Is "Gay" A Choice?

[Guest]

Well, then I think you're misreading what I originally wrote. I wrote that very few people are either born gay or straight. That doesn't mean I think that no one is. I just think that population is very small. What I mean is, that I think the vast majority of people are actually "bisexual" (I don't care for the term or labels in general) - given the opportunity and the right cultural and societal conditions they'd be open to having sex with either gender. If there were no cultural taboos against it I think a lot more people would be doing it.

With the risk of going off on a tangent, I'd point you to one of your own stories. The underlying implication in "Fisting the Flippers" is that two entire squads of cheerleaders are either lesbians or open to the idea of engaging in sexual acts with other women. Clearly you either believe that most women are at least open to the idea or the story is so fantastical that perhaps it should have been submitted under the "Science Fiction" category rather than the "Lesbian Sex" category.

Erica

And one of my stories takes place one hundred years ago.

This is fiction, sweetie. It has nothing to do with real life, and the truly horrific injustice being done to gay couples who wish to legally marry.

Why on earth do people oppose this?

You've stated you don't care about the science. That's fine. There are many people like you in the world.

I'm glad you aren't teaching my children, quite frankly, but you are entitled to your opinion.

The reason people are homosexual is irrelevant.

It's strange. It's almost as if - they choose to do it, therefore we can deny them equal rights!

But if they are born that way I suppose it makes it more difficult.

 

[Belegon]

Slash fans are not homophobic, darling, they are homophilic.

Multiple discussions were being addressed there, luv... I switched gears before that sentence and I guess it just wasn't obvious enough...

You win! What does she owe you?

Actually, the incident I am referring to took place a long time ago. And she didn't owe me anything, I just enjoyed the way she reacted to it.

 

[Safe_Bet]

Well, then I think you're misreading what I originally wrote. I wrote that very few people are either born gay or straight. That doesn't mean I think that no one is. I just think that population is very small. What I mean is, that I think the vast majority of people are actually "bisexual" (I don't care for the term or labels in general) - given the opportunity and the right cultural and societal conditions they'd be open to having sex with either gender. If there were no cultural taboos against it I think a lot more people would be doing it.

With the risk of going off on a tangent, I'd point you to one of your own stories. The underlying implication in "Fisting the Flippers" is that two entire squads of cheerleaders are either lesbians or open to the idea of engaging in sexual acts with other women. Clearly you either believe that most women are at least open to the idea or the story is so fantastical that perhaps it should have been submitted under the "Science Fiction" category rather than the "Lesbian Sex" category.

Erica

Do you often do things you dislike just because you can do them? Once you past the mid point of the Kinsey scale you "Prefer" your own gender. Even 6+'er chicks like me are physically capable of having sex with with a guy, but simply have no desire for them. So, yeah, we are all physically capable of being Bisexual, but with the exception of the "Experimenters" and "Fuck Anything that Moves Just to Get Off'ers", most people will follow their preferences IMO.

BTW, hon, thanks for reading my stuff, but you have got to realize that it's FICTION!!! "Fisting the Flippers" was a spoof of a certain pompous asshat and his favorite football team.

I don't really think that all of the Miami Dolphin Cheerleaders are lesbians... or that when they loose that they routinely give up the ass to the opposing team... honest!

I just prefer that they would be... (see how nicely I brought that back on subject????)

 

[Austin8]

Hunger may be biological, but eating M&Ms is a choice

 

[loganforester]

Hunger may be biological, but eating M&Ms is a choice

Being gay is biological. Having sex with men is a choice.

 

[Katyusha]

The entire argument is a crock of shit. Society has no business in the bedrooms of consenting adults period. Neither does religion. Let consenting adults marry whoever the hell they want to. The fact that this is still being discussed as an issue in 2009 is thoroughly disgusting.

Or the law. I can't for the life of me understand why anybody thinks they have the right to determine who may marry whoever they want and who may not. How does it adversely affect someone personally if gays marry each other? I keep asking this question and I never get a satisfactory answer from those who say, "The majority voted against, therefore the majority in this country doesn't want and you have to live with that."

Would somebody PLEASE answer that damn question?

 

[Austin8]

Logan

There is some biological element to sexuality, but IMO it is limited to the generic desire for sex, in the same way that hunger is biological, which leads us to want to ingest food. But what we choose to eat is quite varied.

 

[Guest]

Or the law. I can't for the life of me understand why anybody thinks they have the right to determine who may marry whoever they want and who may not. How does it adversely affect someone personally if gays marry each other? I keep asking this question and I never get a satisfactory answer from those who say, "The majority voted against, therefore the majority in this country doesn't want and you have to live with that."

Would somebody PLEASE answer that damn question?

They can't.

They are giving some of the same arguments against gay marriage that they used to give against having people of different races marry.

From this link - The History News Network.

http://hnn.us/articles/4708.html

. . . But it soon became apparent that Reconstruction would not survive long enough to become a turning point in the history of miscegenation law. As Reconstruction collapsed in the late 1870s, legislators, policymakers, and, above all, judges began to marshal the arguments they needed to justify the reinstatement--and subsequent expansion--of miscegenation law.

Here are four of the arguments they used:

1) First, judges claimed that marriage belonged under the control of the states rather than the federal government.

2) Second, they began to define and label all interracial relationships (even longstanding, deeply committed ones) as illicit sex rather than marriage.

3) Third, they insisted that interracial marriage was contrary to God's will, and

4) Fourth, they declared, over and over again, that interracial marriage was somehow "unnatural."

On this fourth point--the supposed "unnaturality" of interracial marriage--judges formed a virtual chorus. Here, for example, is the declaration that the Supreme Court of Virginia used to invalidate a marriage between a black man and a white woman in 1878:

The purity of public morals," the court declared, "the moral and physical development of both races….require that they should be kept distinct and separate… that connections and alliances so unnatural that God and nature seem to forbid them, should be prohibited by positive law, and be subject to no evasion.

The fifth, and final, argument judges would use to justify miscegenation law was undoubtedly the most important; it used these claims that interracial marriage was unnatural and immoral to find a way around the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of "equal protection under the laws." How did judges do this? They insisted that because miscegenation laws punished both the black and white partners to an interracial marriage, they affected blacks and whites "equally." This argument, which is usually called the equal application claim, was hammered out in state supreme courts in the late 1870s, endorsed by the United States Supreme Court in 1882, and would be repeated by judges for the next 85 years. . . .


Here's another link to a PDF file with specific arguments.

http://vfm.typepad.com/vermont_free...t_Interracial_Marriage_and_Equal_Marriage.pdf

Here's just the first example.

ARGUMENTS FOR THE PRESERVATION OF “TRADITIONAL” MARRIAGE:
THEN AND NOW

Arguments against Same-Sex Marriage Arguments against Interracial Marriage
in 2000 from 1948 to 1967


Interracial marriage runs counter to God's plan:

Then:
“Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he
placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his
arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he
separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.”
(Source: Virginia trial judge upholding conviction of Mildred and Richard
Loving for interracial marriage, quoted in Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1, 3
(1967))

Now:
Same-sex marriage runs counter to God's plan:
“If God had intended for same-sex couples to marry,
he would have made Adam and Steve, not Adam and
Eve.”
(Source: Vermont House and Senate Judiciary
Committee Public Hearings, 1/25/00, 2/1/00)


it's ludicrous. And it will eventually be properly legislated. And the laws will have to be forced upon some, just as it was with desegregation.

Equal rights under the law. That's all they want.

 

[Guest]

Logan

There is some biological element to sexuality, but IMO it is limited to the generic desire for sex, in the same way that hunger is biological, which leads us to want to ingest food. But what we choose to eat is quite varied.

Got any proof for your opinion?

Because I think you're full of shit.

Most of your posts concerning this have been childish and rude, like high school locker room insults.

You wanna sit at the big table and talk with the grownups now?

 

[3113]

So what is then that causes people to become vegetarians, athletes, poets, stockbrokers or bank robbers?

Excluding the vegetarians and bank robbers for a moment, this is apples and oranges. First, there is no biological imperative to become any of these things. There is a biological imperative to have sex. Few animals become stockbrokers, poets, or athletes. All animals have sex. Second, while a person who becomes a poet may, indeed have no choice in the matter of whether or not they like words and putting them together he/she still has other options that involve that same talent. Journalism, ad writing, speech writing, editing, to name a few.

This is why it's a choice. That range of options. Furthermore, it's rare that any of us have only one quality that we can turn into a job that we like. I love telling stories and playing with words, but I'm also a pretty good teacher, and I like to cook. I have a range of talents that I could turn into a chosen profession. But when it comes to sex the choice is a bit more limited. Male or female? This is the problem with identifying sexual orientation with sexual lifestyle. You may have a lot of choices in what sexual kink you want to explore in bed, your preferences leading you to pick some over others. But what sex you want to be with is down to two.

Beyond the fact that you're comparing something biological with something cultural, your argument is apples and oranges because neither the poet, stockbroker or athlete were told: "You can become this or that. Those are your two choices. Pick one." Imagine if someone had offered you two professions and no other choices at all. Just two. You can't pick anything else to be in your life. Would you say you'd actually made a choice if you picked the one you had some talent and inclination for rather than the one you couldn't do?

The vegetarian is another question altogether because it requires that we know why they became a vegetarian. Likewise the bank robber. Did the veggie become one because they get physically ill at the idea of eating animals? In that case, no, it's not a choice. Were they raised that way? Health issues? Easy to keep Kosher? These might are closer to being choices. Ditto on the bank robber. Is this a one-time thing or a profession? Do they enjoy it or just desperately need the money?

Apples and oranges again.

 

[3113]

But what we choose to eat is quite varied.

And just how varied is our sexual choice? Male or female. That's not real varied. What if you only had a choice of eating one of two things, all the time. Something you are ravenous for, and something that makes you sick just to look at it. Is it a choice if you pick what you're ravenous for?

Please realize that there are only two sexes. This is not about picking a position out of the kama sutra. It's about picking either male or female for a partner.

 

[Safe_Bet]

WOW, Sarahh! That was one of the best things I've ever read. I didn't recopy it here, but I certainly have it saved in my library and I took the liberty of copying it to the GLBT forum as well. Brava, chickie, Brava!!! X 12

 

[Guest]

WOW, Sarahh! That was one of the best things I've ever read. I didn't recopy it here, but I certainly have it saved in my library and I took the liberty of copying it to the GLBT forum as well. Brava, chickie, Brava!!! X 12

You are most welcome!

Of course, some people are still against interracial marriages, but at least the legality cannot be argued.

I hope it doesn't take another 50 years to legislate gay marriages, but it is inevitable, don't you think?

 

[sr71plt]

Around and around we go. Doesn't it all just continue to boil down to "you have no choice in what you are; you do have choice in what you do"?

 

[Huckleman2000]

Logan

There is some biological element to sexuality, but IMO it is limited to the generic desire for sex, in the same way that hunger is biological, which leads us to want to ingest food. But what we choose to eat is quite varied.

You say this with all the conviction of a complete ignoramus.

The problem with your "opinion", is that there is nothing to support it other than your own feeble reasoning, which, in the face of reality, amounts to a willfully ignorant type of faith. You may as well say, "IMO, the sky looks black in the daytime." You're entitled to say that; it doesn't make it more than elaborate nonsense to the rest of us.

 

[Safe_Bet]

Around and around we go. Doesn't it all just continue to boil down to "you have no choice in what you are; you do have choice in what you do"?

No. it currently boils down to "you have no choice in what you are; but other people can decide who you can love and marry"

 

[sr71plt]

No. it currently boils down to "you have no choice in what you are; but other people can decide who you can love and marry"

Only to those who let it control them.

 

[Dragonlipz]

I think that there are a very small percentage of gays that are that way naturally. I think that there are some that are forced into it by childhood trauma. I think that the largest percentage are by choice though. But then again, my opinion is only that and is not based on any science whatsoever.

Damn Dude! That's Deep!

 

[Safe_Bet]

Damn Dude! That's Deep!

*Snerk*