What is Normal?

[seanthomas (imported)]

This question was explored in another post and raised some hackles over certain sexual predilections and desires being referred to as “Abnormal”. So that got me to thinking…… what is “normal” and why is “abnormal” considered pejorative when applied to sexual behavior. Though certainly not exclusive, I’ll use homosexuality as an example.

Societies, often heavily influence by religion, define what is, and is not, “normal”. In ancient Greece and throughout most of the Roman Empire, teenage boys (generally between 12 and 21) were considered objects of sexual desire for older men and taking a young male lover was considered “normal” sexual behavior for men. Further, young boys were encouraged to explore their own sexuality with other boys, presumably as a way of discouraging premature pregnancies. Again, this was “normal” behavior in the social environment of the times.

Later, homosexual behavior was deemed “abnormal” and even criminalized (as it still is in less progressive cultures). In fact, until 1972 homosexuality was considered a mental illness in Western psychology circles.

Yet why is being “abnormal” considered to be a negative label? Are we, as humans, to blindly follow current social dictates like sheep, simply to be comfortably labeled “normal”?

I’m personally proud of the fact I am not normal. I rejected my parents desire that I follow them into a 9-5 job, suburban house with two cars in the garage and 2.5 kids. I’ve quietly rejected “normal” my entire life. I’m a eunuch because I chose to be so, without regard to it being universally considered to be an “abnormal” desire.

So here’s so food for thought for those who may find offense in being labeled “abnormal”:

The “normal” man seeks to adapt himself to his surroundings, whereas the “abnormal” man strives to adapt his environs to himself. Therefore, all progress in human evolution can be attributed to the “abnormal” man.

[Freddyjack (imported)]

150 years ago, being black meant you were abnormal

[tjstill (imported)]

Firstly you need to decide what attribute you are discussing, let us take your suggestion of "homosexuality". Now we need to sample the population, the sample size will need to be international and be big if you want to go for a global norm. Your could do it for a city a town or a street etc. if you wanted.

Then you need to assign a value to "levels" of homosexuality or if you though it meaningful you could just say "yes" or "no" but then this leaves a big problem about "bisexuality" and would make your study quite poor.

Assigning a value to Homosexuality would be a big problem ...how homosexual is any individual?

Assuming you overcame this obstacle (and assigned the values in a certain way) you would plot out a graph of the sample and get a bell shaped curve. You can then decide the percentile to deem "normal" by applying some statistical tests to the results. Anyone above a level of assigned homosexuality would be deemed not part of the "normal" population according to your initial definition, this would be for males and females. Just thinking about this it would be interesting to see if you got any skew toward more males identifying as homosexual or more females. As an aside I wonder what result you would get and if it would say more about the way you defined "homosexuality" in relation to the "value" that was assigned and the way males and females rate their own homosexuality. This is the population science (simplified) version as I understand it.

If you didn't want to do all this hypothesis testing type work and just wanted to philosophise or discuss "normal" in the social context the discussion is just open ended and pretty meaningless as a an answer to the question. To be honest deciding the values and definitions and getting good survey data would not be definitive on this type of topic.

1 People would lie on this sensitive question.

2 People would have different understanding of nearly any definition of homosexuality score system you devised.

3 The definition and score system you devise may prove to be poor.(The score system may prove to not be very sensitive or good at collecting data across the sample in a linear way. It would skew the results)

4 Even after peer review of a study like this there would undoubtedly be wide opinion on the interpretation of the results. Objective analysis of social data is so open to criticism since the score system is so arbitrary.

I am sure there are people here who may have read, worked on, taken part in, or set surveys designed to answer questions like this. You only have to look at the recent survey launched here and the responses it provoked,to get a flavour of the problems involved in trying to answer this type of complex question. Tie it in to an interest in castration and it would provoke an even greater challenge to resolve in a meaningful way.

[TopManFL (imported)]

A million years ago (give or take 999,950 years), my grandmother taught me that "pretty is as pretty does".

I think that wisdom applies here as well, "normal is as normal does".

[tugon (imported)]

I am certainly normal for me. Would anyone else want my brand of normal, maybe not. I have certainly learned to enjoy and cherish my new normal.

[sparkey49 (imported)]

I agree tugon I feel pretty normal and all the people I know and work with act like I am. The definition normal is actually pretty ambiguous for the most part.

[Ernie of Maine (imported)]

I appear normal however I would like to go about nude then cloth,I where body jewelry and more. So what is normal I ask you?

[Freddyjack (imported)]

I think this shows "normal" is in the eye of the beholder

[nulloguy (imported)]

Normal is average and common. Unless you are a follower, I would strive for much higher. Homosexuality is a normal variation of human sexuality etc. more than abnormal is one example. Abnormal is more rare and special.

[daifu-orchid (imported)]

I think that "normal" is often not based on occurrence of the similar, but compliance with society's prevailing "norms". So we have excused the banishment of any individuals not deemed to fit.

We gradually become more tolerant, even accepting of transitions in life, M<->F, but less of M->E, and almost not at all of M/E->N.

I have no logical reason, but perhaps new notions need a little time to reach acceptance.

(Elsewhere here, is a discussion of how it is that to be castrated is more acceptable than to be penectomized, and yet many aspire to be a nullo despite it.)

While I'm all in favor of kindly help to avoid surgery that would be likely regretted, it seems that we should be allowed general freedom to modify our bodies as we see fit. It follows from this, the the modified individuals are just as much part of society as the unmodified.

But how best to spread the message?

So,, we should be free to be and be accepted as transgender, androgyne, eunuch, nullo, as a personal choice.