Star Trek Actor George Takei Comes Out

Felicia wrote:

...I come from a very permissive community
where 75% of my friends are bisexual, a few are gay and a
few are straight.... (To be fair bisexual should be considered as provisionally gay)

...Lastly, I don't think there are tons of
homosexuals out there trying to "convert" people....

..."Sexual orientation emerges for most people in early
adolescence without any prior sexual experience. Although
we can choose whether to act on our feelings,
psychologists do not consider sexual orientation to be a
conscious choice that can be voluntarily changed."...

These statements appear to be mutually contradictory. The fact is humans are basically social creatures (intelligence would come a very distant second). We like to form part of the crowd - to belong. Humans also like to experiment (especially when they are affluent and don't know what to do with their time : - ). Experimentation will also occur when persons of the opposite sex are not available. The danger is we pass on values to the next generation. For the new generation their parent's values forms the frame of reference on which they build their own edifice.

Selvaraj

From: Felicia
To: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, November 02, 2005 3:19 AM
Subject: Re: [spacesettlers] Star Trek Actor George Takei Comes Out

> Gay rights is unfortunately a double edged sword. While
> one can sympathize with the idea that two persons of the
> same sex would like to live their life together, we cannot
> escape the fact that children are born and they grow up in
> the same environment, and they inculcate the values of
> that environment. And with the kind of hardsell made
> possible by modern communication and media 90% of humans
> could be converted into homosexuals.

So, you are saying that without repression 90% of the
population would be homosexual. That seems to imply that
being gay is so much better than being straight that
everyone would want to do it, or else that homosexuals are
trying to convert people (and doing a good job at it).
Also, you seem to be saying that the desire to have
children would disappear for homosexuals. First off, with
the number of gay and lesbian couples in the US who are
trying to adopt or have children, I think the second
theory, that homosexual predominance would be the end of
population growth, isn't right. Now, back to the question
of percentages. I come from a very permissive community
where 75% of my friends are bisexual, a few are gay and a
few are straight. I think 95% of my bisexual friends are
in relationships with someone of the opposite sex at the
moment. This would indicate to me that, even in a
situation where someone is attracted to both men and
women, people generally are heterosexual. (Kinsey
information is useful for those who have questions about
bisexuals:
http://www.kinseyinstitute.org/resources/ak-hhscale.html)
Does anyone have any data that contradicts this? In the
novel I am writing, I assume that the homosexual
population on a station is about 15%, which is much higher
than the currently guessed rate of 3-6% (for men) in the
US. I don't think that statistic takes into account
bisexuals or lesbians or those whose sexuality is more of
a gray area, so my number might be high but probably not
terribly far off. Lastly, I don't think there are tons of
homosexuals out there trying to "convert" people. For
info on this, check out:
http://www.apa.org/pubinfo/answers.html
According to the American Psychological Association,
"Sexual orientation emerges for most people in early
adolescence without any prior sexual experience. Although
we can choose whether to act on our feelings,
psychologists do not consider sexual orientation to be a
conscious choice that can be voluntarily changed."
Don't worry, I won't be showing up at your front door with
a pamphlet on why it is better to be gay.

Speaking of population, I was reading "High Frontier" the
other day to try and figure out how O'Neill was fitting 10
million people into an O'Neill cylinder, and it looks to
me like that number is really high. He says that they can
live in the mountains near the end caps, but that doesn't
seem that realistic or feasible to me. Also, I am
constantly seeing proposals for space colonies in which it
is assumed that there will be enough space for people to
just build houses where ever and how ever they like. I
used city and district plans from "Carfree Cities" by J.
H. Crawford, and it looks to me like I would only be able
to fit about 4 and a half million people in a single
O'Neill cylinder without getting rid of green spaces
altogether. Am I just way off? Does anyone have any
comments on how people would be arranged inside these
stations? -- Felicia