"Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity" by Bruce Bagenmihl
- two percent of male ostriches ignore females and court males
i think that refutes the claim that animals are only homo because there are no members of the opposite sex around...
Not really. That there are members of the opposite sex available doesn't mean they are accessible. Although I'm not sure about ostriches, which have a brain the size of an acorn, many animals have by nature a dominant male (Alpha male) system whereby only the dominant male is permitted access or mating rights within the social group. Sexually frustrated because they're not permitted to mate, coupled with an enormous drive to do so, less-dominant males are often observed 'releasing' some of this sexual frustration/drive onto just about anything, including other males.
Further, animals mount each other in mock displays of dominance, which is why you will frequently see both dominant male and female dogs mount lesser dominant dogs of the same or different sex. This kind of behavior is far less about 'sex' or 'reproduction' than it is about mock/play displays of dominance.
I tend to believe that homosexuality as a matter of same-sex sexual arousal/attraction is probably not a matter of 'choice', per se, at least not a witting one, though homosexuality as an open life-style most certainly is. But that it may not implictly be a 'choice' doesn't necessarily mean it is 'normal', 'healthy', or even desirable.
Men who become pedophiles but were not themselves molested as children probably don't make a willing 'choice' to find children sexually arousing. Neither do sadomasochists or serial murderers make a willing 'choice' to find human suffering and dismemberment sexually arousing. Neither do those with bizarre fetishes make a willing 'choice' to find human excrement, or urine, or vomit, or high heeled shoes, and any number of other disfunctional and harmful obsessions, sexually arousing.
Its not as though one wakes-up in the morning and says to themselves "Hey, I think I'll give serial murder a try today. Always willing to try new things."
Instead, the 'graduation' to murder is the latest manifestation within a disorder of severe mental illness that is or has or will soon totally consume the individual.
There are a lot of things that can go horribly 'wrong' in the course of human psychological and mental development, much of which is still rather poorly understood and probably will be for a long time. The hope of 'treatment' for many serious mental disorders isn't all that promising.
You can't make a pedophile stop craving sexual interaction with children if he is already an accomplished child molestor. There may be some hope for treatment if caught early, well before a mentally ill person begins to act upon their fantasies and compulsions, but that almost never happens for a number of reasons.
Of course, if we were to have a very powerful lobby which not only seeks to, but to no small degree actually succeeds at, legitimizing sexual fetishes like sadomasochism, advocating it is not at all 'wrong' but perfectly normal and healthy, indeed just as normal and healthy as any other sexual practice, then we have done serious harm to the pursuit of truth and set-back efforts to first define or describe the illness, disorder, or malady, without which efforts to understand the cause of such things so it may one day lead to an effective treatment will not happen.
You can't 'treat' where no malady is perceived or acknowledged.
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