Sexual Orientations

• Types of sexual orientations
  

--> Heterossexuality

(attracted to people of the opposite sex (men-women / women-men) - Hetero = different)

--> Homosexuality

(attracted to people of the same sex (men-men/ woman-woman) - HOMO = SAME)

--> Bissexuality

(attracted to people of both sexes (men-men / men-women/ woman-men/ woman-woman) - BI = BOTH)

• Causes of sexual orientation

Results of biological and environmental factors. Many researchers consider that, in general, it is already defined in first years of life.

• Doubts

--> Homosexuality and bisexuality are the options?

No. No one chooses their sexual orientation. The orientation there is sexual without having direct control over it. By therefore not correct to refer to it as' sexual option'.

--> The homosexuality is a disease?

No. After many decades of studies, the left homosexuality disease to be considered by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) in 1973 and the World Health Organization (WHO) in 1993. Homosexuals are at the outset, as healthy people as heterosexual and the same opportunities and capabilities they.

--> You can change the sexual orientation of a person?

No. The people subjected to the so-called "therapies for conversion "does not cease to have homosexual feelings, still often have behavior homosexuals. The APA believes that this type of therapy does not have scientific bases. Studies show they may, by contrary, put at serious risk the welfare of emotional people subjected to them.

--> It is true that homosexuality is caused by a childhood trauma, or the absence of a parental figure of the same sex?

No. The majority of homosexuals never had a trauma in their childhood and homosexuals have structures and nature of family relationships as diverse as the heterosexual.

--> All homosexuals are promiscuous?

No. The homosexuals and bisexuals establish relations emotional with the same degree of durability and reliability that the heterosexual. The emotional investment in relationships is not associated with the individual's sexual orientation, whatever it may for, although the relations between persons of the same sex yet suffer large negative pressures due to existing prejudice.

--> It is true that most homosexuals are of HIV / AIDS?

No. The truth is that today most people infected with HIV are heterosexual. In any event, the presence of HIV is in no way related to sexual orientation, but with risk behavior.

--> The unstable people are bisexual, or undecided unable to be faithful?

The bisexuality does not mean an indecision as to which sex if you prefer, or that a person is more promiscuous or unstable and, much less, which seeks to bigamy in its relations love. Bisexual people have the same capabilities of fidelity and stability in a relationship that the people other sexual orientations.

--> A gay couple, a man and makes of another woman?

No. Such statements are based on relations heterosexual and social roles still apply. In relations both members of the gay couple share indiscriminately the roles associated with socially both sexes, both in the organization of domestic tasks as in any other field.

--> The parents may be gays?

There are, throughout the world, many thousands of children created, both by a father or a mother homosexuals, for a pair of two women or a couple of two men, and Portugal is no exception. These children come from marriages or relationships heterosexual or previous use of the adoption or artificial insemination, for example.

--> Homosexuals are good parents?

Yes, Several decades of studies show that children created by homosexual or gay couples have a social and emotional development perfectly normal life and is even more aware of not discriminate against other people.

• Types of dicrimination
  

--> Homophobia

It’s fear and contempt for homosexuals. This term is used to describe the hatred generalized to homosexuals.

--> Heterossexism

Means the ideological system that takes heterosexuality as superior, promoting the oppression, denial and discrimination of people of different sexual orientation to heterosexual.

Women discrimination

We are in the 21st century and still women are discriminated.

This discrimination is felt not only in social life, but also in the business world. Women are still regarded as the guardians of their home, the mother, in spite of the feminist movemant of the 30s and 40s of the 20th century. Women are still seen as an inferior being, specially in India and China, women are victims of sexual abuses,sexual exploiration, domestic violence and genital mutilation.

Brutal example of racial discrimination

One of the most brutal example of racial discrimination is racism. The Gennocide end Aphartheid took place in South Africa during the 20th century.

Black people were "denied" from their civil, politicial, economic, social and cultural rights.

Aboriginal Religion

Aboriginal Ceremony.

Aboriginal religion, like many other religions, is characterised by having a god or gods who created people and the surrounding environment during a particular creation period at the beginning of time. Aboriginal people are very religious and spiritual, but rather than praying to a single god they cannot see, each group generally believes in a number of different deities, whose image is often depicted in some tangible, recognisable form. This form may be that of a particular landscape feature, an image in a rock art shelter, or in a plant or animal form.

Wandjina bringer of the Wet Season rains to the people of the Kimberley.

Landscape features may be the embodiment of the deity itself, such as a particular rock representing a specific figure, or they may be the result of something the deity did or that happened to the deity in the Creation Period, such as a river having formed when the Rainbow Serpent passed through the area in the Creation Period, or a depression in a rock or in the ground representing the footprint or sitting place of an Ancestral Being.
Aboriginal people do not believe in animism. This is the belief that all natural objects possess a soul. They do not believe that a rock possesses a soul, but they might believe that a particular rock outcrop was created by a particular deity in the creation period, or that it represents a deity from the Creation Period. They believe that many animals and plants are interchangeable with human life through re-incarnation of the spirit or soul, and that this relates back to the Creation Period when these animals and plants were once people.

Aboriginal deities have many roles and no single description or term can describe all of these. Based on their primary role, they fall into three main categories, and any one deity may belong to one, two, or all three of these categories:


Creation Beings (also: Creation Figure). Many are involved with the creation of people, the landscape, and aspects of the environment, such as the creation of red, yellow or white pigments, so can be called “Creation Figures” or “Creation Beings”.
Ancestral Beings. In many examples, these deities are regarded as the direct ancestors of the people living today and so they are “Ancestral Figures”, “Ancestral Beings”, “Ancestral Heroes”, or “Dreamtime Ancestors”. Here, the one term “Ancestral Being” is used to describe these deities.
Ancestral Beings have taught the first people how to make tools and weapons, hunt animals and collect food, they have layed down the laws that govern their society, and the correct way to conduct ceremonies.
Even though regarded as ancestors of the people, such deities may not appear in a human form, but may be plant or animal, for example. In Aboriginal religious belief, a person’s spirit may return in human, animal or plant form after death. So an Ancestral Being may have the appearance of a plant or animal, but have done deeds similar to a human in the past.

Totemic Beings. / Totemic ancestors. A Totemic Being represents the original form of an animal, plant or other object (totem), as it was in the Creation Period. The concept of a Totemic Being overlaps with that of a Creation Being and an Ancestral Being because the Totemic Being may create the abundance of species, and people see themselves as being derived from the different Totemic Beings.

Native American's food habits

There were four basic ways for people in ancient societies to find food: hunting and fishing, gathering, farming, and raising domesticated animals. Native Americans did all these things, but the first three were much more common. There were not many domesticated animals in North America before Europeans arrived-- only turkeys, ducks, and dogs, and most tribes did not eat dogs (although some did.) In South America, llamas and guinea pigs were also raised by some tribes for their meat. The other three food sources were much more important to Native American life. Most tribes used two or three of these food-gathering techniques at once to get a varied diet. Every American Indian tribe that we know of took part in hunting and fishing to get fresh meat to eat. The Inuit and some Indian tribes of the far north relied almost entirely on hunting and fishing to survive. Some tribes were primarily big game hunters, migrating frequently to follow herds of bison or caribou. In these tribes, large groups of Native Americans usually worked together to drive these large animals into an ambush, a man-made pit, or over a cliff, sometimes setting controlled fires or building fences to cut off their escape. In other tribes, each Native American hunter would stalk deer, rabbits or other game, or set snares or traps for them. In fishing tribes, Native American fishermen would either catch fish or hunt marine mammals from their canoes, or else set fish nets and wooden traps for them. Hunting and fishing weapons varied from tribe to tribe but the most common ones were bows and arrows, spears, harpoons, fish-hooks, and blowguns.

Farming was another very important source of American Indian food materials. Agriculture was most advanced in what is now the southern United States, Mexico, and the Andean region of South America. Native Americans in those tribes used special farming techniques like irrigation, terracing, crop rotation, and planting windbreaks to improve their farms, and they usually harvested enough crops to dry and store for the winter. Besides food crops, Native American farmers often grew cotton, hemp, tobacco, and medicinal plants. Other tribes further to the north planted crops in garden plots in their villages but did not harvest enough to last the winter, so they would split up into hunting camps during that time instead.

Gathering is a general term for collecting food that grows wild in the environment. Sometimes this is a very basic sort of task, such as picking blueberries from a bush. Other times gathering can be complicated and requires special tools and training, such as tapping trees for maple syrup or grinding and leaching acorns into edible flour. The kinds of wild foods gathered by an Indian tribe and the tools they needed to do it with varied a lot depending on where the tribe lived.

Televison: A Way of Discrimination?

Lately, everybody watches tv. On tv we can see the news, intereseting (or not) programs.. What we don't see are presenters black or from other ethnics. If we are not a xenophobia society why most of the tv guys are white?

If you pay atention is very rare we see a black face on our tv... To be honest I don't remember the last time that I saw a black person presented the news or a program on tv.

Why doen't those people appeared on tv? They are like us , they have deffects and virtues. So why this discrimination happens?

According with the author of a study, the filmmaker Joel Zito Araújo, believes that no representation of black and other ethnic groups on television involves loss of self-esteem by the population, which does not fall within the "standards" of beauty. "The children of black or other ethnic group as you watch TV do not see anyone like the same yes. So, look in the mirror when it identifies itself as something not appreciated the aesthetic"explained the filmmaker.

I hope this discrimination doen't go on because we all should have the sames rights. This rights shoudn't be all theory (like they are) but practiced.

Journalists on RTP

Housing

Simple shelters covered with overlapping sheets of paperbark. Northern Territory.

With much of Australia having a mild climate, people often slept in the open, warmth and comfort provided by the campfire, and often people kept warm by sleeping between two small fires. The dingo, as a camp dog, also slept beside people providing warmth.
Aboriginal housing mostly consisted of simple shelters made from a framework of straight branches, then covered with leafy branches or sheets of bark.

Larger, more elaborate shelter made from frame of branches, covered with bark. Northern Territory.
The covering depended on locally available materials at the time. In some areas sheets of soft paperbark, easily pulled from trees, were available. In other areas stiffer sheets of thick stringy-bark were cut from trees, but if these were unavailable, then bushes and leafy branches were used.
In the tropical north, where a richer environment allowed people to camp in the one area for longer, more elaborate structures were built, sometimes elevated platforms with a fire below designed to make smoke and repel mosquitos.
One type of simple bark shelter consisted of bending or folding a length of bark and burying the ends into the ground to fix them.

Simple shelter made from bent over stringy-bark. Northern Territory.

In wet and cold conditions, closed dome-shaped shelters were made, commencing with a framework of sticks bent over and meeting in the centre. These were between one to two metres (three to six feet) high and this framework was covered with available materials – sheets of bark when available, but in desert regions, layers of spinifex grass, twigs and leaves.


All of the previously used information about aboriginal culture was extracted from:
http://www.aboriginalculture.com.au/index.shtml