Came upon this lj and related website, and really, I’m not sure what to think.
For some background:
There’s a whole lot more in that vein, but that’s basically the gist of it. This girl states that she chose to become queer (bisexual, specifically, I believe)–not just chose to act on her desires but chose to conjure up these desires in the first place.
On the one hand, sexuality is fluid, Kinsey scale yadda yadda, you can’t conclusively prove that someone is gay or not, it’s all about how you identify yourself, and all that jazz. And it’s an entirely unsubstantiated theory of mine that the school of thought that says “you can’t choose to be gay” is a big part of homosexuality being accepted among straight folks–after all, they say, “They can’t exactly help it, can they?” Plus, it kind of takes people’s focus off sex and sexual desire–which, presumably, one would have to induce oneself to feel if being queer was a choice. We do still have somewhat Puritanical mores in America, and on the whole, I do think it’s more acceptable to say, “I can’t help being attracted by the same sex (and consequently having sex with them),” than to say, “Yep. I decided to be attracted to the same sex and to actively seek out same-sex partners.”
I do believe the idea of sexual orientation is a fairly recent one–perhaps someone who is better-read on this subject can come along and clarify? Maybe we’re creating a false dichotomy by saying “It’s either in your genes or it’s a clear-cut choice.” And really, if two consenting adults are doing whatever-they-want-to-do in their own homes and aren’t hurting anybody in the process, is it so important to find out their motivations behind it?
I am gay tolerant and thus have a few gay friends. They have all asked me at some point “How do you know that you are not gay?” My response has always been that I have never dreamed of being with a man or ever looked at another man in a sexual way. I look out at a crowed roon and all I see are the women that are in the area. They stop asking at that point and we continue on being just friends.
Maybe she did. Maybe a lot of people do. Personally, I don’t see why people can’t be gay on alternate weekdays if they want to, and bi at weekends.
In my opinion, the “nobody chose to be gay” view gets pushed rather hard because it makes anti-gays look more unreasonable. That’s politics for you I’m afraid.
I really can’t say. I mean obviously she can choose to boff whoever she wants. I could go out tomorrow and try to lay a woman for shits and giggles.
As for her inner sexual orientation, I really couldn’t say, and quite frankly if she described it to me I would guess she was probably bisexual to begin with, IMHO.
Nevertheless, I’ve always been uncomfortable with the “We didn’t choose this!” argument, because it implies that had we had the choice, we would have chosen differently, and that this would be all to the good.
It’s basically, “It’s not our fault!” to which I respond, “fuck you, it’s not A fault.” Freedom of consensual choice in sexuality is a basic human right, and that’s the end of it.
Maybe she did change her orientation, in every meaningful sense of the word - I suppose it can be argued that deep, deep down, she stil has some repressed kernel of her ‘true inner sexuality’, but I actually suspect that we might all find hidden beasties like that within ourselves, if we dug deep enough.
So maybe she did, maybe she didn’t. One isolated case doesn’t give us much of a handle on the general issue.
I happen to think that some people have a very firm and immovable ‘innate’ sense of what they are and for others, it might genuinely be a bit more malleable. Doesn’t really matter, because none of this is suitable support for the kinds of injustice that people are wanting to perpetrate based upon it.
Even if it is a choice, why the fucking hell shouldn’t I choose it?
To avoid potential confusion, I should probably mention that I’m heterosexual (not that there’s anything wrong with that) - so even if it is a choice, I didn’t, but I reserve the right to.
I’ve always thought the no choice argument was a mistake. Something that was brought home recently when I was reading a fundamentalist web site and they were talking about some recent study that supported the idea that homosexuality was biological and innate. And the response from those who accepted the study tended to be - yeah maybe it’s biological. So is alcoholism. It’s still a disease. Inotherwords, bigotry can circumvent that argument.
I tend to think it would be better to equate homosexual discrimination less with racial discrimination (“I was born this way”) and more with religious discrimination. That is, philosophies about the ultimate nature of the universe, about God and about how to whorship him are considered something integral to the person, which the government has no business interfering with. I think a persons own sexuality should be given the same respect.
From a fundamentalist veiwpoint, god doesn’t like Hindus (devil whorshippers!) any more than he likes homosexuals. But there’s an understanding that how they live and practice Hinduism is no one elses business. And no one questions that the govenment should recognize Hindu marriages.
I think people confuse a number of things. Being gay and having same sex intercourse aren’t the same thing. Gays are primarily attracted to men (pheromone related stuff and such), and heterosexuals are primarily attracted to women. But a backrub feels good no matter what the person who does the rubbing has between his or her legs. The difference is that the first group is much more likely to fall in love, want to be with, and have babies with someone of the same sex, and the second with the opposite sex. People who have chosen to experiment and like the opposite of what they feel naturally attracted to, just enjoy sex, but it has less to do with attraction on a deeper level. They are almost always bi-sexual, unless perhaps traumatised by a bad previous experience.
Anyway, that’s my simplified stance on this, based mostly on the science I’ve read so far.
OMG … I know the author of the referenced LJ and website IRL. And since she’s writing under a pseudonym, I don’t want to say anything here that might somehow identify her, but …
Despite her statements that she “decided” to be gay, I find it much easier to believe that she discovered the existence of a deeply repressed side of her personality, and her “decision” was really only to accept that.
I’ve never understood why it can’t be a choice. I have no problem with it being either a choice or genetic, although I think it will be interesting if, in the long run, there are some people who are identified as being genetically gay who are not actually practicing homosexuals.
This has always reminded me of The Monitors, in which an alien race invades the earth and uses their advanced technology to identify exactly what everybody is genetically destined to do with their lives. People in their 40’s who found out that they were supposed to be ballet dancers quit their jobs and started taking dance lessons…
I’m with the “It’s not A fault” school as well. Having known at least three folks who leapt back and forth over the gay/straight fence (not straddling it, leaping over it), I have a hard time believing that it’s wholly genetic. Having watched the politics entangled in the sexuality of at least two of them, I have a hard time believing that there was no element of choice at all for them.
But above all, I have a hard time seeing why that’d be relevant. Liking beer was for me a choice: I set out to learn to appreciate it, and I learned to appreciate it. So what? If someone approaches gay sex like I approached beer, hey, more power to them!
It’s interesting only in an academic sense (in the same way that I’m interested in understanding the flavors that make beer tasty, that is). If homosexuality were causing harm, we might need to know, from a policy perspective, what causes it; but it doesn’t cause harm, so we don’t need to know.
Ah, yes, I have long felt that even though I don’t recall making a choice, I don’t care if it is a choice or not. “Born that Way”, and “Not a Choice” are two arguments that I don’t care for at all. Both seem to dodge blame for something I don’t see as blameworthy.
I’m of the opinion that it’s not a fault- I have no embarassment whatever about being gay- but I also agree with the (in most cases) it’s not a choice school. I think this is important- that it’s an intrinsic part of our lives.
I understand the other argument (after all, being Catholic or married is a “lifestyle choice” and both are protected constitutionally), but I’m not ready to remove the “it’s almost certainly biologically determined in most cases”.
I’ve kind of settled (theory of the month maybe?) on viewing sexual orientation like I view dominant hand.
I’m strongly left handed. Something in my biological makeup has led to this. With a lot of practice, I could become a good at using my right hand as I am with my left hand. I might even decide to become right handed this way. It’s not a fault, it’s just part of who I am.
The more I think about this, the more odd little similarities I see. Much smaller scale, but still. Example: My mother was born left-handed, but the schools tried to force her to be right handed, because it was “correct”.
Neither am I – I just want to suggest it’s neither necessary nor sufficient as an argument that we should have human rights. I’ve always preferred to argue we should have human rights because we’re human.
I, of course, am not really equipped to say one way or another, especially with the “in most cases” qualification. However, I think there’s more options than “it’s a choice” or “it’s biologically determined.” Specifically, it may be determined by one’s environment: whom one meets, what happens in one’s life, and so forth.
The three people I mentioned earlier who leapt the fence were three of the four non-straight people to whom I’ve been closest: my first girlfriend, my uncle, and the guy who introduced me to the local Pagan community when I was sixteen. I can’t speak for my uncle’s experience, but my ex-girlfriend and the Pagan guy were both completely freaked out by their opposite-sex romantic emotions. It was not at all what they were expecting. Both of them firmly identified as homosexual, and the Pagan guy even held a lot of contempt for so-called bisexuals, thinking them cowards unwilling to face their true orientation or something (it didn’t make sense to me either).
I suspect that a lot of our sexual preferences are genetically based, but a lot are environmentally based. And I suspect that our sexual self-identification is strongly based on our environment: different cultures offer different models for sexual self-identification (College Lesbian wasn’t an option in colonial America, for example, and shieldbearer isn’t an option today). When a person’s preferences and tendencies don’t fit exactly in one of the models offered by their culture, they often might choose the one that seems to fit them the best/offers the most advantages/is aesthetically the most pleasing. But all those things can change, and so a person can appear to leap back and forth between different categories.
Some of us are 100% gay – sex with the opposite sex would be a real turn off – and some of us are 100% straight – sex with the same sex would be a turn off – but a lot of us are somewhere in the middle.
So the woman mentioned in the OP (Gayle Madwin) could have decided that she would stick to straight relationships, but instead decided to behave in a bisexual. So we all have choices: I had sexual relations with several women before I married, but decided to remain monogamous after marriage, not because other women don’t attract me, but because I want to be faithful and don’t want to hurt my wife. So Gayle could have decided to staty straight in spite of being attracted to women, but instead she chose to try lesbian relatiuonships.
Just because you have a choice doesn’t make one choice right and the other wrong. Some choices are clearly wrong, IMHO, such as being unfaithful in a committed relationship, but others have no moral rightness or wrongness, such as a person who has bisexual leanings choosing to go one way, or the other, or both ways. And personal choice should be protected, in matters such as political affiliation, religion, and sexual orientation.
As I understand it, the “it’s not a choice” stuff arose in response to social conservatives, primarily of the religious right, portraying gays as predators who “convert” young people and people whose straightness is otherwise in jeopardy in order to create more gays. Obviously, if gayness is hardwired, there’s no “conversion” process, people just respond to the way they’re wired as their sexuality develops. You can’t convert straights because they’re not wired to BE converted, except in a few cases where the wiring is faulty and permits both AC and DC current.
I think the RR would love it if gays were to accept “choice” as a mechanism for gayness, because it would give new traction to their claims that gays are by nature sexual predators. And it would give new impetus to those orgs they have for reclaiming gays to the straight life.
