I’m furious with YouTube after they removed my channel without any warning and without any clear explanation as to why they have done so.
I have appealed and am hoping that they restore my channel and give some explanation as to why it was removed.
Most of the videos on this website are embedded from my Youtube channel. So for now, these videos won’t work.
I’ve always had a great experience with YouTube and up until this point always thought very positively about the company.
This experience has been a sobering reminder that social media platforms can remove my content or your content for any reason and at any time. With this in mind, I think regardless of the outcome of my appeal with YouTube, I’ll be moving away from using their platform.
In future, my plan is for all of my videos to be hosted on hosting for this site, with a specific My Video Channel page.
I have always used my website/blog to share my great free content and promote my brilliant paid content. My paid content consisting of: my books, articles and short stories.
But I have recently added a Support Antony page, listing all the ways you can support me and my creative works. I wanted to take a moment of your time to explain.
6 Months of Vasculitis HELL!
A couple of years ago, I was diagnosed with a progressive and life shortening disease called Vasculitis:
Vasculitis is the name of a group of conditions that cause inflammation of the blood vessels.
Inflammation is your immune system’s natural response to injury or infection. It causes swelling and can help the body deal with invading germs.
But in vasculitis, for some reason the immune system attacks healthy blood vessels, causing them to become swollen and narrow. (Quote from: NHS, 2023)
There’s no other way for me to describe the last 6 months, than being Vasculitis Hell. I’ve had several flare ups and an 8 week nasal infection that was resistant to a number of different antibiotics.
During this time, my Vasculitis Fatigue has gotten significantly worse. I am told by the specialist team caring for me, that although the fatigue will fluctuate from day-to-day, it isn’t going to get any better. That it will be ever present, regardless of whether I am in an active flare up or in remission.
Throughout this time, I’ve worked full time (40 hours per week), plus travel time (10 hours per week). I’ve even managed to maintain some regular blog posting and promoting of my books. I’ve also just about managed to maintain the basics – eating, bathing and sleeping.
But my quality of life has been non-existent. I’ve been constantly physically, mentally and emotionally exhausted. I’ve repeatedly had to cancel social plans. I’ve ended up taking some time off work sick and had an increased number of medical appointments.
Its took me 6 months to realise: What I am doing is not sustainable. Especially since the Vasculitis fatigue has worsened. I estimate that I probably get 10-20 productive hours per week and when I’m working 40 hours, plus 10 hours travel, I just can’t do it any longer. Working at double my capacity is rapidly deteriorating my physical and mental health.
After much discussion with family and friends, I’ve made the difficult decision to stop working for a while. Being kind and fair to myself: I have probably carried on working full time for far too long. Now, my body and mind are telling me that I just can’t do it any more.
This decision is going to result in some major financial and life changes. But I no longer have the choice to carry on, I just can’t do it.
FREE and PAID Support
With all the above in mind, I need to make it easy as possible for anyone that wants to support me to do so. Which is why I’ve added the Support Antony page. The page includes a list of FREE and PAID ways to support me. Every action taken to support me is greatly appreciated.
I feel a deep sense of gratitude towards and appreciation for everyone that has supported me in the past, that supports me now, or chooses to do so in future.
Evolutionary Theory suggests that animals, including humans, develop characteristics that aid the survival of the species. I was aware of the theory, but never applied it to me as a gay man, or really thought about what that theory would mean for gay men, lesbian women and bisexual people.
Prevalence of Gay Men, Lesbian Women and Bisexual People
In humans, it’s estimated that 1 in 10 people could be gay, lesbian or bisexual. In studied animals, homosexuality has been found in 1,500 species (see my 10 Gay Animals post if you’re interested in learning more).
Why do Gay Men, Lesbian Woman and Bisexual People Exist?
This was my initial question. But the more I thought about it, the more questions I developed including:
How do gay men and lesbian women contribute to the survival of the species when they very unlikely to procreate and produce children?
What are the survival advantages or benefits that gay, lesbian or bisexual people create?
If there are no survival advantages that gay, lesbian or bisexual people bring, why are they still being born today? Evolutionary Theory suggests that characteristics that don’t aid in survival of the species would disappear through natural selection or genetic mutations over time.
What Triggered My Curiosity
This TED Talk triggered my curiosity and caused me to ask the above questions:
I decided to go to scientific theories to answer the questions I had. Below are just some (five) theories to explain possible evolutionary reasons, why gay, lesbian and bisexual people exist and what survival advantages they might bring:
Theory 1 – It Takes A Whole Tribe To Raise Children
There’s a famous saying:
It takes a village to raise a child.
What this saying means, is that parents need help. They can’t raise a child or a number of children without support. If we think back to tribal times, men would be hunting and gathering (possibly with some women), whereas the majority of women would be looking after children and/or be pregnant.
Gay men, lesbian women and bisexual people could provide safety and care for both the children and women while the men were away. This would increase the odds of more children surviving to adulthood to continue the cycle of procreation – survival and raising the next generation.
Tribes with gay men, lesbian women and bisexual people would likey have massively increased odds of survival versus tribes without.
Theory 2 – Increases Tribal Cooperation & Reduces Tribal Conflict
A number of studies have shown that gay men have a high level of emotional intelligence and pick up on subtle social cues better than straight men. High emotional intelligence can be used to increase cooperation in groups and picking up on social cues early can prevent conflict (verbal, physical or both) or esculation of conflict.
This means that tribes with gay men are likely to have increased cooperation, and a reduced frequency of and less severe escalation of conflict than tribes without gay men. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any research done with lesbians or bisexual people around this theory.
Theory 3 – Increases Human Resources For Activities Not Related To Sex
In past tribal times straight men and women would be having regular sex to produce the next generation, which takes time, effort and energy. Theory 3 suggests tribes that had gay men, lesbian women and bisexual people may increase the human resources (time, effort and energy) within the tribe for non-sexual activities such as: building shelter, building defences for safety, creating or maintaining fires for warmth/light, hunting, gathering, childcare, etc.
This theory does make some sense, but forgets that gay, lesbian and bisexual people will still have the same drive and desire for sex as straight people. So this theory appears a bit implausible to me.
Theory 4 – Increase in Safety for Girls & Women
Now this is a theory I like. Males are generally a lot stronger than females. Males are generally more likely to harm girls and women than other females. Theory 4 suggests that gay, lesbian and bisexual people could have increased the safety of girls & women in a tribal setting through preventing conflicts from escalating and if necessary providing physical protection to females within the tribe.
This would definitely promote species survival, as if a girl or woman has been harmed/injured she may not be able to produce offspring or fullfil care needs for any children she has.
In a worse case scenario, in tribal times there were no laws and no consequences for aggressive or violent behaviour. This meant that tribe members could muder other tribe members, with girls/women at a higher risk of this outcome. This could limit gentic diversity and the numbers of available women able to produce children.
Theory 5 – More Babies
There are a few research studies that indicate that siblings of gay men tend to have more children than those with all straight siblings. However none of these research studies looked a lesbian women or bisexual people. None of these research studied indentified why this was the case. It could just be a correlational link, rather than a cause and effect.
I don’t give this theory much weight based on no direct cause and effect link being established.
Theory Idea – Increased Adaptability to Change & Flexibility During Adversity
This wasn’t a theory I came across, but an idea I had. For survival, a tribe needs people who are able to adapt to change and be flexible during adversity. These are both characteristics that I see in a lot of gay, lesbian and bisexual people I know. These same people report either that they always had these characteristics, or developing them very quickly during early childhood. Both of these skills would definitely increase a tribe’s liklihood of survival, back in human’s tribal past. Just an idea.
Theories 1, 2, 4 and my theory idea all seem the most plausible. It could be one, all or jany combination of them. There’s really no way to know.
Clearly much more research is needed to explore the current role of gay men, lesbian women and bisexual people in all their tribes/communities today. If we explore and examine roles today, it might shed some light on past roles that made gay, lesbian and bisexual people evolutionally essential for the survival of the species.
Any future research should take into consideration:
The inclusion of lesbian women and bisexual people.
That species survival is now not always the primary goal for all people.
Improved healthcare, much less physical danger, but increasing mental pressures/illnesses and difficulties some people may have with knowing their emotions and how regulate them, should all be explored.
That all people are part of many communities now, rather than being part of 1 or 2 small tribes, like in the past.
That often people now are not restricted by geograhpical locations and don’t always need proximitiy to be part of a community.
That people’s brains haven’t significantly changed or evolved since tribal times.
That we may never fully explain the existence of gay, lesbian and bisexual people and their roles in contibuting to the survival of our species.
Researchers need to aware of issues that disproportionately effect gay, lesbian and bisexual people and how these issue could impact their research. Issues such as hate crimes, mental illnesses, alcohol/substance use, internalised homophobia and rejection or astrangement from some communities due to sexuality, etc.
I hope you found this post interesting. If you want to share your thoughts leave a comment below. You can subscribe to my newsletter here.
Before 1799, Archaeologists, Historians and Linguists all had a problem.
Their problem was that they couldn’t work out how to translate and understand the many pictograms or hieroglyphics that had been drawn by the Ancient Egyptians.
More and more tombs, artifacts and stone slabs were being discovered all the time in Egypt, all covered with these mysterious and unfathomable symbols.
More and more tombs, artifacts and stone slabs were being discovered all the time in Egypt, all covered with these mysterious and unfathomable symbols. Just imagine how frustrating it must have been, to have all this information recorded about and recoded by the Ancient Egyptian people, but not to be able to make sense of it.
This apparently reads: Can you read this? Made using a generator on LINGOJAM.
The story starts with Napoleon (a French General, who would at one point become the Emperor of France) deciding to invade Egypt in 1798. Napoleon did this to threaten the British Empire’s control of India. Likely due to the conflict and poor record keeping by the French army, details about the Rosetta Stone’s discovery are vague.
Historians seem to think that on 15th July 1799, French soldiers discovered the Rosetta Stone accidently whilst digging foundations for a fort. Historians suggest that when Pierre-François Bouchard, the Officer in Charge of the unit, he immediately understood the significance of what they had found.
What Did Pierre-François See and Understand About The Rosetta Stone?
The Rosetta Stone is a written/drawn decree, the same decree, repeated in three different languages. The first language was Egyptian hieroglyphics, suitable for groups of people in ancient times that could read that. The suggestion from Historians is that these people were either priests, wealthy or both. But we don’t know this for sure.
The second language was cursive Egyptian, which was thought to be ‘the language for every day people.’ The language that the majority of the people could read.
But it was the third language that Pierre-François spotted and made this stone slab special. The third language was Ancient Greek, which some scholars could still read.
This meant that well-educated people could possibly compare the passages using Ancient Greek passage like a the right key to a locked door. That they could decipher both the hieroglyphic and cursive Egyptian languages using the Ancient Greek passage.
At an earlier point in history, Alexander The Great (a Greek King) conquered Egypt with an army. Historians suggest that a group of people who could only read Ancient Greek existed in Egypt because of this past. That for whatever reasons these ancient Greeks opted to stay in Egypt, or perhaps, were instructed to stay, rather than going back home to Greece.
What Happened Next?
Jean-François Champollion, a French Egyptologist, was the first to successfully translate the meaning of different hieroglyphics in 1821. However, according to a number of different sources online, he had faced fierce competition from his former mentor Thomas Young, a British Scientist (I’m using the word Scientist here to describe a broad range of activities).
After this other people developed further understanding, but their works are all based on the foundations of Jean-François Champollion’s work. As the days have turned into months, and the months into years other stone slabs have been discovered with other decrees on them. A total of 29 Rosetta Stones have been found at the time this blog post was published.
Where is the Original Rosetta Stone Now?
At the time this post was published the original Rosetta Stone, the key to translating and understanding the ancient hieroglyphic language currently resides in The British Museum. How it ended up there…well that’s another story.
