Is Heterosexuality a Social Conditioning?

Is Straight male Heterosexuality a Social Conditioning?

or... "IS STRAIGHT MALE HETEROSEXUALITY A SOCIAL CONDITIONING?"

I grew up in a social set up, where although it was the main focus of movies, there was not much heterosexuality to be seen around you, except for marriages, which were just a social obligation.

It's not that boys or men did not have any opportunity to have sex with girls, although relationships between unmarried couples were difficult... but, as boys we were under intense pressure to develop a strong sexuality for girls, so that we can prove our manhood... although most boys just talked about girls a lot, and kept away from actual sex... in our society, talking was proof enough that you could do it... and performance was important, not desire. In any case, marriage and reproduction was the ultimate proof of your manhood, not relationships with girls.

I started working on the issues of manhood with boys and young men, while I was still in college, and in the past several years, and again and again seen the same patterns amongst young men, a process that I call their 'heterosexualization'. It was also the time that our society was going through intense Westernization that also brought in with it, forced heterosexualization of our society, and I started to consciously witness how men are heterosexualized.

I see heterosexual sexual orientation as a Western concept and define it as a male sexuality that is exclusively and constantly towards women, is untied with marriage and reproduction and sees sex with women as casual as well as a pleasure and bonding thing... and at the sametime is extremely repulsive of any kind of intimacy with other men. It's a concept not witnessed in any of the human societies in the past or contemporary, except in industrialized West.

Some important parts of this theory of heterosexualization of men that I propound are based on my own heterosexualization and that of other straight men I have known intimately as well as several hundreds of counselling and workshops that I've done with young men, as I witnessed them struggling with their sexuality for men, to get rid of it, and to try hard to be interested in girls... which in some boys took longer than in others (while to some males it did come quite easily, but in none of them was it exclusively towards girls)... till they finally developed their heterosexuality eventually, as is the requirement of the modern westernized societies, including urban India. However, still many of these boys/ young men seem to pretending to be more heterosexual than they really are, and a lot of their love that they exhibit for girls seem to be fake, considering they seem rather unusually stronger than 'normal' people, and also compared to what they thought and felt about girls in life earlier -- often running away from girls for years.

Well, these are some of the elements of the Theory of Heterosexualization that I propound based on my experiences, work and study:

1. That all straight males, when their sexuality is still not properly formed (and that can go up to early twenties in india) seem to have a primary sexual need for other males. This sexual need is not just limited to sex, but encompasses a strong emotional and social need and if allowed to develop can grow into a strong romantic need.

It is the sexual need for males that seems to be more constant.

2. Sexuality for girls seems to be a more secondary sexual need, which is periodic and not constant (it seems to come as a 'fit' with hormonal changes, especially as young men mature in age), of short duration (often involving just vaginal intercourse) and not in its natural way capable of letting itself into an emotional or social bond of any meaningful duration or committment. But when it comes, it's extremely intense, perhaps (but not necessarily) more so than man's sexual desire for men.

3. Societies, especially, the Western society has developed complex and intense social pressures to force boys, when their sexuality is still forming, to:

• Suppress their primary sexual need which is towards men

• pressurise them to lift their secondary sexual need, which is towards women, to fill up this place of the primary sexual need, which is now made vacant, by diverting the need for boys to need for girls

A number of social pressures, conditioning, brainwashing and other mechanisms work to 'help' the boy to complete this heterosexualization process.

4. That this process is extremely delicate, and happens during the boys formative years of sexuality... and if the boy doesn't achieve it by the time he is 19 or 20 in India, he can become desperate.

5. That, what threatens this process the most, is, if something comes in the way of the mechanisms developed to 'help' the boy suppress his sexuality for men. And, this would usually mean the boy experiencing sexual intimacy with another male -- which can throttle the entire heterosexualization process, and the boy then may never be able to suppress his sexuality for men. This primary sexuality for men, needs to be nipped in the very beginning, before the boy can experience it.

This is one reason, that in Western societies, an elder male having sex with a an adolescent is seen as the 'worst of crimes' (i.e. pedophilia), whereas a woman having sex with a male adolescent is seen to be more as helping in his heterosexualization, and is not only tolerated by the society, is even celebrated by the media.

The traditional societies did not want their men to be heterosexuals... they just wanted men to get married and to reproduce and look after children, without really developing a constant, primary sexual need for women. That is why in traditional societies men had a lot of sexual liasioning with other men, although often it was allowed behind the scenes without talking about it.

But since, the West will be satisfied with nothing less than a heterosexual orientation for straight men, it has created a separate space for man to man intimacy -- the 'homosexual' space, and made sure that this space is built upon the extremely stigmatized 'third sex' identity of the yore, and also ensures that enough hostility/ hatred/ fear is continuously generated in the straight space, now cleansed of male desire for men... to keep men off from even contemplating about this desire.

But rarely, a straight, regular, normal guy, may get unwittingly, sexually involved with another guy (the other guy in these cases being more open, active about and accepting of his sexuality for men, and may in fact be 'gay' (i.e. effeminate), but could rarely also be another straight, regular, normal guy). As long as the relationship is just sexual, things are not so threatening, but the real problem starts when the straight guy, who has not yet developed a secure sexuality for women, and whose sexuality for men has not been securely mutilated, starts to get emotionally involved with the other guy. It is then that the panic buttons are pressed. The guy starts fighting with his emotional attachment with the other guy, and creates a number of walls between him and that person. But, another part of him wants to be with that person, to be involved with him (often there is a lot of jealousy for any other male or female that comes close to the other guy)... and this creates an extremely painful struggle for the straight man.

Usually, the strong social mechanisms built to help the straight man heterosexualize himself win in the end. Human made mechanisms always defeat nature, they are much stronger. But for that the straight guy has to sacrifice a strong sexual/ emotional/ romantic bond that had a great potentiality. And this creates a vacuum in the other guy that will remain unfulfilled for his entire life.

What do you guys feel about the above?

 

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Anyone else having a sudden feeling of deja vu?

 

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Ok, we'll first listen to people's feelings of deja vu, then start a discussion...

 

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I think you'd find something eerily similar was discussed a while back and little came of it. I could try and find the thread if you like but since I suspect you were there, you might have better luck finding it yourself.

Maybe I'm just a cynic and find it hard to believe two people would join this forum and post something almost identical of this nature. It would be like a second poster joining the forum claiming the earth is expanding.

Edit: Actually, reconsidering that paragraph perhaps I should rephrase that to 'maybe I'm just an optimist?'.

 

Pile of puke.

If it was social conditioning we would have died out a long time ago.

 

India has had no heterosexual orientation... yet we have not died out as yet... :shrug:

In fact, we are planning to run over the world with people...

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Its the heterosexual West that's facing a shortage of population.

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In fact, its quite clear that you don't need a heterosexual orientation to reproduce... just bouts of heterosexual acts, a couple of times in the entire life.

 

... and I find it so strange that people living in industrialized west (a minority) find it so amazing to even believe... when the rest of the world knows this to be a fact... they actually live this fact...!

 

So you're saying everyone from the east is bi?
I'm sure I'm going to regret this but care to prove it? Facts and figures please.

 

there is no denying that men and women are very different. things that go beyond sexuality and reproduction have a great impact on who we want to relate to in an intimate way.

 

every single country that boasted this ideal has had their guts stomped out.

 

The tendency to demonize homosexuals is a social conditioning, yes. Not being accepting of homosexuality is a social conditioning. That could lead one to believe that refusal to even experiment with homosexuality is a social conditioning. It was perfectly natural for men to bang each other in ancient Rome, but I suppose you can't know for sure if that was part of their opulent, extravagant social structure, or simply because homosexual men were free to be open.

But sexuality is sexuality--it's biological, nothing else. I know I am straight not because I was told to be, but because I get wood when a pretty girl rubs up on me. I also get a fluttery feeling in my gut when a pretty girl walks by, so it's more than just the boner. I love my friends, but that love is quite different than the love for a woman. It's part of the mating process, so it's just different.

In the same way that gay people are born gay, straight people are born straight. The only thing social conditioning affects is how the homosexuals are treated.

 

could you say the same thing if you were blindfolded and a man started rubbing your crotch?
interesting question don't you think?

 

Actually, yes. OK, that was a bad example. Does a man give you that fluttery feeling?

 

The imagination would take over and you'd picture an attractive person of whichever sex turns you on seeing as you're unaware of which is present. Alternatively you'd try not to be turned on for fear it's either a man(in the case of a hetero) or Ann Widdecombe.

 

No, actually it would be the sensation that gets you going, not the fantasy. Rub some lotion on your crank while you're looking at a picture of Brad Pitt, and I bet you get a stiffy. It won't be for Brad, it will be for the slippery lotion.

...or will it?

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no. but it could very well be because of the way i was raised and the little matter of "conformity".

 

ha ha ! i knew it didn't i buddha?

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The physical stimulation only works because subconciously you're thinking of a hot young woman.

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I think there was a study done on this but I may be wrong.

 

I must say Bhudda1, you have learnt a great deal since you last visited the forum. Your arguments are better laid out, the over-the-top-emotion is gone, the ridiculous absolutist statements have been dropped. I still think you are talking crap, but you are doing it with an elegance, a structural integrity, a style and a focus, that make it top quality crap.

Sincere applause.