It's Not Gay/Straight, Either/Or Situation. Sexuality is More Complex
We always ask the question are people "born gay"? However, I think you have look deeper than that to even scratch the surface of this question. There are not just two camps, one same-sex loving and one opposite-sex driven. Instead, there is a continuum of sexuality onto which people fall at different levels.
Some gay-identified men and women have never been with a member of the of the gender, and have never had the first desire to do so. Others, equally gay-identified, have been with the other sex, with varying degrees of success and enjoyment. Then there are bisexual-identified people who find both genders to suit their palate. When looking at this situation, we have to look at the full spectrum. I would argue that when we do, there is far more reason to assume that the full slate human desire, strong and true, is far more logical to see sexuality as the product of who we are as people rather than as who we have been "nurtured" into being.
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If you need more, just let me know.
-Jeremy
Jeremy Hooper
Good As You
www.goodasyou.org
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Humans have an intellectual sweet tooth, a desire for simple answers to complex questions. The more complex the issue, especially if it's surrounded with anxiety, the simpler the demanded answer. We crave cognitive candy , and this question is a case in point.
We don't know what sexuality is in the brain, or how it works; it really is one of the greatest mysteries in psychology. And we also have no consistent definition of " gay ". So there's no way on Earth that any statement like "people are born gay" or "people choose to be gay" can have any factual meaning. In the absence of clear understanding and good evidence, this kind of debate is like arguing over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
There probably is no single answer -- genes, development, enculturation, family life, opportunities for expression, and experiences all have their roles to play, and their relative importances are different in different people. People who are gay -- whatever the term means -- probably get there by a wide variety of routes, each involving different amounts and kinds of personal choice than others.
Only bigots believe that some group of human beings is stamped out of one uniform mould. (Which, in my opinion, makes it deeply -- and disturbingly -- ironic that we tend to hear "people aren't born gay" from the likes of Exodus International and "people are born gay" from the gay establishment. When anti-gay religious activists are more prepared to grant gays free will and human individuality than pro-gay activists are ... something is very wrong .)
I think it can't be ruled out that some people do have a genetic inheritance that predispose them toward one partner choice or another -- but it can definitely be ruled out that any such gene will have an absolute (or even very strong) correlation with sexual identity or behaviour in adulthood. (Not that even this would necessarily answer the question in any case: imagine a child , told all his life that his genes mean he will be gay when he grows up, and it's okay because it's his genes and he can't help it. He grows up gay. Now, did he grow up gay because of his genes, or because of his and his social environment 's sense of destiny?)
We are made male or female.
UNLESS, there is a biological quirk and something happens such as a hermaphrodite or some other condition. That is not the purpose of the discussion here.
Male/female and the two go together like a horse and carriage.
Sodomy and homosexuality are banned in all societies unless that society is morally on the SKIDS! We're there. Oh, we are definitely there.
So if all the homosexuals win, what have we all got?
It reminds me of "Pottersville".... George is wondering if his life affected others and he is given a vision of the decadent, debauched Pottersville and all its wretchedness. Is that what you want?
Love the gays , hate the sin. Period. End of discussion. God doesn't have to change , we have to change. It's called "repentance" and is the beginning of a wonderful relationship. :O)
"Male/female and the two go together like a horse and carriage."
Yes we are born having one reproductive organ or the other. So, yes for the purposes of reproduction we do in fact go together. That does not however mean that that is the only usage of these organs. Homosexuals are very capable of reproduction. Enjoying sex with a person of the same sex does not keep you from for the purposes of reproducing being with someone of the opposite sex.
To merely say "We do not know, therefore yes, people can be born gay" is not an argument for this position. As others have pointed out, it is more closely a refusal of the position than a support thereof.
I portend that the only conclusion that can come from this debate is both sides (and people in the middle) to just throw up their hands and say some form of "So what?".
Are people born gay? Yes, so what?
Are people born gay? No, so what?
I completely agree that human sexuality is not binary by any means; but this does not attempt to answer the question, "Are people born gay?"
Technically, life is complicated as a whole. There is no definite answer to "Are people born gay?" Life does not give a definite answer; it never gives a yes or no.
I honestly don't understand why some people think it's important to know if gay people are born gay or not. Perhaps, it's a bit of both: nature and nurture. . .
Love the person you want for their intellect, their personality, etc. Never mind the gender, race, etc.
If you were born homosexual and science and medicine could prove it, they cant so we will take there word for it, then psycologists and socialogist would be screaming to put homosexual children into homosexual homes and visa versa and they are not because they know as well as the rest of us that your sexual preference is C-H-O-I-C-E. Good articles at narth.com and at exodus international web site. This one is another reason I say let adult homosexuals live how they want to but children do not need to be put in these environments through adoption .
http://www.drtraycehansen.com/Pages/writings_samesex.html
Titled appropriately
Love Isn’t Enough: 5 Reasons Why
Same-Sex Marriage Will Harm Children
By Trayce Hansen, Ph.D.
Significantly more compelling than a simple bullet-point list:
http://pandagon.blogsome.com/2007/10/18/psychologist-takes-on-science-free-anti-gay-psychologists-article-on-marriage-and-children /
if a man has what ever it takes to make them more attracted to men, they are simply going to find more persons that they look at being men, strike up more amorous conversations with men. perhaps the "less gay" they are they increase the number of women they might date. but we do know that many persons who are self declared as gay have dated women. the lessons we learn from them was that they chose to be with women due to standards and expectations but that they only addmit they are gay, to themselves and perhaps others. they readily report how the shape of a man, his scent and more were always tugging at them without permission. I am gay and have never sought the company of a woman sexually, I have had opportunity and a flexible mind. I have fallen in love with a girl as young adult and experiment you might say with kissing. while i reveled in the intimacy of our kisses as an expression of loving her, I never got aroused by her scent, form or the mere thought of pleasure. It is like how I will each a brussel sprout to force myself to a better diet but have never taken pleasure in it, and don't get me started on beets. I have such an adversion to everything I have experienced from them that I litterally cannot comprehend the words being used to describe them when people who like them as delicious. I was never scared by a beet, I just taste metal when I eat them, not the sweet I hear so much about. I choose to not eat beets but it is because I dislike the taste. since alot of people eat beets is something wrong with me? only a moral judgement would say yes as it hurts no one that I don't. infact there are more beets for you. if we all wanted or needed beets there could be a problem of scarcity when beet crops failed.
This post is actually an argument against your position. If there is a spectrum on which people fall, who would make it into the "gay" section and who would make it into the "straight" section?
You are really just regurgitating Kinsey. And actually, I agree with Kinsey on this point. I think some of us are born with a higher propensity toward homosexuality. However, you make no argument and you do not show how this helps your position. Let's say I am 49% hetero- and 51% homosexual, am I gay or bi or what am I?
Kinsey reported that the majority of people he studied (can't remember what the percentage was but it was pretty high) had had at least one homosexual fantasy. So how many fantasies does it take to become gay?
The answers to these questions, as you have stated, are not simple, they are extremely complex. Sexuality is extremely complex. So then the better question is why do people become, as you put it, gay identified or bi identified? Maybe they are simply the people who are on the 99% to 100% homosexual side of Kinsey's spectrum? But then what about the bi people? Are you following how your post is actually an argument against your position?
To put it simply, if you agree that there are different levels of sexuality, as you put it, or to put it more clearly, differing propensities towards hetero-, homo-, and bi-sexuality, then you are actually arguing that there is choice involved.
Thanks for your post.
Yes, there is very likely choice involved for SOME people who fall more towards the middle of Kinsey's spectrum of orientation. But the further one falls toward either end of the spectrum, the less choice is involved.
I think this is one of the difficulties gay people face in society. There are a significant number of people, both in straight and gay relationships, who honestly recognize that they DID have a choice -- they COULD have fallen in love with someone of either gender. These people are bisexual, even if they do not personally identify as such. And many of them, both gay- and straight-identifying, generalize their experience to the rest of the population and assume that, because THEY had a choice, EVERYONE ELSE must also have had the same choice, must have the same feelings they experience.
This presents a problem for the people at the far-end of the gay side of the spectrum. People at the "straight" end are not hurt by the issue of "choice" -- they have society's official okey-dokey and often simply assume that people in same-gender relationships are just "perverse" and have decided for some inexplicable reason to do something that the straight-end folks cannot imagine doing.
The people more towards the middle just assume that everyone had they same choice they did, and that therefore, they should simply accept the "consequences" of that "choice."
The people at the far-end on the homosexual side, however, know that they didn't have a choice. Nobody ever gave them a choice. They've been this way for as long as they can remember, and yet they have all the other people pointing a finger at them and telling them they MUST have chosen to be this way. Of COURSE they must have.
I said somewhere else that it is very much like the story of the blind men and the elephant. Each of us finds ourselves touching the elephant's trunk or leg or flank or tail, and assumes that everyone else MUST be sharing the same experience.
Not true. If we could all learn a little empathy and learn to take people at their word when they are describing their experience as very different from our own, the world could be a much more understanding place to live.
In the end, I like the way psychologist John Money put it. He compared sexuality to the development of language. He argued that a person is not born speaking English. And nothing in their genetics made them learn English rather than Swahili. Rather, the fact that a person learned English depended on their native culture. It has been shown that brains are innately predisposed to assimilate a language, whatever language that may be. Once it is acquired, the language becomes so natural to us that it’s as if we were born with it. Yet no matter how natural our native tongue may be, we know we are not born speaking English. In like manner, no matter how natural our same gender attractions may seem, let us not confuse that to mean that we were born gay.
Sexual orientation and language are not alike in any way. They arise from different parts of the brain and in very different ways, both in the individual and in the species.
Instinctive sexual behavior has been part of the genetic make-up of the species (and its predecessor species) for millions of years longer than organized complex language (such as English and Swahili). While most species have innate, instinctive capacities for some form of rudimentary or even relatively complex communication, the aspects of that communication which are instinctive and heritable are generally non-verbal, and are similar across all closely-related members of the species, even those which live in different geographic regions and have no contact with one another. Humans have similar non-verbal, instinctive behaviors (sexual behaviors, among them). But, while the capacity for spoken language is heritable (both the mechanical capacity and the mental capacity), the language, itself, is not inherited.
Sexual behavior, though, is far more instinctive. It is the basis of the species' survival (explaining why the majority of individuals in a species will always be primarily heterosexually oriented). Heterosexual individuals do not LEARN to be heterosexual. If heterosexual behavior had to be learned, then many, many species would have long since died out from lack of copulation and reproduction, because infants in the majority of species leave their mothers' care at the point when the mother is ready to mate again and bear more offspring. They never have an opportunity to "learn" to be heterosexual. In the same way, our sexual desires and behaviors are not, at their most basic level, learned. They are instinctive.
For a variety of reasons, most probably genetic, some possibly due to intrauterine hormonal fluctuations and exposures, a certain percentage of the human population (like that of most animal species) develops instinctive sexual traits which cause them to be sexually attracted to members of their own gender.
This is nothing like language, or learning a new language. Can someone who is innately heterosexual learn to engage in a homosexual sex act? Of course they can. Will this ever be "natural" for them? Will this make them become innately sexually attracted to members of their own gender? Of course not. The only people who can readily imagine being attracted to members of either gender are bisexuals. People who fall at either end of the spectrum of sexual orientation cannot choose to fall in love with the gender to which they are not innately attracted. Can they learn to have sex with them? Probably. But I would hope we can all agree that having loveless, unfulfilling sex with no primary attachment of true attraction, love and devotion is not a good outcome and should not be anyone's goal. You can't learn to fall in love with a gender to which you are not attracted.
Hi Babaroni,
First, thanks for your post. I enjoy interacting in this fashion.
I will start with your final point. I agree we all need to learn a little empathy.
With that said, I think the rest of your post makes little to no sense logically. You have disproved your position. I see you marked YES to the question of whether or not people are born gay. But the presence of a spectrum at all necessitates the idea of choice (as you put it, "for some"). Remember, the question that we are discussing is: are people born gay? This is a question that necessitates something like a "gay gene" analogous to those who are born with male-pattern baldness or something like that. Studies confirm that men are born with the genetic code for male-pattern baldness. I have yet to see any conclusive study on this same type of thing for homosexuality. And yet I continue to hear about it over and over again . . . getting a little boring I think.
I also find that the idea of bisexuality seems to contradict a "gay gene." It seems to me that the idea of being born a certain way means you either have it or you don't. Do you follow my logic? So, if someone has the gene, they are gay. If they do not, they are straight. But this is not the case at all. If a male child is born with "male-pattern baldness," there is nothing he can do about it short of taking treatments or wearing a hairpiece or getting plugs. What you are saying is that there is a genetic make-up that means that certain people are 100% gay and certain people are 100% straight. This is not what Kinsey found and this is not supported by any studies that I know of. In Sexual Behavior and the Human Male, Alfred Kinsey wrote this:
“Males do not represent two discrete populations, heterosexual and homosexual. The world is not to be divided into sheep and goats…The living world is a continuum in each and every one of its aspects." I agree with him and yet in the Western world we remain obsessed with categories.
Can I ask you this: do you agree that sexuality develops out of a complex web of biological and environmental factors? If so, then can you really respond "YES" to the question of whether or not people are born gay?
And I do not follow your reference to the old blind man and the elephant metaphor. Are you saying we are subjective beings? This is a pretty obvious point isn't it? And again, by bringing this up you have disproved your position. Really what the question at hand is about is whether or not there is a definitive genetic make-up for a gay person that will inevitably lead them to a homosexual lifestyle. I struggle to find this to be even a slightly defensible position.
Thanks for your post.
MARTIN: "And I do not follow your reference to the old blind man and the elephant metaphor. Are you saying we are subjective beings? This is a pretty obvious point isn't it? And again, by bringing this up you have disproved your position. Really what the question at hand is about is whether or not there is a definitive genetic make-up for a gay person that will inevitably lead them to a homosexual lifestyle. I struggle to find this to be even a slightly defensible position."
MY RESPONSE: Hopefully by now you have come to realize (assuming you are familiar with the fable of "The Blind Men and the Elephant," that my analogy is not nearly so nonsensical as you thought.
My point was that, while each of us lands somewhere upon the continuum between "gay" and "straight," and cannot change our orientation, still some of us, as a function of where we land, experience sexual attraction as something which is primarily directed towards people of the opposite gender to our own, while some of us experience it as something which is primarily directed towards people of our own gender, and still others experience it as a "choice" in that they find themselves attracted to people of either gender. That being the case, each of us, in relation to the continuum of sexual orientation, is like one of the old blind men in relation to the elephant in the story. If we land near the the trunk, we believe that an elephant is a lot like a snake. If we land near the tail, we are certain the elephant is most like a rope, etc.
In the same way, if we are born straight, we most likely assume that anyone who does not manifest heterosexual attractions and behavior is somehow simply a pervert. If we are born bisexual to one degree or another, we assume that everyone has a choice, since we seem to have a choice, being attracted to one degree or another to people of both genders. If we are born gay, I think most of us do understand quite clearly that the rest of the world does not easily identify with our sexual orientation, however, we understand their version of sexuality only by what we see in the culture around us, not by our own experience. We are, perhaps, best equipped of any group to understand the reality of others' experience, since we are surrounded by it, can clearly see that it exists and that it is real, and know without a doubt that it does not match our own.
MY RESPONSE: (Durnit, I wish they had block-quoting on here...) Yes, I do believe there is a "gay gene," or rather, a series of recessive genes which must all be present in some combination in order to produce an exclusively homosexual individual.
You bring up the example of someone who is left-handed. Left-handedness is not controlled by one single gene, but there is little denial that it IS a genetically-linked trait. Additionally, the world (despite your freshman biology lesson on dichotomous keys) is not divided up into "Right-handed People" and "Left-handed People." You certainly must be aware that some people are ambidextrous? And there is considerable scientific research available into how the brains of such people work -- which areas light up and which do not during a variety of activities involving certain types of thought and the use of one or both hands.
Even your example of the person affected by male-pattern baldness is not nearly so clear cut as you make it sound. Some people with male-pattern baldness become completely bald in a very short time, while others retain most of their hair for many years. Some thin only a little in the front. Others start with a large bare circle at the crown.
Genetics are not nearly as simplistic as our high school studies of "dominant brown eyes" and "recessive blue eyes" taught us to believe. Genes can work in combination with other genes in complex interactions in which the failure of one single gene to properly "turn on" can lead the the failure of the entire process.
Some genes are more fragile than others, as well. While most genes replicate perfectly, time after time, division after division, yet there are some which tend to malfunction or mis-replicate quite frequently, leading to common genetic mutation disorders such as "Fragile X."
It is likely that the "gay genes" may include some which are highly sensitive to subtle changes in the intrauterine environment. This would go a long way towards explaining why, while monozygotic twins have a greatly increased likelihood of sharing the same sexual orientation as compared with dizygotic twins, still the co-incidence is not 100%.
While I do not necessarily believe that Kinsey is the be-all and end-all expert on human sexuality, I do agree with many of his thoughts, including his view of a "spectrum" of sexual orientation. As I've pointed out here, there is nothing in my model which is inconsistent with a spectrum. Just as left-handedness is accepted as a genetically-linked trait, but is, itself, a point on a spectrum of hand-dominance, so, in all likelihood, is sexual orientation. Nor is there anything about characteristics being genetically-linked which would deny the possibility that they could also fall within a spectrum.
MARTIN: "Can I ask you this: do you agree that sexuality develops out of a complex web of biological and environmental factors? If so, then can you really respond "YES" to the question of whether or not people are born gay?"
MY RESPONSE: Yes, I do. But there is nothing about that viewpoint which contradicts the idea that people are "born gay." I believe that the environmental factors which assist in determining sexual orientation are intrauterine -- hormonal fluctuations, for instance. Studies have shown that the more older biological brothers from the same mother a man has, whether or not they are raised together, the higher his likelihood of being gay. The mechanism is thought to be an increased sensitization of the mother's immune response to the presence of a male fetus, similar to the effects of maternal (Rh-) exposure to first and subsequent pregnancies with Rh+ fetuses.
So, yes, whether being gay is 100% genetic (unlikely) or involves some environmental (probably intrauterine) influences upon the fetus' early development, I do believe that people are born gay (or straight, or somewhere along the continuum between the two, as determined by their specific genetic makeup and any environmental influences which have been exerted upon that genetic makeup) and that this sexual orientation is immutable.
(I'm going to have to split this response into a series of posts, since you have brought up so many issues. Please pardon any inconvenience, but I want to be sure I address all of your points)
Apparently my answer was not clear, since you have drawn so many incorrect conclusions from it. Let me take them one by one:
MARTIN: "I see you marked YES to the question of whether or not people are born gay. But the presence of a spectrum at all necessitates the idea of choice (as you put it, "for some")."
MY RESPONSE: Yes. I believe people are born with the sexual orientation which they carry through life. Some people are born exclusively (or nearly so) gay. They are rarely if ever attracted to the opposite gender, and would be incapable of sustaining a meaningful and satisfying intimate relationship with a person of the opposite gender. They may or may not be capable of completing a sexual act with someone of the opposite gender, but regardless of that ability or inability, could not have a satisfying marriage or long-term commitment to someone of the opposite gender.
There are people who are similarly exclusive in their attractions to the opposite gender, and who would be incapable of sustaining a satisfying and fulfilling committed, long-term marital relationship with someone of their own gender, even if some of them could complete a sexual act with someone of their own gender.
Then there are those who fall somewhere else along the spectrum, perhaps 50% attracted to their own gender and 50% to the opposite, or 75% to their own, and 25% to the opposite, or vice versa. Such people might find a satisfying and sexually and emotionally fulfilling relationship with a person of either gender.
My guess would be that the majority fall fairly close to the 90-100% "straight" end of the spectrum, with an increasingly sparse scatter towards the middle and "gay" end.
The point, however, is that wherever they are on the spectrum, that is where they were born and that is where they will die. Those who fall closest to the 50% mark at the middle of the spectrum experience their sexual orientation as a "choice." This does not mean that they "chose" to be bisexual. Their orientation is as it is. Their choice comes from the fact that they experience attractions to both genders relatively equally, and have a choice to be equally satisfied with a "gay" or a "straight" relationship.
There is nothing in my earlier post which contradicts this view.
MARTIN: "This is a question that necessitates something like a "gay gene" analogous to those who are born with male-pattern baldness or something like that. Studies confirm that men are born with the genetic code for male-pattern baldness. I have yet to see any conclusive study on this same type of thing for homosexuality. And yet I continue to hear about it over and over again . . . getting a little boring I think.
"I also find that the idea of bisexuality seems to contradict a "gay gene." It seems to me that the idea of being born a certain way means you either have it or you don't. Do you follow my logic? So, if someone has the gene, they are gay. If they do not, they are straight. But this is not the case at all. If a male child is born with "male-pattern baldness," there is nothing he can do about it short of taking treatments or wearing a hairpiece or getting plugs. What you are saying is that there is a genetic make-up that means that certain people are 100% gay and certain people are 100% straight. This is not what Kinsey found and this is not supported by any studies that I know of. In Sexual Behavior and the Human Male, Alfred Kinsey wrote this:
“Males do not represent two discrete populations, heterosexual and homosexual. The world is not to be divided into sheep and goats…The living world is a continuum in each and every one of its aspects." I agree with him and yet in the Western world we remain obsessed with categories."
I agree that people don't have much (if any) choice concerning where they fall on the spectrum, but I've often wondered if one's place on that spectrum is static throughout a life time. I don't have evidence either way and welcome people to condradict me. I just felt like adding that to the debate.
The religious right believes that someone can be forced, or will themselves, into an end of the spectrum. I've known bisexual people to wake up one morning and be intensely attracted to men, then to women the next day.
Jeremy,
I am not an expert, but I wonder if perhaps your comment was too limited in what it addressed. You only addressed behavior outcomes within the context of our current strongly pro heterosexual society.
I seem to remember studies from many years ago that concluded that the natural human tendency was for people to be born with congenital preference across the full spectrum between pure hetero and pure homo with the vast majority in various shades of bi. This preference is then shaped by the rubric of current social values that lead to the outcomes you describe.
That would imply that far fewer people are “born gay” than you might expect. It also mean that far fewer people are “born straight” than you might expect as well. The conflict comes from all of those people in the middle forced to conform to the imposed unnatural social values. Normally you would expect that the closer you are to one end of the spectrum the easier it is to move your outcome to conform, but human nature is more complex than that. Then you have to deal with people that have what I describe as angry reformed behavior complex. I’m sure you know the type. I made the sacrifice and quit (fill in what you want; smoking, drinking, being over weight, enjoying myself, whatever), “how dare you offend me and do that in front of me you weak willed sinner.” Or the less angry who feel “I want to be good, please don’t tempt me to take my life down that road of social scorn.”