My mind just exploded. Gratz.

good for him!

Did you just equate sexual orientation with a fetish? Analogy fail.

Being gay isn't about being defined by sexual practices, and people telling you they are gay is not an invitation for you to speculate, imagine, or comment on what they do behind closed doors. They aren't announcing they are into a specific sexual practice (although a lot of dumb people sure assume they are).

It's about who you are attracted to, emotionally and yes, sexually, but everyone always focuses on the sex. What are you, some kind of pervert; you hear someone is gay and immediately start picturing them having sex? What's wrong with you?

And, once again, this is necessary because of the presumption of heterosexuality. Until they come out, they have to endure everyone being mistaken about a core aspect of their overall personality and life.

The only people attention whoring here are the bigots and social ******s who continue to make posts like this.

Edit: Also, I don't know what America you live in, but the one I live in is a country where they use sex to try and sell toothpaste, and you basically can't view any form of popular entertainment without hearing or seeing some sexual references. So either you live in an Amish village or you are one of several million hypocrites who thinks that sex in popular culture is fine, as long as it's normal, straight sex.

Being gay - genetic or environmental? I've never heard a good argument for either.

Although there is a show on TV with identical twins, one is gay, one is not. This makes me think being gay is a product of your environment.

Go.

This is so standard.

/Freud

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sxo9wGA9qYg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwiL0wEl8gA#t=9m01s

This is an argument only had by conservatives totally ignorant of modern science. It's the same people who pretend there is a debate over climate change or evolution.

The bottom line is it's totally meaningless. Who cares? If it's 100% choice it in no way alters a persons rights. Nor does if if it's 100% environmental.

You don't think finding the cause of something is a) interesting or b) important?

The obvious answer is it's almost certainly both, just like most other things.

There appear to be some brain differences (gay male brains looking more like the brains of straight women than straight men) in certain areas, and hormonal influences in utero may play a significant roll. However, twin studies demonstrate that it's probably not 100% genetic, which shouldn't be a surprise, since twin studies of schizophrenia (which we know has a genetic component as well) demonstrate the same thing. Those same twin studies do strongly suggest that there is a genetic component as well, however, since you would not otherwise normally expect 50% of siblings to share the same sexual orientation.

Does it matter? There's probably several genes and hormonal influences that are involved as well as specific environmental factors at a very young age, and frankly, the more complex the better, since it will prevent any whack jobs from believing there is some single gay gene we can fix to prevent the evil nasty gay people from even existing.

very well said as always.

could you be gay tomorrow?

Is that a genuine offer?

(But srsly, that's a really, really poor argument)

I suck dick and I love vaginal intercourse. How do you classify that?
I waited until 30 after knowing for 17 years all b/c I am bi and I couldn't figure out why I was pursuing both sexes. If being LGB was no big deal I would have came out a long time ago but instead it's such a big deal I kept it to myself aside from a few others for 17 years. It's a shame too b/c now I realize my 20s were a lot less fun b/c I couldn't be myself.
The lack of 100% honesty is a killer. I believe it is what drives those in the closet and kids to depression and suicide.
Genetic. I remember I would notice myself staring at guys at school and getting a hardon in middle school and not knowing why. It was several years before I realized what was going on. Maybe from 12-19 I was clueless about it. I wasn't even thinking of myself that way.

eh, i kind of disagree with this. first, i don't really consider him to be high profile. second, poker is NOT like other sports. in other sports it would be exponentially more difficult to come out of the closet. having to work closely and intimately with other teammates, many of them uneducated or bigoted would be extraordinarily difficult. i think sports is the last place we'll see gays openly coming out and accepted.

coming out of the closet is definitely a big deal for jason himself, his close friends, and his family, but i don't really see it changing the poker community whatsoever. your average high stakes tourney crusher is both extremely liberal and extremely intelligent. i think jason will find a lot of support from his peers, and i think this is a more important story than jason's sexuality or blog post.

Yes it is an interesting scientific question buts it's answer plays no roll at all in social or political policy.

I mentioned that he wasn't profile either, never heard of the guy till this thread. Another difference between poker/sport is sports athletes have huge sponsorship deals worth millions, they wouldn't get those being gay so they have to keep it private. None of the big companies want to start sponsoring poker players because poker isn't respected at all compared to basketball/football/tennis/baseball/golf etc. so being gay makes little difference.

How do you know that that your experiences from the age of 0-12 wasn't the cause of this?

If it's genetic why weren't you looking at boys in this way before the age of 12? It could be a puberty issue, but then many gay people and their parents say signs are often evident well before this.

We agree on this.

You are right that he isn't super high profile. I would really like to see some of the very high profile poker players come out, particularly those who have been in the public's eye for many years and have already made their millions from sponsorships.

BTW, the main reason a poker player will not come out is monetary as it affects their sponsorships (ie hard to reach the Darvin Moon fanbase as a gay man). This is the same reason an MMA fighter (or boxer) will not come out. You could argue that openly gay fighters would have trouble finding someone to roll with, but if you simply took all the top fighters that are in the closet and put them into one fight camp you would have 3 or 4 of the top p4p fighters in the world and would have the best camp bar none....plus, I know plenty of straight fighters that have no problem rolling with a gay man.

The cause of homosexuality is certainly interesting - almost certainly both genetic and environmental, imo, with most of the influence coming from parents and siblings, e.g. the younger of two brothers is more likely to be gay, I read somewhere - however, it's not relevant to anything other than psychology, and it shouldn't be, otherwise it starts to sound like you're trying to prevent a disease.

That's the equivalent of me sitting at a poker table saying "I knew the A was coming so i floated your flop bet". While the statement you made may not be entirely off base, it's the same sort of thinking with hindsight. You'll never hear about people who end up in heterosexual relationships and their parents possible doubts, or the people who's parents had no clue...so to what extent those signs are actually signs isn't clear and really can't be scientifically studied. Best to stay away from speculation.

Most studies have shown that there is a heritable component to sexual orientation but there are environmental effects as well. I'm not sure about the heritability of gender identification but I'll see what I find on the subject.

And really Kardnel? I am hoping that was a level...

EDIT: Wazz those studies don't point to older siblings having an effect on younger (so an adopted older sibling wouldn't have an effect). They are trying to show some relationship between the mother's uterus and hormone levels and whether or not the child is gay (Having more kids and getting older can result in significant hormone changes for women).

How would one classify a spread of homosexuality to the point at which it lead to a significant decrease in the global population (through a lack of procreation)?

There's zero evidence anything like that would occur unless due to an evolutionary adaptation due to significant over population of the human species.

Are you just making up imaginary scenarios now or something? There's no indication that there's been an increase in the general LGB population since such research started, just an increased awareness and recognition of the community that makes them more visible.

At 6 or 7 the older kids in the neighborhood told me that my dick would get bigger if I thought about girls and would get smaller if I thought about boys. I went home and found it got bigger both ways.

At 3 my sister and her friends dressed me in doll clothes and put makeup on me. I'd like to think something like this has no effect on a person's sexuality but I might be wrong.

at birth you are born straight or homosexual or bisexual or transgendered. It is genetics.

I think this thread should be locked though, it has nothing to do with jason anymore and will just continue to derail.