Comment by btilly | Hacker News Reader

Comment by btilly | Hacker News Reader

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Sorry, but that's crap.

Your first article is not so much a "literature review" like you claim as an article claiming that the following theories imply the following conclusion without any data of their own supporting that conclusion. The strongest result was that cultures which normalize violence against women also normalize sexual violence against women. Yes, we can change how people behave towards their objects of sexual interest. We don't change who they are interested in when we do.

Your second article is an example of what I discussed at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37718038. It proves a correlation between being interested in both porn and sexual activity. It does not show causation. The result is exactly what we should expect if people come wired with certain interests, and therefore does not qualify as evidence for or against those theories.

On "people are born gay" being quack science, we literally are discovering the genetic linkages to being gay. https://theconversation.com/stop-calling-it-a-choice-biologi...

We're also finding factors that set sexual orientation in the womb, independent of culture. https://www.thehastingscenter.org/womb-gay/

Since porn went mainstream, and acceptance of homosexuality went up, we've seen more openness to teenage experimentation. But do you know what we haven't seen? We haven't seen a significant shift in adults that claim that they are gay in polls. Research on pedophilia is harder to do, but I doubt that has changed either.

In short the thing that, based on available evidence, actually is quack science is your claim that, "Anyway, just like you can entice people to smoke by showing Marylin Monroe smoking on the screen, you can entice people to develop an taste for pedophilia by showing them enticing CSAM."

We have zero data supporting such a conclusion.

Of course we have data. You can't brush it off with "correlation =/= causation". Why? Specific practices invented by porn are now mainstream among people who watch porn. This is a prime example of causation. Facial ejaculation didn't exist 100 years ago, even in France, which was Europe's prostitution capital. Now it's mainstream (see study). Why? Porn culture infused the sexual culture.

> we literally are discovering the genetic linkages to being gay

Well you should have read your article, which says: "With multiple gene candidates being linked to homosexuality, it seemed highly unlikely that a single “gay” gene exists."

Intelligence is determined at 80% by genetics, and polygenic. All of this says that there can be a predisposition toward homosexual tendencies ("gay" is related to american homosexual culture and is a prime example of cultural imperialism), however no one is "born" homosexual. Some people with the related genes may end up becoming so, others may mary women, some may just remain alone. This is a strange, calvinist projection on human existence. Would you say that people are born criminal too? There are genes for this as well. Or let's talk about race? So yeah, sorry, this is quack science.

> we've seen more openness to teenage experimentation

This sounds really like what an enabler would say to help sexual predators targeting young people. Teen years are not a good time to "experiment" too much things in sexuality (doesn't mean it's not possible to have sex), as consequences are long-lasting and they are very easily influenced and vulnerable.

> We haven't seen a significant shift in adults that claim that they are gay in polls.

Given that "gay" is the number one thing being advertised and promoted in the US lately, especially at the vulnerable youth, yes that's not very surprising. But I think we're past self-determination now anyway, and more in some kind of weird propaganda. Same goes with transgenderism, with devastating effects (castration of fertile people among others). The US has also currently a mental health crisis, with no sign of stopping, so "data" currently shows that your remedy is either ineffective, or destructive.

Anyway, I'm not suprised here to see the crossroads between gay, porn and pedophilia. The connection is documented and quite old actually: https://sci-hub.se/https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.13...

All of this disgusting thread makes me pretty happy to live away from the US to be honest.

You have confirmed my low opinion of your reading skills.

The bit you quoted said that multiple gene candidates are linked to homosexuality. You failed to understand that this implies that we are finding gene linkages. You instead focused on no single gay gene. And then jumped to intelligence, where we ALSO have found no single intelligence gene. Without noticing the flaws in your logic.

You simply ignored the evidence that sexual orientation is influenced by conditions in the womb. Specifically that large families mean greater odds of gay sons. Instead you latch on to a phrase like "teenage experimentation" and accuse me of being a groomer. Which, of course, I am not. I merely happen to know that gay children are more likely to never try to pretend or experiment with being heterosexual. However the age at which teens first have sex has gone later. And the more "liberal sex ed" they get, the later that they start having sex! (Conservatism breeds hypocrisy...)

Your comments about "haven't seen a significant shift in adults that claim that they are gay" suggest you read that sentence as the exact opposite of what I actually said. If I'm wrong, then you're arguing against your own position!

Your article about historical alliances due to legal discrimination notwithstanding, there is little link between pedophilia and homosexuality. As https://www.zeroabuseproject.org/victim-assistance/jwrc/keep... says, to the extent that pedophiles have adult sexual interests, they are heterosexual. Even if they pursue boys. That certainly was my experience. That is also the case in countries where such abhorrent practices remain, like Afghanistan's "dancing boys".

I've not looked for the statistics, but I'm sure that the figures change for post-pubescent victims. Still, far more heterosexuals than homosexuals focus on porn categories like "barely legal". Not homosexual. Other than the coincidence that homosexuality and pedophilia involve sexual interest in biologically inappropriate targets, there is no particular connection between them. Which is there is no contradiction in my being OK with homosexuality, but not pedophilia.

There appear to be only three things that we agree on. That pedophilia is bad, that the current radical transgender ideology is pushing bad ideas, and that we're both glad that you live away from the US.

> The bit you quoted said that multiple gene candidates are linked to homosexuality. You failed to understand that this implies that we are finding gene linkages. You instead focused on no single gay gene. And then jumped to intelligence, where we ALSO have found no single intelligence gene. Without noticing the flaws in your logic.

It's exactly what I said, intelligence is polygenic (not a too complex word for you I hope). Intelligence is a proxy here for the general mind. Homosexuality tendency is probably the same, which means it's not "on" or "off" as you initially said. You are not "born gay", there is 0 evidence that a one day newborn is homosexual. Epigenetics also probably play a role here. Twins studies, which are the golden standard, are not conclusive on this matter.

Large families have mean different education environment, which could mean different outcomes toward sexuality as well. All of this evidence is non-conclusive.

> And the more "liberal sex ed" they get, the later that they start having sex!

haha this made me giggle - I went through those horrible classes, really borderline traumatising, removed all the fun and erotic aspects of sex yeah. Sad by the way that they don't teach stuff about fertility to women, who now flock into fertilty cliniques in their late 30's.

> Your comments about "haven't seen a significant shift in adults that claim that they are gay" suggest you read that sentence as the exact opposite of what I actually said. If I'm wrong, then you're arguing against your own position!

You're right, I misread, probably because it's false: https://news.gallup.com/poll/389792/lgbt-identification-tick... Also, 20% of zoomers identify as LGBT, totally an organic movement only determined by genetics and not the current liberal kulturkampf.

> Your article about historical alliances due to legal discrimination notwithstanding, there is little link between pedophilia and homosexuality. As https://www.zeroabuseproject.org/victim-assistance/jwrc/keep... says, to the extent that pedophiles have adult sexual interests, they are heterosexual. Even if they pursue boys. That certainly was my experience. That is also the case in countries where such abhorrent practices remain, like Afghanistan's "dancing boys".

There is an extensive culture of ephebophilia among homosexuals, ancient Greece being one of the oldest recorded example. I do agree however that it's less clear-cut, as many sex offenders are bisexuals too.

> Still, far more heterosexuals than homosexuals focus on porn categories like "barely legal".

There's an extensive supply of specific content, such as "twink" that caters to the homosexual public.

It's exactly what I said, intelligence is polygenic (not a too complex word for you I hope). Intelligence is a proxy here for the general mind. Homosexuality tendency is probably the same, which means it's not "on" or "off" as you initially said. You are not "born gay", there is 0 evidence that a one day newborn is homosexual. Epigenetics also probably play a role here. Twins studies, which are the golden standard, are not conclusive on this matter.

Here is a clue-by-four.

Find where I said that it is "on" or "off". Find where I indicated that I thought people are necessarily "born gay". Find where I indicated that epigenetics can't play a role.

Good luck. I said none of those things. I said nothing indicating that I believe any of those things. And I actually don't believe those things. As should be obvious from the fact that I identify "bisexual" as a category.

You're right, I misread, probably because it's false: https://news.gallup.com/poll/389792/lgbt-identification-tick... Also, 20% of zoomers identify as LGBT, totally an organic movement only determined by genetics and not the current liberal kulturkampf.

The headline figure there is that 7.1% of adults classify themselves as LBGTQ.

https://kinseyinstitute.org/research/publications/historical... gives various historical polls. Hunt in 1974 found that 7% of men had spent at least 3 years in a homosexual relationship, and about 2-3% of men are exclusively homosexual and under 1% of women. Let's see, that's around the same that are LBGTQ today, and about the same percentage that are gay today!

You can compare with other polls over the decades. Depending on how the poll was done and who did it, you get different percentages. But they are all in the same range.

Also, 20% of zoomers identify as LGBT, totally an organic movement only determined by genetics and not the current liberal kulturkampf.

Most zoomers have not actually had sex, and most of the ones that I know have been walking back their trans declarations. So I don't take that figure seriously. Let's wait and see what they say when they are 30.

Stop feeding the troll.

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