Is Homosexuality a choice?

[SlowwHand]

I was under the impression that Gayhood was caused by some kind of genetic, well, for lack of a better term, flaw.

[mrmitchell]

I was under the impression that "variation" is better than "flaw"

Really, some of it is indeed genes, then raising, society, and then choice.

But why do you care if some Canadian is ****ing a guy or a gal? I have no idea why any one even cares, aside from the regular God Said No! twaddle.

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by Spiffor
Summary of this post: homosexuality and heterosexuality are partly matter of social pressure and choice.

I think biological factors aren't the only factors explaining homosexuality or lack thereof. One person's attractiveness depends on instinct, but also strongly depends on beauty standards in the society. During the middle ages, fat women were considered attractive because fat was a sign of good health; In some tribe of Ethiopia, these women are considered most attractive.

I also think homo- and heterosexuality isn't a black and white matter, but rather a scale on which people are more or less attracted to the same sex / the other sex. That's why some of our gays started bi. Technically, except for the most extreme people on each scale, most of us could have homosexual attraction as well as heterosexual ones. And technically, most of us could have a sexual relationship with either sex.
However, society makes it difficult. Heteroes are discouraged to look for homosexual adventures, and I suppose such discouragement exists by the homos as well. As such, the utter rejection of one sex or another is a matter of social pressure, and to some extent a matter of choice (choosing between accepting this social pressure or not).

Well,
AFAIK Sigmund Freud said the same thing,
that humans are initially Bisexual.

There are also Examples for bisexual Monkeys.
The Bonobo (Pan paniscus), which use sexual intercourse not only for Reproduction, but also to solve Differences, gather food from other Bonobos which have food (so some Kind of Prostitution ) and many many other things.
And the Bonobos also don´t shy from homosexual Adventures. They have sex in every Constellation, Male/Femals, Male/Male and Female/Female.
I think it is also the Bonobos, which are the the only Primates apart from the Homo sapiens, who use Sexual Positions where the mates can look each other into the eyes.

[SlowwHand]

I don't care at all. Matters none. Folks is folks.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
I don't care at all. Matters none. Folks is folks.

As in "Queer as ......"?

There really isn't good data supporting the idea that homosexuality is genetically based. Studies of inheritance don't support the idea, but the flaw with that sort of study is that there is so much stigma attached to homosexuality that it is difficult to trace in ancestors. The anatomical studies are problematic because the sample sizes are so small, and there are major problems with measuring cell populations in the brain.

[Firelad]

Sloww:
Proteus: This is what I was gonna say meself
BTW, about the pop control thing Boris said: Somebody made an experiment with hamsters, put too many little fellows in a too small cage - a lot of the young turned out to be little gay hamsters

For me, much of it is indeed choice - in a way you can say I "chose" to discover that part of meself. As Proteus said, there's strong evidence (apart from Freud) that all of us are more or less bisexual (although I must admit that the attraction I feel for guys feels quite different than what I feel for girls, although both sexual)

[mrmitchell]

, put too many little fellows in a too small cage - a lot of the young turned out to be little gay hamsters

So boys who are with boys or men more often have a higher chance of being gay? Wow, what a surprise!

EDIT: Sorry. An interesting combination of misreadings and skippings resulted in that failure to understand "population control".

[Lorizael]

Hmm, we've had this debate before. I think I'll just repeat what I said there.

Most human traits are a result of three different factors. There are genetic factors (some people are more prone to alcoholism). There are societal and peer influences (if you hang around drunks, you just might become one). And lastly there are major traumas that can induce sudden change (when my aunt's son got cancer, she started to drink more).

Why should sexuality - which is certainly a human trait - be any different?

It is generally not an actual choice. Most people don't make choices about their personality, but sometimes they do.

[Agathon]

Isn't this a bit of a silly question? Being attracted to someone else is something that people don't have a choice in; but deciding to poke them is usually the end of a chain of deliberative reasoning.

Why discriminate against gays and say that it's any different for them?

[JCG]

Don't know, but apparently gays here and elsewhere seem to think it's not a choice but either a natural or nurtured inclination, so there it is...

[Lorizael]

Originally posted by Boddington's
I don't steal, does that mean I'm not qualified to say that stealing is a choice?

That's not a logical comparison. You are comparing the act of stealing to the personality trait of sexuality. You could say that a lifestyle of thievery is a choice, and make that comparison, but you cannot do what you have done.

But, as I've said before, sexuality is much like other human traits, so I think that any human would be qualified to at least offer an opinion on the subject without being immediately shot down. But hey, the real world isn't as nice as I would like to think.

[Worthingtons]

Doesnt matter Whether the comparison is accurate is not, his objection to FP's post is fair.

The Viewpoint of Homosexuals on this issue may perhaps hold more weight that Hetro's (if we are forgetting about bias, which isnt wise) but we cannot simply accept the word of Fez,Boris ect without so much as questioning it.
It is crazy to say we should accept the views of a set of people with a certain trait simply because they are the holders of the trait. If Gays said that people with thier sexuality were simply natrually born with superior telepathic intelligence which they could use to communicate amongst each other , should we accept this!?!?!

Give us a break.

[MrFun]

Yeah -- I woke up one morning and thought it might be fun to choose to live in a homophobic society as a gay man.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Agathon
Isn't this a bit of a silly question? Being attracted to someone else is something that people don't have a choice in; but deciding to poke them is usually the end of a chain of deliberative reasoning.

Why discriminate against gays and say that it's any different for them?

Agreed.

To people who think that homosexuality is a choice, try to get yourself attracted to members of the same gender. Don't do it just once, do it like 1000 times and see whether you can be successful.

[Kuciwalker]

Again, having homosexual urges is not a choice. Acting on them is.

[Sava]

and what's so bad about "acting on them", skywalker?

[Kuciwalker]

Nothing. Did I say it was? I have no problem with gay people (unless they start stalking me or something ).

I didn't realize this was a good/bad debate. I'm just answering the question in the thread title.

[Sava]

ah, my apologies... judging from your usual political leanings, I assumed you thought homosexuals were evil sinners or something.

[Kuciwalker]

Huh? In case you hadn't noticed from the creationist debates, I'm also a devout atheist.

Don't worry, it's all good

[Sava]

Huh? In case you hadn't noticed from the creationist debates, I'm also a devout atheist.

to you...

[Worthingtons]

Soft n liberal enough?

You're only soft n liberal until somebody disagrees with you, when you change to being ill-mannered and Intolerant

[Kirnwaffen]

While acting on the impulse may be a choice, it's not much of one. You can either act on it, or be miserable. Some choice...

[muxec]

Hi

Russian wisdom says, that even if you cant exit you can exit via entrance.

Have a nice gay

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Fez
Homosexuality isn't a choice. It is that clear cut.

Hey BAMBAM, do you happen to have Pebbles phone number?

[Sikander]

Originally posted by FrustratedPoet
How any straight person could consider themselves qualified to answer this question is beyond me. What the **** would we know about it?

There are a lot of intelligent gay people who visit this forum. If they say that their sexuality is not a matter of choice then how on earth could you argue with them?

Come on FP, you can do better than this. A lot of gays argue that they are attracted to people of the same gender just as hetrosexuals are attracted to members of the opposite sex. To take your point to its logical conclusion, how the hell would they know?

But I tend to agree with them, that the nature of attraction is similar if not identical in gays and straights. All the evidence that I have seen / heard seems to support this.

When I was young I was only attracted to athletic women / girls with dark hair. Over the years other sorts of women were attracted to me and approached me. In some cases I decided to go ahead and date them, even though they were not the stuff of my infantile ideal. Often things worked out well, and my ideal expanded to include blondes, redheads etc. These days I am much more open to persuasion as I have found that a good relationship has virtually nothing to do with an initial burst of attraction on my part, but deeper personality traits that one cannot discover without a willingness to take some risks and get to know people.

I made a choice to expand my horizons at each stage. Thankfully I was raised without the burden of a social construct that decided for me that brunettes were the be all and end all, and anything else was simply some sort of unhealthy anomoly. These issues are hard enough to deal with as it is.

[gunkulator]

"Choice" is a loaded term since it implies a conscious decision. Whether or not we have genetic pre-dispositions to homosexuality, I believe there are significant environmental factors that affect human sexuality. How else can you explain things like S&M, Dom&Sub and the whole variety of fetishes out there? Surely no one is born to be a toe sucker but it's not exactly a choice either.

As others have pointed out, concepts of beauty aren't universal across socieities so why should we expect homo/hetero behavior to be so rigidly ingrained in our genes?

[SlowwHand]

MrFun nailed the answer, from my point of view.

[Q Classic]

not being gay, i wouldn't know.

[SlowwHand]

It's rumored you have a brain though.
I'm not Gay, but I can see the validity of his statement.

[Q Classic]

what it boils down to is this. does someone else being gay really make that much of a difference to a person? i don't give a flying fcuk, so i don't care if it's a choice or not, i don't care if they're gay or not, and i don't care if they are flaming or not.

if they want to be friends with me, that's fine, and that's how i'll respond to them. if they want to be jerks, them that's how i'll respond. their sexuality has no bearing on how i initially treat them, nor does it have any bearing on how i see them as a person.

to me, it's no different from religion, ethnicity, social background, or gender: it's who they are, and unless it directly affects you, i.e., you're being hit on or some such, i don't understand why you'd give a damn.