Can natural selection select for genes based on their utility at a group level?

[Ideologue]

What do you think of the notion that homosexuality recurs as a method of preventing potentially destabilizing male-vs-male sexual conflict?

I think homosexuality could enhance male-vs-male sexual conflict; now in addition to competing with other males for women, males have to worry about competing with other males for each other, not to mention the possibility of being sexually coerced by other men.

That doesn't make much sense, really.

Sexual competition for men is not exclusive - unlike women, we do not get pregnant so there is no biological limit on the number of sexual partners we can have.

As for sexual coercion of men by men, I believe that in environments where women are available, it is practically non-existent. I think your post just displays what I think the basis for homophobia is - that heterosexual men fear homosexual men would behave the same way towards them as they do towards women.

Men practically never sexually coerce each other when women are available? That's ... news to me. 

http://books.google.ca/books?id=LGZRuseil-gC&dq=sexual+assault+males&printsec=frontcover&source=in&hl=en&ei=j-WCSsvQO4reMab04aYL&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=12#v=onepage&q=sexual%20assault%20males&f=false

http://jiv.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/19/8/901

Men don't get jealous of or compete with other men? 

I think your post just displays what I think the basis for homophobia is - that heterosexual men fear homosexual men would behave the same way towards them as they do towards women.

And I think your post displays what I think is the fact you have a bit of a screw loose on the subject.

Mal, I do think Marty is right about the fact that promiscuity among males wouldn't matter as much, since they're not the reproductively limited sex, and it's a mistake to think that gay men would treat each other as "women who happen to have dicks."  The dynamics appear to be different.

The gay gene, if such exists, might not happen to pop up, but be in fact universal, waiting for the right environmental conditions--a possible mechanism is the correct sequence or buildup of hormones during fetal development, perhaps, that build up as a result of multiple pregnancies or multiple male pregnancies--that permits this gene to express itself in a way that influences cognitive development.

The other stuff, I think is Marty unconsciously doing his gay power schtick.

You know, it's funny, one might think that homosexuality is selected against strongly via oppression since the early common era, but oppressing a homosexual into acting straight would actually help perpetuate the homosexual gene, even if it's occurrence is limited as a recessive trait.

But this raises the question: why lesbianism?  If genders were interchangeable, we could posit the same mechanism behind a lesbian gene... but although female-versus-female competition occurs, it is not ordinarily expressed as the society-threatening violence that male-versus-male competition often occasions.

Something occurred to me on the drive home--could the fashionable bisexuality in females serve primarily as a type of sexual ornamentation to impress males?  You know, like a peacock, but with more fisting.

[Barrister]

Something occurred to me on the drive home--could the fashionable bisexuality in females serve primarily as a type of sexual ornamentation to impress males?  You know, like a peacock, but with more fisting.

Real world lesbians (as opposed to porn lesbians) have no interest in impressing men.

[garbon]

Real world lesbians (as opposed to porn lesbians) have no interest in impressing men.

If anything, they try to repel everyone with their hideousness.

[Ideologue]

Oh, also, I don't know if anyone ever mentioned this, but Alfred is right about sister-relatedness in haplodiploid hymenopterans, but termites are diploid, like humans, yet have reproductive castes.

[Ideologue]

Something occurred to me on the drive home--could the fashionable bisexuality in females serve primarily as a type of sexual ornamentation to impress males?  You know, like a peacock, but with more fisting.

Real world lesbians (as opposed to porn lesbians) have no interest in impressing men.

Well, yeah--but I mean bisexuals, you know, the type that show off at parties and such.

[HVC]

Something occurred to me on the drive home--could the fashionable bisexuality in females serve primarily as a type of sexual ornamentation to impress males?  You know, like a peacock, but with more fisting.

Real world lesbians (as opposed to porn lesbians) have no interest in impressing men.

Well, yeah--but I mean bisexuals, you know, the type that show off at parties and such.

Those are just straight girls who crave daddies attention... but any guy will do in a pinch.

[Martinus]

If we stopped persecuting the gays, *everyone* would want to do go gay. 

Or at least, i get that impression from the religiously anti-gay folks.

Yeah they act like it is some strong temptation to go gay and only persecution keeps us in line...it kinda makes me think they are either gay themselves or not straight.

Uhm I never said that.

I am saying that there seems to be a bigger pressure put on gay men to procreate in societies that are poor/underdeveloped. Homosexuality has flourished in relatively rich/developed societies (ancient Greece, Rome) and has been persecuted more harshly in poorer societies.

[Martinus]

Through most of human history there have been no celibate priestly casts. Shamans fucked around and still fuck around.

Priestly castes have usually had bizarre and nonsensical restrictions on them, sometimes they were sexual but not always.  I think there was always a principal that to be a priest you had to show you were somehow set apart from ordinary people.

In fact, in some native societies, priests/shamans/medicinemen were kinda expected to have something "queer" about them.

[Martinus]

Which would example prove my point, wouldn't it, that there isn't a "gay gene", right?

Yes I do not think it is genetic.  I think it just happens at random and I am not clear on the exact mechaism...I think your "proc" analogy is a good observation of how it appears.

But I could be wrong there could be a higher disposition of some families to having gay individuals,  I just don't think this is the case.

No, my point was that this gene which "procs" gays is pretty much widespread now in the human species.

Anyway, Sheilbh's post pretty much validates my position - while it is not exactly 100% the same as my pet theory, it is close enough.

[Martinus]

It further factionalizes society, as well as increasing individualism.

I hate individualism

Why is it that gay intellectuals like Foucault or yourself (or, for that matter, pseudointellectuals like Grallon) enjoy railing against the thing that has brought them unprecedented acceptance and affluence?

Because it's fashionable and debonair.

[garbon]

I am saying that there seems to be a bigger pressure put on gay men to procreate in societies that are poor/underdeveloped. Homosexuality has flourished in relatively rich/developed societies (ancient Greece, Rome) and has been persecuted more harshly in poorer societies.

Where do you get the idea that intolerance stems from a desire for said men to have children? It could simply be that underdeveloped/struggling societies are in less of a position to tolerate deviance and individuality.

[Martinus]

Something occurred to me on the drive home--could the fashionable bisexuality in females serve primarily as a type of sexual ornamentation to impress males?  You know, like a peacock, but with more fisting.

Could it be but it is only half of the equation imo.

To me, this has a lot to do with the fact (see another recent thread) that women apparently engage in  much more complex thought processes that go beyond sexual arousal when dealing with sexual situations, than men do.

So, a straight man sees two women making out and thinks "Hubbah hubbah hubbah." A straight woman sees two women making out and thinks "Oh good, less competition for me."

A straight man sees two guys making out and thinks "Ewwwwww." A straight woman sees two men making out and thinks "Not good, more competition/less men for me."

[Martinus]

I am saying that there seems to be a bigger pressure put on gay men to procreate in societies that are poor/underdeveloped. Homosexuality has flourished in relatively rich/developed societies (ancient Greece, Rome) and has been persecuted more harshly in poorer societies.

Where do you get the idea that intolerance stems from a desire for said men to have children? It could simply be that underdeveloped/struggling societies are in less of a position to tolerate deviance and individuality.

Well, there are two groups of evidence that suggest that: anecdotal and comparative.

Anecdotal, or "from the horse's mouth": most "rational" justifications of homophobia (that is not based in irrational/religious reasons) is a variation in "if people are allowed to be gay, humanity will die out."

Comparative: if you look at historical levels of tolerance to deviance and individuality, then you will see that sexuality is pretty much singled out much more than any other form of deviance. For example, in our society, a tolerance/acceptance of homosexuality comes decades if not centuries after people learned to tolerate such deviations as different religions, different political views or different ethnicities and races. So there must be something in sexual deviance that makes it so "hard to swallow" for the majority - I don't think it is that much of a stretch to suggest that the reason why sexual deviance is so badly tolerate is because it has to do with sex, and thus procreation.

[Ideologue]

Something occurred to me on the drive home--could the fashionable bisexuality in females serve primarily as a type of sexual ornamentation to impress males?  You know, like a peacock, but with more fisting.

Real world lesbians (as opposed to porn lesbians) have no interest in impressing men.

Well, yeah--but I mean bisexuals, you know, the type that show off at parties and such.

Those are just straight girls who crave daddies attention... but any guy will do in a pinch.

Crave daddy's gametes, more like it.

Could it be but it is only half of the equation imo.

To me, this has a lot to do with the fact (see another recent thread) that women apparently engage in  much more complex thought processes that go beyond sexual arousal when dealing with sexual situations, than men do.

So, a straight man sees two women making out and thinks "Hubbah hubbah hubbah." A straight woman sees two women making out and thinks "Oh good, less competition for me."

A straight man sees two guys making out and thinks "Ewwwwww." A straight woman sees two men making out and thinks "Not good, more competition/less men for me."

Much like Jimmy Bond, I'm devising a plague that will turn all men gay--but me.

[Neil]

Much like Jimmy Bond, I'm devising a plague that will turn all men gay--but me.

Have fun getting murdered.  You'll find that homosexuals will be rather intollerant of your lifestyle choice.

Planet of the Martinuses is as close to hell as makes no odds.