If not, hopefully you understand how it is that there are so many homosexuals and bisexuals who also did not choose their sexual orientation.
Just trying to raise awareness/fight ignorance.
(such a good SDMB member I am!)
Yep. I remember it like it was yesterday. It was a crisp autumn day in late September. I was strolling along Baltimore’s famed Antique Row. As I walked past a small, unassuming store front, I spotted something out the corner of my eye. There, atop a beautiful 19th century, mahogony end table, was the prettiest, heterosexual orientation I’d ever laid eyes on. I entered the shop, haggled with the owner and, five minutes later (and a few bucks lighter, I might add), I left the shop the proud owner of a lovely sexual orientation.
LOL
[Yakov Smirnov] In America, you choose sexual orientation. In Soviet Russia, sexual orientation chooses YOU! [/Yakov Smirnov]
How would I know?
Seriously.
Well, being not at either extreme end of the Kinsey scale, I suppose at sometime I said to myself, “self, best marry a man, cause you can’t marry a woman, and choosing to life partner with a woman will make life a hell of a lot more difficult.” I suppose I must of, cause I married a guy.
Girls were fun to play with, but really, marry one?
(for the humor impared, that was a joke).
In truth, all of my meaningful relationships were men (until very recently - all my meaningful friendships have been with men, and it wasn’t until my 30s that my (platonic) girlfriends became important to me). Had I really fallen in love in a meaningful way with a girl, it might be different - but that would have involved opening myself in a way that I never did in same sex encounters.
I don’t find men sexually attractive so I guess I didn’t have much choice in the matter. I’m completely comfortable with myself, and wouldn’t mind being gay if it wasn’t for the ‘having sex with men’ bit. Yes, that last sentence wasn’t serious.
I s’pose I could choose to completely abstain. Yeah right…
Shit, I have to pick?!
Alternate answer.
Yesterday.
Of course I chose my sexual orientation.
It’s the celibacy that I seem to have no choice about…
Oddly enough, I think I could switch if I felt like it. Don’t feel like it, though.
No, I had no choice in the matter. It just rather quickly dawned on me during early adolescence that female bodies were something that I wanted very, very badly to get much much more acquainted with, as soon and as often as possible.
I had as much choice as someone jumping out of an airplane has over which direction they’re going in. The skydiver may alter the speed and angle a bit, but the direction remains earthward with relentless inexorability.
I’ve never felt that way about the male body. Perhaps it’s some sort of character flaw or genetic defect.
And by that, I mean flaw or defect in myself!
I can remember being eight years old and blushing whenever I watched Family Ties because Michael J. Fox was just SOOO CUTE!!!
So, I guess that means no?
I didnt’t know people COULD choose.
I tried to change my mind about it. When I got to be about 17 and had still never been dated or kissed or shown the least bit of interest by any guy whatsoever, I thought, “Hey, since guys don’t like me, maybe I should try girls.” But then I came to the realization that I am just not attracted to women at all, and the thought of sexual activity with a woman icks me out, and girls don’t have penises. And I like penises. So… nope, really can’t help being straight.
Nope, not in the least. Happily hetero. (Or is that an adjustment to the inevitablity of gravity in my case, q.v. Qadgop’s post above?)
But I am mindful of its limitations in the Big Picture, remembering the Woody Allen observation that being bisexual doubles your chance to find a date for Saturday night.
I think the OP misses a lot of the gist of the nature v. nurture debate on the origins of homosexuality, but does touch on another angle not often addressed in that debate.
The first point would be the debate over whether or not one is “born that way” or not. That is by no means clear in any research I’ve seen. It begs the questions: Are the self-confident born that way, a product of a combination of heredity and nurture, or so by virtue of their developmental environment? Are the child abusers born that way, a product of a combination of heredity and nurture, or so by virtue of their developmental environment?
The socio-political time bomb in there is that perhaps environmental factors might, in some future day, be identified that could be manipulated to swing a child’s sexual orientation development one way or another.
The second point touched on is that, regardless of any resolution of the first question, that really being whether or not present day adult homosexuals were born that way or might have grown up to develop as heterosexual had their environment been different, none of the people involved, hetero-. homo-, bi-, as children, had control over their nurturing environment and as such, none had control over their sexual orientation.
So while the question is interesting, in that it highlights the lack of choice in an individual being independent of the nature v. nurture question, it does little to resolve that debate.
FWIW, while I’m discrete, I find it nearly impossible to not scope out the attractive women I see.
I guess you could say I did. I did experiment a few times with some homosexual type things, and I wasn’t that impressed. But everything I’ve done with the ladies I love to ne end
Yep. Another decision made easier with our good friend Eenie Meanie Mienie Moe.