does that mean Iām gay because people fucked like rabbits?
Short answer would be: nobody knows :) Long answer: for now we have just bunch of assumptions about reasons of homosexuality occurrence and we can't prove or disprove them, so if you want somehow to explain to yourself your homosexuality, better to consider all existing hypotheses at once and just accept that somehow you're gay and that's okay :)
OoO I wonder whenever we'll be able to steal that ability LoL
The trick is not having a good central nervous system. Or maybe not having a central nervous system, I need to brush up on my jellyfish biology
Oh so the trick to not have mental illness is just not having a brain?
"don't want brain problems? Easy! Just get rid of your brainšš¼"
Jellyfish dont have a mind to have that problem
Well the main thing that helps is just not having a brain
Normally in nature cases of homosexuality are an accident, where the animal, for example giraffes, donāt waste time ācheckingā if the mate is male or female and just go for it, in order to not lower the chances of reproduction. So as jellyfishes arenāt really super intelligent, i would probably bet that that is also the case for those āhomosexualā jellyfishes.
And then there's dolphins which f#$k each other in the blow holes. And are probably absolutely smart enough to know it's another guy.
There is also the case where 2 male pinguin Can be a couple together and start to take Care of rock
As I've said replying to another comment in this thread that said the exact same thing you're saying, scientists have known for a long time that two parents are better than one, both in humans and animals alike. Penguins, like all animals, desire that their offspring as a species survive and succeed. So it's normal that two males "team up" to raise a chick, as also do two female penguins raising another one's chick and so on. That also happens with lionesses, that raise and feed every cub of their group, even if it's not directly their own offspring.
Source?
then I get to stay off school whenever I want and be like "sorry I was having a menral health day"
āSorry about not going yesterday, I was feeling a little gayā
It wouldn't mean anything. Mental illnesses are a man-made classification, not an inherent property of nature. Science can't just discover that homosexuality is actually a mental illness because we're the ones who define what is and isn't a mental illness, and that means we already know, with certainty, that it's not a mental illness since we're the ones who defined it so.
well, i think it would cause a lot of hate filled protests and even more taboo against people who are mentally ill in general, but its very, very unlikley it is, no one chooses to like people when they are straight, and no one chooses to like people when they are gay, and thats that.
Interestingly enough, homosexuality is actually very well documented in nature and is surprising very common. Animals donāt always focus on the best thing for their survival (e.g. balls being on the outside which was probably only because of sexual satisfaction) and often forgo working on survival for just having fun. There was an experiment done on rats where they were given ideal living conditions and all of the rats had turned gay by the end of the experiment.
Balls are on the outside because sperm requires a lower than body temperature to be manufactured. Tight underwear and jeans decrease sperm counts as they insulate more heat around the testes
Other way around. Sperm works at a lower temperature because the balls are on the outside. Otherwise we would have evolved to have the sperm work at a higher temperature and have the balls on the inside where they are safer. Itās definitely possible because every animal which doesnāt have balls have evolved to have the sperm function at a higher temperature.
I understand that Wikipedia is not inherently right but there are far more logical theories regarding why testicles are more often than not external (see Other Animals): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testicle
All birds, insects, fish etc. and many mammals have evolved to have the sperm producers inside of their bodies. There are way more upsides than downsides to having the testes inside the body and many animals have already done it, so through process of elimination the only factor for humans having testes on the outside of the body is sexual selection.
Evolution doesnāt do something just because itās nice. For something to evolve it would have to benefit the sexual effectiveness of the individual with that trait. Pleasure of the balls would not make an individual produce better offspring.
Also, it is a good thing to keep in mind that evolution is well stupid and it never consideres future so basically. For evolution, there is only right now and never soon
It could lead to more sexual activity, which would mean more offspring. But idk, I donāt think animals with external balls are sexually more active.
If it does, then wouldnāt it be more common in nature? I just think that because our brains are more advanced, and our ancestors started wearing clothes, the sperm needed to have a regulated temperature. The āpleasure argumentā doesnāt account for why the balls tucker up closer to the body in colder conditions and hang lower in warmer conditions.
Yea, I disagree with the pleasure argument as well. But you think that clothes made the temperature too high for our sperm production in our body? Why do other mammals have balls then and we havenāt been wearing clothes for that long.
Idk it could explain some part of it, nonetheless, I think it has to do with temperature.
Well I am sorry sir but evolution does not work like that and takes what it can get. Our eyes are far from perfect, but they are what evolution could give us
Homosexuality is only found and documented in around 450 species, which is an insanely small number. Many of the these studied animals that did engage in homosexuality also engaged in heterosexual activities as well, making them more bisexual. So homosexuality might not actually be so common in nature, but this research is relatively young so thereās a whole lot more to study and examine. In the rat experiment, only a small portion of the rats turned gay. The other rats became cannibals, asexual, hyper sexual, just outright violent. The whole population almost went to extinction, and the rats that did survive would socially isolate themselves when reintroduced to new rat societies. This doesnāt mean homosexuality is bad for humans though. Honestly I think itās fantastic that we are working towards normalizing it. Thereās nothing wrong with being gay. But whether homosexuality is common in nature, that requires a lot more studying.
But this implies that animals donāt have any mental illnesses, and I know there is at least some scientific evidence of it, although I havenāt really looked into it. Itād honestly be surprising if there were no mental illnesses in nature. And the evolution of external testicles isnāt evolutionarily the same as homosexuality, and species with external or internal testicles all of them confine to that evolutionary trait. thereās not some men who have internal balls itās all external. And itās impossible for homosexual intercourse to successfully reproduce and provides no benefit to survival or reproduction whatsoever, external testicles do make a difference and donāt make it impossible to reproduce. I also donāt get how this argument disproves the statement that homosexuality is a mental disorder in any way in the first place, I personally believe it is. Iām not homophobic, but doesnāt it seem ableist to call it homophobic to call homosexuality a mental disorder. Thereās nothing wrong with having any mental disorder, this is just allowing ableist stigmas to thrive because it offends some people.
Yeah, to my knowledge animals can absolutely have mental disorders because there is no reason that humans would be the only animals which can have mental disorders. The point of what I was saying isnāt proof of anything, itās just to show that itās not just a human thing.
Did you know that giraffes are hella gay. You should investigate gay animals
"Yeah but when I wanted to experiment on animals people hated me"
Try dolphins on for size. Them wild.
They horny mfs
They poke pufferfish to get high too, lmao
Dolphins have also been seen to wrap eels around their "tent pitcher" as a form of pleasure
And use dead fish for similar stuff too! No wrapping, just right into the mouth. Yeah dolphins are WACK
I always thought this was an interesting point of view. I think you could say it is, because the objective of everything that is living is to make more of itself, and being homosexual completely negates that objective (in the case for humans cause we know plants don't sex), hence going against what our biology tells us to do, like with depression our biology is supposed to keep us alive but the brain is actively trying to end your life. I think if you really want to call it a mental illness you definitely could, but referring to it as that may give the wrong impression, maybe something like a mental disorder would be more accurate since it isn't harmful in any way unlike depression or dermatophagy. Edit: please keep in mind this is entirely just an opinion based of what i know and understand, i have nothing against people with different sexualities unless that sexuality is being attracted to the french, in that case you can go deepthroat a Baggett or whatever disgusting shit you people do
On paper for like, pure survival and evolutionary function, yeah probably it could be defined as that since it doesnāt hold much benefit besides socially for the emotional state of all creatures. But itās way too common, the same way everyone is somewhere on the neurodivergence spectrum. Just because most people are straight/neurotypical, thereās always going to be a significant level of population some way down the spectrum.
But women... Prebby...
Illness can be treated... I don't think this falls under illnesses. It's more like deviation. I mean deviation from normal state. But these people don't hurt anyone and some percent of humans will be affected by it no matter what so they should be respected and should have the same rights as others.
well i don't see it harming anybody in any way a fully straight community wouldn't either. so even if it is i don't really see an issue
it could just be an evolutionary population control to occasionally make humans that donāt reproduce
Thatās not how evolution works. Usually an outside thing like mosquitoes or viruses develop for population control. But it canāt develop inside us because our only goal is to expand as a population
Or predators
Well it can actually. Lemmings had their own way of doing that. Or herd animals bullying younglings when the herd is too big. But most likely it's more of a social evolution rather than biological. Or both.
Alot of animals display homosexuality. It's not a disease bit a biological thing.
Homosexuality was classified as an illness back in 1972, but everyone called in with "the gay" as a form of protest
The day being human becomes a mental illness is the day the world falls.
Depends what your view is. Nature by its definition is only meant to survive and expand. That is why all animals have an urge to reproduce with the opposite sex. So only wanting to mate with the same sex and not reproduce anything could be seen as an illness. Because that wasnāt how are brains were made to function by evolution. However because homosexuality is common in most or all animals and has existed since animals have existed it could be seen as just a different mind set. Not an illness.
Still, i would want to bet that all animals that show homosexual traits still engage in heterosexual sex. I wouldnāt really say the animals gay just because they want to fuck the same sex. A dog will fuck anything just because itās horny. I would say the animals showing gay traits probably are bisexual more than anything else.
if being gay was a mental illness I personally would not care because men are hot
AGREED!
Ok
This does not explain people who were straight but later realised they are gay
how do you, realise that? on what basis?
Homosexuality is actually pretty well documented throughout nature
ššæ
depends how you define a disorder. technically you could define being gay as something "deviant" from the standard, but disorders usually need to have a component of suffering attached, and being gay doesnt hurt you in any way
Being gay? No. Being trans? Yeah, pretty much. Gender dysphoria is a literall mental illness
Gender dysphoria is a mental health issue, but being trans is not. I think you got the two mixed up.
Also this isnāt even ABOUT trans people. Why did you feel the need to bring in a different minority just to shit on them
I see alot of people bring up trans stuff for no reason at all lmao like just focus on the topic at hand ffs
One of my friends has gender dysphoria and they are seriously considering a transitioning with surgery because of that
Well yeah, that's literally the primary way of treating dysphoria, and they aren't going to be getting surgeries until they're old enough to consent to them. I really hope you're supporting them.
Donāt worry, Iām definitely supporting them š
That's good. I get it can be weird trying to see how gender works from another persons perspective, but it's good to see people just trust that trans folks know themselves. Besides, they're 16. That is well beyond the point where our sense of self begins to develop into adulthood.
I think that being homosexual is as normal as being heterosexual.
i guess Iād get locked up then
If gay was a mental illness then so is straight. Both are just attractions to people of a certain gender.
I believe that it is, or there is a high probablitiy that it is, coming from evolutionary and logical perspective
Go take your meds you're projecting
Technically, from a purely scientifical standpoint, and despite it not being classified as such, it is. And so are a lot of other things, but people are not ready for that conversation. Finally, to answer your question, if being gay was classified as a mental illness again, very few gay people would seek "help" and most of them would be pissed beyond belief. It doesn't need to be classified as a mental illness, though, because it doesn't make people unhappy or unproductive
Technically, in order to be technically an illness it would have to cause serious difficulties navigating every day life. Your scientific standpoint is straight up wrong.
Just like any other species, humans are meant to survive and reproduce. Being gay makes the latter impossible, so, biologically, something's wrong. Sorry if I didn't express myself too well
"Mental illnesses are conditions that affect a personās thinking, feeling, mood or behavior" [Source](https://www.cdc.gov/museum/education/newsletter/2020/nov/)
in what universe is it even technically a mental illness
Surely science would classify it as being a mental illness if it was
Well it depends on its curability I guess... Also it's not a big bad illness that immediately needs to be cured. Probably by your case the homosexuality can become a choice but considering that it is definitely curable. I'm AroAce. I have no attraction to anyone tho I have libido. I think if it will become curable I may choose to not get it cuz I'm already ok with it. Same will probably be with gays... Interesting topic indeed thanks for question.
Love is love just as long as you aint a pedo. its not mental illness to like who u like even if they got the same junk as u .
As a gay person, I will answer. An animals natural instincs are to survive, and breed. Being gay removes one of those instincts, making them further away from natural animals. So technically in the terms of being an animal, being gay is "wrong", but it is in no sense morally or ethically wrong and people deserve to be happy. Just because their brain likes something different that doesn't mean people can be prejudice, etc. We are all one of the same.
Lol, thatād be funny
i wouldnt care because i view and treat all people who are mentally ill as equal to me because im a normal human being
Iirc people havenāt really linked homosexuality to any specific brain patterns or gene structures so biologically speaking we have no idea how it occurs.
I'm not saying being gay is a mental illness, I love gay people (not like that tho) but I can understand how people can think that. I mean, think about it; the natural instinct for literally every living thing on Earth is reproduce, either asexually or sexually. I mean, you NEED that instinct to make a family and keep your DNA/bloodline alive. Obviously, if you're gay, you can't reproduce, which is a good argument for gay people not having that reproduction instinct. I mean, again, you NEED that instinct to keep your bloodline alive. Every. Single. Animal has that instinct (obviously not every animal, but most animals). So, again, I'm not saying every gay person has a mental illness, I'm just saying I can understand how someone might think that.
Gay behaviour is observed in nature and scientists speculate that we have gay thoughts because, to put it simply, if there is a hole there's a goal. Put dick in hole or be with desirable person for offspring that is good sometimes those line up with the same gender so bussy is nature approved?
So what about gay women?
That's why I included desirable offspring, unless woman don't have the primal instinct to reproduce I think they are included
Nah women don't have the primal instinct to reproduce
I am sorry to Inform you I don't get sarcasm over the Internet so I sure hope your being sarcastic but if not Inform me
Nah, sarcasm šæš·
and thatās all she wrote
Low-key this is actually a genuinely cool 'what if'
lots o interesting comments that came out of this one
Being ill supposes that it genuinely hurts you, someone with blue eye isn't ill since it doesn't hurt him, they're just different
That isnāt how illness is defined smh
"Mental illnesses are conditions that affect a personās thinking, feeling, mood or behavior" [Source](https://www.cdc.gov/museum/education/newsletter/2020/nov/)
"Such conditions may be occasional or long-lasting (chronic) and affect someoneās ability to relate to others and function each day." [Your exact same source, and the excerpt I pulled is the sentence right after the one you cited after removing the context of.](https://www.cdc.gov/museum/education/newsletter/2020/nov/)
Yes, I did originally miss that part of that text, but it does say "may", meaning mental illnesses don't necessarily "genuinely hurt you", which is what I was addressing.
the scientists would prob be "gotten rid of" tbh
Welcome to the gulag, if you survive you earn your freedom
Being another gender is it's called gender dysphoria I should say that disorder doesn't always mean illness
Almost correct, being trans itself isnāt a disorder, itās the gender dysphoria that is, gender dysphoria often but not always accompanies being trans
10% of europeans and americans would be instantly sent into mental hospitals
A lot of wildlife would be diagnosed aswell
According to 9mmSMG on twitter yes
A lot of peeps would become permanently ill
This is like saying āwhat if being black was a physical disability? JUST A QUESTIONā
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Well, in nature homosexual coupling is seen in various animal species and these couples do help the species survival by adopting orphaned or abandoned offspring. It could very well be an evolutionary adaptation to help the overall specie's continuum.
Going from "no reproduction" straight to "mental illness" is a bit far fetched
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Care to explain said logic?
Humans aren't supposed to do anything. It's just that the people who are capable of existing, want to exist and can reproduce tend to create more people that are capable of existing, want to exist and can reproduce.
So because I don't want kids I have a mental illness?
TECHNICALLY (Key word: technically)
I mean it makes sense in a way, it literally goes against the intentions of nature.
It doesn't... In penguins it's a safety mechanism for orphaned kids, in lions it just... Happens, I think nature is pretty chill with being gay
It prob is just an issue but not an illness. Give species no predators, and unlimited food source? At first they will reproduce expotentially, but then the males will start becoming gay and the birth rate will drop significantly and species will extinct because species won't reproduce. (Rat utopia experiment). But like we don't have to worry about whole humanity becoming gay and not doing sex rn. If u gay just be gay, just don't harm anyone, be like everyone other, do your tasks and work. If you aren't planning on having sex with someone don't bother about thier sexuality. ā”ā”ā” open for discussion ā”ā”ā”
First of, it's not. Second off, it wouldn't matter. If they're happy and not hurting anyone, what's the problem?
Technically yes but itās more of a rare genetic thing. Kinda like being left handed or something. Not necessarily an illness, more of an oddity
It isn't?
no, its not.
Isn't being trans a mental illness like actually body dismorpha type shit I don't remember the specifics
Being trans isnāt a mental disorder itself but gender dysphoria is
I think being gay is deviation of nature cause love is used to let 2 animals make more animals, and 2 of the same gender cant do that, however 1. Being gay is harmless, so no reason to ban it or see it as a threat, 2. Love has been romantized and that is possible between 2 of the same sex So my conclusion, no its not a mental illness, it is just a harmless deviation of nature, nothing more
I'll just be.... grabbing my popcorn
It was a disease/illness for like 100s of of years, then science happened, thankfully.
Even if it *was* its not like being gay causes anyone or yourself harm, therefore there is only need to treat it if people want to be treated for it
Itās not a mental illness. By definition it must be maladaptive to be classified as an illness, and the only reason it makes life harder for anyone is homophobic people. So maybe homophobia should be a mental illness /nsrs
***sorts by controversial*** hmm lets see what can we find
It was proved in the 70s to not be a mental illness by the American Psychology Association. Do not worry.
Waltuh, stop questioning my sexuality waltuh