# Musing: why do people think someone "chooses" to be gay (or straight)? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [April 1, 2019, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musing-why-do-people-think-someone-chooses-to-be-gay-or-straight/831880 "2019-04-01T19:04:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2019, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musing-why-do-people-think-someone-chooses-to-be-gay-or-straight/831880/1 "2019-04-01T19:04:44Z")
Haven’t they noticed that no one **chooses** what individual they’re going to be sexually (or otherwise) attracted to? And that if you aren’t sexually attracted to someone, you just aren’t. You might be able to go through the motions, but the sexual chemistry just isn’t there. I’m guessing a lot of people (if not \*most \*adults) have experienced the lack of attraction to someone who’s really into you. It can be icky and awkward to be in or put someone else in The Friend Zone. You wish you could reciprocate sexually, but you can’t. So why can’t people (you know who you/they are) see that you also can’t \*\*will \*\*yourself to be attracted (or not) to an entire gender?? It’s not a choice with one person and it’s not a choice with The Other Gender. That seems quite obvious to me. Wondering if this post is going to open some sort of can of worms. One never knows on this board… ---
**Author:** ![74westy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/74westy/32/3950_2.png) [@74westy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/74westy)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2019, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musing-why-do-people-think-someone-chooses-to-be-gay-or-straight/831880/2 "2019-04-01T19:10:05Z")
Very simple. Start with “if they didn’t choose, It wouldn’t be fair to blame them for it” and reason backwards. ---
**Author:** ![Ashtura](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ashtura/32/2963_2.png) [@Ashtura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ashtura)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2019, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musing-why-do-people-think-someone-chooses-to-be-gay-or-straight/831880/3 "2019-04-01T19:14:27Z")
Because God making people gay and them punishing them for it makes no damn sense. (Only people I know that say that are religious). ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2019, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musing-why-do-people-think-someone-chooses-to-be-gay-or-straight/831880/4 "2019-04-01T19:16:00Z")
Well, the Closeted Bigot Hypothesis maintains that at least some homophobic people are homosexually inclined but resisting their inclinations, and they think that that’s what “choosing to be straight” is. If they can manage to suppress their own “unnatural lusts”, the thinking goes, then so should everybody else. The fact that most straight people aren’t actually tempted at all by the idea of same-sex sexual activity is something they haven’t quite realized. I’m not sure that the CBH successfully accounts for all instances of this attitude, but it may play a role. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2019, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musing-why-do-people-think-someone-chooses-to-be-gay-or-straight/831880/5 "2019-04-01T19:17:02Z")
One possibility, at least for some – because some people really did “choose” to resist their natural tendencies (i.e. they are really gay but, due to society/religion/culture, repressed this and married heterosexually), and they assume that this is the case for everyone. EDIT: Ninja’d by **Kimstu**! ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2019, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musing-why-do-people-think-someone-chooses-to-be-gay-or-straight/831880/6 "2019-04-01T19:26:05Z")
Many people have simply never stopped to think about it. They’ve been told it’s a choice (often, by Repressed Bigots) and haven’t stopped to think; they haven’t realized that they didn’t choose their own tastes. All of us have some things we haven’t realized about ourselves, and they can be extremely fundamental ones. I had a manager who was so married to her job she should have anniversary celebrations, yet who is absolutely convinced that the place of a woman is “behind her huband, supporting him” (sic). The amount of fundamental disconnects some people manage to have can be painful to see. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2019, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musing-why-do-people-think-someone-chooses-to-be-gay-or-straight/831880/7 "2019-04-01T19:57:52Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Many people have simply never stopped to think about it. … This is the root of much trouble, evil, pain, hurt, and unnecessary misery in soooo many areas. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2019, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musing-why-do-people-think-someone-chooses-to-be-gay-or-straight/831880/8 "2019-04-01T20:08:05Z")
If\* it is true, and we need to come to grips with that truth, let’s start with “everyone who considers themselves heterosexual could have lived their lives as bi or gay, but chose to be heterosexual”. No purpose in focusing on the minorities, let’s begin with the majority. (\*I am not going on record as saying or agreeing that is, in fact, true) ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2019, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musing-why-do-people-think-someone-chooses-to-be-gay-or-straight/831880/9 "2019-04-01T20:11:48Z")
Cynthia Nixon: [Being gay is a choice](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/cynthia-nixon-wit-being-gay_n_1223889) Julie Bindel: [“I choose to be lesbian”](https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2014/07/04/julie-bindel-being-gay-is-a-choice-i-chose-to-live-my-life-as-a-lesbian/) Social Inqueery: [“No one is born gay or straight”](https://socialinqueery.com/2013/03/18/no-one-is-born-gay-or-straight-here-are-5-reasons-why/) ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2019, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musing-why-do-people-think-someone-chooses-to-be-gay-or-straight/831880/10 "2019-04-01T20:17:18Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > Haven’t they noticed that no one **chooses** what individual they’re going to be sexually (or otherwise) attracted to? And that if you aren’t sexually attracted to someone, you just aren’t. You might be able to go through the motions, but the sexual chemistry just isn’t there. I’m guessing a lot of people (if not \*most \*adults) have experienced the lack of attraction to someone who’s really into you. It can be icky and awkward to be in or put someone else in The Friend Zone. You wish you could reciprocate sexually, but you can’t. > > So why can’t people (you know who you/they are) see that you also can’t \*\*will \*\*yourself to be attracted (or not) to an entire gender?? It’s not a choice with one person and it’s not a choice with The Other Gender. That seems quite obvious to me. > > Wondering if this post is going to open some sort of can of worms. One never knows on this board… That’s always been one of my arguments- basically pointing out that considering the prejudice, discrimination and hate that gay people face, why WOULD anyone deliberately choose to be gay, and in particular openly gay, unless that’s the way they were made? That little comment usually shuts the bigots right up- they don’t usually have an answer chambered for that one, and have to flail around for a bit. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2019, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musing-why-do-people-think-someone-chooses-to-be-gay-or-straight/831880/11 "2019-04-01T20:29:36Z")
Isn’t the widespread recognition of homosexuality as an orientation, rather than a behavior, relatively recent in historical terms? If you think of “being gay” as something a person **does** rather than a matter of what they feel or who they’re attracted to, then what people do **is** what they **choose** to do. Nobody can see, directly, what’s going on inside another person’s head (or heart, or gonads). We can only see their actions. And it takes at least a little bit of imagination to entertain the notion that what’s going on inside other people’s heads might be different from what’s going on inside our own. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2019, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musing-why-do-people-think-someone-chooses-to-be-gay-or-straight/831880/12 "2019-04-01T20:59:30Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > This is the root of much trouble, evil, pain, hurt, and unnecessary misery in soooo many areas. And conversely, “i never really gave it any thought” is a perfectly cromulent reason to NOT hate gays. It’s my favorite reason for doing or not doing lots of stuff. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2019, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musing-why-do-people-think-someone-chooses-to-be-gay-or-straight/831880/13 "2019-04-01T21:05:08Z")
That’s certainly how it was with my dad. He was always telling me to fight the temptation towards other men, and I kept on explaining to him that I didn’t have any temptation towards other men, and he’d say that was hubris on my part, and that Satan was going to tempt me, and I told him that if Satan wanted to tempt me, he’d send a woman. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2019, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musing-why-do-people-think-someone-chooses-to-be-gay-or-straight/831880/14 "2019-04-01T21:17:07Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > Haven’t they noticed that no one **chooses** what individual they’re going to be sexually (or otherwise) attracted to? And that if you aren’t sexually attracted to someone, you just aren’t. I haven’t noticed any such thing. Let me put it this way: you know what you have experienced, seen, heard, and done in your lifetime. You do not know what all 7.6 billion people on earth have experienced, seen, heard, and done if their lifetimes. Some people believe that they do make choices about their sexuality. **Velocity** gave three examples. [Here’s a fourth](https://slate.com/human-interest/2019/03/born-this-way-queer-identity-fluidity.html). I was told frequently when growing up that no one’s sexuality ever changes. That is demonstrably untrue. I know many people in my lifetime who been gay and later straight, or straight and later bisexual, or etc… And there are famous examples such as the economist John Maynard Keynes, who was gay while young, then happily married to a woman for the remainder of his life. So to summarize, human sexuality is complicated and not everyone’s experience is exactly like yours. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2019, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musing-why-do-people-think-someone-chooses-to-be-gay-or-straight/831880/15 "2019-04-01T21:24:47Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Cynthia Nixon: [Being gay is a choice](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/cynthia-nixon-wit-being-gay_n_1223889) > > Julie Bindel: [“I choose to be lesbian”](https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2014/07/04/julie-bindel-being-gay-is-a-choice-i-chose-to-live-my-life-as-a-lesbian/) > > Social Inqueery: [“No one is born gay or straight”](https://socialinqueery.com/2013/03/18/no-one-is-born-gay-or-straight-here-are-5-reasons-why/) The last link (or at least its title) doesn’t support the idea that being gay or straight is a choice - there are plenty of attributes that people are not born with, but are also not chosen (I was not born speaking English, nor did I choose to do so). ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2019, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musing-why-do-people-think-someone-chooses-to-be-gay-or-straight/831880/16 "2019-04-01T21:29:23Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Cynthia Nixon: [Being gay is a choice](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/cynthia-nixon-wit-being-gay_n_1223889) > > Julie Bindel: [“I choose to be lesbian”](https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2014/07/04/julie-bindel-being-gay-is-a-choice-i-chose-to-live-my-life-as-a-lesbian/) > > Social Inqueery: [“No one is born gay or straight”](https://socialinqueery.com/2013/03/18/no-one-is-born-gay-or-straight-here-are-5-reasons-why/) Julie Bindel is an idiot, Cynthia Nixon is bisexual (a real thing!), a blogger has an opinion, and Slate continues to troll. (From ITR’s post not yours.) You have shown that not every idiotic statement about homosexuality comes from right wing Christians, so there’s that. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2019, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musing-why-do-people-think-someone-chooses-to-be-gay-or-straight/831880/17 "2019-04-01T21:51:58Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > I haven’t noticed any such thing. > > …\… > > So to summarize, human sexuality is complicated and not everyone’s experience is exactly like yours. _\_ You didn’t explicitly address the point of mine that you quoted. I didn’t say that people’s sexuality doesn’t change. I also know that there is such a thing as bisexuality, i.e., people who are attracted to individuals of both genders. What I said was that being sexually attracted to someone is not something that a person CHOOSES. If you CHOOSE to interpret that as a blanket statement that I intend to apply my individual experience to all people who have ever lived in all places at all times in history and pre-recorded history… then I can only conclude that it would not be fun to have a passionate but friendly discussion with you in a bar over giant margaritas and roasted macadamia nuts. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2019, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musing-why-do-people-think-someone-chooses-to-be-gay-or-straight/831880/18 "2019-04-01T22:13:05Z")
I remember the message of the Gay Rights Movement in the 70’s and 80’s being “We’re out, we’re loud, we’re proud, this is how we’re choosing to live our lives, get over it.” I think the straight, conservative people of the world focused on the “choosing to live our lives” part and thought they were talking about being gay, not being out, which is what the LGBT community really meant. When the studies came out in the 80’s and 90’s that indicated that, for some people, sexual preference seemed to be innate, they asked gay people when they knew they were gay and the answer amounted to “always?” ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2019, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musing-why-do-people-think-someone-chooses-to-be-gay-or-straight/831880/19 "2019-04-01T23:05:38Z")
> [@Ashtura](#): > > Because God making people gay and them punishing them for it makes no damn sense. (Only people I know that say that are religious). And, relatedly, “if you were born this way, then you’re saying that God purposefully made you in a way that is inherently sinful. As I can’t accept that the loving God that I believe in would do something like that, I can’t accept that you were born that way.” (Again, to be clear, this is _not_ my opinion!) ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2019, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musing-why-do-people-think-someone-chooses-to-be-gay-or-straight/831880/20 "2019-04-01T23:13:26Z")
\*\* why do people think someone “chooses” to be gay (or straight)?\*\* I’ve heard if you choose gay you get a toaster oven. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musing-why-do-people-think-someone-chooses-to-be-gay-or-straight/831880.md?page=2)