Talk:Sexual orientation/Archive 2

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neutrality may require backing off a bit, especially re official positions

Most or all the major psychology organizations quoted at length in the article refrain from saying that sexual orientation is prenatally or biochemically determined. They do say it's enduring and unlikely to change, but that's not the same thing. The American Psychological Association says it "develops", so that "people realize at different points in their lives that they are heterosexual, bisexual or homosexual." That means they say it changes. The American Psychiatric Association said "sexual orientation develops across a person's lifetime" and that for some folks "the focus of sexual interest will shift at various points through the life span." Where the latter APA says "most people experience little or no sense of choice about their sexual orientation", they're saying people "experience" no or maybe a little sense of choice about it, they are not saying choice doesn't exist. It says "[h]omosexuality was once thought to be the result of troubled family dynamics or faulty psychological development", but that doesn't deny that being Lesbian or gay may be partly due to family dynamics, just not "troubled family dynamics", and psychological development, just not "faulty psychological development." The latter APA thus implicitly acknowledges it could be due to normal family dynamics and normal psychological development. The two APAs and the NASW together said "there is no scientific consensus about the specific factors that cause an individual to become heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual". Prof. Michael King said that "sexual orientation . . . is resistant to change", not that it can't change. His statement that "[s]cientific evidence on the origins of homosexuality . . . undermines suggestions that sexual orientation is a choice", depending on whether he meant by undermining that choice is nonexistent or wobbly, i.e., uncertain but possible, may be one of the firmest statements against the possibility of change. Of these groups, the most firmly pro-biological position may be that taken by the Royal College of Psychiatrists and the next firmest may be that of the American Academy of Pediatrics, which denies choice but said "[s]exual orientation probably is not determined by any one factor but by a combination of genetic, hormonal, and environmental influences." Where environment is an influence then someone, perhaps a parent, can make a choice about environment and therefore possibly the influence it has. The AAP does say that "no scientific evidence that abnormal parenting, sexual abuse, or other adverse life events influence sexual orientation"; but it also says that "biologically based theories have been favored by experts" but that's not saying the expert decision is final, just that overcoming what's favored requires meeting a heavier burden. When it says "[c]urrent knowledge suggests that sexual orientation is usually established during early childhood", they're not saying it's proven, only suggested, and they're acknowledging that the determination may usually be postnatal. Since pediatrics is primarily medical and not psychological, child psychology being a separate field, I suggest the position statement is going to be biased toward medicine and physical causation, just as a position statement by a carpenters' union is going to be biased toward hammering.

Thus, what research is showing in these position statements and summaries is a multiplicity of theories. For any two theories, either they conflict or they coexist. By analogy, my genes established that I'll get nutrients by digesting food, but that doesn't mean we all need to; sometimes we're fed intravenally, which is to say, we rely on means other than what our genes tell us to do, possibly being different for years, and we're just as healthy for doing so. Religions are enduring and unlikely to change (borrowing the terms), but they needn't be genetic; the claim for a monotheism gene, even if proven, is not a complete genetic cause for specifically Islam, Judaism, or Christianity, not to mention all the nonmonotheism adherents, e.g., Hindus, Buddhists, Indians of North America, and ancient Greeks. All this, with respect to sexual orientation, suggests coexistence. And evidence from the last couple of decades or so supports that.

Or they conflict. But while no scientist I know of disagrees that gravity pulls us toward Earth, scientists are disagreeing on why any one of us has this or that sexual orientation. They're leaning toward biological determinism completed prenatally or early in postnatal life. But they're not in agreement that nothing else matters. The statements of the major psychology professional organizations quoted in the article leave plenty of room for that disagreement.

This should be reflected in the article.

One solution is (a) to quote the leading organizations' positions prominently in the article, much as is done now, and (b) to report the major scholarship in each major discipline, including sciences and history, including reasonably grounded disagreements among scholars in each field addressing sexual orientation. Let the chips fall where they may and let readers decide when they read the article and when they do their research through the article's links.

Nick Levinson (talk) 02:31, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Why you (intentionally?) forgot to mention the RCP statement? "Despite almost a century of psychoanalytic and psychological speculation, there is no substantive evidence to support the suggestion that the nature of parenting or early childhood experiences play any role in the formation of a person’s fundamental heterosexual or homosexual orientation. It would appear that sexual orientation is biological in nature, determined by a complex interplay of genetic factors and the early uterine environment. Sexual orientation is therefore not a choice." (http://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/pdf/Submission%20to%20the%20Church%20of%20England.pdf It you avoid to quote it since it completely undermins your suggestions and implications. And you can also check professor King on Web of Science as an elite expert in psychologic and psychiatric scientific fields. From the context it's pretty clear that all mainstream associations says pretty much positions using a slightly different words and your implications are fatally flawed. --Destinero (talk) 06:55, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, the RCP may be a significant view from a reliable source, in which case it's view should be included in the article, but isn't this what Nick Levinson is saying, when he says "Let the chips fall where they may?" So I am not arguing against including the RCP statement. But it sounds strangely unscientific to me. "It would appear that sexual orientation is biological in nature," is arguing from the absense of knowledge, which we are all taught in secondary school we can't do. The absense of social mechanisms is not evidence for biological mechanisms (we have to make this argument against creationists all the time; they try to find phenomena we do not yet understand and from this they claim that it must therefore be God. it is just a basic violation of logic). "determined by a complex interplay of genetic factors and the early uterine environment." Well, we need evidence for this. Until we have evidence, we just do not know. "Sexual orientation is therefore not a choice." This is a non-sequitor in two ways. First, it implies that if something is caused by sociological factors, it is a choice. This is simply untrue, or at least it is a very fringe view among sociologists (who study society) and anthropologists (who study society or culture). Mainstream sociology and anthropology say that socialization and enculturation are not individual choices, and result in predispositions that are not choices. It is a non-sequitor in another way, it implies that something determined by genes and uterine environment is not a choice. But the natural color of my hair was determined by genes, and I choose the change it with hair colouring. My eyes are genetically short-sighted, but I correct this with eye-glasses. I know this is a touchy subject, I am not saying that someone who is heterosexual needs "correction" (or that someone who is homosexual, for that matter, needs "correction") I am just saying that proving that something is genetic (which the RCP has failed to do) has nothing to do with how people choose to live. People may have a genetic predisposition to bipolar disorder, or depression - does the RCP say that people cannot choose to change through medication? Again, my point is NOT that straight people need medication. My point is that the question of social versus genetic causes has nothing to do with choice, one way or another. They are two separate issues. And one goes down a very dangerous road when one tries to connect them. Slrubenstein | Talk 09:10, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

"Well, we need evidence for this. Until we have evidence, we just do not know." Well, we do have evidence: The fetal brain develops during the intrauterine period in the male direction through a direct action of testosterone on the developing nerve cells, or in the female direction through the absence of this hormone surge. In this way, our gender identity (the conviction of belonging to the male or female gender) and sexual orientation are programmed or organized into our brain structures when we are still in the womb. There is no indication that social environment after birth has an effect on gender identity or sexual orientation. http://content.karger.com/ProdukteDB/produkte.asp?Doi=262525 --Destinero (talk) 11:56, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

How fascinating! But, what is the evidence that this hormone surge determines sexual orientation as opposed to anatomical sex? Slrubenstein | Talk 12:03, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

You assume that the RCP statement is based only on "The absense of social mechanisms", Slrubenstein. Nick Levinson, dont distort APA's research. Sexual orientation develops cause prepubertal children arent very sexual. And realization =/= change. Phoenix of9 14:10, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

I am afraid I do not follow you. How is this an answer to my question? Slrubenstein | Talk 15:39, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

The RCP statement is in there, Destinero. Here's what I wrote in the middle of the first paragraph: "Of these groups, the most firmly pro-biological position may be that taken by the Royal College of Psychiatrists". I also quoted Prof. King from the article, and you could have noticed that, too.

The other organizations don't use different words to always say the same thing. They say different things. That's why I quoted them here. Not extremely different; but different enough. This is not a case of "six of one or half a dozen of the other". They say different things, different enough to matter. They're quoted in the sexual orientation article and those differences matter.

If the other organizations really say the same thing, then they must be saying it somewhere else than in the quotes, which are from the article. In that case, please retrieve the sources from the organizations' publications and add them to the article. If you don't find identical-meaning quotations from most of the other organizations, then they are still saying different things.

Your views are more absolutist than most of the organizations' statements. If I'm wrong, please gather the sources. Otherwise, you can contact them and ask them to change their minds. Until they do, it is very legitimate to report their views in WP.

Nick Levinson (talk) 15:29, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Phoenix_of9, what distortion of APA research? and which APA? I quoted both APAs and correctly and relevantly. If either APA believes, as you say, "[s]exual orientation develops [be]cause prepubertal children aren[']t very sexual", please get the source in the APA's material and add it to the article. Then deal with the American Psychiatric Association disagreeing, since that APA says "'the focus of sexual interest will shift at various points through the life span.'" In other words, it isn't just discovered around puberty; it "'will shift . . . through the life span'".

You could argue that if someone says they have one sexual orientation at one time and another later then they must be wrong one of those times. If you want to argue that, do it in the article with research backing up that they're lying or mistaken. I'm very interested in seeing the research if it has, or even suggests, a percentage for how many people are wrong. You'd have an opportunity to prove the American Psychiatric Associaiton wrong. That APA doubtless would like to read your research findings. Not to mention a political problem: Various heterosexist antigay bigots claim that gays are just "confused". I don't think you want to go down that road.

And maybe the APA statement is premised on self-reporting as the way to determine sexual orientation, not hormonal measurements, at least until we know how to do prenatal hormonal measurements in adulthood (I assume we don't know yet). If self-reporting is the APA's measure, and you accept the APA as a guide on the subject, then, since self-reports are inherently subject to change, sexual orientation is subject to change.

It's your pick.

Nick Levinson (talk) 15:29, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

propose reorganization of article

Reorganizing was useful to rewriting the lead to be more concise, in line with WP's guidance on leads. The content is somewhat out of date. This is proposed only as to reorganization. Here's the draft. What do you think? Edit as you wish. Thanks. Nick Levinson (talk) 02:03, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm planning to edit per the draft, possibly this weekend or by next, since I haven't seen any replies to the proposal, so I take it it's okay as to reorganization. Thanks. Nick Levinson (talk) 01:28, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Done with the planned editing. Thanks. Nick Levinson (talk) 20:55, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Nick, it looks great. Good work! Atom (talk) 23:49, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

denial of any sexual orientation in some societies

It's believable that some non-Western or traditional societies don't have a concept of sexual orientation.

But are those largely the same societies that consider people duty-bound to reproduce and therefore any sexual orientation but heterosexuality is deemed a violation of duty? or at least a confusion to be straightened out or a deviance or illness to be cured?

The premise of sexual orientation is that an orientation is socially acceptable, thus, except for heterosexuality, by many societies' logic, in conflict with a duty to reproduce. Where only one societally acceptable sexual orientation exists, by that logic there's no reason for any discussion of sexual orientation; we usually name a set only when the set has at least two members. So, if all nonheterosexuality is to be rejected, then sexual orientation, having only one member, would be entirely rejected or not recognized.

If anyone knows if there's largely a correlation between the two sets of societies, please add it to the article.

Nick Levinson (talk) 21:17, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Bias

Article seems to be heavily biased. Zoosexuality (zoosexual orientation) is even not mentioned, which is well known in the field of psychology and sexology. 83.26.84.105 (talk) 01:58, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

editing on indigenous and non-Western concept

Three passages cover almost the same material, on sexual orientation as a social construction particular to the West. I edited. Please feel free to improve the passages.

I cut wholesale repetitions of whole sentences and their references. One footnote appeared three times. So did another: three times. Please don't repeat entire passages in the same article. It wastes article space. Please cross-reference. Add research. Don't just repeat. Even if it's important.

I did find one point that you added inside the repetition and I moved it to the place you copied the rest of it from. Counting on us to find such things is risky. It would have been easy to just cut the whole thing. Please be as careful in your editing as you'd like us to be.

I marked where citations are needed. If suitable citations already appear elsewhere in the passages or in the article, please add them to the marked places, i.e., to follow the additional points they support.

When citing to the same source, use a single reference multiple times. This saves space and aids readability in the edit field and saves time in maintaining the article later. The method for using one reference multiple times is to name it. Example: <ref name="unique-spaceless-name-p32">Major Book, by So-and-So, p. 32.</ref> Later in the article: <ref name="unique-name-p32" /> That's the format.

I doubt that all indigenous societies worldwide are identical on this issue, partly since indigenous societies in the ancient past hadn't had a lot of communication between them, so I took out a definite article as overly inclusive, but preserved the rest of your point.

I toned down the POV to make the passages more neutral while preserving the information. Perhaps you feel strongly about the subject you repeated; in that case, please do more research and add it, in accordance with Wikipedia standards, making Wikipedia more useful to readers.

I edited syntax, grammatical redundancy, spelling, capitalization, and punctuation.

If you prefer, you may also write a stand-alone article on sexual orientation in indigenous and non-Western societies and cross-reference and summarize it in this article. If you do write a new article, you probably should add more information than these passages had, so that it will be an article worthy of retention.

Thank you.

Nick Levinson (talk) 19:29, 16 May 2010 (UTC) Removed the mentioning of nowiki tags: Nick Levinson (talk) 19:42, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

I left a message for the editor to whom the above largely responds. Nick Levinson (talk) 20:41, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

I tweaked it to this: [1][2][3] Flyer22 (talk) 19:11, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

propose restoring that asexuality is a sexual orientation

I propose restoring deleted language that asexuality is increasingly recognized as a sexual orientation; it was deleted as unproven.

That asexuality is increasingly recognized as a sexual orientation is based on its total nonrecognition in the past (there were no sexual orientations recognized because anything but heterosexuality was supposedly a deviation). Then bisexuality and homosexuality were recognized; and some researchers now include asexuality as a sexual orientation. Therefore, asexuality is increasingly recognized. There is no physical obligation that every adult have sex with someone. The percentages who are asexual can be small and still be recognized; otherwise, we could argue that the L/G population being only 10 percent means it's not a sexual orientation, just a minor exception not needing recognition, and some people, dangerously, do argue that. The T in LGBT is even smaller and it's recognized (granted transsexualism is not a sexual orientation but the comparison may be relevant). If asexuals are 1 percent of the population, that's roughly 45 million adults worldwide. The recognition is both appropriate and present.

Comment?

Thank you.

Nick Levinson (talk) 21:20, 12 June 2010 (UTC) Clarified by adding one word before "a deviation": Nick Levinson (talk) 21:29, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

The way it's worded (especially but not only in the last sentence), it seems to be to be rather arguing the case for recognition of asexuality, rather than simply reporting what experts on human sexuality think - which is what we ought to be doing. Who are the "some researchers"? Do we have a good source for the 1 percent figure, or is it just a hypothetical example? Barnabypage (talk) 21:39, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

Asexuality as a sexual orientation is already recognized, but not universally. It used to be not recognized at all. So the deletion appeared to have been premised on objecting to its recognition.

The asexuality article already reports asexuality as a sexual orientation. In reference 5, it says, "Asexuality, in contrast, can be defined as the absence of a traditional sexual orientation, in which an individual would exhibit little or no sexual attraction to males or females. One such model of asexuality was developed by Storms (1980; see also Berkey, Perelman-Hall, & Kurdek, 1990). Storms classified heterosexuals as individuals who are highly attracted to the other sex (i.e., high in heteroeroticism), homosexuals as individuals who are highly attracted to the same sex (i.e., high in homoeroticism), bisexuals as individuals who are highly attracted to both sexes (i.e., high in both heteroeroticism and homoeroticism), and asexuals as individuals who are not attracted to either sex (i.e., low in both heteroeroticism and homoeroticism)." Bogaert, Anthony F., Asexuality: Prevalence and Associated Factors In a National Probability Sample, in Journal of Sex Research, Aug., 2004, as accessed Jun. 13, 2010.

While the "traditional" sexual orientations did not include asexuality, some researchers do include it as a sexual orientation now, and Wikipedia's asexuality article accepts that.

Prevalence is already scientifically reported in Wikipedia.

If there's a need to research this further, e.g., perhaps in the Storms and Berkey et al. references, let us know. Otherwise, is there any other objection to restoring the deleted language?

Nick Levinson (talk) 16:38, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes, for the reasons stated above. I hope others will weigh in, but I'd be much happier with it worded much more simply, as follows:

Some researchers now consider asexuality a sexual orientation. It has been defined as the absence of a traditional sexual orientation, in which an individual would exhibit little or no sexual attraction to males or females. Bogaert, Anthony F., Asexuality: Prevalence and Associated Factors In a National Probability Sample, in Journal of Sex Research, Aug., 2004, as accessed Jun. 13, 2010.

The rest of the proposed text is arguing for the recognition of asexuality. We don't need to do that - we just need to report that it is recognised. Barnabypage (talk) 17:43, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

I was proposing only a restoration. The paragraph I wrote above was just an explanation of why; I was not proposing to put that whole paragraph into the article. What had been taken out was mainly "and asexuality is increasingly recognized as a fourth [sexual orientation]".

I like your proposal, so I'm adapting it momentarily.

Thanks.

Nick Levinson (talk) 19:54, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Ah, gotcha - we were talking at cross-purposes, I'm afraid. My fault for not looking at the edit history. Glad a solution has emerged anyway. Barnabypage (talk) 10:02, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Hey, Nick. I removed it because I saw no proof that it is increasingly recognized as a fourth sexual orientation, and the Asexuality article does not even start off defining it as a sexual orientation. It may at times be recognized as a sexual orientation, but the "increasingly" part threw me off. I am okay with the re-add, though. Flyer22 (talk) 03:45, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks; I'm glad we're all essentially in agreement. Now I'm off to fix a (minor) error of mine in the article. Best wishes. Nick Levinson (talk) 01:27, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Merge causes

I added a link to the article on causes of sexual orientation, which raises the question of whether these two articles are too similar and perhaps should be merged into a single article.

---

This article is clear and uncontroversial. The "causes of" article is incomplete. Ed Poor

Coot vs Kinsey

I don't have it before me, but Quentin Crisp says somewhere, I think in The Naked Civil Servant', written well before the complete politicization of the issue, that there are two kinds of male homosexuals, which he calls "coot queer" and "Kinsey queer". The first category,"coot queer", to which Crisp emphatically belonged, is entranced with the male body and its appurtenances, and loves everything about romancing other men, while the "Kinsey queer" is more oriented to multiple partners, anonymous sex, etc. Please excuse me if this is considered rude to mention, but I thought the distinction was most interesting as regards the question of permanent, inborn orientation.

I just found a quote, but I was sure that he said more than this:

" I knew he was Kinsey-Queer rather than coot-queer. He merely associated with homosexuals because they brought their love by the pound."

Ortolan88 19:54 Jul 22, 2002 (PDT)

---

This is a very interesting reference. It would be nice if you could, if there is any basis to the Coot portion of your comment other than being something in the British movie—to give further insight into this comment. I’m assuming you are referring to the famous Kinsey that did many studies on homosexuality. I am personally a Coot Queer as you have described it, it would be nice to know if Coot was an Anthropologist or not. Thanks. It is nice to hear of a British movie with Queer content from 1975 winning many awards.

Most vs some

The assertion that "most" bisexuals have only one partner at a time asserts a specific percentage (>50%) of monogamy which may or may not exist for persons of any orientation. The stigma against non-monogamy makes it difficult to tell the actual prevalence of monogamy of any sexual orientation.

NPOV

This is completely one sided. There needs to be more information concerning the environmental influences but I don't have the time to add right now.

Pew Global Attitudes Project

The information in the Wiki article was incorrect, so I edited the section on the Pew Global Attitudes Project after seeing that Canada and the US had (in the wiki article) the same numbers for support of homosexuality. Canada is much more accepting of homosexuality than the United States, and is one of the four countries in the world that allows same-sex marriage. The actual numbers from the Pew Project showed much lower support for homosexuality in the United States. I have edited the Wiki page to show the correct information.

The PDF file for these numbers can be accessed at http://people-press.org/reports/pdf/185.pdf. The homosexuality results table is on page 114.

Cheers! Allison L.

hormonal evidence against social determination of sexual orientation

We recently added to and edited the article for a new study on hormones determining sexual orientation, based on the journal article's abstract. I'm planning to edit that portion of the Wikipedia article, now that I have a copy of the article, not just the abstract, Alicia Garcia-Falgueras & Dick F. Swaab, Sexual Hormones and the Brain: An Essential Alliance for Sexual Identity and Sexual Orientation, in Endocrine Development, vol. 17, pp. 22–35 (2010) (ISSN 1421-7082) (authors of Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, of Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences) (author contact is 2d author) (vol. 17 is Sandro Loche, Marco Cappa, Lucia Ghizzoni, Mohamad Maghnie, & Martin O. Savage, eds., Pediatric Neuroendocrinology).

The study is very interesting. The main caution in understanding it is that it is based on the paradigm of endocrinology, a branch of medicine and a valid field of study. However, the American Psychiatric Association, representing a profession that combines medical sciences with psychology, does not, as far as I know, posit that endocrinology is all that matters for sexual orientation. The APA says sexual orientation is enduring and resistant to change, not that nonmedical psychological factors are irrelevant. Psychological factors include social factors, e.g., as when being antisocial or oppositional is considered bad for one's mental health. It's possible, probably through statistical studies on populations, that a case for hormonal determinism will displace all other arguments, but that has not happened yet. At this time, the journal article is probably good science (I'm speaking from outside the field) for endocrinology but not for nonmedical psychology.

Sketching the argument briefly, it says that sexual organs are differentiated and then the brain is sexually differentiated "under the influence, mainly, of sex hormones such as testosterone, estrogen and progesterone on the developing brain cells and under the presence of different genes as well[15]. The changes brought about in this [p. 24:] stage are permanent. . . . [S]exual differentiation of the brain is not caused by hormones alone, even though they are very important for gender identity and sexual orientation." Id., pp. 23–24 (bracketed endnote reference so in original & referent omitted). ". . . . These fetal and neonatal peaks of testosterone, together with the functional steroid receptor activity, are thought to fix the development of structures and circuits in the brain for the rest of a boy's life (producing 'programming' or 'organizing' effects). Later, the rising hormonal levels that occur during puberty 'activate' circuits and behavioral patterns that were built during development, in a masculinized and de-feminized direction for male brains or in a feminized and de-masculinized direction for female brains." Id., p. 24 (single quotation marks so in original). Because organ differentiation and brain differentiation occur at different times, in "rare" cases transsexualism can result (transsexualism resulting from having organs of one gender and feelings of the other). Ibid. "The brain structure differences that result from the interaction between hormones, genes and developing brain cells are thought to be the basis of sex differences in a wide spectrum of behaviors, such as . . . sexual orientation (heterosexuality, homosexuality, or bisexuality) . . . . Factors that interfere with the interactions between hormones and the developing brain systems during development in the womb may permanently influence later behavior." Ibid.. "In humans, the main mechanism responsible of [sic] sexual identity and orientation involves a direct effect of testosterone on the developing brain." Id., p. 25. Drawing on some transsexualism cases, the authors say, "[f]rom these examples it appears that the direct action of testosterone on the developing brain in boys and the lack of such action on the developing brain in girls are crucial factors in the development of male and female gender identity and sexual orientation . . . ." Id., p. 26. "There are no indications that postnatal social factors could be responsible for the occurrence of transsexuality." Id., p. 28. "With regard to sexual orientation, the most likely outcome of childhood gender identity disorder is homosexuality or bisexuality." Ibid. "The apparent impossibility of getting someone to change their sexual orientation [43] is a major argument against the importance of the social environment in the emergence of homosexuality, as well as against the idea that homosexuality is a lifestyle choice." Id., p. 30 (bracketed endnote reference so in original & referent omitted). "The presence of a genetic component of over 50% in the development of sexual orientation is apparent from family and twin studies." Ibid. "Women with gay sons appeared to have an extreme skewing of X-inactivation [referring to the "X-chromosome"] . . . ." Ibid. "[S]ome two million pregnant women . . . were prescribed diethylstilbestrol (DES)[,] . . . . an estrogen-like substance[,] . . . [and] it [was] . . . found . . . to increase the chance of bisexuality or homosexuality in girls." Id., p. 31. "The . . . . fraternal birth order effect . . . is putatively explained by an immunological response by the mother to a product of the Y chromosome of her sons. The chance of such an immune response to male factors would increase with every pregnancy resulting in the birth of a son." Ibid. "Prenatal exposure to nicotine, amphetamine, or thyroid-gland hormones increases the chances of giving birth to lesbian daughters." Ibid. Stress in pregnancy makes birth of a gay son likelier. Ibid. "Although it has often been postulated that postnatal development is also important for the direction of sexual orientation, there is no solid proof for this." Ibid.

The authors are heavy on the issue but not unequivocal. For example, they say "thought" in two contexts quoted here. That somewhat weakens their argument away from utter certainty. Given that they argue in good faith (I don't doubt that), they allow a measure of doubt on whether testosterone "fix[es] the development . . . in the brain for the rest of a boy's life . . . ." and, especially significantly, on whether "[t]he brain structure differences . . . are . . . the basis of . . . sexual orientation . . . ." (Quotes from above.)

I don't understand why transsexualism is rare in this medical scenario unless what's not being counted are degrees of feeling of gender identity short of feeling of being of the gender other than the genitally defined one.

They classify sexual orientation as a "behavior", which seems to be a misunderstanding, unless calling it a "behavior" was just shorthand. They also identify homosexuality and bisexuality as resulting from a disorder, which is a problematic connection. And they do not include asexuality as a sexual orientation.

Most concerning to me is that they argue that sexual orientation can be determined hormonally except for contemporaneous interference with hormonal influence and therefore — and this is where I think their case is weak — therefore nothing else coming later could affect sexual orientation. But they don't explain why we should believe that one prevents the other. If people go to prison for years (in non-death penalty cases) and have homosexual lives inside when they mostly were heterosexual outside, to deny a social factor determining what is enduring and resistant to change in prison is to suggest that gays and Lesbians are much more often feloniously criminal and sentenced to long prison terms (without solitary confinement) than are heterosexuals. I don't buy that until proven. A substantial minority of people have relationships outside of their respective racial, ethnic, and other birth-determined social groups, including marrying, and, if that doesn't matter, then most people are sexually relating into birth-set groups without biological ground and, if it does matter, then the minority are sexually relating outside of their birth-set groups despite biological ground, and, either way, social factors would seem the likeliest cause (whatever the degree of biological factoring), suggesting that the same principle, of social factoring, applies directly to sexual orientation as an overlay on hormonal determination. The study makes an interesting case for biological determinism, but I don't see how the study disproves supplementation by social causes, at least until large-scale studies of adults do the disproving.

I won't copy the whole journal article into Wikipedia and I've already quoted significantly, but if there's a paragraph or a few sentences more you'd like me to quote I might, depending on what's requested soon. The article copy was provided to me for free via a major public library's Interlibrary Loan (ILL) service, and I assume many other libraries will provide the same service.

Thank you.

Nick Levinson (talk) 21:26, 15 May 2010 (UTC) Corrected minor punctuation: Nick Levinson (talk) 21:39, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

I propose the following rewrite, in the article's Hormones section, of the paragraph beginning "Intrauterine . . . .", the purpose being mainly the replacing of quoting from the abstract with quoting from the study itself, to state the case more extensively:

A 2010 endocrinology study by Garcia-Falgueras and Swaab<ref>Garcia-Falgueras, Alicia, & Swaab, Dick F., Sexual Hormones and the Brain: An Essential Alliance for Sexual Identity and Sexual Orientation, in Endocrine Development, vol. 17, pp. 22-35 (2010) (ISSN 1421-7082) (authors are of Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, of [[Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences]]) (author contact is 2d author) (vol. 17 is Sandro Loche, Marco Cappa, Lucia Ghizzoni, Mohamad Maghnie, & Martin O. Savage, eds., Pediatric Neuroendocrinology).</ref> says that intrauterine exposure to hormones is largely determinative. Sketching the argument briefly here, it says that sexual organs are differentiated and then the brain is sexually differentiated "under the influence, mainly, of sex hormones such as testosterone, estrogen and progesterone on the developing brain cells and under the presence of different genes as well . . . . The changes brought about in this [p. 24:] stage are permanent. . . . [S]exual differentiation of the brain is not caused by hormones alone, even though they are very important for gender identity and sexual orientation."<ref>Garcia-Falgueras, Alicia, & Swaab, Dick F., Sexual Hormones and the Brain, op. cit., pp. 23–24 (reference omitted).</ref> ". . . . These fetal and neonatal peaks of testosterone, together with the functional steroid receptor activity, are thought to fix the development of structures and circuits in the brain for the rest of a boy's life (producing 'programming' or 'organizing' effects). Later, the rising hormonal levels that occur during puberty 'activate' circuits and behavioral patterns that were built during development, in a masculinized and de-feminized direction for male brains or in a feminized and de-masculinized direction for female brains."<ref>Garcia-Falgueras, Alicia, & Swaab, Dick F., Sexual Hormones and the Brain, op. cit., p. 24 (single quotation marks so in original).</ref> Because organ differentiation and brain differentiation occur at different times, in "rare" cases transsexualism can result (transsexualism resulting from having organs of one gender and feelings of the other).<ref name="Garcia-Falgueras-Swaab-SexualHormonesBrain-p24">Garcia-Falgueras, Alicia, & Swaab, Dick F., Sexual Hormones and the Brain, op. cit., p. 24.</ref> "The brain structure differences that result from the interaction between hormones, genes and developing brain cells are thought to be the basis of sex differences in a wide spectrum of behaviors, such as . . . sexual orientation (heterosexuality, homosexuality, or bisexuality) . . . . Factors that interfere with the interactions between hormones and the developing brain systems during development in the womb may permanently influence later behavior."<ref name="Garcia-Falgueras-Swaab-SexualHormonesBrain-p24" /> "In humans, the main mechanism responsible of [sic] sexual identity and orientation involves a direct effect of testosterone on the developing brain."<ref>Garcia-Falgueras, Alicia, & Swaab, Dick F., Sexual Hormones and the Brain, op. cit., p. 25.</ref> Drawing on some transsexualism cases, the authors say, "[f]rom these examples it appears that the direct action of testosterone on the developing brain in boys and the lack of such action on the developing brain in girls are crucial factors in the development of male and female gender identity and sexual orientation . . . ."<ref>Garcia-Falgueras, Alicia, & Swaab, Dick F., Sexual Hormones and the Brain, op. cit., p. 26.</ref> "There are no indications that postnatal social factors could be responsible for the occurrence of transsexuality."<ref name="Garcia-Falgueras-Swaab-SexualHormonesBrain-p28">Garcia-Falgueras, Alicia, & Swaab, Dick F., Sexual Hormones and the Brain, op. cit., p. 28.</ref> "With regard to sexual orientation, the most likely outcome of childhood gender identity disorder is homosexuality or bisexuality."<ref name="Garcia-Falgueras-Swaab-SexualHormonesBrain-p28" /> "The apparent impossibility of getting someone to change their sexual orientation . . . is a major argument against the importance of the social environment in the emergence of homosexuality, as well as against the idea that homosexuality is a lifestyle choice."<ref>Garcia-Falgueras, Alicia, & Swaab, Dick F., Sexual Hormones and the Brain, op. cit., p. 30 (reference omitted).</ref> "The presence of a genetic component of over 50% in the development of sexual orientation is apparent from family and twin studies."<ref name="Garcia-Falgueras-Swaab-SexualHormonesBrain-p30">Garcia-Falgueras, Alicia, & Swaab, Dick F., Sexual Hormones and the Brain, op. cit., p. 30.</ref> "Women with gay sons appeared to have an extreme skewing of X-inactivation [referring to the "X-chromosome"] . . . ."<ref name="Garcia-Falgueras-Swaab-SexualHormonesBrain-p30" /> "[S]ome two million pregnant women . . . were prescribed diethylstilbestrol (DES)[,] . . . . an estrogen-like substance[,] . . . [and] it [was] . . . found . . . to increase the chance of bisexuality or homosexuality in girls."<ref name="Garcia-Falgueras-Swaab-SexualHormonesBrain-p31">Garcia-Falgueras, Alicia, & Swaab, Dick F., Sexual Hormones and the Brain, op. cit., p. 31.</ref> "The . . . . fraternal birth order effect . . . is putatively explained by an immunological response by the mother to a product of the Y chromosome of her sons. The chance of such an immune response to male factors would increase with every pregnancy resulting in the birth of a son."<ref name="Garcia-Falgueras-Swaab-SexualHormonesBrain-p31" /> "Prenatal exposure to nicotine, amphetamine, or thyroid-gland hormones increases the chances of giving birth to lesbian daughters."<ref name="Garcia-Falgueras-Swaab-SexualHormonesBrain-p31" /> Stress in pregnancy makes birth of a gay son likelier.<ref name="Garcia-Falgueras-Swaab-SexualHormonesBrain-p31" /> "Although it has often been postulated that postnatal development is also important for the direction of sexual orientation, there is no solid proof for this."<ref name="Garcia-Falgueras-Swaab-SexualHormonesBrain-p31" />

This includes a wholesale correction to the article title, although the page numbers and the quotations from the abstract correspond and only one article appears on those pages. The source of the titular error is unknown but it appears to date from March 15 8:15p and to be due to a simple error of confusion between two source articles on different issues.

If you'd like to edit this differently, please copy the above paragraph into your answer and edit as you see fit or recommend.

Thank you.

Nick Levinson (talk) 00:50, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

The rewrite is done; I think the only changes I made from the proposal were some italicizing and the format of an en-dash (i.e., as a character reference). Thank you.

I'm also about to copy (verbatim or nearly so) the section into the WP article prenatal hormones and sexual orientation. If it stays there, then the text in this article's section could be shortened (there is a cross-reference template now), but that involves editorial judgments and debates that perhaps should wait a while and that I'd rather leave to someone else, at least for now.

Thanks again.

Nick Levinson (talk) 15:56, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

The copy into the WP article prenatal hormones and sexual orientation was verbatim except for the template at the top and the section title. Nick Levinson (talk) 16:30, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Other sexual orientations must be mention too

Shouldn't other rare sexual orientations be mentioned too? Of course only if there a scientific studies to support them, there are studies supporting that some zoophiles are zoosexuals and that some pedophiles are pedosexuals. There's probably other "sexual orientations" like Asexuality, Objectosexuality and Dendrosexuality (and maybe more) but I'm not aware if they have scientific studies to support the claim they are sexual orientations.
So I'm proposing to mention some where in the sexual orientation page all the new rare sexual orientation that are currently excluded and that have studies that support them as sexual orientations. It wouldn't be fair to exclude them as they are also sexual orientations.
Alusky (talk) 02:59, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

There is nothing you asserted. --Destinero (talk) 03:46, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Asexuality is already in Wikipedia and in the sidebar of the sexual orientation article.

The point of something being designated a sexual orientation is that it is or should be socially acceptable. Adults having sexual intercourse with children or animals is necessarily without consent (e.g., in the U.S. a minor's putative consent is void) and therefore properly a crime, therefore not socially acceptable, so it is not known as a sexual orientation. If you want to write those up, add them to the Wikipedia articles on crimes.

Nick Levinson (talk) 06:23, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

"something being designated a sexual orientation is that it is or should be socially acceptable" If this where true homosexuality would have never become a sexual orientation.
This page is about sexual orientations, if some sexual orientation is considered a crime or disgusting or weird that is irrelevant, it should still be mentioned as they are sexual orientations.
PS: A pedosexual or zoosexual can go all his life without having sex with an animal or a child but they still belong to a sexual orientation. So consent is irrelevant to them. You can't say a nonsexual-pedosexual or a non-sexual-zoosexual is "socially unacceptable" can you? Pedosexuals can rape if they want, homosexuals can rape if they want, you can't exclude a sexual orientation just because crimes may happen among the sexual orientation.
Alusky (talk) 21:38, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Quick history: Homosexuality was a crime and was not recognized as legitimate and counting it as a sexual orientation did not take hold until its acceptability moved from being rejected to being debated. (There are not specific dates, partly because laws are handled largely by lawmakers, law enforcers, and adjudicators while sexual orientation is considered a matter of psychology handled by the mental health and medical practitioners, but if you research decade by decade or century by century the pattern is evident.) Sexual orientation was not widely recognized until there were two; there was no perceived need to speak of it if there was only one, namely heterosexuality, and if all other sexualities were merely deviances (and consider what happened to people with publicized sexual deviances, e.g., some were murdered or incarcerated). Then for a while people spoke of sexual preference, but that conflicted with issues of choice and also sounded like it meant whether someone preferred one body position over another, so that term has faded into being little used. Sexual orientation is now recognized and there are more than two (and even that is debated) but all the orientations are those that have social acceptability or social support in some major part of the world. Homosexuality is criminalized in major parts of the world but accepted in others, thus is accepted as a sexual orientation at least in the latter. Disgustingness and weirdness are not directly the issues.

Heterosexuals and homosexuals (some) do rape. The people they raped did not consent; that's why it is rape. However, heterosexuals and homosexuals don't always rape; most of the time, in any legal sense, they don't rape; and in consensual contexts heterosexuality is accepted worldwide and homosexuality is accepted in parts of the world.

You're right that someone can have a sexual orientation, deviance, or criminal tendency and not act on it. But if acting on it would be socially unacceptable, having it but not acting on it is also socially unacceptable. If you doubt that and if you are an adult and competent, I'll describe an experiment but I do not propose it. I warn you that this can get you killed without a trace of your body and it can get you maimed and in need of lifetime medical care and an inability to manage your own life. Go live alone. Then go to playgrounds, schools, toy stores, and the like and announce to parents and workers that you'd like to have lots of sex with children but that you promise not to actually have sex with anyone. Make sure to be persistent and convincingly serious. Publish your results. I warn you again—absolutely seriously—that you may wind up dead or badly and irrecoverably injured for the rest of your life and, of course, unable to publish your report or even to tell anyone that you didn't mean it. You may also wind up in inpatient psychiatric care for years, and good luck telling your custodial psychiatrist that you didn't mean it. And should there be any child molester being hunted nearby when you're making those statements, you may get confused with the other person and you can look forward to a cell with bars and lots of rapes of your body over many years (some reports say that child rapists are especially likely to get raped in prison). I do not recommend you try this experiment.

Nick Levinson (talk) 01:47, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

•Well I'm debating the acceptability of other sexual orientations, just like people did with homosexuality, to me and may others there's no reason to discriminate zoosexuals and pedosexuals that behave (just as we don't discriminate heterosexuals and homosexuals just because some of them rape)
•And you are assuming all zoosexuals and pedosexuals always rape?
•Hmmm "But if acting on it would be socially unacceptable, having it but not acting on it is also socially unacceptable." ◄•That makes no sense. That would be like saying raping is wrong but controlling yourself to not rape is also wrong. And your example only show people are bigots, same example can be done with an homosexuals in one of the countries where they get killed for being one, send him to a public places make him say this "I'm homosexual but I won't have sex because is a sin" PEOPLE WILL STILL HANG HIM BY THE NECK.
•Clearly "acceptability" is not a reason for a sexual orientation to be a sexual orientation or homosexuality wouldn't be one.
Alusky (talk) 08:15, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Standards vary by nation; repeal of anti-homosexuality ordinances has not been simultaneous. Iran's head of state has declared that they have no gays, so likely does not recognize homosexuality as a sexual orientation, and if they recognize only heterosexuality as legitimate then they probably don't recognize any sexual orientation. (Ironically, if Iran is building nuclear bombs, statistically some gays and lesbians are probably in the teams of scientists and military members helping them.)

A simple survey would reveal people who want to have sexual intercourse with children or animals (apart from the difficulty of gaining respondent honesty in the face of major stigmata), but whether the want amounts to a sexual orientation is a separate question.

If consent is impossible or meaningless, that's effectively the same as not receiving consent. A child, by definition, is not qualified to do adult activities because the child does not have the means to handle the consequences of adult activities. A six-year-old may love Olympic football but can't meaningfully consent to play the full rough-and-tumble head-bending variety played by professionals who pound balls and players for hours. The child may be prescient and enthusiastic but their body cannot handle the risk of injury or make the money for hospital bills. When a person can handle pregnancy, including raising the baby even if the sexual partner doesn't feel like it, is when the person is an adult. Until then, the person is a child. (It's usually legally defined by specific age but it can be defined conceptually.) Since a child can't handle pregnancy and can't be sure that sexual intercourse won't result in pregnancy, s/he can't consent to sexual intercourse. The lack of consent would turn any intercourse with a child into rape.

There is antihomosexuality discrimination although less than there was. People prefer that others be disgusted with the wrongful activities because they don't trust anyone who says they'd like to but are willing to refrain. That's because many people engage in heterosexuality while lying about it, e.g., the married man with a girlfriend, and many people believe that nature makes you have sex if given a nice opportunity, so saying you'd like to do x that other people find disgusting leads people to suspect that you would do it if no one's watching. If they don't want to spend time watching you and they don't know if you've done anything terribly wrong yet while you want to, they may merely drive you out of town.

Refraining from committing rape is of course not wrong. If it were, rape would be okay, which it isn't. But wanting to do what amounts to rape is wanting to do something criminal. People have sexual orientations according to what they would do when consensual.

Nick Levinson (talk) 09:51, 27 August 2010 (UTC) (Corrected one misspelling: Nick Levinson (talk) 10:06, 27 August 2010 (UTC))

I still don't know why you mention consent and sex activities, this page is about sexual orientations and not actually about consent or sexual activities. A sexual orientation doesn't stop being a sexual orientation just because the sex acts are a crime or because the sexual orientation is not accepted by most society. Would love to see you proving that an homosexual that only likes to rapes is not an homosexual or that an homosexual in a country whre everybody hate homosexuals is not an homosexual.
Alusky (talk) 21:06, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Sexual orientation has nothing to do with social acceptability. Homosexuality was recognized as a sexual orientation long before it was socially acceptable. A sexual orientation simply defines the class of objects of one's sexual desire, or classes (as in bisexuals). The fact that a sexual orientation may be socially unacceptable may make it harder to research. But Foucault made it very clear, how much one can learn about sexual orientations by looking at the discourse of social unacceptability - doesn't he view the literature on "perversions (prior to the 19 century) and "pathologies" (19th century to present) as a source of information on sexual orientations? Slrubenstein | Talk 14:48, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Therein lies the difference. When a desire other than heterosexuality was considered (in mental health, not in law) a perversion or pathology, the presumptive goal was to change to heterosexuality. When the same desire is considered a sexual orientation, it is socially accepted, at least for a significant part of the time and places. Looking backwards lets us say that homosexuals of long ago should not have been subject to treatment or punishment for that desire or activity (all else equal with heterosexuals) even if treatment and punishment were the standard fare of the day. By looking backward, we have agreed that a certain astronomer was right even if a church thought so otherwise that it killed him, and the said church may now be doing legitimate scientific astronomical research, but we have not changed our minds for everything that was disapproved in the past.

Approval of a desire today presumptively condones acting on it. If we approve your desire to become a fine-arts painter, we encourage you to buy some paint. There is no way to condone acting on a desire for sex with children or nonhuman animals because there is no way for them to consent because there is no way for the one (children) to manage the consequences themselves or for the other (animals) to understand and communicate with humans. Therefore, consent lacking, the activity cannot be condoned, and thus what is proposed is a pathology or ground for criminal suspicion in case a child or animal turns up raped. Any sexual intercourse with a child or nonhuman animal is rape.

Someone might not act on a desire, and for many reasons, both individual and social. But if the activity is socially bad, i.e., it is generally disapproved of and some people don't care what others think of their activity, then social limits on activity are insufficient and society adds limits on desire. That's why pedophilia and zoophilia are not sexual orientations. Consider the difficulty asexuality has being accepted as a sexual orientation; e.g., some studies are simply silent about it, and that difficulty underscores a presumption that a sexual orientation is supposed to be acted on, and to an opponent of asexuality asexuality is not an activity but an omission. Given that much sexual activity is hidden, including heterosexuality, even when legal, and that hiding it is socially acceptable (recall the charge against homosexuals of "flaunting it", implying that secrecy would be acceptable), society does not believe that a sexual desire generally will not be acted on.

There are gray areas. For example, the difference between a child and an adult is not cleanly definable by legislation although that's a convenient method. But the gray areas are not dispositive.

Nick Levinson (talk) 16:48, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

You have not explained by zoophilia or pedophilia ar not sexual orientations. Your personal opinion is irrelevant. All that goes into articles are significant views from notable sources. If we have one that says pedophilia is a sexual orientation, it goes in. If we have one that says pedophilia is not a sexual orientation, that goes in. If we have two sources with opposing views, both go in. Foucault certainly is useful here and of course flatly contradicts your point. But his view is significant. Yours is not. Slrubenstein | Talk 17:15, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

I have but you're right that my view as such is not significant. But a major claim above is that these are sexual orientations. If something is not a sexual orientation, why would it go into an article on sexual orientation? Throughout WP we don't identify what's not apropos to the subject of an article. For that we have disambiguation pages and cross-reference templates. Research that some people desire pedophilia or zoophilia may belong in WP but if it's not a sexual orientation then it should go to the page where it does belong. Thus, to put either one into this article research or scholarship has to show not just that some people are pedophiles or zoophiles or want to be but, furthermore, that it's a sexual orientation. Nick Levinson (talk) 00:14, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

If someone claims pedophilia and zoophilia are sexual orientations and you don't believe them, you have every right to ask them for a source. But your arguing that "But if the activity is socially bad, i.e., it is generally disapproved of and some people don't care what others think of their activity, then social limits on activity are insufficient and society adds limits on desire. That's why pedophilia and zoophilia are not sexual orientations" is simply irrelevant, and illegitimate grounds for keeping material out of the article. For a source, I have suggested one start by looking at Foucault, although there may be other sources. Slrubenstein | Talk 10:01, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

►@Nick Levinson, like I said before, there are studies that says some (BUT NOT ALL) pedophiles or zoophiles have a sexual orientation for animals or children (making them zoosexuals and pedosexuals) they share the same basic points with heterosexuality, homosexuality and bisexuality making them a sexual orientation too (not a choice) so they should be mention on this page together with the citations and links to the studies. Also it could be mentioned that those sexual orientations are normally not tolerated by most people and that the sex acts are normally illegal and that people of those orientations can chose celibacy for legal or moral reasons.
PS: Rape is the use of force to have sex with an unwillingly living creature, my male dog is more than willingly to mount me and make me his "bitch". He is happy to do that and I'm happy he enjoys it, I find it insulting that you call any sex acts with animals rape, I DO NOT rape my k9 boyfriend, I respect his opinion and I don't force him to do anything he doesn't want.
Alusky (talk) 00:02, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

What you don't understand of sexual orientation connected to the sex of the object (either the same or the opposite, perhaps none - asexuality)? Pedophilia is connected to the age (= age orientation) of the person and zoophilia to the animals (species orientation), not to the people. --Destinero (talk) 06:34, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

What I wonder is that you, homosexuals, want your special rights, but you don't want to share the same rights with others, "pedosexuals and zoosexuals". What is the difference? I do not see any. Why you do not support the real diversity in your agenda? Pedophiles can raise their voices with arguments that they are born like that and they often argue, that their objects of love have their very same human rights to have sex and love and be tolerated - same as you homosexuals do. Someone can say that both is bad, I personally do see pedophiles just more behind the line of normality. Pedophiles claim, that term "sexual orientation" includes their type of sexuality as well.--DeeMusil (talk) 22:06, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

DeeMusil, this is not a chat room, please do not soapbox. If you cannot propose an NPOV edit based on reliable sources, keep your political views to yourself. Slrubenstein | Talk 22:42, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

It's waste of your time to clarify it to this user with long history of inability to understand such simple thing on the Czech Wikipedia. The people who are unable to identify the differences between sex and age, between consenting adults and adult and a not psychically developed children, should not edit Wikipedia. --Destinero (talk) 23:33, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

I look forward to seeing studies. I'm skeptical; e.g., the American Psychological Association makes pretty clear that more than choice/nonchoice is involved in determining whether a desire is a sexual orientation, but I'll look at a study. (This post is continuous with the part following the intervening answer. Nick Levinson (talk) 08:30, 4 September 2010 (UTC))

I'm looking for information on pedophilia as I'm not well informed on the subject, about zoosexuality that's easier to find information.
Alusky (talk) 07:53, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Rape is whenever consent is lacking. Force in the sense usually understood in U.S. law is not necessary; a threat of force is enough. Israel has a law against rape by deception and that made the BBC news recently.

Nick Levinson (talk) 05:03, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Nick Levinson, would you say a human that lets a dog hump his leg till the dog reaches climax is the human raping the dog?
Alusky (talk) 07:53, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

No; and I assume you know that questions abstracted from reality may yield different answers than do questions that include real-world contexts, and in this case that brings up reciprocation, and immediately a problem occurs with sexual orientation being a rubric for zoosexual relationships. But, as you know, talk pages are not a forum for the subject of the article, but for the article as subject, and thus useful for clarifying proposed content but not for general off-WP discussion. Let us know what you find and I suggest that looming controversy suggests a high standard of care in selecting sources.

Also, be cautious in editing other people's talk posts. Did you mean "species" or "specie"? The latter is money. The former is singular and plural. That's why I generally don't edit other people's talk posts.

Nick Levinson (talk) 08:30, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Didn't know specie means money, was just fixing 1 letter, I appreciate if some one fix any typos I may make.
Alusky (talk) 19:12, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

•About pedophilia: OK I look more into pedophilia and found this wiki about pedophilia.
In in this article has some citations that show it may be a sexual orientation (at least or a few people) http://newgon.com/wiki/Research:_Pedophilia_as_a_sexual/erotic_orientation
In in this article they show how a cure for pedophilia is very hard or non-existence (sexual orientation can (typo I mean Can't) be cured/changed or so APA says) http://newgon.com/wiki/Research:_A_%22cure%22_for_pedophilia%3F
And in this article they talk about pedosexuality: http://newgon.com/wiki/Pedosexual
Enough to evidence that a minority of the population have an age based sexual for children or not?

•About zoosexuality: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoophilia
-(Hani Miletski Ph.D.: Understanding Bestiality and Zoophilia, 2002) her study show that a part of zoophiles fit the profile of a sexual orientation. (I have read it all)
-Other resent studies show the same or talk about this. (I have read part of them)
Also asexuality is already on the Article and I don't see "many" citations proving is a sexual orientation. So I don't see why not add zoosexuality and pedosexuality too as there's little information about them (same for asexuality theres not many sources and yet is there) ▬▬►By the way, I been looking at the pansexual article, I wonder if there is anything about sexual orientations based on gender? Check what I said on the talk page.
Alusky (talk) 19:12, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Wikis are considered to be of dubious reliability and, for Wikipedia's purposes, that includes Wikipedia itself (internal linking is obviously allowed) ("Anyone can create a website or pay to have a book published, then claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason self-published media—whether books, newsletters, personal websites, open wikis, blogs, personal pages on social networking sites, Internet forum postings, or tweets—are largely not acceptable.") (see also WP:SPS), and for an example of a current debate about a site that may be an open wiki see the WP Reliable Sources noticeboard's Sourcewatch discussion, but you may find a source within a wiki that is itself reliable and then cite that.

A sexual desire probably does not have to be common to a large population to be a sexual orientation. Most obviously, it does not have to be a majority of any major society or heterosexuality would be the only sexual orientation recognized. Lesbians and gays are about a tenth of the population and homosexuality is widely recognized. On the other hand, asexuality, which is shared by only about one one-hundredth of the population, is often not recognized professionally as a sexual orientation. Various studies list the sexual orientations the researchers include within sexual orientation and include only heterosexuality, homosexuality, and maybe bisexuality. Common responses to asexuality are that such people don't exist (only the Web put an end to that, more or less), that asexuals are really closeted gays or lesbians masquerading as not being interested, or that an asexual just needs a nice partner to give them a nice time in bed just once, and all of those are false answers, but they're common reactions.

Nor does there have to be a large number of studies agreeing on one sexual orientation. There probably does have to be enough studies to clarify definition and to include replication. How many studies is unknown, as long as it is enough that experts in the field agree that it is established until disproven. (The latter is analogous to physicists not being sure that gravity exists but agreeing that gravity offers the best explanation for the known data and does so to such a degree that it will be hard to convince any physicist to accept any contradictory explanation.) If studies disagree, it may take a while for a consensus to be settled on, and usually the later studies are more persuasive than the earlier ones. You may find also that one profession may have one consensus and another profession another consensus.

You wrote, "sexual orientation can be cured/changed or so APA says". Did you mean that or did you mean the opposite? The APA says that sexual orientation resists being changed.

You wrote and I didn't understand this: "I wonder if there is anything about sexual orientations based on gender?" If you like, please clarify your question.

Your posts at Talk:Pansexuality look like original research, not allowed in WP articles. Maybe you're describing what's been published but without citations I can't tell.

The pansexuality and polysexuality articles themselves are weak at best.

The pansexuality article has four references. One is to answerbag.com, which, as far as I see on the linked-to page and on their About Us page, is not a reliable source (neither its answer nor any of the comments cite a single reliable source, the longest answer appears to be an unattributed copy from Wikipedia and circular references do not add reliability, and the staff descriptions don't indicate any expertise relevant to the answer). Two other references are to dictionaries and even the best dictionaries are not strong enough sources for the purpose (e.g., the Oxford Eng. Dict. describes English as it's used but is not limited to scientifically accurate language; although prescriptive glossaries may help). The strongest ref thus may be to the Diamond & Butterworth source (I haven't read it) but finding the cited item will take some work, since it lacks needed bibliographic information or a URL. It says that pansexuality is different from bisexuality because pansexuality does not accept that only two genders exist, and while some philosophers might accept a third gender I don't think any biologist does, which might make pansexuality only another word for bisexuality. The article is tagged as needing expert attention. It may need clarification in its lede that pansexuality is only proposed as a sexual orientation or, if anyone with any authority beyond personal preference has declared it as a sexual orientation, that its being a sexual orientation separate from bisexuality is not generally agreed upon.

The polysexuality article is worse. It has only three refs, one to Storr and two to Tucker. As it lacks bibliographic information on Tucker and Storr, tracing them will be rather difficult. The article is tagged as lacking notability, which, if true, means it doesn't qualify to be in WP. In case notability is established, it is tagged as also needing more refs. At any rate, it doesn't actually say that polysexuality is a sexual orientation, although the template implies it is.

Nick Levinson (talk) 04:14, 9 September 2010 (UTC) Corrected a word ("a" to "are"): 04:42, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

The zoophilia article does not establish a zoophilic sexual orientation, because none of the statements on point clearly do so with a good source, if there's any source cited. Nick Levinson (talk) 04:42, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

•"sexual orientation can be cured/changed or so APA says" ◄•Was a typo sorry. I mean to say is very hard to change and it seems there are many studies that show pedophilia is very hard to be cured which helps them to support the idea they are a sexual orientation.
•"I wonder if there is anything about sexual orientations based on gender?" ◄• To me it seems that pansexuals are attracted to "feminine" and "masculine" people as they don't care what genitals the person may have and I know one guy that is only attracted to masculinity, so he likes gays that are masculine but also likes girls that are masculine, so I was thinking, if there is a sexual orientation that is not based on the person genitals but on the role the person shows to society (masculine or feminine) because pansexuals seems to be part of that sexual orientation. Unless they are just a subdivision/preference inside the heterosexual/bisexual/homosexual orientation.
•Nick Levinson say: "Your posts at Talk:Pansexuality look like original research, not allowed in WP articles. Maybe you're describing what's been published but without citations I can't tell." ◄• Yes, it's original research because It's my research, I took it out of my brain and type it on the page. I'm interested in anything related to different sexual orientations.
•On this link there's a citation form Hani Miletski study, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_talk:Zoosexuality about zoosexuality, she has a PHD on Sexology and Psychology and did a study on zoophiles for many years, she concluded with her study that some zoophiles are indeed zoosexuals. And a couple of more studies are point to the same direction. Is frustrating for us to know we are a sexual orientation but people don't want to acknowledge it just because animals are not humans, humans are animals too. If not soon in 50 or 100 year there will be more studies and we will get acknowledge.
Alusky (talk) 06:42, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't remember any scientists' definition of sexual orientation as based on gender as opposed to being based on sex (i.e., on the cultural vs. biological aspect of sex), and that probably reinforces that sexual orientation is somewhat more directly about how sexuality relates to reproduction. Reproduction is why only heterosexuality was acceptable so that sexual orientation as a label was virtually meaningless; the acceptance of homosexuality by people who in effect said we're not homosexual but I don't mind if some of my friends, relatives, and neighbors are was part of a movement away from considering reproduction to be generally every adult's duty and toward personal choice by adults. Relative to the question of reproduction, gender is more symbolic than sex and thus probably of less concern to society when society demands or doesn't demand reproduction; e.g., when reproductive demand is higher rape is commonly either higher or less often punished and sexual orientation becomes meaningless because everyone is supposed to be heterosexual. All this reinforces that sexual orientation is about societal acceptance of one or another sexual desire. If what turns you on is that the object of your desire wears clothing that is specifically brown, society probably doesn't care about that and if it likes your desire on other grounds it'll try to arrange for a supply of brown clothing. But if the key is societal acceptance, society does not like what causes negative blowback, and punishment and rape generally do that, and so consent is an element of societal acceptance, and that has to between all partners in a relationship and in all directions as to how that relationship is lived or would be lived. Sexual desire, being one-way, does not require consent, but sexual orientation, being based on relationships (being alone is not considered asexuality if the person is simply locked alone into a room and doesn't desire to be alone, so asexuality is also about the relationship one chooses and is the only sexual orientation based on solitude), does depend on mutual consent and on consent that is believed by larger communities within society (e.g., not deeming most practicing homosexuals as rapists simply because they're lesbian or gay and engaging sexually, even when they're having some nonviolative sexual problems). When communications are inadequate, as with animals, or when responsibility for consequences can't be fulfilled, as with children, consent can't be given by the animal or child, and so a sexual orientation cannot be based on their participation. You may find a scholar who posits otherwise but I doubt you'll find anything like a consensus, i.e., a scholarly discipline in which some scholars say so and others say that if the first ones say so then it must be true. Instead, if you find some scholarly studies to support either of the orientations you suggest exist you'll probably find other scholars rejecting it overwhelmingly so that no discipline (psychology, medicine, law, or whatever) will have an internal consensus supporting desire or behavior as a sexual orientation. Nor is there a popular consensus; nor is there a consensus in any society's leadership or elite. WP doesn't cover the far fringe, although some other websites do. You may use your original research as an aid in guiding your search for sources for WP although I doubt you'll find anything like a reportable and citable consensus that meets WP's standards. Nick Levinson (talk) 16:58, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm just stepping in to say that people trying to define pedophilia as a sexual orientation comparable to homosexuality is always going on at Talk:Pedophilia. While I can see how it (pedophilia) is like a sexual orientation in some ways, I wouldn't say it's valid to label it as one. Flyer22 (talk) 19:20, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Is not defining all pedophilia as a sexual orientation, not all people that has sex with minors is a pedophile and not all pedophiles fit the profile of a sexual orientation, only some pedophiles fit the profile and only them could be said to have a sexual orientation.
Alusky (talk) 08:32, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

I am not sure what "comparable" means. Isn't the point that pedophilia is a different sexual orientation than homosexuality or for that matter heterosexuality? Isn't is more logical to say that people are trying to define pedophilisa as a sexual orientation, in contrast to different sexual orientations like heterosexulity, homosexuality, and zoophilia? Also, Flyer22 says she wouldn't say this is valid. Well, obviously our own views are irrelevant, what matters is reliable sources for established viws, so my question for Flyer22 is, what sources do you have? You must have some source, otherwise why would we care at all what yoy think is or is not valid? Slrubenstein | Talk 20:59, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Mainstream academic sources define pedophilia as a mental disorder, a type of paraphilia. There are many references in those articles, and none use the term "sexual orientation" to describe pedophilia. There have been some fringe sources making that claim, but that idea has been rejected by mainstream academia and social-political culture. So far, this discussion does not present any reliable sources for the idea of it being an orientation. If there are any sources for that claim, let's take a look at them to determine whether or not they are too far to the fringe to be used, and what statements could accurately be made based on those sources. If it turns out they are usable, to avoid undue weight, they would have to be placed in context of the mainstream view (with sources of course), which is that pedophilia is a disorder, not a sexual orientation. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 21:37, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

The NewgonWiki is the only place where I found citation for pedosexuality being mentioned on studies as a sexual orientation. (I leave links above to newgonwiki)
•According to the DSM a disorder is when the person suffer stress or hurts other people or can't live a normal life. There are pedophiles that knows how to control their sex urges and never act on them and are living normal and happy productive lives (those seem healthy to em) also, nobody is saying that a sexual orientation can't be a disorder at the same time. And the mainstream can be wrong too.
Alusky (talk) 08:32, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't think there'll be anything bigger than a fringe to show enough community acceptability for pedosexuality or zoosexuality to be a sexual orientation. Without nonfringe support, Slrubenstein, the burden is on those who want pedosexuality or zoosexuality to be treated in WP as a sexual orientation to cite sources, not on those of us who don't. Flyer22 doesn't need a source for pedosexuality not being a sexual orientation, just as we don't need a source for Friday not being a month, even though we could find one, most easily an exclusionary source, such as an authoritative list of all recognized sexual orientations (or months) that definitively excludes anything not listed.

"Isn't the point that pedophilia is a different sexual orientation than homosexuality or for that matter heterosexuality?" No; pedosexuality (or pedophilia) is not a sexual orientation and so therefore it is not a different sexual orientation.

"Isn't is more logical to say that people are trying to define pedophilisa as a sexual orientation, in contrast to different sexual orientations like heterosexulity [sic], homosexuality, and zoophilia?" Before someone can contrast it to other sexual orientations, it must first be a sexual orientation. To show that, sources are needed.

"Your personal opinion is irrelevant. All that goes into articles are significant views from notable sources. . . ." There was a proposal to put it in and we're providing some guidance tailored to the subject to show the difficulty of meeting WP's standards so anyone wishing to add this kind of content can understand what to do.

Acted-out pedosexuality and zoosexuality also qualify as crimes in probably most of the world, so, if one doesn't want to consider either one as a mental illness but wants to act on it, a visit to the police and a confession should result in plenty of help toward achieving strong feelings of security in an unpadded cell. That being, as far as I know, pretty much worldwide, these are unlikely to qualify as sexual orientations and citable research is unlikely to contradict that.

Slrubenstein, you recommended Foucault. Which work by that author?

Nick Levinson (talk) 04:11, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Nick zoosexual acts are legals in some countries and there are more citations supporting zoosexuality as a true sexual orientation than support for pedosexuality, pansexuality, polysexuality, etc, I'm just trying to be nice to other possible sexual orientations by mentioning them in this talk page but my main goal is zoosexuality and I believe is enough citations out there to mention it on the sexual orientation page as a very possible sexual orientation. I would add it to the page but I'm not too good at editing, I hope some one else with more experience can do it.
Alusky (talk) 08:32, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Alusky, I'll reply to all three of your replies here only because I generally don't want to cut into the thread.

You wrote, "not all people that has sex with minors is a pedophile". I don't understand. Do you mean that some people have sex with children but don't like to? Are they being forced to have sex with children? My guess is you didn't mean to write that. Maybe you meant that "not all people that have sex with minors have a pedosexual sexual orientation". You decide what it is you meant.

You may be right about the DSM (I haven't read the latest edition) but, as you may know, that's not enough to make a new sexual orientation. The specific sexual orientation has to be supported with sources, not just that it's possible.

As long as a wiki that anyone can edit without much editorial standard is your only source, you have no source for Wikipedia. The material at the wiki may have been written by someone with plenty of important credentials but, for something like the subjects you're interested in, peer review of their work will probably be required. These are heavy conclusions you're suggesting and if what you post is taken seriously it will be highly controversial. Therefore, you want to lean over backward to be sure what you post can withstand intense controversy.

Peer review generally means that work that an editor wants to publish is reviewed before publication by professors in the author's field, at least one peer reviewer per article and sometimes multiple reviewers. Reviewers and authors are usually anonymous to each other. About an hour per review is common, so if the reviewer doesn't trust what they're reading they'll probably advise the editor not to publish it and the editor will probably concur.

It is possible for one author, including one who is a professor in the field, to be so far ahead of all their peers that no peer review is possible and the work is rejected even though it is sound. Stephen Hawking wrote about peer-reviewing such a paper from a Soviet author; writing to the Soviet author and awaiting another paper and having it go through government security review would probably have taken too long, so he wrote the paper that should have been written first, and both papers got published. But if a paper can't be peer-reviewed it may be because the paper is wrong or unsupportable. If I write a paper saying that there are kitten-sized animals roaming on Saturn, I might be right and maybe I saw them but if I can't submit proof that convinces professors in the field my paper will be rejected by any reputable peer-reviewed astronomy journal and it won't get into Wikipedia.

You can draft what you want to post, you can put it into this talk page, and we can clean it up. If someone posts unacceptable content it can be removed; so if someone posts a draft and no one's willing to post it it'll just not get into the article. As far as I know, if you don't agree with our decisions your abilities to go around us are the same either way. Either way, the quality of the English is not your main problem, since you have some English skills, and probably fairly good English skills. Your spelling has errors but you might be able to fix that by typing your final draft more slowly and proofreading more carefully. Sometimes you might say the opposite of what you mean (we found that once) and you'll have to check that yourself because we can't tell what you meant if your statement is grammatically correct but not what you meant. Otherwise, your sentence structures are generally not bad; if you're not comfortable with complicated sentences, you can probably say almost anything you want for WP using simple sentence structures. What matters for WP is what is being said, whether the citations support what is being said, and the quality of the cited material. Given your subject, the last may be, by far, your biggest problem.

Polysexuality is not claimed to be a sexual orientation. The Wikipedia article didn't say it was. There was a navigation box linking to many articles regarding sexual orientation and that box listed polysexuality, but that's been taken out, on my suggestion. The box was also edited to take pansexuality out as a sexual orientation, apparently on someone else's suggestion; the pansexuality article says it's a sexual orientation, but both the pansexuality and the polysexuality articles are weakly sourced, as I tagged on the articles and/or discussed on the talk pages.

It's not necessary to be nice to believers in other possible sexual orientations. Each proposal must either stand or fall on its own definitions, thought, and research. You should assume your proposals are going to have a hard time.

Nick Levinson (talk) 11:14, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Nick said: "not all people that has sex with minors is a pedophile". I don't understand" ◄•I mean that society call anyone that molest a child a pedophile even if the person doesn't fit the profile of a pedophile.

Nick said: "You may be right about the DSM (I haven't read the latest edition) but, as you may know, that's not enough to make a new sexual orientation." ◄•Was pointing out that some pedophiles are "healthy" as I think Jack-A-Roe try to say that if they are sick they can't be a sexual orientation.

Anyways I want to focus more on zoosexuality, will try to drop the pedosexuality as is not my main interests.

Miletsky study was nicely done and doesn't sound crazy (like animals roaming on Saturn) but I don't know if it is peer review. How one does to find if a citation comes from a study that is peer reviewed?
Alusky (talk) 08:52, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

If the study wasn't published, it won't be acceptable for WP. If it was published and peer-reviewed (also known as refereed), it'll have been published in a peer-reviewed publication. Usually, that's in a journal but some books are also peer-reviewed, such as some reports of conferences that are collections of papers presented there. If you don't find evidence that it was peer-reviewed, then it probably was not. Some very important and reliable publications, such as Time and The Economist, are not peer-reviewed, but they don't establish new scholarly conclusions. Some databases of articles, such as databases from EbscoHost and JStor, are either explicitly limited to peer-reviewed journals or allow users to search only within peer-reviewed journals (there may be a checkbox for limiting a search), or the database may have a section describing publications which may tell you if they're peer-reviewed. Possibly, a journal's own website may say so.

One pitfall may be a peer-reviewed journal that has little or no credibility outside of its field. Paranormal studies are covered by at least one peer-reviewed journal but the field still has little external credibility (in its defense, we may note that when a phenomenon or explanation is proven true then it is no longer considered part of the paranormal, so the paranormal is by definition composed of what remains unproven, and that's different from what you're talking about). Your best bet is a journal that is generally accepted by scholars in the relevant field, such as in psychology. You can tell if a journal has that acceptance if the well-known refereed journals in the same field carry articles that cite various articles from the journal you're considering. Even better is when the article you're interested in has been cited positively in other articles in other peer-reviewed journals in the same field. Some databases show you if that has happened.

Databases may not be free. In the U.S., some public libraries let people who have their free library cards use their databases for free. Where I live, the library card is free if you live, work, or study locally. You may be allowed to use a card to access some of the databases without having to be physically in the library.

If you run into a major problem determining if a journal is peer-reviewed because of the nation you're in, post the journal's name on this talk page and maybe one of us can try to find out. However, please don't do that until you've found an article you want to use and the article is in that journal.

If you have the content of what the researcher has found, such as from a wiki, you can use phrases from that to search in databases (including Yahoo/Google) to see if it's been published. If that doesn't work, look to see if the researcher has their own website. If they're teaching somewhere, look at the university's website and see if the researcher has a page there. Sometimes, authors and academics list their publications, usually with some bibliographic information. Pending research or a mere research interest doesn't count; neither has been peer-reviewed yet. You could also try emailing the author for a citation. The email reply, no matter what it says, is usually not publishable in WP because the email is unavailable for verification, but you can use the emailed information to guide your research.

On your other points:

You wrote, "society call anyone that molest a child a pedophile even if the person doesn't fit the profile of a pedophile": If by profile you mean 'definition', then anyone who molests (has sexual relations with) a child is a pedophile unless they were forced to do it or didn't care one way or the other, and if they didn't care one must wonder how they came to spend time and energy going to the trouble to do something they didn't care about. So, unless there was force, pedophilia applies. But if by profile you mean characteristics commonly found among most people who are pedophiles, such as if someone says that pedophiles are usually of one gender, of an age range, living alone, or whatever—and that's usually what's meant by a profile (like, until 2008, the profile of a U.S. President was a white man because 43 out of 43 were, but the definition was not, the definition being in the Constitution)—then you're right. Someone may be a pedophile who does not fit the profile of a typical pedophile.

If your point is that not all pedophiles have a pedophilic sexual orientation, I agree. I'm not sure any do, because I don't think there is a sexual orientation based on pedophilia, but if there is such a sexual orientation then some pedophiles not fitting in is likely correct.

On health, in the mental health field, there is a concept that doing harm to oneself is mental illness. Harm, as I understand it, includes going to prison. Therefore, doing something illegal that has a high risk of imprisonment would be mental illness. That's why any illegal drug use may be considered a condition to be treated but drinking alcohol where that's legal may be a treatable condition only if the person drinks to some kind of excess (distress, physical illness, spending too much, distress to family, etc.).

There's also a concept in mental illness that doing what hurts a relationship with loved ones is mental illness. Thus, a lack of acceptance among loved ones of one's sexuality may make one's sexuality a mental illness. Where a sexuality fits a sexual orientation is not in places (nations, etc.) where the sexuality is so much rejected that almost no family will accept it in a member of that family. Almost certainly, pedosexuality and probably zoosexuality will be painful to other people and will be rejected, which makes it harder for either one to become a sexual orientation. For the research you uncover not to be rejected in the profession or academic discipline within which the research arose, that issue, acceptance among loved ones, will likely have to be considered.

If a sexuality fits its own sexual orientation, some people who have that sexuality could have a mental illness around it, such as if a heterosexual feels distressed by heterosexual relationships generally, but I think Jack-A-Roe was referring to a sexuality that does not have its own sexual orientation, and therefore is a disorder. I'd argue that it might be not a disorder but a choice, desire, and/or crime without being a sexual orientation.

Nick Levinson (talk) 03:36, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Claimed consensus in the lead

"The current consensus among scholars is that sexual orientation is not a choice." This sentence appears to cite several sources that say orientation is not a choice, instead of finding a neutral third party source that explicitly says there is consensus that it is not a choice. This constitutes original research. NYyankees51 (talk) 15:09, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

I took a look at one of the articles supporting that statement. It's from the American Academy of Pediatrics. Quoting the paper, "The mechanisms for the development of a particular sexual orientation remain unclear, but the current literature and most scholars in the field state that one’s sexual orientation is not a choice; that is, individuals do not choose to be homosexual or heterosexual." (bold added for emphasis) Is your concern around what defines a "consensus"? You may want to do some research on what that word can mean. Consensus does not have to mean an absolute 100%. It can mean there's general agreement (per Websters dictionary). And even so, "the current literature and most scholars in the field" is more than just "general agreement". Mattnad (talk) 19:50, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Proposed merge to this article

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Androphilia and gynephilia is basically a merge proposal, with this page identified as the potential target. Editors who are interested in this article might wish to express an opinion there. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:49, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose merge. There's too much information (30+ references) at Androphilia and gynephilia to paste it here. It's certainly related and was already linked in this article. I just just added an encapsulation here per Wikipedia:Summary style. Jokestress (talk) 00:29, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

I think it would make far more sense to have the entire discussion over there, rather than scattered around on different pages. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:03, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Removed text

I removed this "Two researchers argued that, due to a lack of research on change over time (as of 1995), there is a limitation on current conceptualizations of sexual orientation. They did not abandon the concept of sexual orientation, but concluded that "given such significant measurement problems, one could conclude there is serious doubt whether sexual orientation is a valid concept at ,all".ref name="Def-Measure-SO" Gonsoriek, John. C.; Weinrich, J. D., Definition and Measurement of Sexual Orientation, in Suicide and Life Threatening Behavior, vol. 25, 1995, pp. 40–51, http://doi.apa.org/getuid.cfm?uid=1996-16078-001 (abstract http://psycnet.apa.org/?fa=main.doiLanding&fuseaction=showUIDAbstract&uid=1996-16078-001, as accessed Mar. 17, 2010). ref " because it is a direct quote of a later statement. I put it here in case one of the "ref names" breaks. (note, markup removed)--Kipruss3 (talk) 18:44, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Recent BRD edits

For the user who used BRD to revert my (third) recent bold edit.

"BRD is not a valid excuse for reverting good-faith efforts to improve a page simply because you don't like the changes. Don't invoke BRD as your reason for reverting someone else's work or for edit warring: instead, provide a reason that is based on policies, guidelines, or common sense.

BRD is not an excuse for reverting any change more than once. If your reversion is met with another bold effort, then you should consider not reverting, but discussing."

This would indicate we should leave it as it is for now, pending discussions.

Boynamedsue (talk) 12:04, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Each edit was nearly essentially the same. But nevermind, I've made some changes for accuracy to your edits rather than revert now. --~Knowzilla ^(Talk) 12:17, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Recent edit to biological causes of sexuality

Here are the quotes I'm basing my edits on, the first is from the American psychiatric association, which was already linked regarding the fact homosexuality as a pathology is now discredited:

"Currently there is a renewed interest in searching for biological etiologies for homosexuality. However, to date there are no replicated scientific studies supporting any specific biological etiology for homosexuality."

Now, it has been stated that information about the causes of homosexuality is not relevant as this page is about the causes of sexual orientation in general. I don't see how that view can be defended, given all science on this matter has been geared to detecting what causes homosexuality and bisexuality, as differing orientations from the already very well explained heterosexuality. It is also in a paragraph which specifically refers to the development of sexuality, how can that possibly be discussed without references to specific sexualities? (which were already there and sourced, specifically refering to homo- and hetero- sexuality)

The paragraph which refers to parental influence is again taken from the already existing refs:

ref 54. "Different aspects of sexual orientation may be influenced to a greater or lesser degree [p. 303:] by experiential factors such that sexual experimentation with same-gender partners may be more dependent on a conducive family environment than the development of a gay or lesbian identity."

ref 55. "Whereas there is no evidence from the present investigation to suggest that parents have a determining influence on the sexual orientation of their children, the findings do indicate that by creating a climate of acceptance or rejection of homosexuality within the family, parents may have some impact on their children's sexual experimentation as heterosexual, lesbian, or gay."

These clearly indicate a parental influence on sexual activity (in both cases) and sexuality itself (in the first quote).

Boynamedsue (talk) 18:29, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

I'd agree to keeping it - but we should generalize it (as I did through some slight changes to the wording) as this article is about Sexual orientation in general. Also, heterosexuality isn't well explained too much more than the other sexual orientations when it comes to causes, and additionally don't forget asexuality (which is the often missed 4th orientation). Scientific research on the matter is mostly on what is the cause or controlling biological factor which decides sexual orientation - not specifically any orientation, because the controlling factor is almost certain to be that for all 4. The quote on sexual activity conforms with the other information provided in the section, but it is already rejected that sexual orientation can be affected by any experiences. But anyhow, the slight rewording I did mostly addresses these. --~Knowzilla ^(Talk) 07:14, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Causes of homosexuality

Users who are using the excuse "this article is about sexual orientation, not about homosexuality" to cut sourced information stating there is no known biological cause for homosexuality, please stop doing so. The search for the cause of homosexuality is key to this topic, as while we do not know the exact mechanism by which heterosexual attraction occurs, we know that all animals have heterosexual attraction for necessary evolutionary reasons. We also know the areas of the brain involved, and why this attraction is useful to the organism and its genes. The science investigating sexual orientation almost universally attempts to explain differences between heterosexual individuals, whose orientation matches with their biological reproductive needs, and homosexual individuals, whose orientation apparently contradicts them. My personal opinion is that there is a small biological element in this process, but that there is also a larger social and experiential element, but that's irrelevant, just as the opinions of those who consider it to be a purely biological process. Let's just let the American Psychological Association speak for itself.

Boynamedsue (talk) 06:24, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

This article is about sexual orientation in general. If you are so keen on adding the quote somewhere, add it to the Biology and sexual orientation article or the Homosexuality article. Someone963852 (talk) 12:01, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Someone963852; context is crucial. That quote might be appropriate in other articles, but tends to push this article off the NPOV beam. Boynamedsue, regarding your edit summary complaint that sourced material was cut, please remember that material is not sacrosanct or untouchable simply by dint of being sourced. It must also be apposite and germane, it must not steer the article away from the NPOV ideal, it must accord with consensus as developed on the article's talk page, and there are many other requirements, protocols and conventions it must meet. —Scheinwerfermann ^T·_C12:42, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

That's fair enough, but in that case the whole article needs filtering to remove information regarding only one sexuality. I've cut the previous sentence in the quote regarding antiquated attitudes to homosexuality for this reason Boynamedsue (talk) 09:48, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Boynamedsue, the talk page is where we discuss points of contention and develop consensus on whether and how to modify the article. It is not where we declare the changes we've made unilaterally and without consensus. That's not okeh. Please engage in discussion rather than declaration, and refrain from making substantial POV-shifting changes to the article without first attaining consensus. Thanks.

Now, you've implicitly raised a valid question: why is it okeh to include mention "A" of particular sexual orientations, but not okeh to include mention "B" of particular sexual orientations? Seems to me the answer has roots in the pervasive, scientifically unsupportable, and dissipating view that the only genuine, valid, legitimate and real sexual orientation is heterosexuality. Under this view, all persons are innately heterosexual; homosexuality and bisexuality are not actual sexual orientations but rather a kind of brokenness or disordered condition. In context of that longstanding view, in this article that seeks to educate the reader as to the current understanding of sexual orientation, it seems reasonable and proper to include the robustly-sourced quote you seem to be targeting for removal, to wit, "…Homosexuality was once thought to be the result of troubled family dynamics or faulty psychological development. Those assumptions are now understood to have been based on misinformation and prejudice". On the other hand, it does not seem helpful or appropriate to include the quote you were championing a few days ago, "Currently there is a renewed interest in searching for biological etiologies for homosexuality. However, to date there are no replicated scientific studies supporting any specific biological etiology for homosexuality". It is redundant with a clearer, more concise statement already present ("No one knows what causes heterosexuality, homosexuality, or bisexuality"). Moreover, the quote you wish to include, taken out of its original context of the entire APA publication, is highly politically loaded. That is because various anti-gay groups and individuals use it as a basis for their position, supported by religious dogma rather than scientific evidence, that all persons are innately heterosexual and putatively homosexual or bisexual people are merely broken or confused or disordered or insufficiently prayerful heterosexuals, and as such have no grounds for claims of unequal treatment under the law, etc. That's why this text makes a problem with POV abrasion. The clear/concise statement ("No one knows…") avoids this, and also keeps from straying inappropriately far from the nominal topic of this article, which you have said (and I think we can all agree) is to be avoided. I'm hoping some additional voices will weigh in on the matter. —Scheinwerfermann ^T·_C17:31, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Well, that's a nice POV you have there, but it's all just POV. If you want the article to be about sexual orientation in general, then the quote without '"…Homosexuality was once thought to be the result of troubled family dynamics or faulty psychological development. Those assumptions are now understood to have been based on misinformation and prejudice" is fine.

However if you want to include homosexual specific information then surely there is nothing wrong with clarifying that there is no scientific explanation for homosexuality. "The clear and concise statement" you refer to fails to mention that scientists are trying to find a biological basis for homosexuality, and have as yet failed. Surely that is not repetition but clarification adding extra pertinent information. Of course, the reader may infer that this is the case without the line "there are no replicated scientific studies...", but they can't be sure unless it is explicitly stated. Since when was making the reader guess the function of an encyclopedia?

As to your justification for excluding the entirely factual sentence on the grounds that people might misuse it, well, I'm pretty sure that this is in conflict with all the principles of wikipedia. Even if what I have written above were all logically false, I can safely say that removing verifiable information because people may use it for goals you or I feel to be unacceptable is the worst kind censorship.

Boynamedsue (talk) 23:02, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Okeh, you've stated your opinion. Very fine. Your argument doesn't appear particularly strong to me; it looks selectively inconsistent. Scientists have not found a biological basis for homosexuality, nor have they found a social basis, nor a familial basis, nor a basis tied in with childhood proximity to Baskin-Robbins ice cream stores, nor a basis in the phase of the moon under which the child was born, nor a basis in the number of letters in the person's name. Would you argue, then, that we ought to include explicit statements of non-finding of each and every possible basis for homosexuality? If not…why not?

You seem not to have understood my remarks about the text you wish to include. Perhaps I didn't state myself clearly. You argue that we should not exclude text on the grounds that people might misuse it. I agree with you on that as far as it goes, and would not (and did not) argue to the contrary. Rather, I pointed out that the manner in which your pet statement is and has been misused makes it politically loaded and a bit of a POV-bomb. It's not productive, helpful, or coöperative to throw around accusations of censorship.

Hitting me over the head with accusations of POV-pushing is not productive and gives the appearance of selective perception, so let's simmer it down a few sizeable notches, please and thank you. Make your point without attacking other editors. You seem rather worked up, which is also not productive; might I suggest a cuppa tea? I remind you (again) that a statement being "entirely factual" is necessary but not sufficient for its inclusion in an article. Probably the best thing to do right now is for us to leave it be for a little while and see what other opinions might be aired. —Scheinwerfermann ^T·_C00:49, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

The reason I may seem a little frustated (although I have attacked nobody) is that this article is both awful and highly protected by a coterie of users who have strong POV's about this matter, and are using wikilawyering to ensure no substantial changes can be made. Your argument " the manner in which your pet statement is and has been misused makes it politically loaded and a bit of a POV-bomb" is exactly as I understood it. The statement is entirely factual, scientific and carries no inherent POV. That it is used by people in RL to justify undesirable attitudes or actions is neither here nor there.

My prefered option would now be to thin out the article of some information related to only homosexuality, while fleshing out other sections with more information related to heterosexuality. The section on Gaydar is really not relevant, imo, as it is a. homosexual specific b. culture specific and c. only barely sourced. Whereas the section on sexual activity outside of orientation lacks the most common form of this activity, heterosexuals engaging in homosexual activity.

As to "my pet phrase", you seem not to have engaged with my argument that it is neither redundant nor irrelevant, but merely giving the reader clearer information as to the psychological perspective on homosexuality. Boynamedsue (talk) 13:12, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Boynamedsue, I have to agree with the others. Exactly why is it important and how is it WP:Neutral to say that scientists have found no biological cause for homosexuality, when the same exists for heterosexuality, bisexuality and asexuality? Scientists have not found one consistent reason for any sexual orientation, as made clear in the lead. (No simple, single cause for sexual orientation has been conclusively demonstrated, but research suggests that it is by a combination of genetic, hormonal, and environmental influences, with biological factors involving a complex interplay of genetic factors and the early uterine environment.) Unless you consider sexual reproduction as the cause for heterosexuality.

So it's definitely redundant to add the sentence you were campaigning for when the neutral sentence "No one knows what causes heterosexuality, homosexuality, or bisexuality." is already there. Including your wording makes it seem as though homosexuality is some disease that needs an explanation, while heterosexuality does not, simply because the sexual acts involved in homosexuality don't lead to reproduction.

And exactly what is wrong with including "Homosexuality was once thought to be the result of troubled family dynamics or faulty psychological development. Those assumptions are now understood to have been based on misinformation and prejudice."?

It is also true that you must achieve consensus about this matter first. WP:Consensus is a policy, not a guideline, and it is how Wikipedia works in disputes such as these. Flyer22 (talk) 15:55, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Boynamedsue, I don't say you've attacked anyone, but your choice to phrase your ideas belligerently—derogating others' ideas as "excuses", railing against what you perceive as some kind of cabal conspiring to undermine the neutrality of this article, accusing other editors of censorship—probably will not gain you much traction. You may want to have another think about how you participate in the discussion. Every editor eventually has the experience of consensus not going in his or her preferred direction. Sooner or later it comes time to accept that the consensus is not in accord with one's opinions and preferences and move on. —Scheinwerfermann ^T·_C16:43, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Flyer, "Exactly why is it important and how is it WP:Neutral to say that scientists have found no biological cause for homosexuality, when the same exists for heterosexuality, bisexuality and asexuality? Scientists have not found one consistent reason for any sexual orientation, as made clear in the lead." Well I understand your reasoning here, though not necessarily agreeing with it. Very few people are actually looking for a cause for heterosexuality, what the scientists are doing is taking the control sexuality as heterosexuality and looking for biological differences between heterosexuals and homosexuals to find what factor causes homosexual preference. While in real life there is nothing wrong with homosexuality, in evolutionary terms it is disadvantageous to the organism, so scientists seek to explain this disadvantageous behaviour through differences from the "correctly functioning" organism. My personal bet is that they'll find nothing conclusive, but that's by-the-by.

I agree that if we want to make the article only about sexual orientation in general then the end of the APA quote is not necessary, but then neither is this bit: "Homosexuality was once thought to be the result of troubled family dynamics or faulty psychological development. Those assumptions are now understood to have been based on misinformation and prejudice." If this piece of information relating only to homosexuality and completely excluding bisexuality and heterosexuality is relevant, why is it not also relevant to to say that scientific experiments are being conducted to discover a biological origin for homosexuality, but have not found anything conclusive? I feel this is important because the rest of the article is full of biological stuff, which is valid but steers the reader towards a conclusion that homosexuality is purely biological, why does it then hurt to put in quote making it clear that no conclusive evidence has been found for this, despite a quite dedicated search?

Boynamedsue (talk) 05:54, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for clarifying your position for me. I agree that more researchers are looking for a cause for homosexuality than they are for heterosexuality. But I wouldn't say that "very few" are looking for a cause for heterosexuality. Any time researchers are looking for a cause for sexual orientation as a whole, which is a lot of them, they are looking for a cause for heterosexuality (other than the simple reproduction explanation).

The line about homosexuality being the "result of troubled family dynamics or faulty psychological development" is relevant because researchers have dispelled this line of thinking. It doesn't exclude bisexuality because bisexuality is an aspect of homosexuality. It excludes heterosexuality because heterosexuality was never once thought of as dysfunctional (except for when relating to associated paraphilias). And as stated, it's not relevant to say that scientific experiments are being conducted to discover a biological origin for homosexuality, since that is already made clear in the article. If this article steers the reader toward a conclusion that homosexuality is purely biological, that can be fixed and needs more than one line, but I don't see the article as doing that. The lead and section you wanted to add your line to are clear about what scientists think determines sexual orientation and what they know. The reader really shouldn't come away with the conclusion that "it's all biological." I'm just not seeing how your line is needed or would help. Flyer22 (talk) 19:22, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Zoosexuality

Why is there no mention of zoosexuality anywhere in the article? Considering that it is increasingly being recognized as a legitimate sexual orientation, and considering that it's a fairly large category, it should probably be at least mentioned somewhere in the article.Plateau99 (talk) 00:30, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

As far as I understand it, our article on sexual orientation says: Sexual orientation describes a pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions to males, females, both, or neither. So zoosexuality wouldn't be a sexuality in that it describes the species of your partner, not the gender. Even a zoophiliac can be attracted to either male or female animals, and that'd be his sexuality.

The section on zoo sexuality in zoophilia is very poorly source and mentions only one researcher who uses the term-Hani Milteski. It has been also heavily edited by you, and I'm a bit worried about neutral point of view. It doesn't seem the term is as widespread as you claim it is. But for me, the primary reason not to include zoosexuality is that it doesn't describe gender, hence it's a philia (pedophilia isn't a sexuality for the same reason, being a paedophile doesn't say anything about your gender preferences).

I will look over the Zoophilia article more closely later. Some of the material (yours or otherwise) is quite on shaky grounds. One thing I'd like to point out is that a reliable sources are needed. Blogs or debate.org are not reliable sources, as they have user-generated content. I noticed you're new here, so let me be the one to welcome you to Wikipedia. I've left some cookies on your talk page. Puchiko (Talk-email) 07:01, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Puchiko, paraphilias can also be a sexual orientations (I.E. Homosexuality is a paraphilia and a sexual orientation at the same time). In my personal "research" i reach the conclusion that heterosexuality, homosexuality and bisexuality are actually sexual preferences inside the sexual orientation for Homo Sapiens species. (Though this is not the current scientific consensus about sexual orientations) Zoosexuals also have a sexual orientation for one or many species (including Homo Sapiens), they also have sexual preferences (I.E. homosexuality, bisexuality or heterosexuality among others). There is also a sexual orientations for objects, they also have sexual preferences inside their sexual orientation (I.E. preference for cars or radios, etc). I agree that in the article, Zoosexuality should be mentioned and possibly, Object Sexuality and Dendrosexuality too, at least be mentioned as "possible sexual orientation" that are under research.Alusky (talk) 10:07, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Alusky; there should be at least some mention of zoosexuality, even if it is only a sentence. After all, homosexuality is a subcategory within a human-centric sexual orientation, but it is also a subcategory within a zoo-centric sexual orientation (i.e. people who are only attracted to male animals). And keep in mind that humans are animals. The problem with this article is that it is too anthropocentric (human-centric); for example, when it mentions bisexuality, it is only referring to bisexuality among humans (it does not refer to people who are attracted to male non-human animals and female non-human animals; the so-called "bi-zoos".) This article mentions "sexual preference", and zoosexuality should be counted as a preference. Dictionary.com states that the definition of "sexual orientation" is "one's natural preference in sexual partners"; this could be interpreted as including zoosexuality.Plateau99 (talk) 20:29, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Homosexuality is not a paraphilia. Having once been listed in the DSM does not make it one. And, no, paraphilias are not sexual orientations. Puchiko has it right, although I don't agree completely with Puchiko's reasoning for why zoosexuality is not considered a sexual orientation. A man only being sexually attracted to non-human male animals still would not be subsumed under "sexual orientation." Most zoosexuals are sexually attracted to humans. And "sexual orientation" is not only mostly studied in the context of humans, but is usually designated to humans. There is significant disagreement among researchers about applying it to non-human animals. If a person is only sexually attracted to non-human animals (provide a source for that because I've never seen it reliably reported), that would not be considered a legitimate sexual orientation by researchers. They would label that a paraphilia and/or a mental disorder (notice I stated "or," not that it would definitively be labeled the latter). The lead is quite clear on what is a sexual orientation, and that authoritative American Psychological Association source is stricter, saying "men and women," not "males and females." And that is exactly what I mean about the term usually applying to humans. Researchers do not designate zoosexuality as a sexual orientation. See the Other sexual orientations must be mention too discussion, where Alusky once tried to get zoosexuality mentioned in this article. Saying it is a sexual orientation or "possible sexual orientation" will not be happening in this article. Flyer22 (talk) 06:35, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

@Flyer22

•Definition of paraphilia: "Paraphilia is characterized by sexual arousal to unconventional stimuli that are not considered to be part of normal sexual arousal patterns. Source: Psychiatric Dictionary, Seventh Edition, by Robert Jean Campbell, M.D.; Oxford University Press; New York; 1996."

•Is homosexuality a sexual arousal to an unconventional stimuli that are not considered to be part of normal sexual arousal patterns? The answer to that question is YES homosexuality is a paraphilia because it fits the definition of paraphilia. Paraphilias can also be sexual orientations. Zoosexuality and homosexuality are examples of sexual orientations that are also paraphilias at the same time.

•"There is significant disagreement among researchers about applying it to non-human animals."←To my knowledge, there are heterosexual, bisexual, homosexual and zoosexual animals. I think the "significant disagreement" you mention is only in your mind? For example homosexuality in animals is mentioned in many wikipedia articles, and so more is mention heterosexuality in animals.

•I agree with Plateau99 that most of the time people write stuff in an anthropocentric way, by Flyer22 logic, homosexual and heterosexual and bisexual animals don't exist because the American Psychological Association has excluded animals from having sexual orientation. Mr Flyer22, I think your logic is fallacious, we know animals do have sexual orientations, even if the APA doesn't say they do. We know zoosexuals exist according to evidence, even if the APA doesn't say they do (and I know I exist, I'm a zoosexual) Homosexuals existed even when the APA said they didn't. What matter is what evidence says.

•Alusky (talk) 08:54, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

By your logic, zoosexuality is not a sexual orientation because it does not fit the definition of sexual orientation. So why are you trying to mention zoosexuality in a Sexual Orientation article when it is clearly not one? Don't push your POV in this article. Also, mentioning homosexuality as a paraphilia is irrelevent to your argument. Someone963852 (talk) 12:41, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

It is relevant to mention that homosexuality is a paraphilia, some users think that zoophilia/zoosexuality is not a sexual orientation because it is a paraphilia, if they realize that homosexuality is a paraphilia, they will have to accept that sexual orientations and paraphilias can be mixed.

Zoosexuality does fit the definition of sexual orientation, according to Miletsky, she used the definition of "what is a sexual orientation" from another book (Francoeur 1991) the problem is, the new evidence does not match the old evidence, so there is a fight on who is right, the new evidence or the old evidence.

PS: I'm only pushing my POV here in the talk page (wich is suportet by logic or evidence) I would not do changes in the actual article without the support of more people.Alusky (talk) 07:42, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

I honestly chuckled when you said your POV was supported by logic and evidence. Did you read and comprehend what the others on here had written in response to your statements (homosexuality is a paraphilia! (no it's not) and zoophilia is a sexual orientation! (no it's not))? So why are you repeating yourself when all of your arguments have been refuted?

Also, just because what one random person (in this case, it's Miletsky) said about zoophilia being a sexual orientation does not make it automatically true. And the fact that there is a "fight on who is right, the new evidence or the old evidence" discredits her opinion even more. Someone963852 (talk) 23:31, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Flyer22 and Puchiko; I think it will probably be very difficult or perhaps practically impossible to come up with reliable support for the notion that zoophilia in particular (or any other paraphilia in general) is legitimately, genuinely, and reputably considered a sexual orientation. That does not seem to be in accord with the demarcations by which legitimate science nomenclates human sexuality. Perhaps in the future it will be, but that is of no import. I find myself having a challenging time assuming good faith given Alusky's adherence to the loaded term "sexual preference" despite his or her apparent misunderstanding of its meaning, and Plateau99's prolific fervent advocacy on the subject. It looks to me like an attempt to instill the appearance of legitimacy and basis in an idea that hasn't much of either in the real world we are here to describe. —Scheinwerfermann ^T·_C15:33, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

•@Scheinwerfermann

•Nobody is using a crystal-ball, there are studies that reached the conclusion that zoosexuality exist, that is the only reason why I want zoosexuality to be mentioned more in wikipedia as a sexual orientation, because now there is evidence to suport the adding of new information. PS: Homosexuals and zoosexuals have know forever that we are sexual orientations, even before being recognized by scientific studies.

•Why you think I don't come in here with good faith? And how the term "sexual preference" is loaded? It is a neutral term to refer to any sexual preference, if you think it is loaded that is only on your mind.

•If I ever made a bad edit I apology, you can also see all my edits, about 99% of them where made in good faith.

•Alusky (talk) 08:54, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Does zoosexuality exits? Yes. Is it a "sexual orientation"? 1234 No. Someone963852 (talk) 12:29, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

First off, Alusky, I am not a "Mr." Secondly, the American Psychological Association has excluded animals from having a sexual orientation for the very reason I already stated: "...[S]exual orientation is not only mostly studied in the context of humans... it is usually designated to humans. There is significant disagreement among researchers about applying it to non-human animals." Like I commented to Nick in a section below: I can only think of instances such as the gay penguins [and other birds] when non-human animals are assigned a sexual orientation. When studying non-human animals' sexualities, researchers don't usually call these animals "heterosexual" or "homosexual" [or "bisexual"]; they refer to the animals' behaviors as "heterosexual" or "homosexual." ...These terms can refer to behavior as much as sexual identity. A person, for example, may identify as heterosexual but engage in homosexual activity on occasion or while in prison. This is one reason that the Heterosexuality and Homosexuality articles are not titled Heterosexual and Homosexual. The "ality" part makes it clear that we are not just talking about sexual identity. So, if anything, your logic is fallacious.

And like I stated at Template talk:Sexual orientation: ‎ You told Nick, "I'm a zoosexual and is annoying when people say that I don't exist." ...It's... Pretty obvious that you are a zoosexual. But no one has said you don't exist. Saying zoosexuality is not recognized as a valid sexual orientation is not saying you don't exist. It is stating a fact, and reiterating that zoosexuality exists as a paraphilia/sexuality. And by the way, some asexuals would say you are doing the same thing to them -- denying that they exist by saying asexuality is not a sexual orientation.

You keep talking about all this research and have only cited two researchers. Miletski's beliefs are his beliefs. That is just one researcher's opinion. The same for the other one. Wanting zoosexuality labeled a sexual orientation because of what these two researchers say is hardly any different than researchers who have suggested that pedophilia is very similar to or is a type of sexual orientation. We are not going to take that research to then assert in the template and article that pedophilia is a sexual orientation, as though this is an acceptable conclusion by most researchers and other such scholars. This so-called "evidence" of yours isn't even recognized by the mainstream psychological community. That is what matters -- that large scale recognition. The same way that it mattered for homosexuality, since you like to cite homosexuality so much. It does matter if only one person claims it to be a sexual orientation. "Peer-reviewed" asserts non-original research and/or consensus on the part of the researcher's findings. And that is extremely important when deeming something a sexual orientation. Otherwise, a bunch of things would be listed as a sexual orientation in the main article and template...all because one researcher has claimed that it is. Peer-reviewed sources are always supposed to be the main sources one should use for mental health, physical health, and sexual orientation topics. If you ask any regular editor at WP:MEDS or WP:PSYCHOLOGY, that is what they'd say. The Peer review article explains why peer review is so important.

Calling homosexuality a paraphilia and abnormal goes against everything the mainstream psychological community has to say about it. And the more you say it, the more you lose credibility with me. Because, as someone who acts as well-versed in these topics as you do, you should know that homosexuality is no longer considered paraphilic or abnormal by experts in this field (not by most of them). That is why it was taken out of the DSM. And with as much as you cite that fact, one would think you wouldn't still be asserting "Yeah, but it's still abnormal."

Sexual orientation is not only about sexual attraction but romantic attraction as well. Most asexuals have romantic attractions to whichever sex/gender. You want studies calling asexuality a sexual orientation? There is a source in the Sexual orientation article (first located in the lead) that we use to assert that asexuality has recently been recognized as a sexual orientation based on studies. And there are more in the Asexuality article, some of which show asexuality was recognized as a sexual orientation before "recently." Though asexuality has been studied far less than the other sexual orientations (heterosexuality, homosexuality and bisexuality), when researchers do discuss it...they almost always designate it under "sexual orientation"...either by their own definition or by the participants' (see page 349). Contrast that to zoosexuality, which is almost always designated under "paraphilia," no matter if the individual were to describe it as a sexual orientation. All of this is what I mean by "has been recognized as a sexual orientation by the psychological community."

Do not continue this discussion at my talk page. I do not want to debate with you your beliefs about sexual orientation and sexuality, and do not need to discuss this with you in three different places (here, the template talk page, and my talk page). The bottom line is...you have not given us ample reason to list zoosexuality as a sexual orientation. Flyer22 (talk) 17:02, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

This reply is in reference to Template_talk:Sexual_orientation#Zoosexuality.

I accept a definition of sexual orientation as centering on the gender/s of other people as sexual partners or the lack of an other and not as centering on the species of sexual partners. For a species-centric definition, a source is needed and has already been requested unanswered to date.

One of the two studies is not peer reviewed and I agree with not relying on it for that reason.

The other, the book Bestiality and Zoophilia: Sexual Relations with Animals (which is also an issue of the journal Anthrozoös), I haven't read and is not handy. The journal for that year, which has the book as a special edition of the journal, is also not handy. I have both in my lists in case I'm at a library that has either. In Google's snippets, the book seems a bit stronger but from the snippets I noted both apparent support for animal welfare work and hypothesizing about sexual orientation, and that seems, at first glance, potentially contradictory. At the moment, I'm inclined to trust the consensus of editors about the reliability of that book.

Nick Levinson (talk) 21:37, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

I see that Dominus Vobisdu has had to revert a recent zoosexual addition.[4] Flyer22 (talk) 23:23, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

@Someone963852, those definitions of sexual orientation do not exclude zoosexuality, because zoosexuals can also be heterosexuals, homosexuals or bisexuals for non-humans.

If zoophiles aren't exclusively attracted to animals, then yes, they do have a sexual orientation (they are either attracted to the opposite or same sex humans, both or neither). The same way pedophiles are attracted to either males, females, both or neither. Someone963852 (talk) 23:31, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

@Nick Levinson, "One of the two studies is not peer reviewed and I agree with not relying on it for that reason." ◄•I been reading the wikipedia guidelines about reliability, being peer reviewed is not a necessary requirement, other reliable information are THESIS that are published online and in books (Miletsky study qualify those requisites) Miletsky study is reliable even if it is not peer reviewed (according to wikipedia reliable standards) So, there is no reason to dish it out as unreliable.

@Flyer22, Where are you quoting that the APA excluded animals from having sexual orientations? Can I see the links? Also, HUMANS are animals and we have sexual orientations, so if the APA really says that, it makes no sense, they are incorrect. (it wouldn't be the first time)

Well, zoosexuality will never be recognized if the new evidence that probes it is a sexual orientation is never allowed to be show anywhere. It is a self fulfilling prophecy...

Have any researcher concluded that pedophilia is a sexual orientation? I guess NO (because it is a subdivision of a sexual preference) then don't compare their situation with ours, we have a sexology/psychology with a PhD in their field, who made a study with a conclusion that it is. IF you want to disprove that the study is fallacious, go for it, I want to see you refuting her study and proving that zoosexuality is not a sexual orientation.

"Peer-reviewed sources are always supposed to be the main sources one should use for mental health, physical health, and sexual orientation topics. If you ask any regular editor at WP:MEDS or WP:PSYCHOLOGY, that is what they'd say."◄•According to the wikipedia standards for reliable information, Miletsky study would fit as reliable information even without being peer review. The wikipedia standards for reliable infromation has priority over the opinion of any regular editor at WP:MEDS or WP:PSYCHOLOGY because they also have to follow the wikipedia standards for reliable information.

"Calling homosexuality a paraphilia and abnormal goes against everything the mainstream psychological community has to say about it."◄•The APA has never said that homosexuality is not a paraphilia and homosexuality fits the definition of paraphilia that is given by the APA. And according to studies, homosexuality is abnormal as homosexuals are less than 7% of the human population.

"That is why it was taken out of the DSM"◄•Homosexual disorder was never removed, it was moved to sexual orientation disorder NOS and renamed as egodistonic homosexuality. The only change that was made in 1973 was that they stop saying that 100% of the homosexuals suffer from a disorder, now they say that the majority of homosexuals do not suffer from a disorder.

Thanks for the asexual links, I will read them and analyze them, but from a quick reading, I can see that asexual are homosexuals/bisexuals and heterosexuals with a very low sex drive, so they do have a sexual orientation after all. Though, this makes me thinks that the asexuality article may be misleading/incorrect, I don't remember it mentioning that people with sexual orientations but with a lower sex drive are also considered asexuals. I remember that they only mention that asexuals lack a sexual orientation, this goes against what the links you show are saying.Alusky (talk) 07:42, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

There seems to be no valid reason for not including pedophilia, and yes, I've seen the archives. http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/pedophilia-a-sexual-orientation-experts-tell-parliament/

OTTAWA, Ontario, February 28, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In a recent parliamentary session on a bill relating to sexual offenses against children, psychology experts claimed that pedophilia is a “sexual orientation” comparable to homosexuality or heterosexuality, a definition that was questioned by one Member of Parliament who was present. ...

“Pedophiles are not simply people who commit a small offence from time to time but rather are grappling with what is equivalent to a sexual orientation just like another individual may be grappling with heterosexuality or even homosexuality,” emphasized Van Gijseghem. ...

“True pedophiles have an exclusive preference for children, which is the same as having a sexual orientation. You cannot change this person’s sexual orientation.” He added, however: “He may however remain abstinent.” ...

During his witness, Quinsey, professor emeritus of psychology at Queen’s University, said that pedophiles’ “sexual interests” “prefer prepubescent children.” “There is no evidence,” he said, “that this sort of preference can be changed through treatment or through anything else.”

It's not about being acceptable, it's about it not being a choice. If it's not a sexual orientation then what is it? DS Belgium (talk) 15:00, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Pretty much a moot question since, according to the reliable sources we have, only a handful of experts in the relavent field consider either "zoosexuality" or pedophilia to be sexual orientations in the same sense as homesexuality or heterosexuality. They obviously don't find that classification useful. Pretty much the ONLY people out there who do are a few pedophiles who want to equate pedophila with homosexuality in order to gain acceptance, or masses of religious fanatics that want to equate homosexuality with pedophialia in order to condemn it. Very few on either side could be considered as having a significant voice in determining consensus among the experts, and those that can are a very tiny minority indeed. PS: It shoots your credibility in the head when you profer drivel like Lifesitenews as a source. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 16:16, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

So you say this debate in parliament didn't take place? And maybe the article should explain what "in the same sense as homesexuality or heterosexuality." means. From what you say about the few people who do want it included, sexual orientation is a political term rather than a scientific one? DS Belgium (talk) 17:09, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Pedophilia, the sexual attraction to children who have not yet reached puberty, remains a vexing challenge for clinicians and public officials. Classified as a paraphilia, an abnormal sexual behavior, researchers have found no effective treatment. Like other sexual orientations, pedophilia is unlikely to change. The goal of treatment, therefore, is to prevent someone from acting on pedophile urges — either by decreasing sexual arousal around children or increasing the ability to manage that arousal. But neither is as effective for reducing harm as preventing access to children, or providing close supervision. http://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletters/Harvard_Mental_Health_Letter/2010/July/pessimism-about-pedophilia DS Belgium (talk) 17:17, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

The debate may or may not have taken place. LifeSite"News" is not reliable. —Scheinwerfermann ^T·_C00:22, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

DS Belgium, Quinsey does not know what he's talking about often enough when it comes to pedophilia and child sexual abuse. See the following discussions: Early childhood experiences section and Poor wording and clearly incorrect facts. That's why he was removed from the article. And I already addressed some researchers who have suggested that pedophilia is very similar to or is a type of sexual orientation. I made that point when saying, "We are not going to take that research to then assert in the template and article that pedophilia is a sexual orientation, as though this is an acceptable conclusion by most researchers and other such scholars." Because the bottomline is...pedophilia is considered a mental disorder. Even if separated into "paraphilia" and "paraphilic disorder," that wouldn't change the fact that pedophilia is not considered a legitimate sexual orientation. Wide or significant acceptance does matter when it comes to topics such as these. See WP:FRINGE.

Alusky, it's interesting that you showed up not long after Rostakjotijordan was reverted.

I don't have to quote the APA excluding non-human animals as having sexual orientations. I'm saying the APA sources (both APAs) have excluded non-human animals as having sexual orientations in their definitions of sexual orientation. It's pretty clear from just clicking on the links to see how they define sexual orientation. The American Psychological Association doesn't even use the words "males and females." They use the words "men and women."[5] They exclude asexuality, too, but we've already gone over why asexuality gets to be mentioned. Besides that, plenty of asexuals are also heterosexual, homosexual or bisexual. Sexual orientation is not just about engaging in sexual acts; it's about romance and emotion as well. And, yes, I know that humans are animals. This is why I usually say "non-human animals" when describing animals that are not human, as demonstrated at parts on this talk page.

Refer to what I stated above about "evidence."

Has any researcher concluded that pedophilia is a sexual orientation? Well, yes, as shown above. But that is a "fringe" belief. Most researchers specializing in that field simply compare it to a sexual orientation; they don't say that it is one. And I've already refuted your researcher's claim that zoosexuality is a legitimate sexual orientation.

See again what I stated earlier about peer-reviewed sources, and what I just stated about WP:FRINGE. Miletski is fringe.

Yes, the APA has said that homosexuality is not a paraphilia; they've said that by saying that homosexuality is a normal variation of sexual orientation. A paraphilia, by definition, is abnormal or otherwise odd. Homosexuality has long been cleared of being defined as a mental disorder/paraphilia/abnormal. Get up to date. Or are you already up to date, but like using the "homosexuality is abnormal" card to continue to assert why most researchers are also wrong about zoosexuality? There are no credible studies saying that homosexuality is abnormal, aside from those done by NARTH and the like. But, yeah, they aren't considered credible. "[H]omosexuals are less than 7% of the human population"? Hmm, first time I've heard the gay/lesbian population reported to be that low. It's usually reported as 10 or higher. Needless to say, I'm skeptical of your claim.

Homosexuality was removed from the DSM as a mental disorder. That is what I was talking about in that regard. It was listed as a paraphilia ("sexual deviations" in the original terminology) in early versions and was removed from the third version. After a vote by the APA trustees in 1973, and confirmed by the wider APA membership in 1974, the diagnosis was replaced with the category of "sexual orientation disturbance". You can try and quality that whichever way you want, but it was removed as a disorder. And, seriously, where in the DSM is homosexuality still listed as a disorder/paraphilia or even as "sexual orientation disturbance"?

So, I'll be reverting this edit you made to the Paraphilia article and adding the first three additional sources to it. Something to think about in the future: Just because you cannot access text in a source, it does not mean the source does not verify that text.

About asexuals, most asexuals will tell you that you should not confuse sex drive with sexual attraction. For example, plenty of asexuals masturbate while also saying they experience no sexual attraction to anyone. Nothing I have reported on asexuality goes against what the Asexuality article reports. Flyer22 (talk) 04:27, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

My point was that it's obviously related, so it should be included in the article. Whether or not the first reference I came across was in any way useful doesn't matter much, finding relevant sources is trivial, see the section "Disorders of sexual preference" further down. Unless you question the ICD-10? DS Belgium (talk) 11:27, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

And since my remarks only address pedophilia, not zoosexuality, I'll leave that part of the discussion to the others. For comments on the disorders to include, see below. DS Belgium (talk) 11:32, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

"Sexual preference" is not necessarily the same thing as "sexual orientation"; this is addressed in the lead: A person who identifies as bisexual, for example, may sexually prefer one sex over the other. Meaning..."bisexuality" is the sexual orientation. "Men or women" is the sexual preference. Yes, "sexual orientation" and "sexual preference" usually mean the same thing (that's why Sexual preference redirects here), but my point is that they don't always. No researcher doubts that pedophilia is a sexual preference. After all, the correct description for it is "sexual preference for prepubescent children." Not simply "sexual attraction to prepubescent children." But most researchers do not call it "a sexual orientation." Not even the ICD-10. And researchers who believe it to be a legitimate sexual orientation are in the minority. This is what we call WP:FRINGE (already linked above).

All that said, if you want pedophilia mentioned specifically as "a disorder of sexual preference" and a brief mention about how some researchers have compared it to (or claimed it to be) a sexual orientation, I don't mind that being in this article. As long as it is not included in the lead or given prominence. If others object, however, then you'll have to duel that out with them. Flyer22 (talk) 00:09, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Definition in the lead

I am transporting this discussion from User talk:Njones7, so that others may weigh in and we can best figure out what this newly-registered user is trying to do and how to help him or her...if we can. Njones7 made these two edits,[6][7] which led to the following comments made by me (after a warning issued by Scheinwerfermann):

Njones7, what you keep removing from the lead are based on the reliable sources in the lead. Even the Sexual orientation template (seen on its right) is designed that way. Pansexuality is generally subsumed under bisexuality (it's certainly covered by it for the most part), and transsexuality is not a sexual orientation. Unless you have WP:Reliable sources (that can rival the reputable sources in the article categorizing sexual orientation) showing that sexual orientation has other categories, you should refrain from removing this material. And even if you were to provide reliable sources showing that other categories are recognized by researchers as sexual orientations, it would not mean that the commonly cited ones should be removed. If you must, explain yourself at Talk:Sexual orientation by starting a new discussion. Flyer22 (talk) 20:12, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

I added the words "In research fields" so that it is clear why the definition of sexual orientation is "limited" in this way. These are the official terms used by researchers, as shown by the reputable/reliable sources in the article. The scientific community has not attributed any other term as a sexual orientation. As a sexual preference or as something that is like a sexual orientation? Sure. But that is different. I must say that I really cannot understand your removing the line "describes a pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions to males, females, both, or neither." Really, what else is there outside of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions to males, females, both, or neither in regards to sexual orientation? Pansexuality and transsexuality are covered by those things. Flyer22 (talk) 20:49, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

As I stated in my edit summary, it's not just "research fields in the United States" that use these terms. You cited this edit as attributed to the American Psychological Association, but they do not make that particular claim. They state, "In the United States the most frequent labels are lesbians (women attracted to women), gay men (men attracted to men), and bisexual people (men or women attracted to both sexes)." And the Wikipedia Sexual orientation article, while largely dominated by American sources, clearly demonstrates that American researchers are not the only ones that use the terms "heterosexuality," "homosexuality," and "bisexuality." Further, what is the point of adding "Research over several decades has demonstrated that sexual orientation ranges along a continuum, from exclusive attraction to the other sex to exclusive attraction to the same sex" right after the introduction to these attractions and before the categories? That line is speaking of heterosexuality and homosexuality and their different levels (which, yes, includes bisexuality). And not only is this continuum called the "heterosexual-homosexual continuum," it is addressed lower in the lead. That is where I added your piece about that (though redundant). The American Psychological Association says that sexual orientation is usually discussed in terms of three categories (heterosexual, gay/lesbian, and bisexual), but the reason they say "usually" is because there is the fact of asexuality (which has only recently been recognized as a sexual orientation) and people who don't use any label (such as parts of the world where sexual orientation labels are not prescribed). Just because some people don't want to be labeled and don't know of labels doesn't mean that they don't fall into these categories when describing their romantic/sexual attractions. Using "frequently" or "usually" after the words "in research fields" is not needed because there are no other terms used in research fields when it comes to sexual orientation. The only other one I can think of is pansexuality, but that is always subsumed under bisexuality. Flyer22 (talk) 23:35, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

I have already invited Njones7 to the talk page to weigh in. Flyer22 (talk) 23:44, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

This topic is also partly addressed in the topic on proposals for the first two sentences. Nick Levinson (talk) 15:33, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

proposals for 1st 2 sentences

As my knowledge is limited, I'd like to propose these edits to the lede, rather them do them myself:

The first two sentences should be changed from "Sexual orientation describes a pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions to males, females, both, or neither. In research fields, these attractions are subsumed under heterosexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality, and asexuality." to "Sexual orientation describes someone's pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions to the other sex, the same sex, both, or neither. By convention among most organized psychologists, these attractions are subsumed under heterosexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality, and asexuality, respectively." Reasons: Replacing "males" and "females" and adding "respectively" allow the two sentences to track each other; changing "a" to "someone's" provides a referent for the other or same sex; and "[i]n research fields" sounds too much like academe is making these decisions, and that opens the article up to some professor or less advocating for a new sexual orientation, rather than relying on established psychology organizations. Argualy, "most organized psychologists" should be limited to "most U.S. organized psychologists" or "most Western organized psychologists" or some such, but maybe that's not needed.

Then, if the first sentence was edited as above, perhaps we should replace "someone's pattern" with "an adult's or adolescent's pattern" because, since the sentence supports a relationship that is only emotional fitting a sexual orientation and a typical child is emotionally attached to two parents, perhaps we should avoid having that misunderstood as a bisexual relationship. It's still not perfect, though, since children can have sexual orientations (given that some adults say theirs were formed when they were children). And maybe, since this is generally about sexual orientation, there'd be no serious misunderstanding anyway, and "someone's" is good enough.

Nick Levinson (talk) 15:04, 13 September 2011 (UTC) (Changed one proposed phrase and discussed it: 15:31, 13 September 2011 (UTC))

Thanks for weighing in, Nick. And "limited knowledge"? You used to deal with sexual orientation topics often at Wikipedia, at this article, and still weigh in on them enough elsewhere.

But as for your proposals, I have to say I mostly prefer the current wording. Not only does the current wording better correspond to the way the first line of the heterosexuality, homosexuality and bisexuality articles are, I don't consider it to be WP:Weasel word-ish. "Someone's," however, is weasel-wordish in my opinion. Immediately upon reading it, it left me asking "Who?" And the wording "an adult's or adolescent's pattern" is not much better because of the complications you noted that come with that; some people cite that they knew they were gay or straight as early as five years old, maybe even at three. Also regulating the terms to people right off the bat negates the fact that some researchers assign these terms to non-human animals (such as Homosexual behavior in animals). They don't usually say that non-human animals have a sexual orientation or that they have a romantic leaning, but they do describe some non-human animal acts as "heterosexual" or "homosexual."

I also disagree with using "other sex." Why use "other sex" when we can clarify with "opposite sex"? Sure the American Psychological Association (APA) uses "other sex" once, but that doesn't mean that we should. I don't see why "most organized psychologists" should be limited to "most U.S. organized psychologists" or "most Western organized psychologists," per what I stated above. It gives the implication that these categories are only used by Americans or the Western world, when that is not true. And either way, even people who don't use these terms still fall into these categories. They are just names for romantic/sexual behaviors and acts. If a man only has a sexual preference for women, but doesn't use or know of the term "heterosexual," he is still heterosexual. Even if he goes by a different name to describe his sexual orientation, it is then just a synonym for "heterosexual." It's also the reason I don't even feel we need to clarify that these categories are used by psychologists. It's not as though psychologists are the only ones to use them. But, as shown above, I was trying to compromise by using "In research fields."

All that said, I don't mind using "the opposite sex, the same sex" in place of "males, females. And though I disagree with your feelings on what "In research fields" implies (and can't see much difference in your alternate wording for it), I don't mind removing "In research fields" and replacing that with "By convention among most organized psychologists, these attractions are subsumed under heterosexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality, and asexuality, respectively." I would rather "psychologists" be replaced with "researchers," though. "Researchers" is also more accurate, since the type of field these people are in varies.

Those are my thoughts, obviously. Anyone else with thoughts on the rewording? Flyer22 (talk) 19:04, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

How about Sexual orientation describes a person's pattern of… ? —Scheinwerfermann ^T·_C19:38, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

I prefer that to "Someone's" and "An adult's or adolescent's pattern," but I still don't feel that we have to clarify and remain a little iffy on initially regulating the term to humans. But then again, like I said before, researchers don't usually assign non-human animals a sexual orientation. So maybe I'm making a big deal about nothing there? After all, the first line is about describing what sexual orientation is (including emotional/romantic feelings that are usually considered to be the domain of humans) more so than it is about the terms that have been used to refer to both human and non-human sexual acts. We could always address later in the lead that terms like "heterosexuality" and "homosexuality" have also been used to refer to the sexual acts of non-human animals. Flyer22 (talk) 19:54, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

I do weigh in now and then but it's not a subject I've read up on nearly as much as in some other subjects, proportionately to the size of the field. I often don't feel I know enough to edit on this subject.

I hadn't checked the other articles. Parallelism of the ledes or subject treatments is a good issue.

"The other sex" and "the opposite sex" are differentiated in feminist discourse, which posits that oppositionalism distances the people who are of the sex not our own, with a resulting objectification of one sex. A contrary argument might be a need to preclude a claim that there are three or more genders (sexes), a claim not recognized in sexual orientation discourse.

On animals' sexual orientations, I suppose ethologists will study that and do so within our lifetimes. It would be empirically hard but not conceptually: one could look for animals that tend to be in groups, look for homosexuals among them, look for community rejection on nonsexual grounds so researchers would know how the members of the species go about rejecting, and look for signs of more frequent rejection of the homosexual members by the heterosexual members, the premise being that when a community accepts the nonheterosexual a sexuality is a sexual orientation. So I'd be inclined to edit in such a way that does not preclude such a possibility, although I doubt there's a Wikipedia policy that forward-looking when some would debate how much animals think beyond rudimentary levels (many used to doubt animals thought at all).

I thought psychologists were the primary definers other than politicians, religious leaders, and laics and that if, say, sociologists offered definitions they probably did so essentially by deference to psychologists. The APA's definitions have legal and political weight that academics' classifications would not in this field. I think the terms "researchers" and "research fields" are too vague, but I don't know what else to suggest, given that I'm not all that well read in the field.

Limiting geographically was because I don't know enough to know how this should be handled respecting sexual orientations. I think P.R. China has accepted homosexuality's legitimacy. If there are no competing classifications by major organizations in the field elsewhere in the world, no limitation is needed.

Nick Levinson (talk) 15:33, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Nick, I made this section a subsection of the #Definition in the lead section because it has to do with the same thing and is a result of that discussion. Did you revert the heading formatting because it bothers you?

Yes, by the other leads, I mean how the Heterosexuality and Homosexuality articles start off saying "is the romantic and/or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the [fill in the type of sex and gender here]" and then go into "As a sexual orientation..." The Bisexuality article is different because it combines the two and says "is sexual behavior or an orientation involving physical and/or romantic attraction to both males and females, especially with regard to men and women." The reason it says "especially with regard to men and women" is to make clear that the term is not only used to refer to human sexuality. A little below in the lead, we address how the term is used to refer to non-human sexuality as well...and there is a section on it in the article (though we point to the Animal sexuality and Homosexual behavior in animals articles to mainly address that).

I understand that "the other sex" and "the opposite sex" are differentiated in some feminist discourse, but I don't believe that should be followed here. It's ambiguous when it should not be. We shouldn't have the Heterosexuality article say "between members of the other sex," for example. We should be clear that we are talking about the opposite of the person's sex. If it's not the same sex, it's the opposite. Researchers have not identified "a third sex," not typically anyway, unless we mean intersex. As you know, there isn't a sex outside of the male and female biology/anatomy. A being is either male, female, or a combination of both. And even with intersex individuals, and there being more to it then defining them as "male" or "female," their chromosomal makeup is still used to identify them as either "male" or "female" and (negating incongruent genitalia or some other incongruent aspect, such as breasts) they outwardly appear as one or the other (no pun intended). This is even true in very "unusual chromosomal sex" cases such as Turner syndrome. Not to mention, they typically identify as either male or female. Now gender is another matter. People may say they are neither man nor woman and researchers have suggested more than one gender, which is what the Third gender article covers, but that is different than "third sex." Don't get me wrong: I know that there are also people who don't identify as male or female, but the article Third Gender is not titled "Third sex" for the reasons I just went over. We can be more inclusive with the sex/gender issue by simply having the lead say "Sexual orientation describes a pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions to the opposite sex, same sex, both or a combination of the two (intersex), or neither." Or something like that. Or Sexual orientation describes a pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions to the opposite sex, same sex, both, or neither, and the genders that accompany them." Or something like that. The latter also corresponds to the other sexual orientation articles that mention gender due to the restrictiveness of "sex." We just had a discussion about that. See Talk:Homosexuality#Sex and gender. I definitely feel that "opposite sex" should stay, since that is specific and accurate with regard to how heterosexuality is defined.

About non-human animals' sexual orientations... Like I stated, they aren't usually assigned a sexual orientation. I can only think of instances such as the gay penguins when they are. When studying non-human animals' sexualities, researchers don't usually call these animals "heterosexual" or "homosexual"; they refer to the animals' behaviors as "heterosexual" or "homosexual." Remember that these terms can refer to behavior as much as sexual identity. A person, for example, may identify as heterosexual but engage in homosexual activity on occasion or while in prison. This is one reason that the Heterosexuality and Homosexuality articles are not titled Heterosexual and Homosexual. The "ality" part makes it clear that we are not just talking about sexual identity.

Researchers who study sexual orientation and sexuality vary. In addition to psychologists, there are also sexologists, such as James Cantor (User:James Cantor who works here, and who often provides me with information and/or advice), scientists and psychiatrists. Sexologists are also generally the ones with the most expertise in the fields of sexual orientation and sexuality. All of this falls under the scope of "psychological." The term psychologist is as vague as "researchers," but I don't believe that most people would call a scientist "a psychologist." All of this is why I say "researchers" should be used instead. And I already stated that I don't mind "In research fields" being replaced. Flyer22 (talk) 19:17, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

On the heading, I thought the two topics were addressing overlapping but different concerns. It appeared the prior topic had been sort of resolved for the time being, and I didn't want to give the impression that my proposal was a direct response to the problem of the prior topic, especially if stabilization of the latter was en route. I've also noticed that when one topic gets long even with subdivisions some editors start slapping TLDR on it and then participating anyway, and the separation makes that less likely.

Other/opposite: I'm fine with what you're saying.

On a third gender other than from body form ambiguity, I've generally suspected that term was a way of denying that a community's lesbians and gays are members of the regular people: a slight against them disguised as acceptance, and I'm not surprised at the lack of acceptance of the term among APA and its kindred.

That "[s]exual orientation describes . . . attractions to . . . a combination of the two [sexes] (intersex)": If the APA or some such says that, that's politically interesting. If they didn't say that, I'd be cautious about putting it in, because if it has weaker sourcing for being part of a definition of sexual orientation then some editor will likely be back to discuss whether zoosexuality etc. are adequately sourced with less, too. But if intersex should be in that context, go ahead.

Whether the object (so to speak) of sexual orientation is gender or sex: I'm fine with whichever the sourcing says, although I wonder whether APA et al. distinguish sex and gender with much clarity and not use them sometimes interchangeably. Without looking it up, my guess is, whichever term they use, they mean sex, because the usual question is whether the attraction is to a man or a woman and not whether it's to a masculine or feminine person. But if they say gender and mean sex, that relationship between the terms in the source probably has to be cited to avoid an issue of synthesis. It may be possible to cite a passage indirectly showing that they mean 'sex' when they say gender, although possibly indirectly leaving the interpretation to readers becomes synthesis.

I had thought sexology was a specialty in psychology, but I haven't looked it up; even if it is, their practitioners can be mentioned as among the organized people who offer the definition, if true. I probably agree that psychologists are not popularly thought of as scientists since most people think of clinical psychologists. Another term might be organized scientists in psychology, sexology, and ___ (fill in the blank) or organized scholars in ___.

I'm fine with your judgments for this article. You're likely reading more than I am on the subjects. Go ahead and do what you find best.

Nick Levinson (talk) 16:00, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining your feelings about the heading. I asked instead of reverting you, per WP:TALK. You are the one who created the heading, and, if the one who created it objects to the change and reverts, that person should not be reverted in turn. Not unless the heading violates WP:TALK or some other guideline/policy.

I wouldn't say that the term "third gender" is a slight against gays/lesbians. If you read the Third Gender article, it's about people who don't identify as men or women or cannot simply be identified as men or women. For example, one part of the lead currently says, "The term has been used to describe hijras of India, Bangladesh and Pakistan who have gained legal identity, Fa'afafine of Polynesia, and Sworn virgins of the Balkans, among others, and is also used by many of such groups and individuals to describe themselves." That's referenced. And of course the term has also been referred to as "third sex" (also made clear in the lead). I would say the APA does accept that there is a third gender. As pointed out above, they use "other sex" once in describing heterosexuality. So maybe that is them acknowledging a third gender or more than two genders, in the same way you were by suggesting we use the wording "the other sex." From what I have read, the APA recognizes more than two genders. But recognizing more than two sexes is different, since, for the reasons I mentioned before, biology has not presented us with a third sex. Not unless we identify intersex people as "a third sex" (like some do). But, typically, the term "third sex" is a synonym for "third gender." I'm one of the people who doesn't like to conflate the terms sex and gender. To me, they are two different things...even though they typically overlap and are often used interchangeably.

You're right about not using "intersex." I only suggested it to tackle your "opposite sex" concerns. All definitions of sexual orientation by reputable sources say "men and women" or "males and females." It appeared that you were worried about only presenting two sex categories. I pointed out that there are only two (unless we list "intersex" as a third sex category), but that more than two gender categories have been acknowledged by researchers. I want to point out, though, that the sexual orientation categories cover attraction to intersex individuals either way. Most intersex individuals identify as either male or female, and they generally look like one sex or the other (disregarding incongruent genitalia or some other incongruent aspect, such as breasts). Most people are identified as male or female just by looking at their faces and/or the forms of their bodies, which is what sexual orientation is about...in addition to an emotional/romantic connection. And with intersex people, a person may not even find out until later that the individual is intersex. It's the same with transgender people. So a person sexually attracted to an intersex person is still either heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual or asexual. We can also think in legal terms. In legal terms, people are either male or female. I'm not aware of any documentation/form that lists "other." Sure, there are people who can appear androgynous, but sexual orientation is first and foremost about physical attraction to a specific sex or both. Until there is a term used by researchers to describe a sexual orientation (not a paraphilia, but a sexual orientation) about attraction to people who look to be of both sexes, we should not make it seem that there is. The term pansexuality (which is usually subsumed under bisexuality, as you know) is the closest term for that. So I'll just go with "opposite sex, same sex, both, or neither." Excluding "males, females" helps because not only does it not specify "heterosexuality, homosexuality" in the way that "opposite sex, same sex" does, but it takes care of those who reject the two-sex category since it doesn't state two sexes as explicitly. We can also include the wording "and the genders that accompany them," like I suggested above.

I understand what you're saying about the APA meaning "sex" or "gender." From what I have read, they include both, like most researchers do, when defining sexual orientation, since sexual orientation does include both. They actually say "men, women" instead of "males, females" in their first line (from the source shown in the article), when "men, women" are technically gender categories and "males, females" are technically sex categories. But they likely do that to narrow sexual orientation down to a human domain. Saying "males, females" can apply to any non-human animal. Sure, they may also at times mean "sex" when they say "gender" or vice-versa, but we can't really know that...since these terms are used interchangeably so often.

Earlier, I meant to say that another reason I object to the term "psychologists" in this case is because, like you stated, most people think of clinical psychologists when they hear the term (at least in my experience). Sexology is a part of psychology, yes, which is why I said "All of this falls under the scope of "psychological.", but I prefer the term "researchers" for the reasons I mentioned. Can't say I like "scholars" any better. Maybe it's just me, but I generally think of writers when I hear/see the term.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and apply what we have agreed on to the lead. Flyer22 (talk) 23:44, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Okay, I changed it to this. I left out "most" from the "organized researchers" line because someone might ask for a citation for "most" and there are not any other terms (at least not ones as recognized as these) that are used by researchers to designate sexual orientation. Pansexuality, like I've already made clear, is not viewed as distinct from bisexuality by researchers (typically-speaking). Flyer22 (talk) 00:19, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Oops, I forgot about androphilia and gynephilia, which have a section in this article and are indeed two more sexual orientation terms used by researchers. The terms are not as widely used by researchers or the general public as the previous four, however (obviously), and are synonyms for the heterosexual and homosexual orientations but are instead used to "identify a subject's object of attraction without attributing a sex assignment or gender identity to the subject." Basically, the terms "can avoid confusion and offense when describing people in non-western cultures, as well as when describing intersex and transgender people." I have to state, though, that I have known some transgender people to find these terms offensive, because they say that if they identify as one gender and have an exclusive sexual preference for the opposite or same gender, they should be identified as heterosexual or homosexual just like any other heterosexual or homosexual person. Not have special categories that some researchers, like Anil Aggrawal, feel more accurately describes their sexual orientation. The article on the terms notes this criticism as well. I'm going to go ahead and add a bit of that criticism to this article, since all that is there now is support for the terms. Flyer22 (talk) 13:39, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm happy with your latest editing. I did only a minor correction. It's good work.

I wasn't worried about presenting only two categories of sex (as in the body, not the activity). I imagine that if sexual orientation was defined with reference to a third sex or intersex the classification would get more complicated or more definitions would be needed and that APA and kindred have not gotten to that stage yet. The existing classification (two sexes and four orientations) is probably good enough. Anything more complicated probably requires a proposal to APA or kindred, and Wikipedia then is limited to reporting such proposals, assuming the proposals are themselves sourced. I assume we don't want to report something as a sexual orientation if the only source for it is, say, the opinion of a couple of clinicians.

I'm a little surprised that men/women is for gender while male/female is for sex: I thought those were to differentiate for adulthood vs. lifelong but that both were for sex (as in sex/gender distinction#Sex), while masculine/feminine is for gender although commonly the men/women and male/female terminologies are used for gender anyway.

An obscure point: I think one nation now allows a third choice for sex on passports (I forgot what, maybe "unspecified" or "unknown" or some such). A BBC story covered it the other day; I think the nation was Australia, but I'm not sure. Unfortunately, I think the BBC website is not always good for searching for broadcast stories, but if they covered it probably some other media did, too.

Okay on some people using third gender terminology for themselves. I recalled some cultures using the term for members, whence my suspicion. Self-identification is a different matter, although it may not obviate the possibility of slighting by others.

I'm not worried about defining sexual orientation in a way that offends many people if that's the only definition that's adequately sourced. The complaints should go to the definers. If we copy correctly or paraphrase with proper authority, the complaints don't belong with Wikipedia. Exception: reporting sourced complaints as criticisms of the sexual orientation taxonomy.

Good point on scholar sounding like 'writer'; I hadn't thought of that. It covers historians, for example, which 'scientist' generally doesn't. But the lede looks good and I think the choice you made is good.

Ethologists have found sexualities among animals but I don't know if they've found sexual orientations. In other words, if a couple of sheep are homosexual (and some are known to be), do other sheep think the first two need to be cured or shunned? or do they interact with them as they do with other sheep (or even treat them as leading sheep)? If the tendency is to shun or attack, to sheep homosexuality among sheep is not a sexual orientation. I think the distinction can be tested for, but maybe that hasn't been.

By the way, I sometimes use Wikipedia as a starting point for research but much less often as a finishing point, so I don't often look up articles on things I'm thinking about. Thanks for noting what they say.

Nick Levinson (talk) 15:55, 16 September 2011 (UTC) (Corrected by adding a word: 16:09, 16 September 2011 (UTC))

By saying "men, women" are technically gender categories and "males, females" are technically sex categories, I was speaking of how the World Health Organization source "What do we mean by 'sex' and 'gender'?" defines the terms, for example. It says: "Male" and "female" are sex categories, while "masculine" and "feminine" are gender categories. Sure, it doesn't say "men" and "women" are gender categories, but it is clear from just looking at the Man and Woman articles that society defines what a man or a woman is. It's not just about the biological, like the terms "male" and "female" are. "Male" and "female" can apply to any non-human animal, while "man" and "woman" only apply to human beings and the social aspects that come along with them being deemed man or woman. The fact that they are gender categories is why a third gender can be proposed, but an actual third sex is another matter (for the reason gone over above). That said, the WHO definition of gender is strict and I'm aware that it is acceptable to conflate "sex" and "gender." As the Gender article states, ...the meaning of gender has expanded to include "sex" or even to replace the latter word. And remember, I said, "I'm one of the people who doesn't like to conflate the terms sex and gender. To me, they are two different things...even though they typically overlap and are often used interchangeably." I'm only speaking of the terms "sex" and "gender" being conflated, though. I'm okay with calling a "man" a "male" or vice-versa when in reference to a human male. However, though these two things are usually congruent for an individual, there are cases when they are not; aka human males who do not "feel like men" -- the scope of transgender and intersex topics. Thinking this way clearly shows the difference between biological sex and gender/gender identity. I'm not a feminist, but apparently...a lot of feminists like distinguishing the terms "sex" and "gender" as well. This is noted in the Gender article. I'm not sure what you mean about the terms being used to "differentiate for adulthood vs. lifelong." The article you linked to -- Sex and gender distinction -- shows the same distinction I'm speaking of.

Thanks for alerting me to the fact that one nation now allows a third choice for sex on passports. That's interesting. The third option must be "unspecified" or "unknown," as you stated, or "other" (as I alluded to when pondering it). But that is a passport. I'm wondering about legally being recognized as something other than male or female, legally as in on a birth certificate. Anyway, BBC News is a reliable source and is usually a good source to use.

Understood about all the other things. I really do appreciate your help; I always do. Flyer22 (talk) 16:59, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

What I meant by adult vs. lifelong: One born female or male does not become a woman or man, respectively, until adulthood. How adulthood is defined varies by context; e.g., by legal age of consent or by normal reproductive ability onset.

The passport story is probably on a wire service or in Australian media.

Probably any passport (assuming not forged etc. and assuming the issuing nation is a recognized nation) is a legal representation of the facts it states, a representation by the government issuing it, since it serves as a government-to-government document that is probably governed by treaty. It's probably as legally forceful (e.g., useable as evidence) as a birth certificate.

Best wishes. Nick Levinson (talk) 17:27, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks again for clarifying. Going back to the subsection thing, another reason I made this discussion a subsection is that if (or rather "when") the topic comes up again...I like to be able to link to one past discussion instead of two or more. And these past discussions are about the same thing -- defining the lead, especially with regard to the terms that researchers usually use. But, again, if you'd rather this section stay separate, I can live with that.

The man/woman thing... Well, it's not much different than the fact that boy/girl are also gender categories.

The passport thing... Hmm... I'm still skeptical as to whether or not a person is legally recognized as something other than male or female, other than on a passport. But, yeah. Flyer22 (talk) 21:11, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

I added to the other topic a cross-reference to this topic for readers' and editors' benefit, which should also work after archiving.

Whether Australia (or whichever nation) recognizes other choices domestically is generally up to its domestic laws, so that can vary by nation. I doubt U.S. law is going to change in the next couple of years, but then again I wouldn't have expected any nation to do it yet.

Nick Levinson (talk) 15:51, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

I changed "By the convention of organized researchers, these attractions are subsumed under heterosexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality, and asexuality." to "These attractions are generally subsumed under heterosexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality, and asexuality." because the latter is accurate without having to mention "researchers," and it keeps people from adding "some," "most" or "U.S." or "Western" researchers (as though the terms are only used by the U.S./West). Adding the word "generally" is also a compromise. Because the original objection was making it seem as though these are the only terms used for these attractions. "Generally" implies that there are more, but that the aforementioned ones are the usual terms. Flyer22 (talk) 19:23, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Disorders of sexual preference

Since sexual preference redirects to this article, and the term is shown as strictly synonymous with the subject of the article (MOS:TEXT) these disorders should be included. See ICD-10 bluebook

F65 Disorders of sexual preference

• F65.0 Fetishism
• F65.1 Fetishistic transvestism
• F65.2 Exhibitionism
• F65.3 Voyeurism
• F65.4 Paedophilia
• F65.5 Sadomasochism

Or maybe the article should be split. There's a lot of material here that I personally would not expect to find in an article with this title, like that large section on "Measuring sexual orientation". What do all these subsections have to do with "measuring"? Has any population been "measured" by anything other than surveys? DS Belgium (talk) 19:56, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Um…good luck getting traction for those to be considered "disorders". —Scheinwerfermann ^T·_C00:19, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I've noticed some bias in the RS, the material included, the points of view expressed. I don't have a problem discussing the relative merits of all sources used in the article. DS Belgium (talk) 11:38, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

As I stated above, "Sexual preference" is not necessarily the same thing as "sexual orientation"; this is addressed in the lead: A person who identifies as bisexual, for example, may sexually prefer one sex over the other. Meaning..."bisexuality" is the sexual orientation. "Men or women" is the sexual preference. Yes, "sexual orientation" and "sexual preference" usually mean the same thing (that's why Sexual preference redirects here), but my point is that they don't always. No researcher doubts that pedophilia is a sexual preference. After all, the correct description for it is "sexual preference for prepubescent children." Not simply "sexual attraction to prepubescent children." But most researchers do not call it "a sexual orientation." Not even the ICD-10. And researchers who believe it to be a legitimate sexual orientation are in the minority. This is what we call WP:FRINGE (already linked above).

All that said, if you want pedophilia mentioned specifically as "a disorder of sexual preference" and a brief mention about how some researchers have compared it to (or claimed it to be) a sexual orientation, I don't mind that being in this article. As long as it is not included in the lead or given prominence. If others object, however, then you'll have to duel that out with them.

Not sure about including the others on your list. But it is better to have a section about disorders of sexual preference, then for pedophilia to be mentioned by its lonesome at some random part in the article. Flyer22 (talk) 00:14, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Citation problems

Listing of citation problems, like "improper synthesis?", "further explanation needed", etc...

• Misrepresenting sources

• The term sexual preference largely overlaps with sexual orientation, but is distinguished in psychological research.[3] Source: Sexual orientation is a preferred term for psychological writing over "sexual preference". The source calls the term "preference" problematic, it does not say it has a different meaning, only that it may be perceived as implying choice.

• In-text attributions missing. Per WP:INTEXT, "in-text attribution should be used with direct speech (a source's words between quotation marks); indirect speech (a source's words without quotation marks); and close paraphrasing.".

Example:

• Article: Research over several decades has demonstrated that sexual orientation ranges along a continuum, from exclusive attraction to the opposite sex to exclusive attraction to the same sex. It is usually discussed in terms of heterosexuality, bisexuality and homosexuality [1]
• Source: Research over several decades has demonstrated that sexual orientation ranges along a continuum, from exclusive attraction to the other sex to exclusive attraction to the same sex. However, sexual orientation is usually discussed in terms of three categories: heterosexual (having emotional, romantic, or sexual attractions to members of the other sex), gay/lesbian (having emotional, romantic, or sexual attractions to members of one's own sex), and bisexual (having emotional, romantic, or sexual attractions to both men and women).

In this case, the APA should be mentioned in the text.

• reevaluation of Kinsey data. Source added, clarified. DS Belgium (talk) 17:51, 26 October 2011 (UTC)