Anytime a gay woman or man’s nature is brought up, almost always a corresponding phrase such as, “they were born that way” goes along with it. It makes sense, and could certainly be the case for most gay people, but is it always true for each and every gay human being alive?
Outlooks and attitudes of people are ever-changing throughout their lives. They try things, find out they like some don’t like others. People discover new things about themselves everyday, and even learn to enjoy things they once didn’t like.
Is there any reason to believe that being gay is completely hereditary? Perhaps, it is an acquired taste. And, if some people actually do make a decision to be gay, how does this change our perceptions?
I think a person’s sexuality is a complex mix of heredity and social influences, but I believe it is mostly heredity based on (admittedly) anecdotal evidence from male friends of mine who have claimed they were attracted to other males as long as they can recall. I believe there is also compelling evidence of differences between the heterosexual and homosexual brains, but I cannot be sure.
But I think in certain circumstances, one can “turn gay”. For example, in prisons men and women are segregated for long periods of time. The sexual attraction that a man might have for a women (or a woman for a man) might be redirected toward members of a person’s own sex by the sheer necessity of having a sexual release. And sex can, of course, lead to emotional attachments, so I can believe that some people can come out of prison preferring members of their sex. I don’t think the situation is exclusive to prisons, however; it was just the first thing I could think of.
By the way, these are just my opinions. IANA-anthropologist, biologist, or geneticist.
I always joke that the all girls summer camp I attended as a teen turned me gay.
Before I was fifteen, I thought I was completely straight. I had guy crushes on boys in jr high. Freshman year of high school I had no clue how two girls would make love to each other. Then I returned to my camp. I knew I really really liked my best friend from there. However I thought it was just “extreme friend love”
(the love at my camp was extraordinary…Even my friend Tanya who is straight describes it as having a bunch of built in girlfriends) Then one Sunday night at campfire, my best friend got crowned Indian Princess ( best camper) I went up to give her a hug to congratuage her…and she gave me a huge wet smacky kiss on the cheek. I remember standing there thinking… " OMG that feels good…OMG I LIKE GIRLS!!!" I vividly recall walking back to my cabin in a daze. I really think if I had never gone to my camp, that i would be walking around thinking I was 100% straight.
I think it has to do with life experainces. We’re all the same “spirtually” on the inside…and I have to say if the girls I have loved were guys and the guys I have loved were girls, I would feel the same way about them!
I believe that most studies on this phenomenon have shown that such “environmental” homosexuality ends as soon as the environment changes. That is to say, prisoners who have were exclusively heterosexual before prison, and then engaged in homosexual relationships while in prison, generally revert to exclusive heterosexuality once they’re released from prison.
Given how instinctive attraction to one’s favored sex is, I doubt it. Perhaps a heterosexual could cultivate a taste for the same sex, but then you’d just have a kinky heterosexual. They’d still have the old drive for the opposite sex. Or they may have been bisexual all along.
It’s not PC to say it, but in my opinion the answer to this question might be somewhat different for men and women.
One thing that I notice on dating sites is that, compared to men, a very high proportion of women describe themselves as bisexual (at least 50%), but a very low proportion describe themselves as homosexual (at most 5%). And I recall more scientific studies that have come to the same conclusion.
So what implications does this statistical difference mean? I don’t know, but I suspect it would be very hard to square the incidence of bi- and homosexuality in men and women with a single genetic cause. Somewhere environmental factors are having a big effect.
I once read an interesting book on genetics that was discussing the “nature vs nuture” debate. The author’s argument is that it’s a false dilemma - people develop by a combination of the two. You have a set of genes at conception that give you a set of inherent potential traits - but they’re potential only. Your environment from conception onward will determine which of those genes get triggered and actually produce traits.
So in terms of sexual orientation, if you have exclusively straight genes nothing is going to turn you gay. If you have exclusively gay genes nothing is going to turn you straight. If you have both gay and straight potential genes, one environment may trigger your striaght genes and cause you to orient straight and a different environment might trigger your gay genes and cause you to orient gay.
The problem with this theory is that it’s using self-identification instead of objective data. Identification is heavily influenced by social perceptions. There’s little stigma for a female to call herself bisexual, particularly when it comes to dating aimed at men, encouraging the male fantasy of the threesome. On the other hand, any males that admit to same-sex interest at all tend to be treated as if they have a full blown case of teh gay, reducing not only the likliehood of identifying as such, but even admitting to it in the privacy of one’s own mind. I know a half-dozen males who called themselves straight even as they were engaging in sexual activities with other men.
I’m willing to bet if you had not had that experience some other experience would have eventually twigged you to the notion that you were not 100% straight.
The thing about being gay that throws a wrench into such questions of nature and nurture is that gayness is overtly expressed as a behavior, and its easy to fake behavior. Beyond that, we’d have to look into someone head.
It would be as if we tried to look into a straight person’s head to try to determine if he truly, really liked his wife. There’s no way to do that. We can do tests, record his behaviors, but in the end the only thing we have as a determinant is how he behaves.
I’m sure many people are gay by birth but as it is a behavior, I’m sure many are gay through influence, or is faking it for one reason or another. Its nothing at all like being a particular race.
I don’t think you can “turn gay” as such, but I think that a fairly large percentage of people fall somewhere under bisexual. And within “bisexual”, myself and others have experienced that preferences can lean on way or another and change over time. This might appear to onlookers as “turning gay (or straight)”. For example, my partner was married to a man for many years and is now “married” to a woman, but she has always been (at least somewhat) attracted to both.
True to a point-- many genes work that way, but not all.
Keep in mind that just because something is biological, it doesn’t have to be genetic. It’s is highly unlikely, given the results of twin studies, that the biololgical aspect of sexual orientation is completely genetic. It may be, as some studies suggest, at least partly determined by hormonal exposure during fetal development.
Now for a serious question: I’ve heard some gay men say they always knew they were gay, or they realized it at an early age. What’s it mean to have a sexual preference when you’re too young to be interested in sex?
