Homosexuality can be a choice for some people

[OphidiaPhile]

I agree that for most people it isn't a choice, but for me it was. I chose exactly that: to start liking the same sex.

I'm sorry to labour this point, but it's important to me. I don't like it when people stand up and say, "It's never a choice for anyone, ever." Um, excuse me, but yes, it is. For some people.

Could there have already been a propensity to be attracted to the same sex which led to the decision to acknowledge it?

 

[cantata]

Could there have already been a propensity to be attracted to the same sex which led to the decision to acknowledge it?

No.

 

[Washington]

No.

If you think the following question is too personal feel free to tell me to bug off.

What were the main factors that tipped you to your choice? I ask because it's always been my belief that sexual preference was not a matter of choice, and your situation intrigues me.

 

[cantata]

If you think the following question is too personal feel free to tell me to bug off.

What were the main factors that tipped you to your choice? I ask because it's always been my belief that sexual preference was not a matter of choice, and your situation intrigues me.

Not good reasons, I'm afraid. Mostly, the desire to find a reason for feelings of loneliness, alienation, and "not fitting in". It's difficult to explain to people who have never experienced depression that seems inexplicable at the time - perhaps you have, in which case you're probably in a better position to understand - but sometimes not knowing why you feel paralyzingly unhappy is worse than the unhappiness itself. I sought (i.e. made up) reasons for several years; I tried several other reasons for size before sexual orientation.

Ultimately, I never decided to become a lesbian. I decided that I was one. As a made-up cause, it suited my symptoms very well. After a good while - about three years - of telling myself I was gay, I found that I was actually attracted to women and that it didn't take any effort any more to see things in a woman that appealed to me. Whereas before I would see women and go through a mental process of reminding myself that I was supposed to find them attractive, I found myself just skipping straight to the attraction part. (Incidentally, although I tried, I couldn't stop being attracted to men.) This attraction has only grown stronger over the years, and if anything there are now considerably more women to whom I am attracted than there are men.

I'm not proud of my motivation for changing, but I am delighted with the change itself and honestly couldn't be happier with my sexual orientation. Other people have better reasons; see queerbychoice.com.

Some things I'm not saying:
- I'm not saying everyone can change their sexual orientation.
- I'm not saying anyone should change their sexual orientation.
- I'm not saying it's possible to go from a Kinsey 0 to a 6 or vice versa (although I don't deny this either).
- I'm not saying that people who claim not to have chosen did, in fact, choose.

Perhaps my success where others might have failed came from the fact that my motivation to change had nothing to do with shame or disgust about my "natural" orientation.

 

[Wyzaard]

So what are you saying? Because they chose to have sex with people of the same sex they are not gay but something else?

I'm a straight guy, married to a woman... and I've thought about having sex with men. However, it's always been a matter of curiousity rather than desire; I've met some hot guys over the years of whom I would have had a shot at, but the tingle just wasn't/isn't there. And boy, would it have made my sex life more interesting! Crud. My sexual orientation just isn't up for modification, no matter what I might want instead.

 

[Washington]

Not good reasons, I'm afraid. Mostly, the desire to find a reason for feelings of loneliness, alienation, and "not fitting in". . . .

. . . Perhaps my success where others might have failed came from the fact that my motivation to change had nothing to do with shame or disgust about my "natural" orientation.

Thank you for your candor. It's a rarity around here. And I do understand your situation and empathize with it. I'm just glad it's brought you as much peace as it has. Also, your motivation is nothing to be ashamed of or even questioned. The end result is what counts. In fact, I see absolutely nothing wrong with your motivation. It appears to be a natural and beneficial outcome of your particular situation.

 

[Beanieboy]

I agree that for most people it isn't a choice, but for me it was. I chose exactly that: to start liking the same sex.

I'm sorry to labour this point, but it's important to me. I don't like it when people stand up and say, "It's never a choice for anyone, ever." Um, excuse me, but yes, it is. For some people.

I think that for many gay people, who are constantly told that they choose it, that it was a choice, like deciding between pizza and hamburgers for dinner, are afraid that someone will take your statement, use it to claim that it is proof that one can change from gay to straight by choice and determination and conditioning, even if you disagree with that yourself.

I have known people that have tried to change my dating women, marrying them, sometimes even fathering children, and all of it ending in divorce, because they knew that they weren't heterosexual, just trying to be one.

Does that mean that no one has a choice? Apparently not, but the majority are just following their nature, and their hearts. You are the first person that said she chose that I have met. That doesn't mean that such exist, but it isn't very common, and I feel that that is what the OP is fishing for - that someone can be as equally attracted and sexually satisfied, as well as fall in love with, the same sex as the opposite sex, by simple choice. "I'll pizza tonight." or rather, "I can learn to like brussel sprouts." Like, yes. Love, doubtful. Add to that, "but with enough prayer and faith," and that has left a number of gay people that can't change, who have tried, wondering why God won't listen, what they did wrong, etc. There are a number of them if you go to exgays at YouTube. One after another of believing that "they could change with Jesus", and didn't.

 

[cantata]

I think that for many gay people, who are constantly told that they choose it, that it was a choice, like deciding between pizza and hamburgers for dinner, are afraid that someone will take your statement, use it to claim that it is proof that one can change from gay to straight by choice and determination and conditioning, even if you disagree with that yourself.

Perhaps. However, that has not been my experience. Generally, people who object to same-sex relationships tend to find my experiences rather embarrassing. They like to think that there's a conspiracy to keep choice under wraps.

I guess I can only suggest that you have a look at the "Implications of Choice" links on this page. There are some good arguments there about the effects on the rest of the queer community of queer-by-choice people "coming out". A few quotes:

"No matter what you tell parents about what causes queer feelings, parents know that having a queer-supportive environment and openly queer role models makes it more likely that their child will come to terms with their queer feelings instead of allowing their parents to intimidate them into an unhappy marriage."

"it's insulting to all queers that the mainstream queer movement (especially in the United States) argues in court on a regular basis that the reason people have a right to be queer is that we supposedly can't help it. That is not the reason that anyone has the right to be queer. The reason everyone has the right to be queer is that everyone has the right to control their own mind and body unless it infringes on anyone else's right to control their mind and body."

"Dr. Laura recently motivated hundreds of thousands of homophobes to flood Vermont lawmakers' offices with letters and phone calls railing angrily against the possibility of same-sex marriage, on the grounds that gay people are, in the words of Dr. Laura, "biological errors." ... Gosh, what a lot of good that biological theory did for queer rights."

I don't agree with everything on that site, by the way, but there are some good essays and resources on there.

Incidentally, I completely sympathise with you feeling hurt or browbeaten when people tell you that you chose and can choose again. I feel exactly the same when people tell me I didn't choose.

I have known people that have tried to change my dating women, marrying them, sometimes even fathering children, and all of it ending in divorce, because they knew that they weren't heterosexual, just trying to be one.

Does that mean that no one has a choice? Apparently not, but the majority are just following their nature, and their hearts. You are the first person that said she chose that I have met. That doesn't mean that such exist, but it isn't very common, and I feel that that is what the OP is fishing for - that someone can be as equally attracted and sexually satisfied, as well as fall in love with, the same sex as the opposite sex, by simple choice. "I'll pizza tonight." or rather, "I can learn to like brussel sprouts." Like, yes. Love, doubtful. Add to that, "but with enough prayer and faith," and that has left a number of gay people that can't change, who have tried, wondering why God won't listen, what they did wrong, etc. There are a number of them if you go to exgays at YouTube. One after another of believing that "they could change with Jesus", and didn't.

I have a deep sympathy for people who have been abused into trying to change their sexual orientation.

But however sympathetic I feel towards them, it makes no difference to my own experiences or my right to talk about them, and to protest when people try to tell me that they know better than I do how I came to be the person I am today. Nothing I've said contradicts anything you've said above.

I honestly believe that queer-by-choice people are a) more numerous than most people think, and b) an important part of the queer rights machinery. As my good friend Gayle mentioned above, it really doesn't matter what homophobes think is the source of gay people's gayness. In fact, she points out that the über-homophobe Fred Phelps thinks that gay people can't change. One more quote:

"Perhaps the most important contribution of queer by choice people to the fight against homophobia is that when we say that we chose to be queer, we force people to realize that it's possible to want to be queer. For too long homophobes have painted us as one-sided creatures who experience nothing but nonstop pain. To paint us this way is to paint us as something less than full and well-rounded human beings, and they paint us this way specifically to scare others into repressing their own potential queerness. The reality is that there's much to enjoy about being a member of the queer community and we who are queer by choice want homophobes to realize and acknowledge that."

 

[WatersMoon110]

Not good reasons, I'm afraid. Mostly, the desire to find a reason for feelings of loneliness, alienation, and "not fitting in". It's difficult to explain to people who have never experienced depression that seems inexplicable at the time - perhaps you have, in which case you're probably in a better position to understand - but sometimes not knowing why you feel paralyzingly unhappy is worse than the unhappiness itself. I sought (i.e. made up) reasons for several years; I tried several other reasons for size before sexual orientation.

Ultimately, I never decided to become a lesbian. I decided that I was one. As a made-up cause, it suited my symptoms very well. After a good while - about three years - of telling myself I was gay, I found that I was actually attracted to women and that it didn't take any effort any more to see things in a woman that appealed to me. Whereas before I would see women and go through a mental process of reminding myself that I was supposed to find them attractive, I found myself just skipping straight to the attraction part. (Incidentally, although I tried, I couldn't stop being attracted to men.) This attraction has only grown stronger over the years, and if anything there are now considerably more women to whom I am attracted than there are men.

I'm not proud of my motivation for changing, but I am delighted with the change itself and honestly couldn't be happier with my sexual orientation. Other people have better reasons; see queerbychoice.com.

Some things I'm not saying:
- I'm not saying everyone can change their sexual orientation.
- I'm not saying anyone should change their sexual orientation.
- I'm not saying it's possible to go from a Kinsey 0 to a 6 or vice versa (although I don't deny this either).
- I'm not saying that people who claim not to have chosen did, in fact, choose.

Perhaps my success where others might have failed came from the fact that my motivation to change had nothing to do with shame or disgust about my "natural" orientation.

Out of curiosity, how do you reconcile this with your belief that free will doesn't exist?

I'm not saying that you didn't purposely change your sexual orientation. I know that I had no success at any attempt to change mine, but your case is different from anything that I have experienced. But, from my point of view, sexual orientation is heavily influenced by hormonal levels and acting upon it is strongly influenced by past experiences and biological make-up (all human decisions/actions are, in my opinion, based on past experiences).

I guess that is getting sort of off topic. But I was just wondering how you could believe that free will doesn't exist, but also believe that you chose your sexual orientation. Maybe your ideas about free will are different from mine (that humans respond based on their past experiences)?

 

[cantata]

Out of curiosity, how do you reconcile this with your belief that free will doesn't exist?

Good question.

I, like everyone else, use the language of free will colloquially every day. Like you, I believe that everything we do is 100% the result of a mixture of biology, experience, and environment. But that doesn't stop me from having the illusion of choice (as most people have) in my everyday life. I have no illusion of choice in, say, my preference for cranberry juice over orange juice. But I have the illusion of choosing to have toast rather than cereal for breakfast. Whereas the cranberry juice preference just happened to me, I feel like I could have had the cereal rather than the toast (although my philosophical outlook insists that I couldn't). And for me, my sexual orientation was in the "illusion of choice" category of things. I feel like I could have been straight. I feel like I did things voluntarily that caused me to become bisexual.

I'm not saying that you didn't purposely change your sexual orientation. I know that I had no success at any attempt to change mine, but your case is different from anything that I have experienced. But, from my point of view, sexual orientation is heavily influenced by hormonal levels and acting upon it is strongly influenced by past experiences and biological make-up (all human decisions/actions are, in my opinion, based on past experiences).

I guess that is getting sort of off topic. But I was just wondering how you could believe that free will doesn't exist, but also believe that you chose your sexual orientation. Maybe your ideas about free will are different from mine (that humans respond based on their past experiences)?

Put simply: insofar as I believe anyone makes a choice about anything - which is not at all, but that we still have the illusion of having chosen - I believe that I chose this. I'm sure that you too have the experience in your life of feeling that some things "just are", and some things are "chosen".

 

[cantata]

Thank you for your candor. It's a rarity around here. And I do understand your situation and empathize with it. I'm just glad it's brought you as much peace as it has. Also, your motivation is nothing to be ashamed of or even questioned. The end result is what counts. In fact, I see absolutely nothing wrong with your motivation. It appears to be a natural and beneficial outcome of your particular situation.

Thank you.

It's certainly made my life better in ways I couldn't have imagined, so I am very glad!

 

[SallyNow]

I've interacted with people who said that they wanted to "experiment" with the same sex. They had been influenced by movies, photos, and inappropriate contentographic videos, or even been encouraged or pressured to try it by a partner. After they tried it, some of them liked it and considered themselves bisexual, and others said that they didn't and realized how straight they were

Or perhaps they had the urges before but didn't really realize what they were, and ignored them until they saw, in images, their urges played out before them. Really, this doesn't show that sexuality is a choice, but instead that people can repress their sexuality (whatever it may be) and then later unrepress it.

On a popuar radio station, a married couple that participates in the swinger lifestyle phoned in, the husband says that he occassionally dabbles in homosexuality due to the request of his wife. He says that before, he had never thought of being with another man, until his wife told him how much it excites her to see him with another guy. So now, he does this to make his wife happy. He enjoys it as well.

Sounds he may just be doing it for fun. Sex and seuxality are not the same. He may just like pleasing his wife, and fun sex fun, without having emotional attachment or attraction to men.

Now wouldn't that be an example of people who choose homosexuality?

Not at all. It's people who realize something, or who are doing something because it pleases their partner and is kind of fun.

It was a well thought out decision to engage in sexual relations with the person of the same sex.

Let me put it this way: A person can dress up like a sailor, but that doesn't make him one. Sure, it's fun to dress up a sailor, but it isn't what the person really is. They're just having fun pretending.

I don't think everybody chooses it, but some do. You hear it so often in today's culture, they even have new terms for it such as 'bi-curious'

Bi-curious is not about choice. It's about exploring one's heart through actions and thoughts and finding out about one's own sexuality, feelings, and fun while doing so. It's nothing new; sometimes the term "bosom buddies" would refer to such experimination (although the majority of the terms usage refers to just very close female friends) Now it's all fetishized, hyper-sexualized. Discovering what one likes and doesn't like isn't as simple for some, and if a person has been raised in an enviroment that discourages experimentation and discourages thinking outside the box then yes, people are going to experiment later.

Also, one last note: Say Anna is bisexual. She's had girlfriends, but she then settles in with a boyfriend, and they get married. Does that mean she's straight all of the sudden? No. It just means the person she fell in love with and wanted to spend her life with is a man.

The same goes for all those guys who repressed their homosexuality for years, maybe even got married, and then finally realized it wasn't worth living a lie.

 

[BigBadWlf]

Or perhaps they had the urges before but didn't really realize what they were, and ignored them until they saw, in images, their urges played out before them. Really, this doesn't show that sexuality is a choice, but instead that people can repress their sexuality (whatever it may be) and then later unrepress it.



Sounds he may just be doing it for fun. Sex and seuxality are not the same. He may just like pleasing his wife, and fun sex fun, without having emotional attachment or attraction to men.



Not at all. It's people who realize something, or who are doing something because it pleases their partner and is kind of fun.


Let me put it this way: A person can dress up like a sailor, but that doesn't make him one. Sure, it's fun to dress up a sailor, but it isn't what the person really is. They're just having fun pretending.



Bi-curious is not about choice. It's about exploring one's heart through actions and thoughts and finding out about one's own sexuality, feelings, and fun while doing so. It's nothing new; sometimes the term "bosom buddies" would refer to such experimination (although the majority of the terms usage refers to just very close female friends) Now it's all fetishized, hyper-sexualized. Discovering what one likes and doesn't like isn't as simple for some, and if a person has been raised in an enviroment that discourages experimentation and discourages thinking outside the box then yes, people are going to experiment later.

Also, one last note: Say Anna is bisexual. She's had girlfriends, but she then settles in with a boyfriend, and they get married. Does that mean she's straight all of the sudden? No. It just means the person she fell in love with and wanted to spend her life with is a man.

The same goes for all those guys who repressed their homosexuality for years, maybe even got married, and then finally realized it wasn't worth living a lie.

Excellent response