[phaer]

> Speak for yourself. I personally know a lesbian couple that forces their boy to wear dresses, play with dolls, and talk down anything traditionally "male".

I am sorry, I don't see how that would be the same as "denying any difference between men and women". Do you really think, or even have proof which shows, that playing with dolls or wearing dresses is biologically, not socially, "male"?

A lot of clothing conventions for males in past centuries would pass as "female" today. Until the late 19th century it was common for small boys to wear dresses, see [1] for an example.

Besides, I myself played with dolls as a small boy and as far as I can tell did take no harm. That might be different if those boys grow up around homophobic people who bully them for playing with dolls or wearing dresses.

[1]: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/when-did-girls-st...

[s_baby]

If it's wrong to force traditional roles/identities onto those with a "queer" predisposition then the opposite is also true.

[phaer]

That's true, I'd oppose it if they really force the boy against his wishes to wear dresses, etc. But that's not clear from what I read because it's often described as 'forcing' when parents buy non-traditional toys and cloths for their children. So I'd need more context to say something about the described case.

Personally I am not really sure if there even is something like a predisposition for sexual preference. Does someone have recommended readying about that?

[s_baby]

>Personally I am not really sure if there even is something like a predisposition for sexual preference.

A) Queerness and sexual preference aren't equivalent ideas.

B) Saying something is a predisposition is saying it's a product of nature+environment. There are clear cases of socialization(Greeks, Papua New Guinea). On the other hand the drive to procreate is pervasive, overpowering, and considered nature.

C) I don't downvote. But I imagine it's because this thread is orthogonal to the dialogue.

[phaer]

A response would be even more appreciated than a down-vote ;)

[cwaniak]

Sexual preference is hardcoded in genes, right? Aren't you homophobic when you state otherwise? ;-)

[phaer]

I don't think so, there's a vast amount of LGBT authors who advocate the idea of sexuality as a social construct, be it homo-, hetero- or other sexualities

[Crito]

It seems odd to me that sexuality is a social construct even though gender is not. We know that gender is not merely a social construct because we know that gender dysphoria is not merely a social construct. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_identity_disorder#Biolog...)

There isn't a logical conflict there of course, sexuality could be a social construct despite gender not being that simple, ...it just seems odd to me. I suspect that sexuality, like gender, is not that simple.

[BlackAura]

I don't think that's what phaer meant.

The concept of sexual orientation is a social construct. Unquestionably. It's an idea that's pretty much unique to our culture (modern western countries primarily). Other cultures throughout history had different concepts that were quite different.

The fact that different people experience sexual or romantic attraction differently, and that not everyone is simply attracted only to the opposite sex, is not a social construct. It's a fact.

So it can be both. Just like gender is both.

[einhverfr]

You have to distinguish between sex and gender. Gender is socially constructed, but it is a necessary social reaction to biological differences between the sexes (for example, everywhere maternity is generally biologically constructed, but everywhere paternity is socially constructed --- it is a matter of record who one's mother is biologically, but this is usually not a matter of direct record for paternity). The thing is there is a really complex relationship between biology and culture and gender itself highlights a lot of that complexity.

Add to that the fact that identity carries with it social constructs offered by society, cognitive and psychological individual factors, etc, and that this does not rule out some biological factors regarding how the individual relates to the rest of these.

So "merely" meaning to the exclusion of other factors, sure. But that doesn't mean that the social constructs might not even be at the forefront.

[vacri]

I also played with dolls as a boy, if you count Lego minifigures. I played around with them in a fantasy world where they did things and interacted with each other socially.

[the_mitsuhiko]

> Do you really think, or even have proof which shows, that playing with dolls or wearing dresses is biologically, not socially, "male"?

I belive there were some experiments with babies by Trond Diseth that showed that babies have a natural tedency towards interacting with gender specific toys.