Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site ucbvax.ARPA Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!ucbvax!tag From: tag@ucbvax.ARPA (Todd Gross) Newsgroups: net.motss Subject: Perspective on homosexuality Message-ID: <3715@ucbvax.ARPA> Date: Sat, 8-Dec-84 21:37:09 EST Article-I.D.: ucbvax.3715 Posted: Sat Dec 8 21:37:09 1984 Date-Received: Mon, 10-Dec-84 01:45:09 EST Distribution: net Organization: University of California at Berkeley Lines: 29 I have seen that there are people who question the nature of homosexuality. Personally, I like to compare it with left-handedness (of which I happen to be both). Both of these traits are apparently with us from birth (that is, congenital). And both ARE changeable; that is a person born with left- handedness CAN learn to be right-handed, and a person born with tendencies toward homosexuality CAN become heterosexual. But neither of these pro- cesses is natural, and the foisting of the desired trait (right-handedness, hetersexuality) often results in abnormal phobia. In the first case, the result is known as levophobia--literally, a fear of the left. People with this condition are afraid to make left-handed turns, etc. In the second case, the cdondition is called homophobia, and I'm sure we all know some- thing about this one. You might think it strange to compare the two, but in ancient Greece and Rome the left side of a person was considered to be evil (thus we get the word sinister, the Latin word for left). And in Victorian England chil- dren who were left-handed sometimes had their left hand place in boiling water to make him learn to use his right hand. In fact, a very latent form of "levophobia" exists to this day (When you first learned to dance, did they tell you that you have two RIGHT feet?). Any guesses on the effects of latent homophobia 400 or 500 years down the road? I thank you all... Todd Gross (tag@ucbvax.ARPA)