The question of if being gay is a choice

epress

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i'm glad someone is looking at both sides and UNDERSTANDING ME. i didn't choose to be gay, but i was looking at it from the other side of the fence and can understand why some christians say it is,otherwise this entire thread would say "it's not a choice" which would be a boring discussion

I think I understand exactly what you're saying. That is why I completely agree with you.

However, it looks like most of the people who are objecting here do not understand what you mean with the word "choice". They are confusing "choice" with "volunteer", or something like that. In other words, it looks like they think "choice" means that someone willingly made a conscious decision or effort to be gay and willingly rejected being straight.

But I do NOT think that is what you mean. I think you are saying that people do NOT willingly choose to be gay, but they might not necessarily be born that way either. Instead, something may have happened that influenced their very-early development so that they BECAME gay at some point, but did NOT CHOOSE to be gay. But since it happened so early on in development, it cannot be reversed. Is that what you're trying to say?

For example, (and this is just a very oversimplified analogy! But you get the gist of it...) let's say two parents just love country music and play it 24/7. Their newborn child ends up listening to their country music 24/7 for the first few years of life. Later, that child grows into an adult and just cannot go for a minute without country music, even years after he moves out of his parents' home! Obviously, that child was not born with a biological "country music gene"! But something happened early in life to send that child off in that direction, from where there is no turning back.

Is that what you're trying to say, basically? Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. But I think the confusion over the word "choice" is where the objections here are coming from.
 

epress

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Hmmm...I don't think I'm catty, nor am I that bitchy. You might wanna look at your statistical sample before making sweeping statements, epress. I could make the same assumptions about all Straight men from my experiences with the guys at my university: Redneck, intolerant, beer-swilling, loud-mouthed, opinionated, car-focused pricks. And as I continued into my professional life, they kept acting the same, though now these guys wore suits and changed their beer for martinis and scotch.

Since then, I've had the good fortune to meet and maintain great professional and personal relationships with all sorts of guys/gals, gay, bisexual, some transgender, straight... and they are nothing like the stereotypical dickheads you seem to have met or I been around.


I never said "ALL" gays. If I thought ALL gays were like that, then I certainly would not be volunteering so much at my local Gay & Lesbian Community Center! Lol

I just think the gay community needs to be honest, examine itself, and admit that NOT ALL gays are perfectly cuddly and sweet and that many are capable of inflicting the most horrendous cruelty on others. Just look at the vicious discrimination that many trannies and drag queens get from the larger gay community. And many gays rival straight homophobes in their spiteful harassment of so-called "flaming queens", or extremely effeminate gay men.
 

FelixM

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Being gay is not a choice.....I knew I was gay before I even knew what sex was.....I didn't know what being gay ment either....I was 10 years old when I first realized I liked guys
 

yurkon

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Being gay is not a choice.....I knew I was gay before I even knew what sex was.....I didn't know what being gay ment either....I was 10 years old when I first realized I liked guys

Just curious. If you didn't know what gay or sex was then how did you understand you liked guys. Maybe it's hard to convey.

Was it that you just liked being around them more? Because I did too. At 10 y/o (fifth grade) I was afraid i was gonna get cooties from the girls. For whatever reason, we had gym class separately, but even during play time, girls played with girls, guys with guys.

I think for much of our lives we crave acceptance from our peer group.

Very curious about what you meant. Maybe you felt an attraction to boys more than girls, but didn't view it as sexual until later?
 

Phil Ayesho

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Of course Phil this makes perfect sense, if it were a perfect world.

However, without politicising rights regarding sexuality we (homosexuals, practising or not) would not have the freedom that we do enjoy today, and would still be being jailed or worse still executed for our identity. And lets face it, in many places this is still the case.

Well, let me clarify... I think that Stonewall was absolutely necessary and essential...

I am not suggesting that homosexuals should not agitate for equal treatment... of course they should.

I am saying that the argument has become less about "rights' and more focused on "affliction". Because, to be frank, saying you were born that way as an argument for equal treatment is like saying you were born blind or deaf... you are claiming being gay has the same status as a congenital defect.

I think the Gay community, in beating the "its not a choice" drum... has become sidetracked from the core issue.

Which ought to be that you have a RIGHT to CHOOSE how to live your life...

That it quite simply doesn't matter if its a choice, a genetic decree, or a combination of both...

Freedom means freedom and equality means equality.... and everything else is just BS...

This is Still a confrontational stance...

The only difference is in the tone... away from "i can't help it" and toward "its none of your business".
 

naughty

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Just curious. If you didn't know what gay or sex was then how did you understand you liked guys. Maybe it's hard to convey.

Was it that you just liked being around them more? Because I did too. At 10 y/o (fifth grade) I was afraid i was gonna get cooties from the girls. For whatever reason, we had gym class separately, but even during play time, girls played with girls, guys with guys.

I think for much of our lives we crave acceptance from our peer group.

Very curious about what you meant. Maybe you felt an attraction to boys more than girls, but didn't view it as sexual until later?


Sweetie he probably means he was attracted to guys. I think many of us go through the I hate the opposite sex at some point in our childhood but most grow out of that when the hormones kick in.
 

FuzzyKen

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This discussion is interesting, but I think that the reality is that it is different for each person.

I am 55 years old. I grew up in a home that was conservative and I wanted to be the "good little boy" that everyone else wanted me to be.

I reached a very weird point in life. I did not really discover my attractions for the same sex until I was college aged. I continued on and actually reached a point where I was in a totally heterosexual environment and was literally on the doorstep of a heterosexual marriage. My prospective Mother-In-Law was a bible thumping Baptist and my prospective in-laws were all "Born Again" in their viewpoints.

I listened at those family get-togethers to one diatrible after another that spouted more hateful and innacurate infomation on people of gay orientation than you could possibly believe. Here are a couple of the more entertaining lines." "Gay men all recruit kids and they are all child molesters." By the way I listened to a Baptist preacher get up and give a whole sermon (about two hours) dedicated to this subject. It was one of the most un-christian things I had ever heard. Not only was it a violation of what the Bible says about judging others, it was instruction on how to be homophobic and how to hate people. The main thing is that statistics do not back that one up. Most child molesters by statistic are heterosexual and so are most molestations. This kind of thinking makes me wonder what had been taught to the kids who killed Matthew Shepherd (remember that one)

Here's another one...."All gay people eat feces at least once a day." That line also came from the pulpit of a Southern California Baptist Church.
These lines and old stereotypes went on and on.

During this same time in life I was beginning to examine who I was, and the only way I found to do this was to meet people who were gay and find out for myself. What I quickly discovered was that the gay community was every bit as diverse as the rest of the world and that there were some really strange people, but there were a great number of really great people too.

I knew that I had sexual attactions at that time for both males and for females. By the late 1970's I had explored enough to begin to realize that I was at least bisexual if not totally gay. Over time I found that I made the emotional connection far more with same-sex encounters than I did with opposite sex encounters.

I have to admit that I lived through some very fun times and that a great many of the people I grew to know and grew fond of as friends and business asssociates died of complications of HIV at an early age.

In my insane period I was going out on one heterosexual date and then going to gay bars afterwards. It was the craziest circus that is almost beyond imagination.

There are probably very few here who are old enough to remember the availability of open sex in the late 1970's and early 1980's. It had nothing to do with orientation either. There were as many females that were just as much tramps as the males.

At the peak of all of this, imagine going out on a Saturday and having your first trick home and in bed by 3:30 to 4:00P.M., and if you were extremely horny you would start searching for your last one at about midnight. That one had the honor of spending the whole night be it male or female even though by morning you may have remembered the sex but not their name.

It was not unusual to have as many as 10-15 sex partners in a single weekend. Then there were things like "crisco parties" and all the rest.

I had to come to accept what my own orientation was, but coming from a medical family, I also was on the ground floor when "gay cancer" started showing up. When we come from medical families we have advantages. I determined long before the CDC did that the method of transmission had to be body fluids because of the way things were progressing.

There was a period of years that I cut my sexual activity to a minimum while I watched friend after friend die. I buried a total of 52 people before the weekly funerals ended for me.

I was clever, I engineered a break-up with the female with whom I was considering a permanent realationship. I still think the world of her to this day. I am grateful in that she has had multiple marriages and none have worked well. She is just too independent and even though she now has multiple children (all grown) I will always have fond memories of her. I would still be there for her if she needed anything because she is a great person. She just would not have been right for me and over time it would not have worked.

It took me years to find a same-sex relationship. I was criticized by many friends who said my standards were too high. I reacted to this in anger and raised the standards instead of lowering them.

I have been with my life-partner nearly ten years now. Life has never been easy for us. We have cared for and buried aging parents and we are raising and helping a nephew find his way in life. I feel honored in that we were given an 18 year old male who had orientation issues. Neither one of us cares if he ends up straight or gay. We care that he gets a good education, we care that he finds his way in life and that he remembers that he was raised by two gay Uncles who loved and cared for him when his parents failed.

In the end the reasons for sexual orientation are unimportant except to a very misguided few. The thing we all need to remember is that we need to love our fellow man whatever the orientation and we need to realize that self-acceptance and self-esteem suffer badly when debates take place over what is choice, what is environmental, or what is genetic.

The best thing we all can do is to throw out discussions of why and try to foster acceptance and caring for all. The one thing that I have as low on my list for the most part would be my orientation. It is not important and it is not the business of anyone I choose not to bring into my personal world.

I am not alone. In the gay community there are many relationships that last just as well or better than in the heterosexual community. I have known several that in spite of hardship based on a different time managed to last over 50 years.

Just a little footnote on this: Like many in the community when you do meet "Mr. Right" you drop out of the limelight, the bars the cruising and all the rest. If you don't you did not meet the right person because somewhere down deep inside you are still searching for something you have not found.

We live on a big old horseranch in the Southwestern United States. We get up, work for a living and we try hard to have some semblence of morality and a value system.

This part of the gay community is never talked about because it drops completely off the radar and so do those individuals.

Food for thought.......
 

B_Nick4444

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I know this bloke who insists he had no interest, inclination, thought or curiosity about gayness

he took a sailing trip with a friend, they got drunk, they started fooling around, and his new life as a gay began
 

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that's sort of a blanket statements. i have gay friends who didn't start developing homosexual feelings into their 20's, some their 30's. i think its insensitive to assume that everyone is BORN gay

Marley, I might have to challenge you on this one. I've known a lot of gay guys and been around for awhile and I don't think I've ever met or chatted with anyone who has woken up in their late 20s or 30s and have become gay. What's common is that people have had homosexual feelings that they have repressed, ignored, denied or rationalized away. It then might be a question of the degree to which they feel those feelings and when they choose to express those feelings. I have a friend who had never thought about guys sexually at all and then he got very drunk and was with a guy and the whole--one thing led to another. After that he never thought he was gay, nothing had changed but he realized that physically he could pull off gay sex, it didn't trigger latent feelings.
 

D_Thoraxis_Biggulp

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This may have already been said, but I think that homosexuality is a psychological condition. Notice, I didn't call it a disorder because I don't consider it a disease; it just isn't the norm. Typical human nature is the drive to reproduce, continue the existence of the species, as it is with most organisms. So, heterosexuality would be considered the natural norm, homosexuality the oddity.

That isn't to say that every gay person was born that way, but rather that they're psychologically geared towards it. They may spend their entire life unhappily with the opposite gender just because they're environment taught them that it's what's acceptable. But in certain conditions, they discover and accept their sexual identity. Those same conditions would have no affect on a person whose mind was not geared as such.

So no, it isn't a choice. It's just a matter of their psychological response to certain influences. Does it need to be treated? No, not at all. It's not as though their not reproducing is hurting our species. Seven billion people is quite enough; we can slow down now.
 

marleyisalegend

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Marley, I might have to challenge you on this one. I've known a lot of gay guys and been around for awhile and I don't think I've ever met or chatted with anyone who has woken up in their late 20s or 30s and have become gay. What's common is that people have had homosexual feelings that they have repressed, ignored, denied or rationalized away. It then might be a question of the degree to which they feel those feelings and when they choose to express those feelings. I have a friend who had never thought about guys sexually at all and then he got very drunk and was with a guy and the whole--one thing led to another. After that he never thought he was gay, nothing had changed but he realized that physically he could pull off gay sex, it didn't trigger latent feelings.

i really don't understand how you could challenge a statement thats supported by facts. i really can't believe you guys see it as being so black and white, born gay or not, i think that's terribly blind. does this mean bisexual people were born that way?? several of my friends who are bisexual either way (male or female) testify to developing their attraction for the same sex later on in life. i really can't believe you guys find it so unbelievable that people's sexuality can change throughout their life without hinting that the desire was always there, just surpressed
 

HyperHulk

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i really don't understand how you could challenge a statement thats supported by facts. i really can't believe you guys see it as being so black and white, born gay or not, i think that's terribly blind. does this mean bisexual people were born that way?? several of my friends who are bisexual either way (male or female) testify to developing their attraction for the same sex later on in life. i really can't believe you guys find it so unbelievable that people's sexuality can change throughout their life without hinting that the desire was always there, just surpressed

I hadn't read through all of this thread when I made my comment, so I hadn't noticed that many others had challenged you on this point. I don't want to run it into the ground. Perhaps we're saying different things. I can certainly see how someone may never have thought about the same gender and then later in life had an opportunity to engage in same sex behavior and gave it a go. However, that to me is different than becoming gay or identifying as gay. Anyone can choose to participate in same sex behavior. But only those whose homosexuality is an innate aspect of their very sense of self will convert same sex behavior into an identity.

And again, I'm going by the sample size of straight, gay and bi men I've talked through over the years and in different countries.
 

auncut10in

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This may have already been said, but I think that homosexuality is a psychological condition. Notice, I didn't call it a disorder because I don't consider it a disease; it just isn't the norm. Typical human nature is the drive to reproduce, continue the existence of the species, as it is with most organisms. So, heterosexuality would be considered the natural norm, homosexuality the oddity.

That isn't to say that every gay person was born that way, but rather that they're psychologically geared towards it. They may spend their entire life unhappily with the opposite gender just because they're environment taught them that it's what's acceptable. But in certain conditions, they discover and accept their sexual identity. Those same conditions would have no affect on a person whose mind was not geared as such.

So no, it isn't a choice. It's just a matter of their psychological response to certain influences. Does it need to be treated? No, not at all. It's not as though their not reproducing is hurting our species. Seven billion people is quite enough; we can slow down now.

I would be willing to buy your suggestion that being gay is a psychological condition if you would be willing to also suggest that being straight is a psychological condition. Because they are both the same thing. It is that sex drive that is deep within us all. Most just seem to have it for women and us gay guys are alright with that. And we don't think that straight guys need to be treated either. (well maybe a few do need some kind of treatment)

We also know that homosexuality exists in most species. Maybe you are right and it is natures way of controlling overpopulation. Maybe that is why there are more and more gay people everywhere in the world. I mean we all know there were no homosexuals in America until Stonewall. It is surprising that China has yet to have it's first homosexual given their population problems.
 

D_Thoraxis_Biggulp

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I wasn't really suggesting that it's nature's way of controlling the population, but sure you can take it as that. But still, there's no gays in China?

And yeh, heterosexuality is psychological as well. But because of the drive to continue the species' existence, I'd consider it more standard and homosexuality the abnormality since conflicts with that very base instinct. Not to rub anyone the wrong way, because I mean nothing ill by it. It's no more a problem or disease than being born with an extra rib.
 

HyperHulk

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I would be willing to buy your suggestion that being gay is a psychological condition if you would be willing to also suggest that being straight is a psychological condition. Because they are both the same thing. It is that sex drive that is deep within us all. Most just seem to have it for women and us gay guys are alright with that. And we don't think that straight guys need to be treated either. (well maybe a few do need some kind of treatment)

We also know that homosexuality exists in most species. Maybe you are right and it is natures way of controlling overpopulation. Maybe that is why there are more and more gay people everywhere in the world. I mean we all know there were no homosexuals in America until Stonewall. It is surprising that China has yet to have it's first homosexual given their population problems.

I agree with your response here. Homosexuality doesn't just exist in most species, it exists in every species.

I want to add though that I believe the biological imperative argument to be one of the weakest arguments against homosexuality. Gay people can have children. If all the straight people were wiped off the planet and it was just gay men and lesbians, they would easily keep the population going. It's akin to not liking to eat brussel sprouts but if you had to, you could. It's not like being allergic to peanuts. So yes, biologically you need sperm and an egg to produce children, but raising them as a heterosexual couple is a societal construction.

I accept that there are far more self-identified heterosexuals than self-identified homosexuals. I wonder how the numbers would change if there were no societal stigma to same-sex relationships? If there were as many public role models for those with same-sex inclinations as straight people have. If there was no judgment whatsoever? How many "straight" people would feel more empowered to live as their authentic self? How many would live a more fluid bisexual existence?
 

auncut10in

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I wasn't really suggesting that it's nature's way of controlling the population, but sure you can take it as that. But still, there's no gays in China?

And yeh, heterosexuality is psychological as well. But because of the drive to continue the species' existence, I'd consider it more standard and homosexuality the abnormality since conflicts with that very base instinct. Not to rub anyone the wrong way, because I mean nothing ill by it. It's no more a problem or disease than being born with an extra rib.

I think I might have been a little sarcastic with my no gays in America before Stonewall and no gays in China comment. (counting ribs now)
 

Hellboy0

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noone's saying ALL gay people are catty and bitchy but just read through some of these threads and you'll see that some definitely are

Well, some kinda ARE saying that, marley:

From epress: "I've found that gay males can be very vicious and cruel, and VERY intolerant." I know he's responded to my post just after you did, marley, and said the same as you.

Sounds pretty emphatic to me. But to be fair, I'm not always good at qualifying my written statements so I'll let it all pass. Beside, I'm probably really responding to the use of hetero/homophobic comments which are just as illogical as all racist ones.

All sub-groups have their own issues and no, all members do not necessarily 'play nice'. But I try to be careful not to make sweeping statements about gender/ race/ religion/ etc. Because in my experience, THAT'S where a lot of the problem starts.

...so, back to the thread, I've had feelings toward men since I can remember. In my case, being 'gay' was never a choice. And if you knew where I grew up, you'd see just what a fucking dangerous choice I'd made. Why the hell would a young boy want to be attracted to his male friends in the deepest, darkest Texas!!! LOL