I had the choice to experiment as a teenager, and I chose not to. Why? Because I did not find the idea of experimenting to be remotely appealing.
Now you: why did you choose not to experiment?
Let’s assume it is a choice.
Now explain to me why some choices are apparantly wrong, preferably without invoking the supernatural.
Prior to my friend expressing an interest, I hadn’t felt any particular desire for guys or girls. I decided I’d rather go with girls, and I felt that that was a choice I made. Some of y’all have a different definition or set of terminology for what’s involved in making a choice.
When did you start to feel “any particular desire”? Was it immediately after that choice, or some other time? For me, I can’t remember any time (even as a young child) without some sort of desire for girls/women, so I never felt as though I made a choice.
I think that’s called puberty. You didn’t choose your sexuality.
This is the strangest conversation. Like iiandyiiii, I can’t remember a time I didn’t like guys. Even before I became sexually aware of them I liked male actors better, liked male singers better, etc. I clearly remember feeling hints of what I now know was sexual desire at 7 or 8 and it was about a man.
In contrast, the only time I ever thought sexually about a woman was when I was grown up and in college and other people put those thoughts in my head.
I never felt as though I made a choice, either. To me it was like having curly hair. It just came with the package.
Why did you make that decision? What was your motive for deciding to go with girls?
Gay men don’t go through puberty?
Heh.
Just to make sure I’m grokking you, you feel you could have chosen to go for men instead?
Do you think that if you had said yes to experimentation in the 7th grade, you would be gay now?
I can think of three ways to make this decision:
- I could decide to like guys, but man, Brenda is so cute, and girls in dresses make me tingly.
- I could decide to like guys, but the homophobia of our patriachal system would subject me to increasing, possibly intolerable, bigotry and repression, and the social costs of this decision would outweigh any benefits.
- Eeny meeny miny moe…
Yep.
Maybe.
At the tender age of 13, I hadn’t actually seen (or, more precisely, noticed) much of either 1) or 2) above, so that really didn’t figure into the choice. I’m not sure why I went with the choice I did, but I’ve never been attracted to guys at all.
That doesn’t address the question, you’re just repeating the assertion.
You seem to be conflating “desires and attractions” with “capability to possibly feel desire and enjoyment”. These are not the same. It’s reasonable to take people at their word about what they feel (though I notice a tendency by many - including some in this thread - to accuse alleged homophobes of being repressed gays).
That’s not the same thing as taking people at their word about what they might be capable of feeling. It’s much harder to know that, and people have a tendency to assume that aspects of their personality are more inherent and immutable than they actually are, especially when - as is the case here - it’s something that forms a big part of their identity.
This has veered into sheer stupidity.
I knew I was attracted to the opposite sex well before kindergarten, long before I knew about sex. The gay people I’ve talked to about this similarly knew quite young that they were attracted to the same sex. There was no choosing involved.
But now he says he’s never been attracted to guys at all. Which is what we been saying all along - there’s a difference between attraction and action!
Exactly. He didn’t choose to be straight, he just is.
Okay then, because I have memories of my feelings, desires, attractions, and of my capabilities for these things.
I don’t think they’re the same thing (though they’re related) – I’m talking about all of those things.
So I may not be certain about my capabilities for certain feelings, but I’m confident that I can at least state my own opinion about my capabilities for certain feelings.
Not sure what we’re arguing about – obviously there’s no way to prove anything about feelings (or capabilities for feelings) at all. I’m telling you this is what I think about myself – that I don’t believe I’ve ever had the capability to feel desire and attraction for a man.
Not exactly. “Straight” doesn’t mean “not attracted to the same sex.” It means “attracted to the opposite sex.” His claim seems to be that he was asexual, attracted to nobody, then, when presented with the possibility of being attracted to one sex or the other or both or neither or IKEA furniture, decided to go with being attracted to girls, for a reason lost in the mists of time.
Ethilrist, it’s possible that you did make this decision for a reason other than a tingly feeling when you looked at Veronica or smelled Jill in the hallway or caught a glimpse of Lily’s bra strap. I won’t discount that. But when folks make decisions, they make them for a reason. You can’t remember the reason for the decision you claim you made. Given that everyone I’ve spoken with about their sexuality noticed, rather than decided, who to be attracted to, and given that you can’t pin down the reason for your decision, it’s hard for me to believe you when you say you made a decision of whom you’d be attracted to. It runs counter to my experience of attraction, and indeed my experience of every personal taste I’ve ever experienced, to say that it was a decision instead of an observation.