Choosing to be gay?

I definitely agree with the statement that the world will eventually move towards there being no real importance placed upon sexual identity. In societies where regulations haven't been put in place - most people are bisexual to some degree and view having to make a choice to be questionable at least. Then jump all the way back to ancient greece and ancient rome? We were all going around fucking everybody and anybody we liked. I'm not saying all people are bisexual, there are gays who are utterly repulsed just as there are straights who are utterly repulsed. HOWEVER, due to ancient history - I do believe most of us are inherently bi to some extent and that when those social pressures go away we will return to a much similar sexual time period.

Also to combat the "10%" notion - when Alfred Kinsey was doing his sex research in the 1950s he found that roughly half of all the men interviewed had some same sex attractions. Also note that this was a very dangerous time to even admit to it, thus there had to be many more who didn't admit to it in the research. What this proposes is that over half of all men (rather than just the supposed 10%) have some sex-sex feelings of attraction. If it was that way back then, it would be the same way today.

 

My personal take.

I did not choose to BE gay. I'm attracted to guys, not women. It's part of my wiring. Therefore, I don't consider that to be a choice. However, I did choose to LIVE gay. I chose to live by my programming. I chose to date the gender I was attracted to, have sex with them, get into relationships with them. I technically could have chosen to deny that part of my wiring, and force myself to date women, and have sex with them, and maybe marry one. So in that aspect, yes, it is a choice. It's not much of one, though. It's as much a "choice" as my "choice" to walk everywhere rather than crawl everywhere.

Lex

 

Kinsey didn't measure attraction, he asked about sex. Strictly speaking, the Kinsey scale refers not to what people you're attracted to, but the genders of the people you've already had sex with. And because some of his populations were from exclusively male environments, it's more likely his study suffered from overreporting than underreporting.

 

You make a very good point Zontar, and I'll never say I think sexuality is solid boxes, I believe it is very fluid. I more was saying in some areas of the world people would never choose to be gay, but i wish they would make the choice that they CAN explore their sexuality and their attractions. But it's how the world is, everything has to be put in a nice little box and it's stupid as f**k.

 

Personally, I don't think we choose to be gay.I believe we are born gay, straight, bi, transgender, whatever, it just make take us some time to discover our sexuality. I mean really, who would choose to have their rights stripped of them and to live in fear of being picked on and/or not being accepted by society? This is not to say everyone is homophobic. However, we do choose to accept ourselves as whatever our sexuality may be, we choose to come out and we choose who we have a relationship with. We just don't choose who we are sexually attracted to.

 

Who cares? I like men and women, and the real question is whether it is morally acceptable to like men and women. If I had to say, I think there I think there is three possibilities that I think are likely.

-Its genetic. No choice is involved.
-We all have the potential to be gay, and something influences whether we become gay/bi/pan. I think this is the most likely. Else, how do you explain the fact that we haven't died out? with 50000 years of being 'modern humans' you might have expected a gene that makes reproduction difficult to have died out. Yes, in some periods of the past, non-straight people would likely have married and reproduced like everyone else, but in other periods this might not have been the case, and the gene would have died out during those times.
-There is an element of choice involved. But perhaps its a combination of that and the above.

If we all have the possibility to be gay/bi/pan then I would like to know what influences whether we are or not. I'd also like to know for sure if our number is growing as it seems to be, or if its just more people coming out.

 

I know that I chose to accept that I am, so I did choose in that degree, and chose to stop pretending to be straight, but I didn't chose to be gay in the first place.

 

A fair chunk of the people above me are talking about "why would anyone choose to be ridiculed/discriminated/etc.", and really, who WOULD choose such negative things? I mean, you don't hear of people going into places where they're bound to experience this (regularly); that'd be stupid. There are exceptions to this, but the norm is that people don't want to be hated on. Psychologically speaking, we don't impose this upon ourselves readily.

This is kinda why I proposed that we choose at such a young age where we really aren't making a well thought-out decision. Children have the capacity to make decisions, but have no idea of the ramifications of their decisions, and are unable to weigh the pros/cons. Though, if we think that these decisions are being made at such a young age, it's quite possible it becomes a result of the way we are raised; in which case it becomes a "nature vs. nurture" scenario rather than an issue of choice.

I'm not even sure I'm right. It's significantly easier to just say "we're born with it" and have the rest be a pseudo-mystery until scientists look into it. So most of me says that we don't choose; it might not be genetically predisposed, or possibly simply an ounce of our subconscious speaking, but it certainly isn't a rationally made decision.

At the very least I think the "people wouldn't choose to be discriminated against" argument should be dropped. We can all agree any right-minded person would think it to be a silly choice, and it wouldn't apply to anyone who can't rationally think out the decision (like children). Effectively, it's a moot point. And I think if someone were to genuinely be defending our side against people thinking that "being gay is a choice", it really doesn't support our stance a whole lot.

My two cents.

 

I've never really bought this. Maybe that's me being stubborn, but I am just not willing to accept that there was ever any alternative. What on earth is supposed to have happened to us? Unless it's something in the uterus, I don't see it. Especially given the massive amount of naturally occurring homosexuality/homosexual behavior in animals. The only thing that wasn't normal about my childhood was that it was easier for me to make friends with girls than with boys, which would, if anything, suggest that my sexuality was already determined when I was about three. There have been studies showing that children exhibiting nontraditional gender behaviors are much more likely to be gay. I can't believe there could be anything common among all LGBT people that happens earlier than that that we haven't caught yet. I just don't believe that. I need a lot more evidence.
Homosexuality does have an evolutionary advantage - it protects against overpopulation. Maybe it's not genetic, but it is innate, not learned.

 

Agreed steel03.
I think that gays are born that way, their sexual orientation however can be suppressed due to lack of knowledge that such sexualities exist and basically on only ever seeing heterosexual couples in real life, television, internet, ETC...As for choice vs. lifestyle vs. fad ordeal, I'd say lifestyle.

 

i think you have it mixed up, there is no such thing as a "gay gene"

the way ive come to learn from is that the process happens in the womb when units of hormones are released that would determine the genitals and wiring of the brain (either being masculine or feminine)

and the womb seeing the "Y" chromosome as foreign in the succession of males and begins to shift/change to accommodate 2 "X's"

and other explanations,

someone tell me if im wrong

 

The funny thing is, I've always considered it a choice up until now. "Sure...I like guys, but I also like girls, I can choose who I want to be with, what's the big deal?"

Then I realized that this was probably because I'm bi, and like both sides equally, in which case...is it me choosing to like both sides, or was I born liking both sides and only -think- I have the choice to like whichever I want?

Either way, the result is the same for me, but I've spoken with multiple other people on the question and the general consensus is that it's something we're born with.

 

I'm confused... your making it sound like XX is male when its actually female... And see, that is one theory that has been proposed to explain homosexuality, but its also been proposed to explain transsexuality which occurs in a different way, and its much more plausible to use it to explain transsexuality. i was under the impression a gay gene has been proposed and not debunked.

@Steel03 I was proposing the element which determines our sexuality happens before you're three - perhaps as a baby or even during birth of pregnancy. Although I've said I doubt hormones are involved, but there are other variable environmental conditions that could be to blame. I just Think that a gene is implausible (though not impossible) as our number has not been decreasing since we stopped marrying people of the opposite sex (mostly anyway).

Also, is there any way it could just be completely random chance, not attributed to anything, even DNA?

 

I believe you like what you like because you like it; simple. I don't know or care if I was born to like boys just as much as I don't know or care if I was born to like girls. It’s all relative so I don’t trip. What I do trip on is how LGBT people are still the only major group of people that get openly shit on by the media, the laws, and of course religious beliefs of my country. Sorry for the mini-rant. =)

 

I don't think it's a choice at all. You can't choose who you're attracted to.

I don't think you can choose to be gay in any circumstance. So those who say they are gay because they are rebelling, for political reasons, etc..I don't think they are really gay. They may have sex with same-sex individuals, get in same-sex relationships, and say they are gay...but unless the attraction and feelings are there genuinely, I don't think they are really gay.

You can choose to come out (unless you are forced into it), to be in a same-sex/heterosexual relationship, and lots of stuff but you can't choose to be gay or straight. A close friend always says she wishes she was gay (idk why) and I tell her that there is nothing she can do about her sexuality. She was born that way, just like we were.

 

Those people must think very lowly of us to choose lifelong persecution and discrimination...Even Emperor Justinian (the first ruler that introduced anti-gay laws) wasn't that stupid.:icon_bigg

---------- Post added 20th Feb 2012 at 12:42 AM ----------

Actually, according to a 1993 study done by Hamer and published in Science magazine, a specific genetic marker called xq28 shows correlation with the occurence of male homosexuality. However, since this correlation does not match with female homosexuals this either indicates different causes between male and female homosexuality, or that xq28 was not the "gay gene" the scientists are looking for

 

You can, as a straight person, choose to have a gay lifestyle. But you'll always be straight.

 

I'm sort of torn. In a way I feel as though I chose my orientation. I identify as a lesbian but I do have some attraction to men. It's not as significant but for some people it would be enough to go with bisexual for me, but personally I don't feel bisexual sooo yeah

 

Much like everyone else said, I don't see how it can be a choice either. I mean just look at the number of posts here of people saying that they don't want to be lgbt! It just doesn't seem plausible that we can all just choose who we're attracted to and I don't think the environment can cause you to be gay. You might engage in same-sex acts, but like midwestgirl said, it doesn't make you gay.

If sexual orientation were purely environmental, then we all must have some sort of common factor but every gay/bi or trans person comes from a different background or culture. Some were raised with both parents, one parent, or none. Others have siblings and others don't. Some people came from an abusive home while others came from a well adjusted home. I think it's mostly biological but the environment can cause you to suppress or accept your same-sex desires.

I do think however that how you choose to identify yourself is a choice. You can choose to say that you're gay while being bisexual or choose to identify as gay even though you're straight. Sometimes you don't even know what your label is so you may pick one hoping that you got the right one. So I think that labels and how you live your life are a choice but there is no choice involved in who you are attracted to.

 

I think you have a small portion of people that "choose" to go the other way. I would also say that the majority of these are probably women...and I'll bet that a good portion of those have gotten a paycheck with a Van Nuys, California address at some point in their lives.

But as far as actually "being gay"--which I classify as not only just pure sex but emotional attachment as well--I have to say it's the way the brain in wired...which means there is no real choice involved.

I would love to be straight. My life would be so much easier.

But I'm not. I knew from a very early age that something was different. Granted, i didn't quite understand it back then.

People will say it's a choice...but they are simply speaking of what they BELIEVE, and not what they actually KNOW. Truth is, only people that are really gay know the answer the whole "is it a choice" question. It's simply a natural progression of attraction and emotions...at least it was for me.