I'm Back To Eviscerate

Well I’m back, my computer is fixed (for the time being) and I’m ready to dig right back in with another wrong, wrong I’m-not-sure-if-you’re-trolling-but-let’s-address-this-anyway person clogging up the comments section of my video of Penn and Teller on the Boy Scouts who identifies himself as LordSignur.

Now I don’t usually comment much on my own videos, even though I do read the vast majority of the comments that are left on them. Usually I only get involved if someone is asking me a direct question, but once in a while a comment is so glaringly wrong and I have just enough time to butt in, I will say something. This was one such case, in talking about the Boy Scout’s officially unofficial policy of excluding gay men from working there or gay scouts from participating.

they aren't born with anything.

sexuality is decided by your environment and the decision you make. There is actually a gene that make you more likely to have sex with anybody but it doesn't make you gay.

Would you look at that! The old being gay is a choice argument! Oh how annoying you be, and how very very wrong. I responded in kind.

you dont choose who you are sexually attracted to. you may choose to actually sleep with them, but the basis of the sexual attraction remains innate and perfectly natural. Can you suddenly decide to be sexually aroused by the sight of a naked man? Dont know about you, but I cant decide to be aroused by anything that doesnt arouse me, because its not a choice

He gets insistent, and intelligible English becomes harder and harder to come by

It isn't completely conscious. but you do choose who you sleep with.

About the attraction, again, if you had experience where you come up with the idea that men a beautiful then you might be gay.

You even have gay that pretend to be straight now and get aroused by women. Are they lying?

the simple idea that there is a good way is stupid.

And you do choose everything, consciously or not. You don't realize it, that's all

What?! I gave it one last shot

If they are sexually aroused by women they are probably “bi”. Sexuality and gender are not as binary as you think they are. And the idea that you "choose" everything is ridiculous. Do you "choose" to be depressed or anxious? Do you "choose" to be schizophrenic? Do you "choose" what you dream and who you dream of? Christians love to say that people "choose" to be attracted to the same sex because it lets them off the hook for hating people for being born that way, but it doesnt make it true

 And now, for the very last comment, that prompted to make me turn this exchange into a post, since there is no way that 500 characters could ever be enough to address this sheer amount of wrong

first : I AM NOT CHRISTIAN, I AM AN ATHEIST.

You choose everything even if you don't know about it. It come from unconscious part of you but still it's you. Sexuality isn't binary. Because you do whatever you want. the fact that you don't know yourself enough to see it doesn't change that it is.

schizophrenia is caused by genetic issue. this have nothing to compare to love.

Depression is a choice you made Saying that "it's someone else fault" is the best way to never overcome it.

Wooow, OK, where do I start?

So I’m not going to shit on the guy for obviously not being a native English speaker, but that does not give him the right to make up definitions of words. Let’s start with this very fuzzy idea of what choosing something actually entails. To the dictionary!

Oxford English dictionary:

Choose: To take by preference out of all that are available; to select; to take as that which one prefers, or in accordance with one's free will and preference.

Merriam-Webster:

Choose: to select freely and after consideration <choose a career> b : to decide on especially by vote : elect <chose her as captain>

2a : to have a preference for <choose one car over another> b : decide <chose to go by train>

By definition, you can’t unconsciously choose something. There can be things that unconsciously influence your choice, like the color of two people’s shirt can influence which one you choose to think is more trustworthy without you realizing it, but you are still making a conscious choice, a selection, between two people which is influenced by a variety of variables.

If you define a choice as anything your body does whether you have conscious control over it or not then you choose to be blond, because you know your body is the one making the pigment, even if you don’t realize it, so hair color is a choice.

The second word this guy seems to want to redefine is sexuality, Sexuality is not defined as “the people that I choose to sleep with”. There are many definitions, but let’s stick to the ones that are relevant to humans. Back to the dicitionary!

Oxford English Dictionary:

Sexuality: Sexual nature, instinct, or feelings; the possession or expression of these

                   A person's sexual identity in relation to the gender to which he or she is typically attracted; the fact of being heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual; sexual orientation.

A person who someone is attracted to, who they are aroused by, is not a conscious decision. Ask any teenage boy how many erections they consciously decided to have in the middle of class, and how much anyone not having sex would love to be able to say “tonight I’m going to have a wet dream! Woop!” Arousal is not something that we can choose, it is a physiological response that we can sometimes try to influence (oh crap it’s happening… think of dead kittens…. Think of grandma in her underwear; or, alternatively; oh crap this isn’t working… think of that awesome porn I watched last night… Jessica Alba taking her bra off… Licking honey off of that blond dude from Sex and the City’s abs… mmm…) but effectively have very little control over.

Then we get into where LordSingur actually does draw the line between a choice and not a choice, and this is where it gets unbelievably ridiculous. Let me refresh your memory

schizophrenia is caused by genetic issue. this have nothing to compare to love.

Depression is a choice you made Saying that "it's someone else fault" is the best way to never overcome it.

Let’s forget what the hell love has to do with anything at this point in time, but WHOA the stench of condescension with that last part. Depression is caused by shifting blame? And that is your expert medical opinion yes?

So the only thing here that is not a choice in his mind is schizophrenia, because it is “caused by a genetic issue”. Well, I have news for you, it’s not as simple as that. There is certainly a genetic component to schizophrenia, a friend of mine wrote an entire thesis on it, but it is definitely not as simple as whether or not you have “the schizophrenia gene”, and there are a variety of other factors that influence it. One fascinating hypothesis circulating at the moment is about the possible contribution of Toxoplasmagondii infection to the incidence of schizophrenia, but that’s a story for a later date.

Interestingly enough, depression also has a studied genetic component as well, would you look at that! Looks like depression is actually very similar to schizophrenia in that regard, unless our friend would like to redefine the word “depression” too while we’re at it.

In summary, the only thing that LordSingur seems to acknowledge is not a choice is something that is caused by genetics, or at least has a genetic component to it. Therefore, even by his own, wrong definition of the word choice, homosexuality is a choice because it is not genetic, correct?

Oh dear

Oh please

Make it stop

So much research

So many papers

What am I going to do??!!

Of course the genetics behind sexuality is still complex and needs to be explored, and there is no one “gay gene” that will “make you gay” if you have it. However, the fact that sexuality does have a significant genetic component to it is a virtual certainty.

One final note, I don’t give a shit what religion you ascribe to, or lack thereof. If you’re wrong you’re wrong, and not believing in an omniscient deity does not automatically make you right about anything else, nor does it eliminate the possibility that you have your own motives for wanting to believe in nonsense.