I was arguing with a friend a while back; we’re both atheists, but he’s one of the ones who feels compelled to be rude about it. He was asking where the notion that one has to respect other people’s religion came from. Why shouldn’t religion be subject to rational inquiry in the public sphere, he wanted to know. Well, I don’t think he actually wanted to know, I think he thought his question was rhetorical. But I answered it anyway.
Agreement to not subject other people’s religions to too strenuous an inquiry became a practice because it’s the only way we can have a civilization. The alternatives, after millennia of testing, are either respect other people’s religions, or endure tons of bloodshed. It’s a conversation that always and only ends in bloodshed, and so we as a civilization have developed the meme of “You have to respect other people’s religion” as a way of mutually agreeing to not talk about it.
This, like everything else, brings me to sex.
We in the sex-positive crowd generally treat a person’s sexual and gender identity and sexual tastes or habits as a black box. For those who haven’t heard the term before, a black box is a term of art referring to an unknowable process. You don’t know how the black box produced this result, and you can’t find out, so just take the result and get on with your work. How did a person come to be a serially monogamous cisgendered lesbian who likes her hair pulled? How did this other fellow end up as a straight male top with a taste for leather? We don’t know. They just came out that way, and you should be polite to them.
We do not treat sexuality as a black box because it actually is intrinsically unknowable, but because it’s the only way we can have a civilization.
Back around… would’ve been 1990 or so, one of the early studies indicating that homosexuality may have a genetic origin came out. The day it came out, one of the boys at my school came up to me and said “Hey, did you hear? They found the part of the brain that makes people gay! Maybe now they can find a way to cut that part out and make those people normal!” That was literally his first reaction. Little bastard’s probably a senator by now.
I knew a girl once who swore blind that her fetish for being spanked was an intrinsic genetic component of her DNA. I didn’t buy it for a second, but I understood why she felt the need to say that. “DNA” was her way of trying to say “black box”.
The connection between those two people should be obvious, but in case it’s not: people have a really awful habit of trying to “fix” other people’s sexuality. Corrective rape. Clitoridectomy. Circumcision. Chastity belts. Anti-masturbation devices. Chemical castration. I could go on and on, but frankly, those links have made me a little sick to my stomach.
Even today we have moralists like Marcus Bachmann and Gail Dines trying to tell us what it’s “normal” to want, and earnestly assuring us that they’ve figured out what’s wrong with abnormal people, and they can help fix it. Pray away the gay, think away the kink, doesn’t matter. Same shit, different day.
It’s not that sexuality is all that knowable at its best. What drives a given person’s identity and tastes is phenomenally complex, as strange and mysterious and beautiful as the factors that give rise to their rich personality, to their curly hair, to their annoying laugh. But some of those factors are, after all, knowable. That hair is influenced by DNA, humidity, and some other things. That personality is a mix of inborn traits and formative experiences. And yeah, maybe that uniform fetish has something to do with spending puberty at a Catholic school next to a naval base.
But it’s not worth it to start the digging. Let’s say, for example, that someone were to prove, definitively prove, that homosexuality is caused by (deliberately silly example here) the mother eating celery during pregnancy. Down to how much celery is required. We have a celery chart that lines up to the Kinsey scale.
Think about how many people around the world would rejoice, cheering and saying to each other “At last! We can prevent it!” and not quite saying out loud “We can eliminate homosexuals from the face of the earth within a generation or two!” Think about how many places would start banning celery. Think what would happen to a visibly pregnant woman who ordered cream of celery soup in public. Think about how many pregnancy manuals would come out, full of recommended healthy diets that just so happen to leave out one ingredient, without ever quite mentioning it.
Silly example? You bet. Totally valid anyway? Oh my, yes.
Let’s say someone comes out with a popular, bestselling book on child psychology. Doesn’t even have to be true, just popular. Let’s say they claim that whatever a kid interacts with on their eleventh birthday, that will become their fetish. Little blonde girl at your party? You have a thing for blondes now. Lot of rubber balloons at your party? Latex fetish! Watched Thundercats or the Disney Robin Hood? Furry fandom welcomes you, brother! Sure, this is completely stupid, but it’s way less stupid than Indigo children and some people take that seriously.
Every parent who buys that book, every one, is going to micromanage their kid’s eleventh birthday in the creepiest possible way. Let your imagination run wild: centerfolds on the walls, total isolation, trip to the YMCA… you cannot possibly reach the levels of creepiness people would actually engage in. They’re more motivated, after all: this is their child’s whole future on the line!
So no, we don’t know quite how the mechanisms work that make a person gay or trans or genderqueer or any of the rest. We don’t know what gives rise to the wealth of kinks and fetishes and weird tastes that make sex so damn much fun. We don’t want to know. It would be nice if we could say “This is how it works” without someone immediately saying “Great, now we can fix it”, but we don’t live in that world.
We have fought for recognition and dignity for all forms of sexual minorities because none of us need to be fixed. You may not like how someone else presents, genderwise. You may not like what they do in private. You may think that someone’s kink is offensive. Doesn’t matter. They are not a problem to be fixed, they are a human being with as much dignity and human worth as anyone else, and insofar as their sexuality neither picks your pocket nor breaks your leg, you can spare them your opinion, for it really doesn’t matter.
But somehow, none of the human-dignity arguments work as well in getting people to stop trying to fix other people as simply saying “Well, no one knows, so there’s nothing you can do.” In that respect, “There’s nothing you can do” works the same as “You have to respect the beliefs of others” does for religion. It’s a way to just drop the subject and move on.
We treat sexuality as a black box because it’s the only way we can maintain a polite conversation about it without someone trying to fucking infibulate someone.
Considering: – That this field is plauged with “shamans” in the form of PUA’s, dating coaches, etc. – That we are so quick in pointing fingers and blaming: gay’s, virgins, kinkers, etc. for various social ills. Just like people, hundreds of years ago, blamed various minorities for things they didn’t understand like disease. -That alot of people actually WANT to know about why they are like they are. Means that I have to dissagre with you. It seems like people are against this kind of research believe that some of the fun will disapear. I think this is pretty selfish.… Read more »
Jim, here it is:
http://daisysdeadair.blogspot.com/2010/12/on-feminist-collaboration-with-state.html
Daran said it had too many conspiracy theories, so yall have been warned! :p
“Protip, Orwell never said that”
Well he should have. It’s valid whoever said it. Basically it is Mao Zedong’s point..
Oh Tom, you ask about privilege and your belief that violence is not the answer to intolerance. You might ask Daisy. She had a great post a couple of years ago about how white feminists always seem to trust and rely on and go to patriarchal insitutions when they feel threatened. Court cases etc. Basically it’s because they can. That’s privilege. Being able to count on police protection, civil rights and the rule of law is privilege. It is an excellent post. Ask her for the citation.
Hey Daisy!
Protip, Orwell never said that
“Alright then. I’m gay and I don’t consider violence the answer to intolerance. What aspect of my priviledge do you attribute that to?”
Common sense. A credible threat beats an actual attack any day. The Fundies are busy eating each other already. It started with Ted Haggart. Now we have Newt Gingrich channeling Trotsky. As the saying goes. “kill with a borrowed knife.”
But that doesn’t rebut Orwell’s comment about how we all sleep soundly only because rough men etc…
Daisy: It appears to be. Sorry. 🙁
Does this mean my comment was lost?
I get confused easily from reading things, so I’m going to attempt to articulate what I think might be relevant to the OP: “Think about how many places would start banning celery. Think what would happen to a visibly pregnant woman who ordered cream of celery soup in public. Think about how many pregnancy manuals would come out, full of recommended healthy diets that just so happen to leave out one ingredient, without ever quite mentioning it.” This bit had me thinking about the vast majority of pro-life propaganda that claims we shouldn’t let anyone abort ever because, well, just… Read more »
I think that to see sexuality has a “black box” can cause problems. It would work if homophobic people were mostly eugenicists : people that believe in science and believe that sexual orientation has a genetic origin and therefore that people that have homosexual genes should not have children. The main problem is that homophobic people are mostly religious retards, they believe homosexuality is a choice and therefore they don’t want homosexual to raise children, they don’t believe in science and believe that Earth was created 6000 years ago, and finally, they are against abortion. The best way to fight… Read more »
@Jim “ML, your moral principles are a function of yor privilege.”
Alright then. I’m gay and I don’t consider violence the answer to intolerance. What aspect of my priviledge do you attribute that to?
“@Jim – We definitely have, ah, different moral premises. Unless you’re deliberately making a satirical point, by saying something pretty much identical to what a gay-bashing fundie could have said about the Kinsey report to justify continued violence against gays. (Swap “I am a gay man” and “I am a Christian [fundamentalist]“…you even used “stay their ass in the closet”!)” ML, your moral principles are a function of yor privilege. I live under a threat from these people that you do not, and that is reflected ikn my take on the polticis of living with them. We live together at… Read more »
@Noah – “what I’m arguing in favor of is polite social conventions that allow us to get along with other people, they do in fact apply only so far as the other person’s issue neither picks your pocket nor breaks your leg.” This issue here, it seems to me, is a disagreement about whether looking at sexuality as a “black box” causes harm. I tend to think that it does, both for reasons that knowledge in general is good, and because there are specific things about how sexuality works that would be beneficial for us to know. If we adopt… Read more »
@Emily – You rock, and you’ve succeeded in saying what I wanted to say in a constructive-yet-non-confrontational way. Props. @Jim – We definitely have, ah, different moral premises. Unless you’re deliberately making a satirical point, by saying something pretty much identical to what a gay-bashing fundie could have said about the Kinsey report to justify continued violence against gays. (Swap “I am a gay man” and “I am a Christian [fundamentalist]”…you even used “stay their ass in the closet”!) @Mok – Yesyesyes! @noah – I’m glad you agree with Mok (and as far as I can tell, Emily and me)… Read more »
It’s well known that if you torture the data enough, it will confess to anything. Sometimes, “To hell with your data, the theory is still right!” is still the right answer.
The more we socially agree to move sexuality out of the category of “things that can be fixed” I think it’s important to point out that science would be “this is the way we are and here is why”. Looking at it from a “this is the way we ought to be, let’s figure out how to make it so” is not so much science as it is social engineering. Sure, the social engineering will depend on, and in some cases be the motivation for the science, however you shouldn’t so readily conflate the two. The better we are able… Read more »
“I’m…almost stumped for a response here. Just about every other thing I’ve read from you has been pure win, Noah. But here you are, suggesting that a whole area of scientific investigation into something really damn important to human life and happiness ought to be off-limits because we might be uncomfortable with the answers?” ML, basically yes. Noah is basically asserting that humans in community, in a society, are not capable of subordinating their traibalism and bigotry to reason, that their rationality is so weak and limited that it cannot serve as the basis of a social order. He is… Read more »
Humbition: Yes, and that gets into the more social aspects of science, which, I agree, is never free of problems, but also should be given at least some credit for being able to spot obvious axe-grinding. As for the “gay genes”, they were a combination of poor science journalism and sample-size limitations due to the expense of the technology. Coupled with the known problem that negative results almost never get published while positive ones do, you get false positives that evaporate under further scrutiny. The same thing is happening right now with genome-wide association studies.- because genomes cost ~$20K each,… Read more »
It’s important to see what I’m *not* saying here. I’m not saying that science is perfect, free from social influences, free from influences that lead to sub-optimal outcomes (null results being unpublishable),never used to justify bigoted worldviews, or that science’s research into certain areas doesn’t have a host of ethical landmines that must be carefully navigated. What I *am* saying is that we should not simply define entire areas as “off limits”. “Tread with care”, certainly, but never “off limits”. It’s also worth noting that scientists today are a LOT better at engaging with the given sub-group they’re studying and… Read more »
Right, but poor science journalism reflects the culture from which it arises, and so does science. A culture’s science can’t be reduced to its cultural influences, but these exist. And some science seems to invite “poor science journalism” in its very origin. A scientific study that worked on the “causes” of a sexual identity would fit that category — and if the only problematic part of that sexual identity is that people stigmatize it, there would be all the more reason to suspect that “poor science journalism” — and the resultant controversy and notoriety — might just be part of… Read more »
That was poor science journalism.
Data are neutral, maybe, but they are always relative to the question that someone asked of them. And we are also involved with the word “cause,” which is a philosophical cesspool. Whatever happened to all those genes in the ’90s which “caused” this or that behavior? What happened was, the “causality” was found to be overstated, and philosophical rigor began to set in. Causality exists in the world, but it usually isn’t simple, particularly when biology or social phenomena are involved. This of course enables the “real causes” of things to become political footballs, for a game that is always… Read more »
Humbition: Nobody said hypotheses are value-neutral, or implied that science happens in a social vacuum. But data are* neutral – the universe is what it is, and aside from outright data fabrication, the question asked will not change the answer. What truly shocks me is the number of people so happy to censor science in case they don’t like the results or social reaction to those results. If people like some of the posters here ran the show, we’d still be bleeding people to balance their humours and freaking out about every random passing comet. * – Yes, data is… Read more »
I’m surprised by the pushback to Noah here. I find that I agree almost completely with his position, original and modified. I simply don’t agree with “knowledge is value-neutral.” Hypotheses don’t come from outer space, and especially in the social sciences they generally come from things that people want to know about. Which means they reflect, to a greater or lesser extent, but always to some degree, the general ways that people think, the distinctions they make in everyday life, the ways that certain issues are felt to be problems and certain issues aren’t. Now, the doing of science in… Read more »
In moderation? What happened? My comment posted here before and now its gone. (Was it that bad?)
“what I’m arguing in favor of is polite social conventions that allow us to get along with other people” That may be what you meant, but it’s not what you said. You implied that religion shouldn’t be “subject to rational inquiry in the public sphere,” which is well beyond the scope of a polite social convention, imo. Your point about not harassing people about the origins of their sexual preferences was a good one, but again, you expanded it to include scientific research (“Let’s say that someone were to prove that homosexuality is caused by the mother eating celery during… Read more »