Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2013 May 1

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May 1

Western Culture and homosexuality

Hi, i'm trying to find some information for an article in progress but struggling. I know there is something out there but now i need it there's nothing obvious on a Google search I can use. I need something; research or just notable ramblings concerning the accusation of Western Culture either causing or promoting homosexuality. It's for User:Jenova20/List of suggested causes of homosexuality and this is becoming one of the more difficult ones to find accusations/evidence of. I would appreciate greatly the effort put in to find some information on this. Thanks ツ Jenova20 ^(email) 14:10, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

I guess it depends what you mean by "western culture". The idea that "decadent" Western values (i.e. liberalism) promotes homosexuality is pretty commonplace. The likes of Robert Mugabe have made such pronouncements, and you can find it in some Islamists. That;s linked to defense of local traditions against westernisation. Nationalist ideologies etc. The idea that modern society itself promotes "unnatural" behaviour - including homosexuality - date back to the sexologists of the late nineteenth century, and is linked to the debates about "degeneration", loss of of traditional belief, liberalisation etc. If you are referring to an older model of "western culture" derived from medieval Christianity, you could argue that the very concept of homosexual identity emerges from the fact that it is proscribed. Paul B (talk) 14:50, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

From my Internet search for xenoestrogens homosexuality, the first result is

http://www.30bananasaday.com/forum/topics/xenoestrogens-turning-men-into-women.

—Wavelength (talk) 14:56, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

See "Joseph Nicolosi" and http://josephnicolosi.com/an-open-secret-the-truth-about/.

—Wavelength (talk) 15:08, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Amazing! thank you both very much ツ Jenova20 ^(email) 15:11, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

I think this book chapter from the Family Research Council might be helpful (pp. 29 ff). Looie496 (talk) 15:15, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

See "Homosexuality in ancient Greece" and http://www.banap.net/spip.php?article121.

—Wavelength (talk) 15:19, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

A caution... the topic of this article is guaranteed to be controversial. I am not at all sure that a list article is an appropriate way to cover it. Blueboar (talk) 15:21, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Most gay-related articles are controversial. If i show all opinions here in line with WP:WEIGHT I think i'll be fine. That-being-said, if you have anything to add or change then go right ahead or just suggest it for me to do. Thanks for the sources. If you find more then post 'em up ツ Jenova20 ^(email) 15:30, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

See http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110216141118AAAuy5j.

—Wavelength (talk) 17:07, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

I only skimmed your draft, but you appear to be missing the obvious 'it feels good to put your penis into a hole and sometimes anuses are handier' “cause” (practiced by prisoners the world over, among others), as well as the simple 'hey I like this person and I like putting my penis in holes, combine the two?' cause (alternatively, the 'no religion taught me this was wrong' cause). No idea what these would be summed up into one or two words as in academia. :) ¦ Reisio (talk) 04:40, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm gonna play the dyslexic card and say i don't understand that. Can you reword or explain? Sorry ツ Jenova20 ^(email) 10:10, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

I don't want to speak for him, but he seems to be saying "Some people men have sex with men because a) it feels good and b) they don't live in a society where people seem to care." That is, it isn't caused so much as "not prevented". --Jayron32 12:25, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

For female people, this is often much more widely accepted even in fairly conservative societies. Indeed, they may even be allowed to marry men! --Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:29, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

So corrected. --Jayron32 13:02, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Ahh, i see! Well that's all useful stuff for me to add =D Thanks a lot and keep it coming if you find/think of more ツ Jenova20 ^(email) 13:41, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Note an important point Reisio seemed to be refer to that Jayron32 did not is that of Prison sexuality and other cases of where Men who have sex with men for access and similar reasons, i.e. Situational sexual behavior. Note in such cases it may not be be that it's generally socially acceptable, simply that it's possible and the risk isn't so great as to stop it, in fact it isn't uncommon that those involved may not wish people to know or to speak about. However while there may be some merit to mention this in your article, as your article appears to be homosexuality as a sexual orientation, not as a behaviour. Nil Einne (talk) 15:14, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

The article in progress is a list of claimed causes. Prison and situation are clearly missing and i'll add them right away. All i need is some decent sources now. Thanks ツ Jenova20 ^(email) 15:27, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Our articles Homosexuality in Japan#Ancient Japan, Homosexuality in China#Traditional views of homosexuality in China and LGBT history should dispel the notion that something Western might have in some way determined or prevented someone’s idea of appropriate sexual orientation. DOR (HK) (talk) 06:30, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, i'm aware that it's a bullshit explanation that Western Society/Culture = Gay but it's for an article and my opinion isn't a source. Thanks for the links, i'll knock through 'em over the weekend ツ Jenova20 ^(email) 08:34, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Distant members of the Princely Family of Liechtenstein

What are the status of the descendants of Prince Eduard Franz of Liechtenstein in Liechtenstein? They are dynasts and bear the title prince but are they recognized by the reigning prince or given a pension by the government? It seems they mostly live in Austria and Germany. Are they consider foreign royals in those countries?--The Emperor's New Spy (talk) 22:02, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Austria and Germany are very much republics today, and AFAIK, neither has any government recognition at all of any privilege of royalty or nobility; that is there are no heritable privileges associated with title or ancestry recognized by the governments of either country. --Jayron32 02:49, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Foreign royals too?--The Emperor's New Spy (talk) 02:52, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

How do you mean? Like does the government give special privileges to foreign royals? Why would they? --Jayron32 02:58, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Just to give some references, both Austrian nobility and German nobility give some good information on the abolition of privilege and of the non-recognition of nobility by those countries today. It seems that there is still considerable "social" recognition in the sense that formerly rich and famous noble families are, well, still rich and famous and being so tend to live the sort of life and have the sort of social privilege that, say, members of the Social Register in the U.S. may, you know the "jet set", playboy, ultra-rich lifestyle, that sort of thing still exists in Austria and Germany. What doesn't exist is any sort of legal distinction that sets such a class apart. So yes, socially, formerly noble families in those countries still live a very different life than the average office worker or school teacher. But there's no official government recognition. It should be noted that it isn't just Liectensteiner nobility that run in those circles either. Aga Khan IV, the Nizari Imam and one of the richest private individuals in the world, who is married to a German princess and whose step mother was Rita Hayworth, is also part of the European noble social scene, as was his father Aly Khan. --Jayron32 03:13, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Tracing new world's black population

From what part of Africa do each community of American (as a continent) black population come from? OsmanRF34 (talk) 23:04, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Some Brazilian slaves came from Portugal's colonies of Angola and Mozambique. Otherwise, slaves could come from many parts of Africa, but coastal West Africa was the main area where slave ships loaded. Caribbean Lukumi/Orisha religious practice shows significant influences from Yoruba culture, in current day Nigeria etc. AnonMoos (talk) 23:31, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

So a "cross-colonizer" supply (Portuguese supplying the English or the other way round) was also possible? Are there historical records of how many slaves left Africa, at what ships, and so on? OsmanRF34 (talk) 00:15, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

There's some good information at Atlantic slave trade. There's a map and tables and percentages and all sorts of good data and everything that shows where most slaves bound for the Americas came from; though it doesn't explicitly say where each slave went to. It is likely that such records may not be available or even possible to produce; though we know where most of the slaves came from, there isn't likely a one-to-one correspondence between a land of origin in Africa and a land of arrival in the Americas. But otherwise, that article's actually in pretty good shape. --Jayron32 02:45, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

"Cross-colonizer trade" was considered a bad thing according to the prevailing economic philosophy of Mercantilism, and the English desire to trade with Spanish new world colonies was a continual source of friction. For this aspect of the slave trade, see Asiento. AnonMoos (talk) 03:36, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

And note that populations have moved around considerably over the past few centuries, so you're likely to find a wide mixture of ethnic origins everywhere now. StuRat (talk) 03:46, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Hence "African American" rather than "Yoruba American" or "Ashanti American" or whatever. Because of their intermingling in the New World, which would not have happened in their native lands to anything like the same extent, if at all, their individual ethnicities have been largely lost. Imagine if all we knew about Italian Americans, German Americans, Hispanic Americans etc was that they were "European Americans". -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 06:03, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

For many Americans, "European" is about all they know of their ancestry. And the European immigrants (like the slaves) also interbred much more in the Americas than they would have in their natal lands. My point is, for people (like me) who can rattle off ~6-10 European countries of ancestor origin, "European American" is probably the best title there is (apparently "White American Mutt" is deprecated). I suspect that, compared to USA, Europe has less people that are e.g. of Irish and German and Russian and Polish and English descent, but I'm not sure how USA would compare to Australia or Canada in that regard... SemanticMantis (talk) 19:46, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Actually, more to the point, you can rattle off 6-10 European countries. Most people with European ancestry can identify at least some, if not most, of the countries from whence their ancestors arrived in the New World. There are much fewer African Americans who can do the same with regard to where in Africa their ancestors came from at all. --Jayron32 21:18, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Most European countries are quite ethnically diverse now, although its mostly a recent and urban development. Not on the scale of the US, Canada, Australia etc however. 100 different languages spoken across the UK Alansplodge (talk) 12:26, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Most European countries have been ethnically diverse for a long time, excepting the relatively recent influx of non-European immigrants. People at all strata of society moved around Europe for centuries. Sometimes, the land underneath them moved, i.e. consider that places like Alsace (Germany to France and back and forth a few times), Savoy and Nice (Italy to France), Silesia (exchanged between Bohemia (Czech), Austria, and Poland many times), etc. One can find historically significant figures from many European countries who themselves, or their families generations before, had come from a very different part of Europe or other parts of the world, i.e. Patrice de MacMahon, Eamon de Valera, Cardinal Mazarin, El Greco, Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester, not to mention all the mass settlements of Vikings, Normans, etc. in various parts of Europe, movements of individual families from place to place, immigration has always occured to some degree. The notion of ethnic groups as relatively "static" homogeneous people of a consistent identity since time immemorial is, and has always been, a fiction. --Jayron32 05:41, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure that it's all a fiction Jayron. Cheddar Man is the remains of a 9,000 year-old male found in the west of England. In the local village of Cheddar, out of 22 people sample for a Y-DNA genealogical DNA test, two schoolchildren were found to be an exact match. Countries like Norway had a remarkably homogeneous ethnicity (with a few ancient minorities like the Sami people) before the 20th century; first and second generation immigrants now make up 14% of the population. Alansplodge (talk) 19:27, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

There are genetic testing companies which for a hundred to several hundred dollars (US) can in some cases trace your mitochondrial DNA or Y chromosome DNA back to an ancestor who lived in some specific country several hundred years ago, Then you would know for sure that your maternal line was from some specific African subpopulation such as Khoikhoi or Bantu peoples, or that your paternal line was from the Amhara people or Igbo. They can give percentages of your ancestry from other world population, representing all your other ancestors besides mother's mother's mother's mother or father's father's father's father etc. Edison (talk) 04:02, 3 May 2013 (UTC)