Sexual Orientation is not a Choice

[glassjester]

Anyway - if, as you say, orientation is fixed from birth, how is it possible that any homosexual people could become bisexual?

 

[CabinetMaker]

During the Liu Song Dynasty in China (420 - 479 AD), homosexual relationships occurred as often as heterosexual ones.




In ancient Greece, a homosexual relationship was considered a rite of passage and extremely common as well.


Is your "some could, most wouldn't" hypothesis evidence-based?

Supposition. Based on what is observed today. Are you familiar with MBLA? A rather disgusting organization. I believe it is possible to a prepubescent child and "program" them far easier than it is to reprogram and older person. That this is possible does not change the fact that left to their own devices, that child would have expressed a preference had they entered puberty on their own terms.

 

[CabinetMaker]

Anyway - if, as you say, orientation is fixed from birth, how is it possible that any homosexual people could become bisexual?

Go back and look at what I actually said. As with all human endeavors, it is not either/or, it is a range.

 

[glassjester]

Supposition. Based on what is observed today. Are you familiar with MBLA? A rather disgusting organization. I believe it is possible to a prepubescent child and "program" them far easier than it is to reprogram and older person.

That this is possible does not change the fact that left to their own devices, that child would have expressed a preference had they entered puberty on their own terms.

So it's not fixed from birth?

When you say "far easier," do you mean it is difficult, yet possible for an adult to change their orientation?

 

[CabinetMaker]

So it's not fixed from birth?

When you say "far easier," do you mean it is difficult, yet possible for an adult to change their orientation?

Anything is possible. It is possible to change an adult but it is not highly probable that you will.

I believe that a persons orientation is pretty well fixed at birth. Baring undue outside influence, that orientation will present at puberty. Their basic orientation will never change. Their behaviors based on their orientation will change.

 

[Puppet]

So the young man had a doting mother. Why assume that one factor was dominant in his homosexuality? Millions of experiences separated his birth from his recognition of his orientation, and not forgetting the interaction of hundreds of thousands of genes with the many environmental influences.

And out of all those billions of possible factors you select the single one that happens to reinforce your preexisting belief.

Soooo, what evidence do you have for rejecting all those other possible factors? Identical twin studies, large scale longitudinal cohort studies? State of the art developmental neuroscience? Or gut instinct and hope?

the only evidence is that God arranged circumstances around the gay that causes them to do what they desired to do.

 

[glassjester]

Anything is possible. It is possible to change an adult but it is not highly probable that you will.

I agree.

 

[HisServant]

Even if you say its not a choice, it is still a choice to act on it.... which is wrong outside the bounds of a real marriage (man and woman).

The issue I have with the gay community is that they get away with so much indecency in their pride festivals that would automatically get any heterosexual person thrown in jail and put on the sexual offenders list.

It's like they are a protected class.

 

[genuineoriginal]

Sexual orientation can't be chosen, because sexual orientation does not exist. The concept wasn't even invented until relatively recently.

Partner preferences do exist. Partner preferences include just about every physical and personal trait a person could have.

Partner preferences are formed by our own actions and our own choices. Our preference in partners equate to our "taste in people."

In this sense, our taste in people is no different from taste in music, taste in art, taste in literature, and taste in food.

Our tastes are shaped by our own choices and actions. Taste in partners is no exception. We choose what music to listen to, what books to read, and what food to eat.

Good points.

 

[genuineoriginal]

That's interesting. I knew by the age of five what my *partner preference* was.

When you were five, were you sexually attracted to five year old boys with particular physical traits or were you sexually attracted to grown men with particular physical traits?

So anyways, is your solution for gays to remain celibate and alone or marry someone of the opposite sex so they will both live in misery?

Have you ever had sex with someone that did not fit the particular physical traits that you were sexually attracted to as a five year old?

 

[genuineoriginal]

Celibate and alone is much more preferable to be married to the wrong partner.... I know this from an experience of 22 years with the wrong person. Suicide was definitely in the picture for a long time because divorce was never in the picture.... then she left and freed me from bondage.

Was the problem because the physical traits of your partner did not match your preferred physical traits in a sexual partner?

 

[genuineoriginal]

I disagree. And I'll give an example as a way of explaining myself.

I am a recovered alcoholic. And I was born with a genetic predisposition to become addicted to alcohol. I know this from personal experience, and from having discussed the subject many times with many other people, both alcoholic and not-alcoholic. My genetic predisposition manifests in the way my brain processes and 'experiences' alcohol. My brain experiences the effect of alcohol in my system as a kind of euphoria. I feel an intense sense of freedom, and creativity, and joy when I drink, and it begins with just one drink. And that sensation is so strong that it makes being sober pale in comparison. The first time I drank alcohol I got drunk because one drink made me feel really good, and my mind immediately presumed that a second drink would make me feel that much better. And it did. So I immediately fell in love with the idea and the feeing of being drunk. And from then on I wanted to do it again. And again and again.

Most other people's brains do not react to alcohol the way mine does, or does not react to it nearly as intensely as mine does. In fact, I have known several women over the years who couldn't get drunk at all, no matter how much alcohol they drink. For some reason, their brains simply did not process alcohol in the way most of the rest of our brains do.

You would say I had a choice whether or not to become an alcoholic. But I don't believe I had a choice. At the time I first began to drink, I was too young to understand or care about the consequences of what I was feeling and what I was doing in response to it. And by the time I was old enough to get some sense of the danger I was in, it was too late. I was already fully addicted. By the time I tried to stop drinking I couldn't stop, even for 24 hours.

We humans are not nearly as "in charge" of our thoughts and our feelings and our actions as we tent to imagine ourselves to be because much of who we are has been pre-programmed into us by our genetic histories, through the physical structures of our brains, and by our circumstantial histories and the concepts of reality that we have come to hold as a result of our experiences.

Some people engage in homosexual behavior because they want to, and they chose to. But many do so because they are inclined by their physical natures to do so. And they really don't have much, or sometimes even any, choice in it.

It was extremely difficult for me to stop drinking alcohol, and I have to avoid it completely, now, if I want to stay sober, healthy and alive. I cannot choose to have a drink or two and then stop like most other people can. One drink could very easily send me into an alcoholic binge that would last the rest of my life.

Until you have experience such a loss of self-control, it's difficult to appreciate how it can occur. But I assure you that it can and does occur, and it effects a great many different human behaviors, including sexual behavior.

Human nature is far more complex and powerful that I think you realize.

Are you completely unable to drink or enjoy a non-alcoholic beverage?

 

[genuineoriginal]

What if someone else gave you what they felt was a *morally compelling reason*?

My ex-wife gave me a compelling reason to stop loving her.

BTW, the idea of being able to turn love off and on like a water faucet kind of cheapens love.

Thinking love is nothing but an emotion is the biggest way to cheapen love.
After all, I am able to show love to my son even if my emotions toward him are anger over something stupid he did.

 

[genuineoriginal]

IF you have any gay acquaintances, you should ask them what day they chose to be gay and why they chose it. Ask your straight friends the same question. Answer it yourself, what day did you choose to be heterosexual? Why did you make that choice.

You completely missed the mark on that one.

People prefer one bra cup size over another.
People prefer rougher or softer skin.
People prefer visible muscles or hidden muscles.

The cumulation of the physical traits a person prefers forms their ideal partner, but nobody (except a few plastic surgeons) are actually able to have a partner with all the preferred physical traits.

 

[genuineoriginal]

No, it's not true.

It was my surrender to a power greater than myself that finally stopped me from drinking. And it was the lack of any other choice that made me surrender.

You just gave a very compelling argument in favor of the death penalty for homosexual behavior.

My point is that we do not choose who we are. We can only choose who we will become in response to who we are, now.

Some people believe they are defined as a person by their sexual preferences in the size, shape, or the absence/presence of certain physical parts of other people.

They are shallow people that demean others through their objectification.

If they take pride in being that type of shallow person, they will never choose to become something else.

 

[CabinetMaker]

You completely missed the mark on that one.

People prefer one bra cup size over another.
People prefer rougher or softer skin.
People prefer visible muscles or hidden muscles.

The cumulation of the physical traits a person prefers forms their ideal partner, but nobody (except a few plastic surgeons) are actually able to have a partner with all the preferred physical traits.

The preferences you refer to are developed over time. I am speaking about the attractions we first feel when we enter puberty. Generally, that is the first point in our lives were we start to be attracted sexually to somebody. We are either attracted to the opposite sex or the same sex.

Tell us GO, when did you make a choice to be heterosexual. Or was it something that always just knew?

 

[genuineoriginal]

It depends ... does THEIR reason disregard the fact that they prefer someone remain alone for the rest of their life rather than be with someone they love?

Many people find an alternative to remaining alone.

When I'm not Near the Girl I Love

 

[genuineoriginal]

Sure there is. Brussel sprouts. I love them. My daughter hates them. Turns out there is a gene that makes sprouts unusually bitter to certain people and they will never like them because they are too bitter. It is not a choice they made, it is a physical reality of their genetic code.

Do you have the same sexual preferences in men as your mother has?

 

[genuineoriginal]

What the world understands as sexual orientation you want to rename taste in partners.

What the world understands as "sexual orientation" is a lie created to excuse a small percentage of people for their sexual perversions.

 

[CabinetMaker]

Do you have the same sexual preferences in men as your mother has?

In an very odd sort of way, yes. I have become a man very much like my father.