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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 17, 2023

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What's unhealthy about being gay or lesbian? I guess transgenderism is different because it's kind of defined as dysmorphia even by its activists, but I don't see anything unhealthy about homosexuality.

What's unhealthy about being gay or lesbian? I guess transgenderism is different because it's kind of defined as dysmorphia even by its activists, but I don't see anything unhealthy about homosexuality.

Well, what's "unhealthy" about anything? Is it "unhealthy" to eat bacon? Apparently yes. Why? Because it shortens your lifespan and creates other complications. Does being homosexual shorten your lifespan?

In short, yes. I have deliberately linked the response of the authors of the relevant study to what they call "homophobic groups [who] appear more interested in restricting the human rights of gay and bisexuals rather than promoting their health and well being." Their only goal was to demonstrate the needs of the gay community, not to strengthen any homophobic agenda. Furthermore, advances in HIV treatment have surely raised that number in the last few decades, but the fact remains that practicing homosexuality is a lifestyle with health consequences similar to those we associate with smoking, sedentary lifestyles, bad foods, etc. Which we typically do not ban, but do often seek to regulate, or at least socially disapprove.

"But sexuality is a part of people's core immutable identity!" I'm skeptical of that, for reasons that aren't important to this argument, but I definitely hear the same thing from obese people, who I've known to talk about food the way that some homosexuals talk about the impossibility of just not doing that. I'm not sure I can accept that it is dehumanizing to be told that your preferred behaviors are unhealthy or even socially forbidden, but I am comfortable that it is unpleasant, and the consequences of letting people eat bacon or have consensual unprotected anal sex in public places with total strangers are in many cases low enough that the costs of forbidding that behavior is more than society should bear. But let's set aside the prevalence of sexually transmitted infections in homosexual men, the high comorbidity of psychiatric disorders that does not seem to be abating as societal acceptance improves, and the effects of promiscuity which apply to everyone but more to homosexual men than any other demographic...

Is infertility "unhealthy?"

This is the final motte of the natural law theorist. Organisms are generally healthy when every part is performing its "proper function." Many parts of you have the function of keeping you alive; if your heart stops pumping blood, it's curtains. Some parts are more utilitarian; if your eyes stop translating photons into useful neurological information, you're not going to die (at least not as a direct result), but you might talk to your doctor about approaches to restoring them.

So what's the proper function of your sex organs and attendant "sexual attraction" neurocircuitry?

Obviously, homosexuality is not infertility of the gonads. But homosexuals (at least if they are strict about their homosexuality) must rely on artificial reproductive technologies for sexual reproduction in the way that people with poor vision must wear glasses to see. Given the prevalence of fertility clinics, it would be weird to say that infertility is not a question of being "unhealthy" (indeed, one highly successful approach to fertility treatment for the obese is: lose weight). One does not visit the fertility doctor when everything is working as nature intended arranged via processes of natural selection over millions of years. There is no effective, humane "treatment" for homosexuality, but--imagine if, in 1899 A.D., someone discovered an easily-farmed plant in the rainforest with sap that reset the neurocircuitry of human sexual attraction to "reproductive sex" mode. How would history look different?

Now, before I get dog-piled with "but causation" and "but elective sterilization" and "but anti-natalism" and "but bisexuals" and all the other entirely-too-obvious "buts" (I will not make a cheeky comment about "but" sex here dammit sorry sorry):

I don't think any of this matters very much. We did not discover a magical sexuality-changing tree sap in 1899, we do have a variety of interventions to circumvent the costs of our preferences and desires, including "unhealthy" ones, and perhaps most importantly, I eat bacon. Literally, and also metaphorically, where "bacon" is a stand-in for all the many ways I fail to do what is optimally healthy, because for whatever reason it's not who I am, no matter what my rational mind tells me I should prefer in my own best interests. I echo the letter from the lifespan study: the point here is not to excuse any mistreatment of any individual based on the character of their sexual appetites.

But you said you "don't see anything unhealthy about homosexuality," which statement would seem to me to require a very constrained definition of "unhealthy," much more constrained than we apply in basically any other context.

I don't think any of this matters very much. We did not discover a magical sexuality-changing tree sap in 1899, we do have a variety of interventions to circumvent the costs of our preferences and desires, including "unhealthy" ones, and perhaps most importantly, I eat bacon. Literally, and also metaphorically, where "bacon" is a stand-in for all the many ways I fail to do what is optimally healthy, because for whatever reason it's not who I am, no matter what my rational mind tells me I should prefer in my own best interests. I echo the letter from the lifespan study: the point here is not to excuse any mistreatment of any individual based on the character of their sexual appetites.

But you said you "don't see anything unhealthy about homosexuality," which statement would seem to me to require a very constrained definition of "unhealthy," much more constrained than we apply in basically any other context.

I really appreciate this aspect of your thought, but I think it reveals an intuitive dichotomy between the definition of "healthy/unhealthy" and "actionably unhealthy." Perhaps, if we're splitting hairs, a further dichotomy between "socially actionable" and "legally actionable" levels of "unhealthy." Some subset of behaviors is well known to be less than optimal for health for most people, those behaviors can be labeled as "known to be unhealthy." Within that subset, we can further split between those that are broadly viewed as non-actionable, which we do not judge at all; those that are socially actionable, we shame and judge but do not legally restrict; and those that are legally actionable, we tax, fine, discourage, and perhaps outlaw them.

There is significant debate over what constitutes actionable vs non-actionable levels of unhealthy. When people say "X isn't unhealthy" they mean something like "X is less unhealthy than things that we similarly do not judge or discourage." It falls below the Actionable line. While when someone uses the phrase "X is Unhealthy" we nearly always mean to say that X is at least within the category of Socially Actionable things which we would feel comfortable judging others for. It is above the Actionable line.

Your very broad definition of healthy/unhealthy captures so many behaviors that aren't socially, let alone legally, actionable that it is your definition that is wildly unconstrained. If Gay Sex is to be discouraged in the same way that donuts are discouraged: that is to say that from my office there are to be five shops specifically devoted to gay sex within a mile radius, that offering gay sex as a polite tip to a power line crew restoring a blackout near my house was normal, that TV ads constantly drove me towards new varieties of commercial gay sex, then I guess you'd be at equivalent levels of marketing something that is "unhealthy."

Your very broad definition of healthy/unhealthy captures so many behaviors that aren't socially, let alone legally, actionable that it is your definition that is wildly unconstrained. If Gay Sex is to be discouraged in the same way that donuts are discouraged: that is to say that from my office there are to be five shops specifically devoted to gay sex within a mile radius, that offering gay sex as a polite tip to a power line crew restoring a blackout near my house was normal, that TV ads constantly drove me towards new varieties of commercial gay sex, then I guess you'd be at equivalent levels of marketing something that is "unhealthy."

Well, maybe what I should have said was "a clear view of the question probably requires us to taboo the word 'unhealthy'" and try to figure out what is really being asked, but it's never quite obvious to me when is the best time to make that move, as it can seem a bit uncharitable to open with "I don't think the question you're asking is the one I should answer."

There's more I could probably say (e.g. about the number of rainbow flags likely flying within a mile radius of your office, if donut shops are that densely packed where you are) but I think the main thing is, "my" definition is not wildly unconstrained--rather, what people decide are "actionable" versus "nonactionable" health choices is wildly unprincipled, increasingly governed by culture war battle lines (see bans on: gas stoves, pornography, sugary beverages, masks...), and I'm just pointing that out.

e.g. about the number of rainbow flags likely flying within a mile radius of your office, if donut shops are that densely packed where you are

To be honest, Scout's Honor, you'd be wrong. In terms of publicly displayed flags at businesses/institutions rather than at homes, I can think of two? The one soft-Prot church by the golf course, and my yoga studio. Probably a third somewhere in my favorite coffee shop, half the staff is visibly queer, but I don't actually remember seeing it. If we're counting private houses that number increases somewhat, but then I'd need to include grocery stores and gas stations that sell donuts even if they aren't the main product. I actually think I see fewer pride flags than commercial establishments selling donuts in my average day.

I often find myself agreeing with @Walterodim here, and think a lot of my disconnect with the more rabidly anti-woke posters on themotte is that I don't live in an area or work in an industry where I face constant pressure to conform to woke shibboleths.

Where you are: how is the idea that gay people should be celibate viewed? How is it viewed if a gay person chooses celibacy because he believes that gay relationships aren't for him and that it wouldn't be fair to an opposite-sex partner if he was in a relationship with her? What if it's a lesbian choosing celibacy...perhaps because of religious belief? They don't think that other people's relationships are any of their business and support people being able to do what they want, gay marriage, all that...but believe that their God wants them to be celibate, or are maybe celibate out of personal conviction.

Kookie. Nobody believes that around me.

Homosexuality exists but homosexuals should be celibate was a fallback entrenchment in a war that was lost a decade ago. It was a counter argument to "Born This Way" which was so effective it is now almost outmoded on the left. While the Right is circling away from it with the Groomer meme.

Yeah. The Groomer meme... has some truth to it with fetishizing and making transness fashionable. That is bullshit: hawking irreversible medical interventions to kids as anything other than a last resort. If Johnny wants to wear dresses and be called Suzie, fine, maybe that's his generation's rebellion. Same for Johnny taking Mike to the prom. I'm gathering that that's commonplace and acceptable where you are, and that many kids tell their parents that they're not straight...and get a "That's OK, we still love you, do you need a ride to soccer practice?" from them.

As I understand it, you guys are in a liberal stronghold, a super-blue area. Which is different from the suburban-Northeast tossup territory I grew up in. You could see Trump signs, MAGA bumper stickers, rainbow flags, and Hillary or Biden signs on the same street.

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