Christian Group Prepares To Mark Wii as 'Porn Portal' 565
Citing the Wii's ability to browse the internet via the Opera browser, a Christian group based out of California is planning on targeting the console with a smear campaign, Kotaku reports. The site has gotten ahold of a leaked press release from the upcoming 'Porn Talk' media event. From the release: "Like many new gaming technologies, the Wii's wireless internet capabilities make it a portal to porno. 'Parents think the computer is the only way for their kids to get porn on the internet. Unfortunately, they are dead wrong,' says Mike Foster, founder of ThePornTalk.com. 'Gaming devices like the Wii and the PSP aren't just for fun games anymore. You're able to surf the net, chat with friends, email, and view porn because of its internet access. Kids know this but parents don't!'"
In other news.... (Score:5, Insightful)
give me a break (Score:5, Insightful)
-stormin
As a Christian myself... (Score:5, Insightful)
Christians who judge others haven't read their Bibles. It is time to move forth, Christians, read your Bibles, and get out of people's lives, especially the lives of non-Christians.
Embarassing, to say the least.
Friend Codes (Score:2, Insightful)
A little sensationalist (Score:5, Insightful)
First of all, the press release isn't bashing the Wii, or calling it "Satan's PORNtal" or anything like that. They even go as far as to point out that the Wii includes parental controls: It looks like they're just using the Wii's popularity to push their agenda, that agenda being discussing the issue of porn with your kids -- a perfectly respectable goal. FTA: Encouraging parents to talk to kids about online behavior? That's a good thing. The Wii tie-in is nothing but marketing to attract parents.
Re:In other news.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:give me a break (Score:3, Insightful)
Shame on you, editors.
Re:give me a break (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:give me a break (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds like someone got carried away with a metaphor. The difference is that a car salesman is actually selling something for real: and getting money on false premises. The sensationalism here is not being used to sell a car. And it's not "blatant misinformation". Kids could get porn through the Wii. That doesn't mean you should burn your kids Wii, but parents should be aware of the capabilities of the toys their kids have.
Penny-Arcade did a similar story when some local affiliate did an expose on the fact that your kids can chat with anyone using a DS Lite. It was a sensationalist story, but it's worth trying to keep parents informed of the capacity of their kids toys so that they can make their parenting decisions accordingly.
The fundamental message of this is just: your kids can get online with a Wii. I want parents and *everyone* to know this so that we don't have more silly sue-MySpace type lawsuits when some kid manages to build a bomb online or hook up with a sex predator on a Wii.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:In other news.... (Score:1, Insightful)
Pot, meet kettle. (Score:5, Insightful)
Christians who judge others haven't read their Bibles.
Sounds like you're doing a little judgment of your own, doesn't it?
Look. Way too many people make this misunderstanding. The passage says "Judge not, lest you also be judged" (or something to that effect, depending on your translation). It DOESN'T say, "never judge anything at all, ever." It says, watch yourself, because the same rod you use to measure others might come back and bite you in the ass one day (I'm reminded of some very famous televangelests).
In fact, just moments after Jesus instructs us to "judge not", he says: Well, clearly, he didn't mean LITERAL dogs and swine. How would we know if they were dogs or swine if we didn't JUDGE the behavior of others? Clearly, we're supposed to make assessments of others based on their actions, and had you read your Bible, you'd know that's what Jesus meant.
I realize this seems off-topic, and I'll likely be modded down to oblivion, but as it IS a Christian group that's the subject of discussion here, I think this rebuttal is only fair. Flame on
OH PLEEEEAAASSSEEE give me a break... (Score:4, Insightful)
And #1 teach them a sense of values. What video game system they have doesn't matter its what you tell them to do with it, and what you teach them is OK.
When I was young could I get a copy of a playboy sure, but I knew I shouldn't have...
Re:In other news.... (Score:5, Insightful)
This Onion article seems appropriate: Teen Exposed To Violence, Profanity, Adult Situations By Family [theonion.com]
Seriously though, other than money and the spot-light, what are these people looking for.
Re:As a Christian myself... (Score:3, Insightful)
My sense is that Mark 4:24 and the related quotes from the other gospels is that it is about the basic moral principle of being careful to apply the same standard by which you judge others to yourself. I think it is a mistake to read it that we should not judge at all - but rather that we should judge fairly and not be hypocrites.
The reductio argument for your position is that if we are unable to judge, then it would mean that we must tolerate behaviors such as murder, torture, lying, sexual abuse and so forth. I think this is an obvious problem with your position, and I think Jesus himself speaks rather loudly that this is not the case with his actions in Matthew 21:12.
That said, I agree with the spirit of your post. Loving one's neighbor as oneself means sharing relevant information - such as the Wii is web-enabled and all that entails, but it also means searching our heart to discern the difference between loving concern for one's neighbor and judging them as if we were God - and doing our best to act in accordance with the former.
So What? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Like many new gaming technologies, the Wii's wireless internet capabilities make it a portal to porno. 'Parents think the computer is the only way for their kids to get porn on the internet. Unfortunately, they are dead wrong,' says Mike Foster, founder of ThePornTalk.com. 'Gaming devices like the Wii and the PSP aren't just for fun games anymore. You're able to surf the net, chat with friends, email, and view porn because of its internet access. Kids know this but parents don't!'"
So the solution lies in parents getting the facts and then talking to their children about expectations for online activity. Foster believes that, "Whether it is the home computer or these new gaming consoles, porn is easily accessible. The Wii is an amazing console and tons of fun but parents need good info on how to keep kids safe."
My Gord! That's so... so... rational, unemotional, and largely objectively (or "empirically", if you prefer) true. Compare to
targeting the console with a smear campaign
Saying the truth in a calm, collected manner is called smearing, now? When did that start? Or
I find it funny that a site that seems to go to so much effort to hide its ties to religion and ministry work is using the phrase dirty little secret.
Wait, was that an implication that religion is a dirty little secret? Damn submarine Jews.
the story's caustic tone
Is that more or less caustic than calling religions dirty little secrets?
Seriously. I may think the anti-porn campaign is a bit unnecessary (in a "don't you have something better to do?" way), but the campaign is surprisingly (at least after reading the beginning of the article) docile and rational. Who cares what they think, really? And who cares if they tell parents that kids can surf porn on the Wii? I mean, you can surf porn on the Wii, right? The most emotional (as opposed to rational) appeal in the whole thing is the title of the campaign ("The Wii's Dirty Little Secret"), and even that's less emotional/sarcastic/caustic (or "witty", as we prefer to say) than the average Slashdot catch-phrase. Hell, this paragraph has more sarcasm than that whole campaign.
Overall rating of the article: Troll.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:In other news.... (Score:1, Insightful)
Never mind that their assertion is correct - you can use the wii to pull down anything and everything from the 'net.
I just love to hear all the childless slashdotters speculate wildly about parenting. It's a good reminder of how easy it is to imagine solutions to problems you've never addressed yourselves. Hint: not even the best parents can make kids start out with good judgement. The age at which a kid is ready for Mario Kart is not the same age at which he is ready to avoid goatse.
Re:In other news.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Whether or not you believe people who fully subscribe to these practices are stupid or not is something you will have to decide for yourself but personally I know which side of the fence I'm on and I don't need any talking bushes to help make my mind up.
I'm sure there are non Christians who share these same concerns about the wii ( the Taleban spring to mind for one ) but you can usally bet that campaigns such as these have far more religious backing than non religious backing.
Re:As a Christian myself... (Score:4, Insightful)
Only one: The United States of America. More specificaly, the White House and the Mexican-Americans in the US.
Mexico does not celebrate the Cinco de Mayo. It is remembered of course, as an important (and one of the very few) military victory of the Army against a foreign enemy (the French), but it is NOT an official hoilday.
Re:As a Christian myself... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:In other news.... (Score:5, Insightful)
I know this is Slashdot and we never RTFA, but in case you mistakenly managed to locate it (here [theporntalk.com]), you would see that this Christian Group does in general give a positive review of the console. It only goes as far as warning the parents about the Wii's ability to be used as a browser and how to enable parental control on it. Period.
But then again, how would the poster of the original review generate traffic to his website if it was not by sensationalism?
Re:In other news.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sensationalism coming from ... the gaming press? (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, so the website appears to be funded my some Christian group. Even though I'm not Christian, I don't really see a problem here, considering the actual messaging is quite reasonable and responsible. I don't see them blasting Nintendo or the console, in fact just providing parents the messaging they need to "do the right thing" (use the proper parental controls, etc.).
Sometimes I think the gaming press really does itself more harm than good
TLA for the KJC (Score:5, Insightful)
Sigh. "Nannie state fascist" is not a bad term, but the fact that you apply it so carelessly indicates a certain knee-jerkiness on your part. Please repeat after me: "Rush Limbaugh thinks with his mouth."
To me, a "Nannie State fascist" is somebody wants the government to outlaw every little danger. Ralph Nader is a prime case. Of course, the term is sort of subjective. You and I would probably agree that the crusade to require passive restraints in cars (basically, seatbelts that buckle you in involuntarily) is Nannie State Fascism. But we probably disagree as to the speed limit (I think people who think they can drive safely at 90 MPH are fooling themselves, but that's not a popular opinion).
This, on the other hand is better described as "Righteous Religious Fascism." The motivation is not to protect you from yourself, but to protect you from Satan.
Re:In other news.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Who says we are all childless?
I have a 6 year old and a Wii.
Kids have to learn judgement, and some of that learning comes through exposure to bad judgement.
Goatse is only really bad because we are conditioned as a society to think it is bad. Kids have very little of that conditioning yet. They usually only apply context to things via the reactions of the ADULTS around them.
If a 5 year old saw goatse - they would probably say something like "that is a butt" and maybe by this time a "gross" or a couple "poop" jokes might come out of the whole experience. And they would forget all about it and go on. They are not really interested in goatse, my kid would just keep browsing looking for the "Cat, I'm a Kitty Cat - and I dance dance dance" video...
But if an adult FREAKS OUT and says that it is BAD - then instantly goatse sticks in the memory. That is how kids learn.
When a toddler falls down and bumps their knee in an empty room when they think no one is watching, they just keep going. But if the look around and see that mom or dad are jumping up to "help" them, they will start crying. They key in to our reactions, emotions, and responses.
Nothing teaches a kid to swear faster than telling them they should not swear, or by covering their ears when others swear. We have NEVER censored ourselves or our friends or our TV or movies, and our child has no problem with swearing at all because he doesn't think that it is anything special. And we have made clear distinctions between what behavior is OK at home vs. at school vs. in a restaurant etc etc etc.
But nothing sells like Pr0n - so there is no faster way to increase the popularity of the Wii than to brand it a Pr0n machine.
And as others have noted. The browser can be turned off, and parental controls can be applied. Easier on the Wii than on the family computer...
Whoopie doo.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Whatever happened to parents taking an active part in their childrens life instead of blaming everything in the world for corrupting their children? Oh that's right they're too busy out crusading against everything to bother with, you know, raising their kids. God knows they need to make the world safer for the kids. [/sarcasm]
Re:In other news.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Because it is a prime principle of the Christian right to be anti-sex in any form. Anti-sex to the exclusion of being anti-war or anti-exploitation or anti-racist or anti-poverty or anti-anything that really matters to the lives of real human beings. It is precisely these Christian fundamentalist reactionaries who are so hung up on the largely mythological dangers of pornography who make all this noise. To bring up the statistical fact that some vanishingly small group of non-Christians also suffer from this very same mental peculiarity has nothing to do with the true nature of this story.
"I'm not saying it's a particularly good reason not to get a Wii, but don't judge religion, judge stupidity. (and please pass on the religion = stupidity comments, they are past tired.)"
Except that, with the exception of a very small percentage of scholarly intellectuals, the more religiously oriented a person is, the more likely they are to BE stupid. Sorry if this sounds like trolling, but you put the terms "religion" and "stupidity" on the table and you have to expect someone (like me) to raise the valid question of what, exactly, the relationship IS between the two. And, unfortunately, the latter varies directly with the former.
Re:In other news.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:A little sensationalist (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Being offended that Christians exist
2. Mocking that Christians are concerned about pornography
3. Defending that pronography never has harmful effects
4. Being armchair parents and pontificating about what they would do if they were ever able to procreate
5. Blasting religion in general and categorizing those who follow any form of it as less intelligent/sophisticated as themselves even if the religous people do get more chances at procreation
That no one has offered any helpful advice on this technical problem. Does no one realize that the appropriate solution would be to roll your own proxy server. No one mentioned Squid or its various plugins that can help parents have a solid control on the situation complete with auditing and alerting. The fact is there are people who want children to experiance the world with just a bit of a safety net. Let's move off their religous beliefs and start offering ways technology can help them achieve their goals.
I am saddened by the recent decline of slashdot.
Re:In other news.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh no, I'm not "intolerant" with religion because I am a victim of intolerance too.
I'm "intolerant" (that is, I think religion is 100% moronic -not that I harm a single hair of religious people, of course) because it's purely believing in fairy tales, no more, no less. It's a problem of philosophical judgement, not a problem of "not sharing my beliefs". It's you that have beliefs to share with other -I simply don't have beliefs of this kind.
Re:In other news.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Rules of thumb:
If your headline could be considered flamebait, it's not news.
If your headline ends in a question mark, it's not news.
Re:In other news.... (Score:2, Insightful)
A majority of scientists believe in global warming. Therefor, global warming is true. Those that disagree should lose their jobs and certifications because they are either stupid, ignorant or bribed.
A majority of people in the world believe in God (about 2/3, I believe). So, according to the rules we here at Slashdot have set up to deal with global warming deniers, that makes religion correct and those that disagree either stupid, ignorant or bribed.
So, what's your story?
(I know the logic is ridiculous, but, hey, if it's good for global warming, then it's gotta be good for religion!)
Back on topic... if we had enforced ratings on games, game buyers could go tell these people where to stick their WiiMote since kids could not buy any of the "violent or sexually related games". As to the Wii having the Internet browser and the Internet being violence and porn ridden... well, take that up with the DOD!
Re:In other news.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:In other news.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Here's your Wii. Here's your access point.
Don't set your kids Wii up with the code for your access point.
Wow. That was tough. I mean, it took all of no time at all to do.
Of course, I'm probably not going to have to convince YOU.
Re:Be gone with you SATAN!! (Score:3, Insightful)
There are wacky bible-bashing Christians out there just like there are crazy cut-your-head-off Muslims.
I am a Christian, but I am often very saddened by the state of Christianity because I read reports like this one. Most Christians in the USA are good, easy-goin people like me.
I personally don't care if you want to run around naked in your own house, pee on a dog and have sex with chickens. That is your problem, not mine. Though as a Christian I will pray for you and hope that you give up your chicken-sex. However, I won't be bashing you on the head telling you that you will go to h-e-double-hockey-sticks because you had chicken-sex. Heck, chicken-sex seems to be the best that most
Seriously, most of this crazy "Christian" crap comes from the Catholics. Look at the history of the Catholic church. Murder. Rape. Molestation. Lies. No wonder a lot of non-Christians think all "Christians" are crazy.
Re:Be gone with you SATAN!! (Score:4, Insightful)
For every example you can name for which this might be true, I'm confident there's one for which it isn't. The one you did choose is completely ridiculous. Do you honestly believe that people just snap one day and start having gay affairs because they're too morally sheltered? Isn't it possible that.. I don't know... they're actually just gay?
When it comes to porn, which is really what this is about, for a lot of people (perhaps most people), a little bit doesn't inoculate, it's the beginning of an addiction. See, for example, this [pointlesswasteoftime.com]. (NSFW, by the way.) It's obviously not very scientific, but I think it definitely makes the point.
Re:Be gone with you SATAN!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Honestly I can't imagine a more lunatic bigoted view, but on Slashdot even the idiots get modified insightful, as long as it tangentially goes along with the group-think.
Re:Be gone with you SATAN!! (Score:2, Insightful)
I understand your point, and on the surface, it seems agreeable. It fails the reality test, though. What about those who are predisposed to addictions? Alcoholism, for example, can run in families, often skipping generations, due to the fallout of one generations' excesses. Many Native Americans and their descendants are known to be predisposed to alcoholism. For _some_ people, ONE drink is all it takes to make them an addict. The same goes for many drugs, even pot.
Your point seems to be "everything in moderation". Let's think about that. Sex, even in moderation can prove life-changing. It only takes one time to get an STD or create a life - even if you're practicing "safe" sex. Murder in moderation is still murder. Lying in moderation is still lying. etc. etc. So, no, exposure to immoral acts doesn't prevent further or more severe immoral acts. If anything, it encourages it. What changes, instead, is one's view of the act itself. Once you've done it, it's suddenly easier to rationalize.
Also, I think there's another explanation to all the televangelists/priests, etc. Yes, certainly abstinence makes the temptation of the unknown greater. But consider that some priests/televangelists/whatever became "religious" in part to isolate themselves from their temptations - like an alcoholic moving to a dry county.
Furthermore, it's only the extraordinary which make the news. For every pedophile preacher, there are thousands of decent ones.
Re:In other news.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Unlike the upstanding paragons Pat Roberts, Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, Fred Phelps, Jimmy Swaggart, Robert Tilton, and Ted Haggard? Jim Jones? David Koresh? Or were you thinking of those really great guys John Calvin, Oliver Cromwell and Cotton Mather? How about Southern antebellum churches and their wholesale advocation of African slavery? And let's not forget that absolute bastion of solid Protestant virtue, the Ku Klux Klan. Sure, freed slaves and their descendants were their main focus, but they hated Catholics too.
No one's saying the Catholic church hasn't done some fucked up shit, but they aren't the only ones with issues.
Re:Be gone with you SATAN!! (Score:3, Insightful)
The urban rat has a life expectancy of about a year. The lab rat or pet two to four years. Is the urban rat healthier at all ages or are you simply looking at survivors of infant mortality in the weeks or months of their adult prime?
folks like this don't realize that you need to face evil to become hardened to it
I would have thought that become hardened to evil makes it easier to accept and not the other way around.
Re:In other news.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure, but by "built-in wireless chat", you should realize that it has even less of a range than, say, walkie-talkies. Maybe about 120 feet with any walls or buildings around, and maybe 300 feet or so if you're facing someone else with a DS. It's also a bit flakey, so I would imagine the "stranger danger" factor is practically nil.
If, on the other hand, you mean the online play over the Internet, well, it's all anonymous, nickname-only random matches with others, with no communication in most games, and the ability to send positive, pre-defined messages in some others. In order to personally communicate with anyone at all, you have to trade 12-digit "friend codes" with another and each has to register the number on his own copy of the game, and even then it's per game.
On the one hand, I wish there were something more flexible but on the other hand it makes online games practically grief-free (except for people turning off the power when they're losing.
Re:A little sensationalist (Score:3, Insightful)
3. Defending that pronography never has harmful effects
(Yes, porn addiction exists, but so do shopping addiction and exercise addiction. No one claims that kids need to be kept away from stores, or that gym class is inherently harmful, even though those otherwise-harmless activities become a problem for a tiny minority.)
What homophobes modded this up!? (Score:5, Insightful)
June 28, 1969 called. It wants its misinformed homophobia back.
Re:Be gone with you SATAN!! (Score:5, Insightful)
WTF? Those of us who actually care don't want to become "hardened" to evil. Evil is evil and it sucks. Evil is bigotry, prejudice, violence, and those who don't choose to live by the "golden rule". They are the enemy of everyone. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. If you become hardened to evil then you are choosing to ignore it. I don't want anyone to ignore evil. Make a difference. I'll risk my life to intervene if I see a mugging or convenience store robbery. I choose to not associate with people who espouse prejudices, violence, or really harmful "criminal" activities...who really cares about a friendly poker game or smoking a little pot?
As far as homosexuals go, they don't harm me or as far as I can see, they don't harm society. Hell, we've got too many kids out there who need parents and being raised by a homosexual does not mean you become a homosexual. Homosexuality seems to be in most mammalian and many bird species but they are, and must by Darwin's law, remain a minority.
Re:In other news.... (Score:1, Insightful)
A majority of the evidence says global warming is true. A majority of the scientists say global warming is true because that what the evidence says.
The same, however, cannot be said of religion. There is no evidence, so it doesn't matter what the majority of people believe.
But you are correct. It is good enough for global warming to have the evidence...
Where does that leave religion?
Re:Be gone with you SATAN!! (Score:4, Insightful)
Some guy has never had any sex, doesn't go out. And suddenly in his late thirties, he starts going to gay bars and fucks guys. How do you interpret that?
The naive christian conservative's interpretation: Because he led a sheltered life, he just "snapped" when he saw porn the first time. And the first porn he happened to see was gay porn.
The real explanation: Yes, he was gay all along, and knew it since puberty dawned on him when he was 13 years young. But being somewhat on the shy side, he never dared to announce this publically. He never went out, because it seemed pointless to him: in the "normal" hangouts, he'd meet girls (in which he was not interested), and if he went to the gay hangouts, he feared he would get "caught" and ridiculed or ostracised for it. Result: he deliberately led a sheltered life. And after 24 years of abstinence, he finally grew a spine, and fully assumed his sexuality.
So, in our example, the candidate did not become gay because he led a sheltered life, but it was the other way round: he led a sheltered life because he was gay, but didn't dare to live it.
Re:Be gone with you SATAN!! (Score:5, Insightful)
What rubbish. I currently live in a predominantly Catholic country, and despite not being a Christian myself, am married to a woman who goes to mass twice a week, has a grandfather who was beatified by the last pope, and an uncle who is likely to be beatified by this one. Yet strangely, neither she nor her priest have mentioned the Wii (which is constantly sold out over here), or the Internet (massively popular), or for that matter porn (also incredibly popular). They also have far less in the way of silly prudishness than most protestant countries: nearly all women go topless on the beach, TV adverts have full-frontal topless shots, explicit sex scenes don't have watershed hours, and movie ratings are advisory rather than enforced by law, for example (one also sees a lot more blood and gore on news reports, which aren't censored for fear of possibly scaring a child. The attitude here seems to be that it's a parent's job to control what their children watch, not everyone else's).
Thus, a far more accurate statement would be: most of this crazy "Christian" crap comes from US-based right wing fundamentalist religious nuts.
"Look at the history of the Catholic church. Murder. Rape. Molestation. Lies."
All of which are true of Protestants when they've had the power to do so. Here are a few examples (there are many, many more):
- John Calvin's followers burned 58 "heretics".
- Lutherans in Germany instituted the death penalty for heresy, i.e. the crime of not interpreting Biblical scriptures in the same way as them.
- Elizabeth 1 of England outlawed Catholicism and executed at least 200 Catholics; Quakers and other non-Anglicans were also persecuted.
- John Knox et. al. made it illegal to say Mass in Scotland. Punishment for the first offence was flogging and confiscation of all good, second offence banishment, third offence death.
- Matthew Hopkins, the notorious "Witch Finder General", was a Protestant.
- Puritan settlers of Massachusetts instituted what can best be described as a religious police state where even minor doctrinal differences were punished by flogging, pillorying, hanging, cutting off ears and / or noses, and boring holes in tongues with hot irons. Quakerism was a capital offence, and four Quakers were hanged for it, while the famous Salem witch trials resulted in 20 executions and around 150 people being imprisoned.
Protestants who happily lambast Catholics for their church's past atrocities are thus akin to Nigerians condemning Uganda for being full of black people.
Re:Be gone with you SATAN!! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:FYI The blog from the origin (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:FYI The blog from the origin (Score:3, Insightful)
"how did you feel when you saw it?"
"bad..."
"and if you were blind and looking at it, how do you think you'd feel then?"
"Not so bad, i guess..."
Re:What drugs are you on? (Score:1, Insightful)
This is not Nanny State Fascism. This is economics. People need to quit being so annoying with the seatbelt argument.
A religionist using 'groupthink'? How droll! (Score:3, Insightful)
Also hilarious, is that you bash 'leftists' for their 'groupthink'. Leftists are progressives...and since you obviously see the world in black and white, you must be a rightist...or conservative. Conservatives don't like change...they want things to stay the same way they've always been and the same way everybody already does them...which is GROUPTHINK!
If this was a troll, good job.
Re:Be gone with you SATAN!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Moderation is moderation, and its the usual state of humans who have better things to worry about , like getting to work on time and making sure the kids are doing the homework.
Re:Be gone with you SATAN!! (Score:4, Insightful)
There is nothing stopping a gay person from mating with the opposite sex
True, and many do (presumably by thinking about a man while they fuck their wife...). But many don't get happy that way, and eventually snap and come out. And many are unable to think about a different kind of sex while having real sex.
just like there is nothing stopping a straight person from having sex with the same sex.
That should be theoretically possible as well in the same way, but what would be the point? Why fake something for which many members of society still look down on you?
There is however an underlying preference that pushes people to one way or another. Just like favoring the color red over the color blue, this preference has been learned throughout the person's life.
Any evidence to support that claim?
Sometime during their life, they had to acknowledge this preference and determine to become a homosexual.
If it is truly a decision, how come so many gay people struggle with their homosexuality, and live in the closet?
True, many don't have a problem with it, and live their feelings openly as soon as they show up, but others are scared of these feelings, and try to hide them.
It is the same for heterosexuals but society is prewired to push the heterosexual lifestyle so the decision isn't that obvious. But no matter what anyone thinks, they did make a decision to be one way or the other. Most often this decision is so gradual (it is made in steps or stages) that it seems the natural thing to do. Some times the deviancy of having gay sex excites the person to the point of making the choice because it was more rewarding.
So, in a way, they want to make themselves look "interesting"? How then do you explain the existence of shy and introverted gay people? Shy people would do everything to stay out of the spotlight, and certainly not "chose" a sexuality because its "deviancy is more exciting".
This is like those who think public sex is more rewarding
Not really.
or those who use pain, whips, role playing or whatever.
This may be closer to it. But again, these are things that happen to turn them on, and are not necessarily a choice...
And because society has made the decisions that sex in the act of reproduction was the right way to have it, most sex that cannot produce offspring is considered not good. The extent of which is closely related to the ability to have children and how far society is willing to depart from what they were told was the norm.
True, at least as far as the 3 big monotheistic religions are concerned. Other societies have less qualms about homosexuality. And guess what, even in those societies, most people are still straight, and a minority is gay or lesbian. If it were truely a choice, you'd expect having an equal share of all sexualities in societies where no stigma is attached to homosexuality.
Some people get a rush from doing things they know they shouldn't.
Not really. Again: consider shy and introverted gay people.
Having an affair with a married woman generally results better sex because you know it is wrong.
That really depends on other aspects of the participants' temperament. For some people, the thrill of the forbidden adds to the excitement, but for others the need to be permanently on the lookout somehow kills the atmosphere.
On the same note, A person who is told he can't have gay sex might find it more exciting or satisfying because he knows he shouldn't be doing it. This can also explain some of the "gay and in your face" attitude some gays adopt.
More like "I've hid my feelings for too long. Now it's time for 'revenge', and I show openly what I've repressed for so long". Why is it considered ok if a heterosexual "flaunts his sexuality" (by continuously talking about his wife and his kids), but not
Re:Be gone with you SATAN!! (Score:2, Insightful)
It's not social, it's purely biological, and humans were around long before "society" emerged. A lot of human behavior is biological. Since reproduction is the key to keeping the species alive, it stands to reason that heterosexuality is a biological trait (because it takes a man and a woman to reproduce), and homosexuality is an abnormality of some sort (note to hysterical PC leftists: "abnormal" does not equal "kill them all in gas chambers").
Even animals exhibit homosexuality, and they certainly have no conscious ideas about how society should work.