Choices

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In various posts the idea of homosexuality being a choice has arisen. Having known many people of various sexual orintations I have never ever heard one say "I choose to be homosexual." In fact quite the opposite.

A choice is an action. I choose who I will invite into my house or my bed but I do not choose who I desire. I do not choose to be hungry but I do choose to eat and hopefully what I will eat. I could continue down the list of normal, everyday desires and choices but hope you get the idea.

Homosexuality is not a choice. Acting on it is a choice. So is heterosexuality.

 

Hmm, it's interesting. I COULD be homosexual if I wanted to. It sounds strange, I know, but for some reason I know I could make myself be gay if I so desired it. It's not that I don't find men 'attractive', I mean I can see a guy and say to myself "He is quite handsome, if I was gay I'd go for him."

But then again if being homosexual isn't a choice then niether is being republican or being Christian. People aren't BORN homosexual, it's from your upbringing that you become homosexual. At least in my opinion.

 

Many people blame their own choices on circumstances. Figure the expression "I had no choice", which, despite the apparent meaning, indicates that there was a range of options but one of them was prevalent for various reasons.

I tend to agree with Abomination. A guy could think "if I were gay, I would go for him", then after a couple of times, he could think "what harm in trying?" and then finally "I can do that from time to time". This probably doesn't even mean the person is gay per se, but he just chooses to sleep with guys and finds it a pleasant experience.

And yes, I agree with Abomination on his last paragraph: homosexuality is acquired; it is not inborn. To say it's always by choice is a stretch, but it often involves turning away from one's own sex as a result of traumatic experience (being molested, violently abused or otherwise mistreated... even ridiculed and frequently rejected). I could swear that there is a number of people who go into it because it's hip and they don't mind. This isn't even to say they are bisexual in the generic sense and choose their own sex from time to time; no, they just don't mind experimenting and they follow the gay lifestyle.

Such an act of following the hip trend is a choice. There are factors reducing knowledge and consent but not to null. It is also a choice, if a desperate one, to turn towards one's own sex and seek happiness there. What is not a choice is being indoctrinated into it or corrupted by someone in a position of authority or close.

 

Yes and No. While I'm sure there are people who beome gay because of traumatic childhood experiances, or mabye even people who become gay because they think it is "hip", I'm equally sure that there are people who are born predesposed to becoming gay. That is, they are not necesarily "born gay", but they will naturally be attracted to their own gender, and thus will naturally desire and pursue their own gender unless somehting (extreme societal pressure, for example) hinders that. Like Nakia said: You choose to eatm and even what food to eat, but you don't choose who you desire. Likewise, those who are gay can choose to sleep with the opposite gender, but it wouldn't change the desire for the same gender that they feel.

 

Of course homosexuality is not a choice. Nobody would ever choose to be marginalised and prejudiced like that. It's just the way that some people are. Live with it and let them live with it.

 

I'm currently studying Anthropology at college and we read a work by C. Lévi-Strauss that shows how homosexuality works in tribal societies (I'm not sure if this is the right term). So, there's the chief with lots of wives, and the ones that are "harmed" by this are the young males. One workaround to this is homosexuality, which is (or was, I guess) ) practiced in public without shame. So there you go, one more proof to the "not born" list.

 

Not really, since it doesn't exclude the possibility of other factors (e.g. genetic). Also, this example does not give any information about homosexuality among women.

 

Nor does this example pertain to most of the world. Perhaps these tribal men make the choice to be gay, but since they are seemingly forced into homosexuality by the lack of women, we wouldn't know what percentage of them would have been gay anyways, were women in abundant availibility.

 

First of all you are over simplifying sex. Making it in to an either or situation. Sex drive itself differs from individual to individual. Some are attracted to brunettes and some to blonds, red heads, whatever. Sex can be a solitary act or a group act.

My opinions are based on a long life of listening to people. The only person I ever met who 'choose' a lesbian relationship did it in the early years of the feminist movement for political reasons and eventual returned to a heterosexual relationship.

The term homosexual is misleading because it makes people think only of sex and not the emotional enviroment.

As far as the statement "it is how you are raised" goes I have never met anyone who was raised to be a homosexual. Yes I have known children with homosexual mothers or fathers. The majority were heterosexual.

Homosexual because you were molested? Rare. Yes it does happen. The case that springs to my mind that I knew well was a girl who was molested by men and prehaps she did choose to invest her emotional and sexual needs in women. Most were raised in reasonably happy heterosexual families.

Unfortunately I doubt that someone on this board who is homosexual will post as such.

To quote Harbourboy:

 

Thanks Nakia. Someone needed to articulate that.

 

Both. You are born desiring one gender or the other (or both, or neither), but the choice is what you act upon. Homosexuals can choose to play heterosexual, and vice versa, but that doesn't mean they actually desire the gender that they sleep with. Desire is born and choices are made, but they are separate.

And those who hate them for acting on their desires instead of repressing their natures deserve a sound whacking. (Though by the same token I'd be quite perplexed by anyone actually choosing homosexuality if they desired the opposite gender, for the reasons HB expressed.)

 

What never made sense to me is the religious folks who simply don't want to believe that "God" would "make" someone gay, i.e. you are born gay -- this despite growing scientific evidence.

Yet, God "made" plenty of people with various birth defects, right? There are thousands of horrendous birth defects. Freakish, strange things that would horrify most of you. Study a medical book on birth defects sometime. So clearly, God is more than willing to "make" people with various mental and physical defects, so why wouldn't he make people gay at birth?

From a Christian perspective, God cursed the universe after the fall of man, changing everything so that instead of being perfect and immortal we are now imperfect and mortal. He cursed us and all living things with disease, hunger, death, etc. So why wouldn't His curse include birth defects? Why wouldn't congenital homosexuality be part of the curse?

 

I think I know the answer to that one. If a person is created/born gay then it is no longer a sin and therefore we can't rant on about it.

Two (2) fallacies here:

1) Attraction to someone is not a sin. It is the acting upon the attraction that is a sin.

2) At one time people (women especially) were stripped and searched for birth defects. If one was found (and it usually was) she was condemned as a witch, a follower of Satan.

If your religious beliefs demand that you condemn homosexuality so be it but don't tell me it is a choice or that the person should be shut away somewhere because their existance offends your sensibilities.

Hate the 'sin' as much as you choose but also remember to love the 'sinner'.

 

Last I hear, the scientific community said homosexuality was a biological trait, expressed from two recessive genes. Supposedly was suppose to have some reproductive benefit in females. Guaranteed it was a few years ago (5 about) since I researched this, so it's quite possible that the scientific community no longer considered that gene to cause homosexuality. I know the majority of the empirical scientific world believes homosexuality is genetic and that's good enough for me. A mainstream biologist or psychologist knows alot more about the reasons for human sexual orientation then I do.

 

Never said people became gay because they had gay parents. It's much the same as how a mass-murderer isn't a mass-murderer because he had mass-murderer parents but because of how his parents raised him. They COULD have beaten him, yet them could have been over-protective and because of this he was unable to aquire friends at school. There are many ways that a child can be 'changed'. To say people are born homosexual is a very strange idea... since it can't be genetic since homosexuals... well... don't reproduce.

 

Hell has surely frozen over, because I tend to agree with chev on this one. Kinda.

I agree that one is not born homosexual. Nor heterosexual, for that matter. I disagree that it depends on how one is "raised", per se. Rather, I think it is one’s (early) life experiences that determine sexual preferences. Who you bonded with. And why. Etc.

My

 

They do. Homosexuality is about sexual preferences, not restrictions.

And genetics is not a simple case of one gen/one trait.

 

Since when? That's a new one. They are sterile? I guess those women who claimed they had children (and I met) lied.

Hokay, seriously. That is another myth. You are confusing the desire and the act.

edit: Afaik the jury is still out on why some people are homosexual. There are many theories and maybe they are all correct to some degree.

[ April 02, 2006, 23:19: Message edited by: Nakia ]

 

That would only mean a homosexual gene can't be a dominate gene.

That's sort of like saying those horrible and nasty traits that are expressed in incest can't be genetic because they kill the child produced from the pairing.

 

No stranger than people who are sterile due to some sort of congenital condition.

In short, I agree with everything that Nakia has so simply put in this thread. She's right - listen to her.