Did you choose?

Yes, I chose to explore those same-sex attractions and not hide them from others. In the earlier stages, it would have been so easy to push those thoughts aside and carry on as yet another 'straight' person, but that wouldn't be doing myself any justice.

 

I definitely didn't choose. If anything, I tried to choose being straight, but that obviously didn't work out.

 

I knew for a while, I was just denying it to myself.

 

I said that I'm not really sure. My sexuality is somewhere in the gray area between straight and gay, allosexual and asexual. On the one hand, this makes things quite confusing (going from ace/aro one day to homoromantic/heterosexual the next is one of the most troublesome things I've ever had to deal with), but on the other hand, it does give me the sense that I have some agency over where I sit. Right now, I am interested in having relationships with women but not men, just as I am more interested in watching anime than sitcoms. It feels like it is an interaction of my personality with my surroundings. That isn't to say that it will be easy to change (it would take a lot of convincing to get me to sit down and watch "How I Met Your Mother"), or even that changing would be desirable. Then again, thanks to depression my personality has always felt ill-formed, so my illusion of agency may be just that -- an illusion.

In my opinion, emphasizing that being anything other than cis/het isn't a choice when talking to cis/hets somewhat misses the mark. Even if it were a choice, we should still have the right to be romantically and/or sexually involved with someone of the same gender, or to live as a gender other than the one we were assigned at birth.

 

I voted 'I don't know' because I don't know.

I don't think I did, but I can't necessarily be sure completely sure of it.

 

I never chose to be gay, and I wouldn't really want to be straight, either. This life is all I know, and I wouldn't give it back for the world.

 

I don't believe I chose this, consciously or otherwise, but I know there are others who feel that they did. I maintain it doesn't make a difference to anything political. Same-sex marriage is about the only context I've heard this in lately, and at the end of the day that's about consensual adult relationships, not necessarily about orientations or how people came to identify that way.

 

It just came naturally to me and really don't mind at all.
The only thing I had to choose was if I would live my life the way it is or if I would try to change myself for others.I didn't go against my sexuality.I love being who I am and I really don't believe I could get anymore lucky.I have my girl who I love and she loves me back.
This my friend is happiness.

 

I defintley didn`t choose this. When i sent my letter to my mum yesterday I put if i could wave a magic wand and turn me straight i would. It is never going to happen. I also belive we were born gay.

 

no i did not choose to be bisexual, but im happy none the less i believe we were born this way its not a choose you cant choose desire and attractions i think if we could the world might be a better place because if we could we wouldnt fall in love with people who dont love us back or are already taken even straight people can empathize with that, and iv heeard gay people say they choose it and i can not understand that how did you choose to be attracted to the same sex? did you wake up one morning and say hmm i think im gonna get a boner when i see a naked guy no, because are feelings are just there just like with anything in life we never know how we will react because we cant choose our feelings. The only choice is to accept our feelings and embrace them or live a life to please others, and seems pretty obvious that we have all chosen to embrace our feelings.

 

I chose to transition. I did not choose to be transgender. I choose to come out as bi. But I didn't choose to be bi. At least I think. I can't really know for sure. Anyway, as I've mentioned before, I don't think it matters whether we choose or not. It isn't a bad thing to be.

 

I know that I didn't choose to be attracted to men. I chose to learn to be ok with that.

 

I don't believe i choose it but i do think upbringing has a bigger impact the simply being 'born this way.' Nurture is more influential than nature i think

Because of all the family things that happened when i was younger i was always made to stand up for my little brother against my father, i also had protected him from witnessing my mother being beat every day
My father wanted me to be a boy too, he brought me up to be his little 'jack the lad' and made me fight maybe even bully the other kids. He taught me to have that attitude towards women, they weren't as 'good and men, they were sluts, men are stronger.'

We never had money and i was angry and fighting every day and more worried about what was gonna happen than just being a kid. So i never really got the chance to be a 'little girl' if you like, maybe i would have done my hair and make-up and that things is i owned any toys that didn't get smashed up or thrown or weren't so worried

I felt bad my brother didn't had a dad to look up too, and took on the role of like his bigger brother. And i then explored identifying as a boy, and really liked it.
So although it wasn't entirely my fault, or my family's fault for that matter i do believe i would have been a lot different now if that didn't happen so just maybe it was a subconscious thing
This was all from basically birth, i started using a boys name when i was 6.

 

I'm not sure really.

I definitely agree with Jeca on the notion that nurture can have some influence but the effects are going to be individual and varied. Of course if nurture did have such a strong influence then 'conversion therapy' should theoretically work if they applied correct methodology at a young enough age. But practically speaking we've yet to find hard evidence of so-called success. But that's another issue or non-issue, right?

Personally I have some insecurities that unbeknownst to my conscious mind I've been conditioned by myself or society/culture to become whatever I am now. But when I reason with it, whether I'm gay because of nature, nurture on some sort of conditioning it was pretty much outside of my own doing and control - so I am merely a product of those influences.

So that's my personal reasoning for it not being a decision.

 

I never chose to be gay. I hate being attracted to women because I constantly feel guilty. At 15 or 16 I wrote an entry in my diary saying 'I think I'm bisexual because I like women' and never mentioned it again. Then kept telling myself I couldn't be gay and I think this was the reason for getting various eating disorders throughout the following years.

I only admitted it to myself in November that I was a lesbian and I didn't ever want to be with men. I hate feeling so uncomfortable when despite my best efforts some man still finds me.. attractive? or just good enough to sleep with...

Despite all of this, I wouldn't change it because that would mean changing who I am. If I was straight, it wouldn't be me and I think I never was (straight).

 

At first I was slow, but I thought about it for a while, and finally decided it felt right.
I definitely wouldn't say I chose it, but I had to think a long time before I accepted it.

 

Where does those that hate the opposite sex fit into this? I know three people like this two were gay and one was straight but hated his wife.

---------- Post added 8th May 2013 at 12:03 PM ----------

Both my parents were narcissist which means they decided who I am and I have done so many things I regret to try to be what was expected me. I write poetry but feel uncomfortable showing it to people. I have engineering degree but could never pass a job interview as it not who I am. I can truly understand what you went through and undoing these sets of beliefs that define is the most important. We see who we are through what we think are parents saws us as and I don’t think the two are ever the same.
Everything in my upbringing had to do with being tough. Love is for the weak. God am I weak.

---------- Post added 8th May 2013 at 12:04 PM ----------

Truly looking inside is the ultimate bravery

 

I am trying to do something that is supposed to be impossible which is to undo being a narcissist. I have over a decade invested. I started where I was at that time and worked my way back undoing each pieces which some pieces took a year. If you are gay by upbringing I would expect the process would be the same and while it is possible. Is it worth the trouble? The first part of my journey was finding all the ways I functioned as replacements for what is normal which eliminated them and made me non-sexual. I have been following why I can’t love and have a sexual relationship with the same person and for over a year now I am working on the fear of my own emotions. In my head it is the person I love who has complete control over my emotions and that is what I have to sort out to move on. I just realized that I was taught that you can only trust someone who makes themselves vulnerable to you which is nonsense but the next door I get to open.

As far as being gay by upbringing if you braved the process who you would be at the end is unknown. I would expect you would be who you were at birth.

 

If homosexuality is a choice, then so is heterosexuality, and we exist in a neutral state before the hypothetical choice occurred. Many times, people will phrase this in a way that suggests heterosexuality is the default, and us homo/bisexuals are some strange deviants, who need to be corrected. But that doesn't make much sense, really. If both homosexuality and heterosexuality were a choice, I wouldn't mind that.

 

Your post took me out of breath. I have a similar up bringing just born a different sex. In my case it was all about being tough and to love is the opposite in the way I was brought up. You were never allowed to discovery who you are instead you were forced to be what you father valued just as I had to. When i was about five my dad bought me a steel hammer that was pretty strange but manly in his eyes.