Patrick, if this is how you interpret what you have seen, you are a very troubled person.

Your litany of questions is incoherent with respect to the point you obviously think you are making as you seem to presuppose within them the answer to your questions (in other words variations such as hair color certainly are just that and attributable to genetic expression. Abnormalities such as non-functional extra digits and nonfunctional sexual organs are not, they have no function/purpose and so are attributable to genetic defects). We have discussed this many times and you continue to seem either to consistently forget or simply ignore my responses. As this is about the fourth or fifth time I have mentioned this, I must interpret your behavior as compulsiveness and draw this discussion to an end.

And just how does one determine the sexual arousal of an infant? If you are referring to reflex erections as discharge channels (which also include smiling, reflex sucking, and other mouthing actions) of infants you are barking up the wrong tree.

As I have said, it is not the same as adult sexuality. I take it however, that you have never seen an infant humping a pillow before. Try more babysitting then. And that is sexual behavior, even if its purpose is physical pleasure, rather than procreation.

Most of the examples you give are thankfully rare disorders that cannot reproduce themselves. The conditions have no biological purpose (notice I am not talking about the persons but their conditions). As such, most of these are still listed as sexual abnormalities in the medical literature (except for those that were reclassified in the 70s without rational justification). I will not accuse you of dishonesty but you do seem to be very forgetful.

Exactly how do you know that the conditions serve no “biological purpose”? How do you even know what that purpose should be? Exactly how do you define the difference between disorder and simple difference? A person may be born with extra fingers and toes, but that does not present some sort of barrier to that person’s existence. And it does not prevent them from reproducing either. Is this a disorder or a difference? Why? What is your “rational justification”? If a majority of humans have brown hair, but some have blonde, is being blonde a disorder? And you call these things “rare disorders”. Exactly how do you define “rare”? They may appear in small numbers, but they do show up very consistantly, and at all times, in each human generation.

No, it is pointing out the provisional and tenuous nature of theories in the modern sciences. Your appeal to “progress” and your berating of any knowledge that has not come in the last 40 years I suppose is convenient given your ideology, though it insinuates postmodernism and scientism. This rejection of common sense knowledge, because doing so is necessary for the deconstruction of reality so that one may construct it according to his own liking, is arbitrary and certainly not rational.

I have addressed the particular theory we were discussing many times in these discussions and have shown why gender identity and sexual orientation are simply fictional inventions, the former origninating in the feminist movement in an attempt to deconstruct any relationship between roles and sex differences by labeling it as a social construct and the latter is a euphemism for SSA and other ailments in an attempt to eliminate their identification as a disorder. You may read through the various posts again but I consider it unnecessary to continually restate my case because you choose to ignore it.

Translation: “This other guy doesn’t like them. Ergo, it’s wrong.”

If you were to read the academic literature in addition to the popular literature in this field you would find these two have little credibility among those practioners who limit themselves to the competence of the modern scientific discipline.

When I have more time, and am up for the pain, I’ll discuss with you the last hundred and fifty years of research into evolution. We can then get into a discussion on the evolutionary benefits of having a percentage of your population unconcerned with procreation.

A stalling tactic? Please embark on an understanding of evolutionary theory and you will find that unless you posit an insect sociology you will find no genetic, and so evolutionary, advantage to SSA. However, the first step will be trying to find a genetic basis for SSA. None has yet been found in more than 20 years of research. Simon LeVay states this even though his research has been spun to suggest otherwise.

Luckily, I’d been prepared for the subject just such as this due to my gradschool Human Sexuality instructor,…

Apparently not so prepared. Your recollection from grad school does not offer much to the argument as I see it. In fact, your anecdote about your “no nonsense professor’s” actions appears to fit under the category of intimidation rather than education. It may simply reflect an inferiority complex on her part or it may rather have been the attempt to cloak a weak argument. In any case, the question is whether there is realization of the sexual urge in prepubscents. The spontaneous erection of an infant or their proclivity for tactile curiosity do not prove this or provide evidence for whatever point you may think it makes in supporting your agenda. We do know that children exposed to sexual activity by adolescents or adults causes them long term psychological and emotional harm.

David, despite what you argue, the “fact[s]” of your “statements” aren’t “obvious from the biological evidence.” Your facts — as you demonstrate here time and time again — are plain and simply wrong. You discount a century and half of progress because it doesn’t agree with your needs for how the world is supposed to be. While you are free to interpret facts however you wish, it doesn’t change that it’s still wrong.

Jody, you will have to excuse me but I have not found that you have provided anything but assertions. Thus the latest assertion that I have provided incorrect facts is likewise meaningless.

As a matter of fact, I do not discount any valid progress. I simply do not blindly swallow every theory that comes down the pike because the priests of science say so. Especially in the area of the human person, the theories are especially transient because so many are reductionist and do not take into account the whole human person. It is not surprising that two people looking at the same data but with different models will arrive at vastly different conclusions. However, the materialist model of the human person is incoherent and therefore far from monolithic. The Christian understanding of the human person, informed by the findings of modern science, turns out to be the most successful for the very reason it is grounded in the truth.

Translation: “I don’t like it. Ergo, it’s wrong.” That’s rhetoric, David and not evidence. It’s also doesn’t “…demonstrate that you have the capacity to discuss these issues objectively.” Not at all.

… Citing Dawkins and Gould as your authorities tells me much. One eminent evolutionary microbiologist has termed these two “the carpet baggers of evolutionism”…

Translation: “This other guy doesn’t like them. Ergo, it’s wrong.” Again, David, that’s rhetoric. Not evidence. Not discussion. Not science. (And not objective discussion either.)

Your discounting of Dawkins and Gould, reveals your own ignorance on the subject of evolution, not mine. Personally? I blame that intellectual crack of ID theory you read. Stuff rots your brain, son. Just Say No.

Nevertheless, following your presupposition that SSA is actually something ontological, this would make it parasitic on heterosexuality…

Had you read Dawkins or Gould (or even Trivers and his response to Dawkins) your might have advanced your 19th Century understanding of Evolution away from such silly notions as the one you site. When I have more time, and am up for the pain, I’ll discuss with you the last hundred and fifty years of research into evolution. We can then get into a discussion on the evolutionary benefits of having a percentage of your population unconcerned with procreation.

And just how does one determine the sexual arousal of an infant? If you are referring to reflex erections as discharge channels (which also include smiling, reflex sucking, and other mouthing actions) of infants you are barking up the wrong tree.

I remember one of my clients describing her four year-old daughters interesting choice of picking the middle of dinner party to wander demonstrate, al natural and in plain sight of all the guests, her discovery of a “present” (the child’s words) imbedded… well, you know.

Luckily, I’d been prepared for the subject just such as this due to my gradschool Human Sexuality instructor, a no-nonsense Ph.D who’d frown if she knew how I avoided using “that word” above, the mother of six kids, who’s goal was to dispel such naieve notions as yours above, David. When faced with an impertinent student in the back row (not I, for I sat in the front) who questioned her skewering of Rosenfelsian dogma with clinical observation and developmental data, said “Young Sir, I have changed the diapers of four boys and I can tell there’s nothing reflexive in the discovery of the joys of rubbing their own penis.”

She was a good teacher.

David, despite what you argue, the “fact[s]” of your “statements” aren’t “obvious from the biological evidence.” Your facts — as you demonstrate here time and time again — are plain and simply wrong. You discount a century and half of progress because it doesn’t agree with your needs for how the world is supposed to be. While you are free to interpret facts however you wish, it doesn’t change that it’s still wrong.

You will have to show me where I said that there are no sex hormones present in children? If you read closely my wording you will see I have discussed prepubescents’ in terms of unrealized capacity. Classical philosophy calls this active potency.

And very young children and infants experience stronger sexual feelings, become aroused, etc. No, its not the same as in an adult, but its not non-existent as you seem to think.

And just how does one determine the sexual arousal of an infant? If you are referring to reflex erections as discharge channels (which also include smiling, reflex sucking, and other mouthing actions) of infants you are barking up the wrong tree.

You have it half right David, your failure however is a flawed, near-sighted and almost deliberate and dishonest observation of “Nature”. Nature does indeed give us “men and women”. It also gives us hermaphrodites, transsexuals, effeminate men, masculine women, gays and lesbians, and everything in-between and outside….

We have discussed this many times. Christians recognize that with Original Sin mankind finds itself in a fallen state. This falleness includes nature. I have mentioned many times how one distinguishes between the order of nature and disorder; once again, one must look at the end or telos. Most of the examples you give are thankfully rare disorders that cannot reproduce themselves. The conditions have no biological purpose (notice I am not talking about the persons but their conditions). As such, most of these are still listed as sexual abnormalities in the medical literature (except for those that were reclassified in the 70s without rational justification). I will not accuse you of dishonesty but you do seem to be very forgetful.

The truth does not necesarily invalidate all of Christian thinking on sexuality, it can instead enrich it.

The truth corresponds exactly with Christian anthropology; perhaps one day you will be able to accept it.

It is programming to try to convince impressionable little children that what is obvious to the most casual observer of nature is actually a figment of one’s imagination. In other words, it is quite obvious that nature has given us men and women and that the organizing principle of their sexual difference is procreation. All else must be ordered to this procreative principle or it is, by definition, …”disorder.”

You have it half right David, your failure however is a flawed, near-sighted and almost deliberate and dishonest observation of “Nature”. Nature does indeed give us “men and women”. It also gives us hermaphrodites, transsexuals, effeminate men, masculine women, gays and lesbians, and everything in-between and outside. Not to mention the very small percentage of men and women that experience no sexual desire at all. As well as the presence of qualities that belong to neither men nor women alone but to human beings as a species. Take a look at that old “Why do men have nipples?” question.

You act like a person sitting in a movie theater watching the movie through binoculars you have made with your hands. The picture on the screen is simply larger than the small portion you are looking at. Try lowering your hands and looking at “Nature” a bit more fearlessly and honestly.

The truth does not necesarily invalidate all of Christian thinking on sexuality, it can instead enrich it.

As I have said before, you may discuss the issues here intelligently if you wish but if all you can come up with are ad hominems and caricatures then you please avail yourself of other venues. Nevertheless, here are a few comments:

The two feelings aren’t “separate” but intertwined.

Neither are feelings but appetites and they are quite distinct. One may have curiousity without sexual attraction. The former is primarily an intellectual appetite and the later primarily instinctual.

The issue of gender isn’t on the table here. Gender identity and sexual orientation aren’t the same thing. Psychology has progressed a lot in the last fifty years. Keep up.

No, they are in fact modern fictional constructs that deny reality as it is given for the sake of pushing ideological agendas. When their failure becomes manifest, as it will, they will eventually disappear as is now the 70s era radical feminist uni-sex anthropology that was the latest in “progress” of a generation ago.

The organizing principle of nature is evolution and what maximizes the success of genetic transfer from one generation to the next.

One might debate the contention that random genetic mutation, genetic drift and natural selection can in any way be called “organizing.” Nevertheless, following your presupposition that SSA is actually something ontological, this would make it parasitic on heterosexuality and if successful, ultimately its own undoing. SSA then is antithetical to biological evolutionary theory. If you want to embrace neo-Darwinian mechanisms to explain common descent then you must follow its implications to their logical conclusions. If you embrace it only as justification for the incoherent theory of philosophical materialism (and so postmodern voluntarism) then it appears you need another theory.

Crack a book by Gould or Dawkins and join us in the 21st Century.

Citing Dawkins and Gould as your authorities tells me much. One eminent evolutionary microbiologist has termed these two “the carpet baggers of evolutionism.” In other words, he says they have done much damage to the science of biological evolution to which he has dedicated his last 50 years, because they use it as justification for their materialist agendas and so remove it from the discipline of modern science. Therefore, I conclude that you are not very well educated about biological evolution. Rather, you have been converted by the prophets of philosophical materialism. If you want to educate yourself on the inability for modern science, keeping to their methods of competence, to make claims about design or lack thereof, you might read through the posts on the Natural Philosophy and ID meta-thread in the sidebar.

Talk about programming: Telling kids that the point of their existence is “procreation” is an incredibly sexually obsessed view of life.

I cannot figure out how by what tortuous logic you proceeded from my statement that ‘the organizing principle of sex difference is procreation’ to arrive at your conclusion that this infers the point of man’s existence is procreation. Nevertheless the fact of my statement is quite obvious from the biological evidence. The primary sexual anatomical features are constructed for insemination, gestation, and giving birth. Secondary sexual features such as the differences in masculine and feminine skeletal-musculature including bone density, muscle mass, adipose tissue distribution, etc., endocrine systems, psycho-emotional structures, and brain structures are all integrated into these primary features in such a way as to support the primary sexual functions. Even biologists who are atheists will ask the question of purpose when it comes to biological entities. What is the purpose then of sex differences? For a materialist one can only answer ‘procreation’. For Christians, they of course go much deeper. However, some people delude themselves by spitting at strawmen because of the discomfort of the ramifications of Christianity and the effort it takes in learning about other ideas before dismissing them.

As for the incredibly sexually obsessed view of life comment, I would term this projection on your part.

No. I make no distinction between the two. The two feelings aren’t “separate” but intertwined.

Children clearly have natural curiousity, including about their bodies, but they neither have the maturity to deal with nor the capacity to express sexual attraction.

Children have the capacity to express sexual attraction, it happens all the time. Grade school crush, first kiss, second base — all before puberty. As for maturity no, children don’t have the maturity to know all the repercussions of t heir actions. Then again, I’ve worked with a great many adults who lack the same thing. The difference with children is that our job is guide them in their explorations, answer their questions honestly, and keep them away from people who’d exploit their inexperience.

It is up to parents to help them understand, to the extent each is capable, their sexual identity as a male or female.

The issue of gender isn’t on the table here. Gender identity and sexual orientation aren’t the same thing. Psychology has progressed a lot in the last fifty years. Keep up.

However, to confuse a child’s curiousity with mature sexual interest is a confused and potentially destructive theory.

Other than you, no one has conflated childhood sexual interest with adult sexual interest. Opposite ends of one spectrum, my dear. To think that a child doesn’t have sexual feelings at all because of a mythological embarrassment at that cold, hard truth is the destructive “theory.”

It is a world in which people blind themselves to the truth by convincing themselves that their wills can change reality.

[Administrator: adolescent ad hominem deleted]

Others confused by a false sense of compassion…

[Administrator: adolescent ad hominem deleted]

…it is quite obvious that nature has given us men and women and that the organizing principle of their sexual difference is procreation.

No. The organizing principle of nature is evolution and what maximizes the success of genetic transfer from one generation to the next. It’s quite obvious, to anyone who’s bothered to study the subject, that sexual differentiation is a rather recent advent in that evolutionary process, being only a bit more than 500 million years old. Even then, intercourse itself only ensures genes get passed from one generation to the next, not that they survive. Crack a book by Gould or Dawkins and join us in the 21st Century.

Talk about programming: Telling kids that the point of their existence is “procreation” is an incredibly sexually obsessed view of life.