Is Being Gay a 'Choice'?

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You are mistaken. There is such a thing as certain traits being retained in the gene pool because some of those genes or combinations are beneficial in other ways. For instance, Africans suffer from sickle cell anemia, which isn't an advantage, but the same set of genes helps in resistance to malaria. In the same way, genes for attraction to the same sex could be the same ones that typically increase fecundity when found in heterosexuals. They just happen to be expressed differently sometimes. It stays in the gene pool because it is typically such an advantage to the species. Please educate yourself on evolution and natural selection before you make such definitive statements.

your assumptions are incorrect. you may find this documentary informative:



[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkvDvtdi2zM[/youtube]

I thought babies are born without attraction to either gender & it develops as they get older & start puberty.

I've known a lot of gay people in my lifetime whose lives have been filled with tragedy, humiliation, abuse, exploitation and in one such case suicide.

I can't see any reason why a person would wish to choose a life such as this.

I'm not saying that life is hard for all gay people but I still don't believe it to be a choice.

It's just the same as that I didn't choose my sexual orientation.

Last edited by babybird on 10 Apr 2014, 6:30 am, edited 1 time in total.

I don' t think who and what we find sexually attractive is anything we have particular control over - I don't think it's a choice. I don't recall a single moment in my life where I chose who and what I would and would not find attractive. I think the wider problem here is that some even need to consider the matter as to whether it's a choice or not. Homosexuality is natural. That's fine. Murder is natural. It's still bad.

I don't think sexuality is a binary, or even a three point spectrum- straight/bi/gay. I'm against anything that limits thinking and conceptualising without good reason.

I consider myself straight, but that doesn't mean my sexuality is the same as all other straight men, that all straight men have the exact same tastes and preferences and turn ons and behaviours and drives etc. Within 'straight', there are many, many varieties as to who and what one might find attractive, what might be a turn on, how it will be so, etc.

'Natural selection' does not work to produce sleek survival machines. That would be an expectation more in the way of intelligent design. It most legitimately selects against - where a strongly inheritable behaviour is disadvantageous enough to survival and reproduction, it will die out. Even then, there's an assumption of there being something else to select 'all else being equal'. But there's loads of human biology and behaviour that is, if one views it through that (unhelpfully) narrow idea of 'natural selection', 'maladaptive'. And yet, clearly, it still goes on.

And so what if it is a choice? People should be free to make that choice.

"Admittedly, a homosexual can be conditioned to react sexually to a woman, or to an old boot for that matter. In fact, both homo - and heterosexual experimental subjects have been conditioned to react sexually to an old boot, and you can save a lot of money that way... In the same way, heterosexuals can be conditioned to react sexually to other men. Who is to say that one is more desirable than the other? And who is confident to lay down sexual dogmas and impose them on others?"

William S. Burroughs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djAnRGcETyg

Actually, you choose to get transgender surgery.

Homosexuals aren't exactly known to reproduce too frequently. You can probably carry genetics for homosexuality without being homosexual—just like you can carry genetics for autism without being autistic.

If I said "apple trees are born to produce apples, and they dont 'choose' to produce apples" would you respond by "i thought apple trees only produced apples several years after they sprouted from the seed, and not when theyre first born"?

Apple trees are programmed to produce apples- but only after they reach a certain stage of maturity. Likewise humans are 'programmed' by their genes to be sexual after puberty (actually sexuality starts much earlier than puberty, and some gays report having gay urges at 8, and the same for hetero urges for straights- but lets put subject aside for a moment). The poster was implying that when puberty hits you become one or the other (gay or straight)(to make it simple), and that you were already programed to go one way or the other at birth. Not sayin you have to agree with it, but thats what theyre saying. And thats what seems most likely to me.

This is the first thing you've said on these forums that I agree with you on. The irony is that your beliefs are the most removed from reality of any member I've ever encountered on this site; especially regarding science of which you appear to have an almost total ignorance.

There is evidence that one's sexuality (attraction towards males or females) takes shape during the development of the foetus and this sexual orientation can be influenced by the hormone levels within the mother. A hormone imbalance can trigger the brain to develop a sexual orientation at odds with the physical sexuality of the foetus. Thus you can indeed be born gay. It is not a choice.

Who says 'gays dont reproduce frequently'?

A NT gay adult is probably more likely to have an opposite sex spouse- and to sire children by the spouse- than a heterosexual aspie is.

Marriage, and having kids, are "the thing to do". And Gays do it too.

I can't afford transgender surgery, and that sucks.

A money-based choice, then?

Whilst I can't speak for others (though I do have my opinions), I feel that for me being straight would have been easier, so if one could choose, surely I'd have chosen that?

I actually tried to like girls for awhile. Usually I guess gay people try to be straight because of societal pressure or whatever, but I was a bit odd in doing the opposite. Didn't work. I could choose to do things with girls, but I didn't particularly get anything out of it at all. I'm straight. Not a choice.

I don't believe being gay is a choice. I don't however think social stigma is a good argument against it being one however. There are plenty of things that have social stigma that people choose regardless, such as smoking cigarettes or eating their boogers.