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SLR Moderators: Senior Staff
Can you be born gay or is it a choice?
- Thread starter PotatoMan
- Start date
deemeein
Greenlighter
I chose to accept the fact that I am naturally gay and there's not a damn thing anyone can do to change it
msthang1103
Greenlighter
I think it's a choice that is influenced by many things that people experience during life and the environment a person is in.
pofacedhoe
Bluelight Crew
Choice IMO. Childhood influences and overall life experience gives you your perception and allows you to understand what you enjoy in this world.
Being born gay makes no sense. Was I born to like cheese? Can you show me the physical indicator in our bodies that make us gay? If you can then show me the one that makes me like cheese.
All my friends tell me I'm wrong.
Share your views guys. I'm all ears.
wow- this is pretty dumb. OP why dont you decide to be gay then tell us what is was like for you.
and while you were at it divulge a load of unfalsifiable psychoanalytic theory that explains fuck all in a way that makes sense
smackydowners
Bluelighter
whhooo! someones well gay for ryan gosling!
i think its to do with nurture mainly, although genetics can play a huge part in our emotions, so both.
herbavore
Bluelight Crew
Both. Or a mix. Everything. If we hadn't decided to demonize sexuality and tie it purely to procreation in the first place we would not even be talking about this. Variation exists. Continua exist. Same sex attraction can exist from a very early age and when it does it can be allowed or repressed. Same with heterosexual attraction. I think it is difficult to discuss this topic with truly open minds coming from sexually repressed cultures like most of us do.
pofacedhoe
Bluelight Crew
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJtjqLUHYoY
this explains this whole stupid thread in one go
yes its possible to suppress a secondary sexual interest (for me i sometimes fancy women but ignore it cos only rarely would i find them sexually attractive and its mean to get with someone and then be like "you aint doing it for me tonight")
but primary sexual desire? no you are stuck with that shit and how mommy raised you has fuck all bearing. you are either honest with yourself or a liar. those are your options
this explains this whole stupid thread in one go
yes its possible to suppress a secondary sexual interest (for me i sometimes fancy women but ignore it cos only rarely would i find them sexually attractive and its mean to get with someone and then be like "you aint doing it for me tonight")
but primary sexual desire? no you are stuck with that shit and how mommy raised you has fuck all bearing. you are either honest with yourself or a liar. those are your options
drug_mentor
Bluelight Crew
In my opinion, people are more or less born gay. I am open to the idea that socialisation and other life experience plays a role, but this wouldn't equate to homosexuality being a choice.
Given the amount of persecution that still exists against gay people, why would anyone choose that, if they didn't have to?
There are countries where people can get life imprisonment and even death for being gay. Homosexuals exist in those countries, I don't think they would if they could just as easily have heterosexual relations instead. Obviously they have a strong preference for their own sex, or they wouldn't risk their lives and freedom in order to pursue those relationships.
The language you are using here implies that what people like is predetermined, and life experience merely allows them to identify what they enjoy. On that view, it is hard to imagine how homosexuality is a choice.
You may not have been born to like cheese, but I hardly think you would make the claim that liking cheese was a choice, either.
I am not sure why you think this works as an argument towards homosexuality being a choice.
Given the amount of persecution that still exists against gay people, why would anyone choose that, if they didn't have to?
There are countries where people can get life imprisonment and even death for being gay. Homosexuals exist in those countries, I don't think they would if they could just as easily have heterosexual relations instead. Obviously they have a strong preference for their own sex, or they wouldn't risk their lives and freedom in order to pursue those relationships.
The language you are using here implies that what people like is predetermined, and life experience merely allows them to identify what they enjoy. On that view, it is hard to imagine how homosexuality is a choice.
You may not have been born to like cheese, but I hardly think you would make the claim that liking cheese was a choice, either.
I am not sure why you think this works as an argument towards homosexuality being a choice.
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Nom de Plume
Bluelighter
In my experience, it doesn't appear "choice" or volition has any influence on the level of sexual arousal one gets from, say, looking at the the same sex, at least in the case of males.
For example, consider the following:
1.) Could you choose to get an erection from viewing gay porn, or would you find it difficult or impossible? Just like one cannot consciously change their sexual attractions to particular women, one cannot consciously change their lack of sexual attraction to all women.
2.) What would one's reasons for choosing to be gay possibly be? There seems nothing at all to gain, and an incredible amount to lose (friends, family, respect, equality, and in some cases even one's life). Choosing to be gay is tantamount to choosing to be a pariah. People generally like acceptance, and if not, they certainly dislike being unaccepted. People have committed suicide out of response to the rejection they've experienced by their peers or family as a result of their admitting to be gay.
3.) Science has found significant differences between homosexual and heterosexual males, and also uncanny similarities between homosexuals which are absent when comparing the similarities of heterosexuals. These disparities, of which there are too many to enumerate herein, are not mild enough to be explained by social factors, nor are they too inconsistent to be accounted for by coincidence.
To be sure, none of these foregoing points are intended to be construed as support for a congenital, genetic, or biological origin or explanation of homosexuality.
As it turns out, science is clueless as to the cause(s) of homosexuality—the causes might be any one or combination of various factors which affect the child directly or indirectly (as something affecting the fetus via affecting the pregnant mother) or both.
These possible causes range from environmental (such as by prenatal exposure to environmental pollutants like endocrine disruptors), epigenetic (a gene-environment synergistic effect, whereby gene expression is altered by environment such that homosexuality presents in an individual), neurological (such as differences in neuophysiology, neurochemistry, neuroendocrinology, neuroanatomy, etc.), and so on.
So while science doesn't really corroborate popular claims that "I was born this way", the only evidence about the choice hypothesis is contrary evidence.
For example, consider the following:
1.) Could you choose to get an erection from viewing gay porn, or would you find it difficult or impossible? Just like one cannot consciously change their sexual attractions to particular women, one cannot consciously change their lack of sexual attraction to all women.
2.) What would one's reasons for choosing to be gay possibly be? There seems nothing at all to gain, and an incredible amount to lose (friends, family, respect, equality, and in some cases even one's life). Choosing to be gay is tantamount to choosing to be a pariah. People generally like acceptance, and if not, they certainly dislike being unaccepted. People have committed suicide out of response to the rejection they've experienced by their peers or family as a result of their admitting to be gay.
3.) Science has found significant differences between homosexual and heterosexual males, and also uncanny similarities between homosexuals which are absent when comparing the similarities of heterosexuals. These disparities, of which there are too many to enumerate herein, are not mild enough to be explained by social factors, nor are they too inconsistent to be accounted for by coincidence.
To be sure, none of these foregoing points are intended to be construed as support for a congenital, genetic, or biological origin or explanation of homosexuality.
As it turns out, science is clueless as to the cause(s) of homosexuality—the causes might be any one or combination of various factors which affect the child directly or indirectly (as something affecting the fetus via affecting the pregnant mother) or both.
These possible causes range from environmental (such as by prenatal exposure to environmental pollutants like endocrine disruptors), epigenetic (a gene-environment synergistic effect, whereby gene expression is altered by environment such that homosexuality presents in an individual), neurological (such as differences in neuophysiology, neurochemistry, neuroendocrinology, neuroanatomy, etc.), and so on.
So while science doesn't really corroborate popular claims that "I was born this way", the only evidence about the choice hypothesis is contrary evidence.
PotatoMan
Bluelight Crew
ok. i don't appreciate your condescending manner of stating your point. it's a discussion of ideas.
i've come to a conclusion since the OP and views have changed. no idea is 'dumb' jeez.
@Nom de Plume : great points... and the street interviews are pretty good. The way I start talking about women's vag is the reaction I see in gay men that you would with a homophobe guy about two guys having intercourse.
What 15 yr old boy, living with a bigoted family would CHOOSE to be gay? We've seen this in real life in articles. Son of a republican or a preacher who is gay. So are the assholes for respecting their homosexuality or assholes throwing their children under a bus, which some have. I think a Cheney Sister did it to another one and it fucked her campaign.
Sure, slam gay people... but not your own sister, is okay in politics?
What 15 yr old boy, living with a bigoted family would CHOOSE to be gay? We've seen this in real life in articles. Son of a republican or a preacher who is gay. So are the assholes for respecting their homosexuality or assholes throwing their children under a bus, which some have. I think a Cheney Sister did it to another one and it fucked her campaign.
Sure, slam gay people... but not your own sister, is okay in politics?
Teabag Johnny
Bluelighter
It's definitely by ummm, me don't know
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Nom de Plume
Bluelighter
It's definitely by choice. The gay gene would kill humanity.
So, you're actually born straight as an arrow
The addition of excessive emoticons can be inferred as a tacit admission of insincerity or satire. However, despite what your honest opinion may or may not be, I will still give a retort (if not for the reason to address those who do hold these notions, than at least for the sake of merely seizing an opportunity to be argumentative and hear myself talk).
Anyway:
That is a terribly flawed argument, as it is patently founded on an unusually large absense of correct understanding of even introductory-level evolutionary biology.
One ought to be able to intuit most of this by pure reason alone. Nonetheless, people are exceptionally gifted at being stupid.
Using your logic, we can conclude that infants born with severe birth defects choose it so, as they have less than the standard degree of reproductive success required for the existence of our species. Surely, any genotype presenting a deviation from the norm of the phenotype is a choice, no? No--indubitably no.
Organisms get snuffed out or born congenitally unproductive all the time due to lack of fitness. But the fitness of the organism is of no significance. The individual is irrelevant in the process of evolution; only the overall condition and overall fitness of the species is of any consequence in the course of evolution.
Moreover, evolution is reliant upon these individual deviations, as they are (simply put) one of the mechanisms through which the individual, and thence the species, increases fitness—via mutations that benefit the species, like tails or claws or camouflage.
The downside of this is obvious: not every mutation or deviation will be beneficial, and most will actually decrease the fitness of the organism, and occasionally that of the whole species (if, say, the rate of environmental evolution outpaces the rate of biological evolution, and the species becomes moribund or even goes extinct for having not adapted fast enough, to give but one example). That is an ineluctable sequela of some evolutionary processes.
But to reiterate my point, the organism is expendable and nugatory. All that matters is the species. That is to say, the genotype does not import; rather, the phenotype is what matters and this is one of a few determinative factors in the evolutionary trajectory and proliferation or annihilation of the species.
Organismic foibles or genomic glitches are not volitive, but involuntary.
Looked at from another perspective, the individual may reasonably be conceived of as an impotent system of an exiguous, piddling nothing that fluked itself into existence as an element of a much larger and less meaningless system of a set of intraspecific individuals. A set which is itself a mere particle within the immensely more significant and incalculably larger biological universe, whose orders are to weed out all non-hackers who do not pack the gear to survive in its beloved biosphere (FMJ allusion).
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socko
Bluelighter
It's clear that sexual preference itself isn't a choice, but what about other things like 'life style?' How much choice is involved with the effeminate lispy accent or other stereotypical behavior like hands up in the air or wearing clothes that look gay - like when a gay dude wears super tight cut-off Daisey Dukes? it seems like across isolated cultures, some gay men, for whatever reason, do this.
Nom de Plume
Bluelighter
As has been demonstrated by myself and others—ad nauseum et ad infinitum—the notion that homosexuality is a choice or affectation is rightfully regarded an arrant sophism and a closed debate, much as it has remained for quite some time, amongst reasonable and learned men.
However, you broach an interesting point. The homosexuality itself is involuntary of course, but the behavior, demeanor, and expression of homosexual men varies dramatically between cultures, ethnicities, social status, time periods, linguistic groups, and so forth.
For example, gay men apparently did not act swish (an apropos term for it) or epicene (at least not conspicuously enough to notice, and not anywhere as dramatically and pronounced as do a majority of modern gay men) within, say, the unusually homoerotic milieu of Ancient Greece, where pederasty was, according to whom one asks, either widespread and commonly accepted amongst Greeks as a whole, or was a practice confined mainly to the aristocracy and not as prolific among the demos (commoners).
The idea of homosexuality as anything but a sexual preference—without any association with behavior or mannerisms etc.—seems to have only existed since about the late 19th century, and confined entirely within Western society (of course, worldwide Westernisation has now changed this almost completely).
Although,in all sincerity, I'm not an expert on the history of homosexuality. But I've come across nothing to invalidate this hypothesis; rather all the research I've conducted only seems to corroborate it.
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For anyone who actually thinks that being gay is a choice... if that is what they believe in, than ask them "You make a choice everyday to be straight"? Does it mean, that maybe next year that they themselves can possibly choose to be gay?
If you're going to go with the "gays choose to be gay and can choose to be straight", then it means straights just as easily choose to be gay... you know, since you can "catch the gay" if you see to many rainbows or some other nonsense.
Life-style and sexual orientation is are different things. BDSM is a life-style, it has gays and straights.
Country / cowboy-types, same THING... there are gay cowboys and there are cowboys who are not gay yet.
Jesus-God fearing preachers... come in gay and not-gay flavors too.
I think the majority of homosexuals seem to be like everyone else in day to day lives. They wake up, put on a uniform, hard hat, open the office doors, go to school, etc like everyone else.
We have the capacity to learn compassion and understanding, well as long as we have the intelligence and the will to do so. I remember a time when two dudes kissing would gross me out... But two chicks in porn "OH YEAH" flap flap flap...
The movie with Jennifer Tilly, Relax, its just sex : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0159696/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_70 which has a graphic and shocking sex scene with two dudes that did shock me, and I laughed soon afterward. Even thou its a comedy, it opened my thoughts that gay people are people.
If you're going to go with the "gays choose to be gay and can choose to be straight", then it means straights just as easily choose to be gay... you know, since you can "catch the gay" if you see to many rainbows or some other nonsense.
Life-style and sexual orientation is are different things. BDSM is a life-style, it has gays and straights.
Country / cowboy-types, same THING... there are gay cowboys and there are cowboys who are not gay yet.
Jesus-God fearing preachers... come in gay and not-gay flavors too.
I think the majority of homosexuals seem to be like everyone else in day to day lives. They wake up, put on a uniform, hard hat, open the office doors, go to school, etc like everyone else.
We have the capacity to learn compassion and understanding, well as long as we have the intelligence and the will to do so. I remember a time when two dudes kissing would gross me out... But two chicks in porn "OH YEAH" flap flap flap...
The movie with Jennifer Tilly, Relax, its just sex : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0159696/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_70 which has a graphic and shocking sex scene with two dudes that did shock me, and I laughed soon afterward. Even thou its a comedy, it opened my thoughts that gay people are people.
Nom de Plume
Bluelighter
^^^ OK. We get it, Mr. Magnanimous. You're an even-handed, mushy egalitarian with a heart of gold, and an aversion to homophobia almost as intense as your fondness for overacted public displays of sugarcoated self-satisfaction, and apish, cornball sentimentality.
Congratulations, and welcome to the back of the bandwagon.
Congratulations, and welcome to the back of the bandwagon.
Jabberwocky
Frumious Bandersnatch
There is an aspect of choice to it, no? I could chose to be a scientist instead of a graphic artist even though I know it isn't my calling and I'm not particularly good at it. Maybe if I tried hard enough I could even start to get good at it and get some enjoyment out of it. Truth remains that it is cruel and inhumane to completely deny my real calling. Rarely good things come from faking it. If I am trying to live an authentic life then life supports me in my development far more efficiently if I work within my experience rather than working within the frameworks of others. A gay person who denies his feelings and chooses to live a straight life will have a much harder time living a fulfilling life. I also believe sexuality can change. This is the aspect that people sometimes confuse with choice. Not by force but spontaneously. Just like tastes change. You slap a new label on yourself, "I was straight but discovered I'm really bisexual." Whatever, it seems like a chicken egg type question. You gotta work with the feeling and attractions that are arising now to grow as a person. I'm really grateful for the fact that if my tastes change towards men, I live in a time where I can hook up with a cute guy that catches my fancy and don't have to hide it.
pofacedhoe
Bluelight Crew
to be fair as a gaymosexual i was just all urgggh, really? condescension maybe come from actually having literal insight and when i first read the title of the thread my immediate instinct was troll thread.
why would anyone want to be gay.
think statistically and in terms of the shit you have to put up with.
so much more available women, no abuse as a straight man and in some countries you will get killed for being gay. why would you do it?
i mean come on how can you not realise its a fucking nuisance being gay that you have only the option to embrace it or hate yourself. hassle
what kind of sane person would willingly choose to add hassle to their life?