Occam’s razor, do you think there was anything dissuading people from officially recording themselves as being gay in the 1950s? What about the 1980s?
It’s worth looking at large societal trends from a lens of skepticism, I agree with you there. But I don’t think the change is as big as you might imagine it is.
Edit: the parent comment was edited to just a single hyphen, here’s the original as written
> Openly discussing reasons for the sudden exponential rise in the LGBT lifestyle shouldn't be as taboo as it is. It's a phenomenon that the public in general doesn't to look into. I don't think the explanation is as simple as "We threw off the shackles of religion". I think it's fair to ask "Are there chemicals in our food, or some chemical that we regularly come into contact with that may be causing this rapid change?"
People born before 1950 it was less than 1 in 100, people born after 1997 it's more than 1 in 5. I'm not condemning, I just think it's odd, and I'm not really allowed to ask why without being shunned.
You can and should talk about the biological and social origins of homosexuality if it interests you. But, you should avoid doing it in a way that's insulting.
I would also suggest, since it's a sensitive topic affecting people that have been persecuted, making sure the comments are thoughtful and non-reductionist.
For people who'd prefer to be cavalier about the subject though, there's not lack of spaces on the internet to do so.
The other comment was deleted about being called a homophobe. As I was writing it I was unable to add my comment. So I will add it here (to be clear, this is not directly to the person I am responding too, just adding it to the thread).
-----
Wether or not you would actively try to restrict the rights of the community, there is clearly some about of homophobia there.
Otherwise why bother asking the question and thinking about it. Especially when you seem dismissive of the religion aspect when that's a very real aspect that has an impact outside of just churches.
Especially when we go farther and farther into our history being gay or even trans was far more accepted and normal (sometimes in slightly different ways like Rome) in some societies.
The harm that religion has done on many areas of humanity, like how we treat woman, should be well understood and not hard to point the same thing at LGBT+.
For the record, I don't think something like chemicals or whatever make people gay, I actually believe something that is for some reason more inflammatory. The religious aspect is a major driver. The prevalence of homosexuality is a social thing, sexuality is largely not innate and is learned behavior. I don't believe Roman society as it existed for example would be possible if it were otherwise. A society with institutional pederastry, where men were often expected to engage in sex with other men, one where there wasn't even a word for homosexuality, but that had strict codes of sexual conduct nonetheless, is absolutely impossible if sexuality were innate from birth in the majority of the population.
I find this subject very interesting because I’m bi, and in my case it was difficult to come out even though my entire family is supportive and progressive. If it’d been the 50s, I would never have done so. I think you’re missing the fact that societal support extends to familial support, and that the latter is very impactful to people.
It really isn't fair to ask that, it makes no sense.
Religion and a lack of societal understanding (largely fueled by religion) is a very easy explanation.
More people today feel safe coming out or even know what being gay is.
It is being a fairly regular thing that people are discovering their sexuality at a late age due to society telling them they need to be a certain way so they conform.
There isn't anything sinister or suspicious about people actually being who they are when society doesn't keep telling them they are wrong or sick.
Your statistic is severely flawed because those are specifically people who are out.
We have known for a long time that sexuality is a spectrum, you may consider yourself straight but that doesn't mean that you are 100% straight. I mean I consider myself gay but I can still appreciate when a woman is very attractive. Doesn't mean I want to sleep with her but I am obviously not 100% gay.
Sexuality is complex and we are finally being more open about that.
Sexual diversity is a sensitive topic for a practical reason. Lifetimes of suppression with continuing waves of thoughtless or damaging bullshit.
If you are going to post something in public on diversity, be careful to avoid casual speculation that just adds to the all too prevalent bullshit.
Also don’t hijack discussions with real physicists with “interesting” casual non-expert theories. They are “sensitive” to that.
I.e. understand your audience, understand the context of the topic. Be realistic about the quality of what you might say, and where. Different topics or forums require higher standards, for genuinely good reasons.
(Side note: Slightly confused about why this was posted here, now? It was updated today due to vandalism but still confused).
Regardless....
Unless I am missing something it seems like this was only ever a paper and not actually tested. Which is good.
I do find the pheromones thing interesting, as a gay man myself I feel like you could likely ask almost any gay man and they could confirm that particular thing. But I am curious if they have done any research on Bi people to see if it holds true as we would expect?
There might be a good movie idea here about a platoon struck by a gay bomb and dealing with the subsequent ramifications in their conservative society and families. The guy closest to the center of the blast is made super gay and the guys toward the edges of the radius less so, a few outside of the radius might be bi-curious at best.
But there could also be a message for how society treats its veterans in general when they return from war.
Long story short - just like with gay bombs and all these other sorts of Cold War esoterica - is that humans are really complicated, and war is even more complicated. Turns out making people gay or psychotic - even if the chemicals did work at doing this, which is dubious given their tenuous understanding of what "gay" or "psychosis" was - doesn't actually reduce their warfighting capability. Sometimes, it even made a tenable tactical situation much worse.
Now, when it came to making people think they were going crazy, that's where these substances really started to find some traction, but that wasn't a military application. More the territory of the CIA headshrinkers.
I would guess you wouldn't even need to make it a weapon. Just airdrop ready-to-use drugs across their positions. Enough bored and/or shell shocked soldiers will self administer.
this is such a strangely specific avenue of attack, it kind of displays how codified the fear of homosexuality has been in the united states — there are dozens of known methods (even in the 70s) that I would expect to be vastly more effective without much additional research
Also sexual repression and sexism in general. The assumptions about human sexuality made here... I presume the people coming up with this were particularly out of touch. Literally. The idea is really mind boggling ignorant.
