Homosexuality: Choice or nature?

Alot of advocates of Homosexuality often use the "can't change it because they're born that way" argument of support tolerance for homosexuals, while others claim that it's a choice due to a bad environment, neglective parents, and whatnot. For me, this argument is remarkably similar to the "nature vs. Nurture" controversy that swept the scientific community years ago. However, based on my courses in Developmental, personality and abnormal psychology, it shows that both genes and environment play an important role (although arguments are still out on how much more each plays than the other). Reading other people's experiences with homosexuality, some admit that their sexual inclinations for people of the same sex faded away as they got older while others still maintain their sexual orientation. I believe that just as a person is likely to inherit certain traits or dispositions for certain orientations and sexual preferences, he is also likely to be influenced by environmental factors or even temporary preferences such as puberty, which is marked by development of sexual functions in the body and the release of hormones that promote sexual feelings and desires, which gradually decrease as adolescents enter into emerging adulthood.

Well even if homosexuality is a choice, it isn't right to restrict the rights of people simply because they choose to do so. Homosexuality is simply having a desire to be with members of the same sex. Choice or not it doesn't really matter. However I would say that I didn't choose to become bisexual, I am simply proud of my identity.

"If there is a hole then it's a man's job to thrust into it" - Ryoma from New Getter Robo

Obliviously its a choices as a large number people love being treated as second class citizens in a large number of first world countries and being hunted down and killed elsewhere.

edited 10th Dec '11 2:29:35 AM by BigMadDraco

Based on the age and religion demographics here, the consensus is almost certainly going to be 'nature'.

Scepticism and doubt lead to study and investigation, and investigation is the beginning of wisdom. - Clarence Darrow

I've always found this to be such a hugely unimportant question...

Unbent, Unbowed, Unbroken. Unrelated ME1 Fanfic

Nature. The environment and personal choice might have some influence, but even if it's true, it is very small. And even if it is a matter of choice, which I doubt, it shouldn't be grounds for discrimination.

edited 10th Dec '11 5:45:42 AM by MilosStefanovic

The sin of silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.

Nothing is ever a choice.

Murrl LustFatM

1. I totally disagree when people think that it is an unimportant question. Information about how humans work do matter - in my opinion, quite a lot.

2. I find it hilarious when people inside the GLBT community say it's nature, as a knee-jerk reaction and as if they actually knew this for a fact. (The same goes for the BDS Mers, by the way.) It gets even funnier if the same people then go on to claim that gender is a choice. AFAIK, current theories point to sexual orientation being more or less "nature", but I think we still know so little about the brain that everything's possible. (And I would honestly be amazed if the answer turned out to be 100% either way.)

3. Of course, the question should not matter with regard to what people are allowed to do in their bedrooms. Do people get hurt? Are people involved that did not consent? If the answer to both questions is a clear no, then nobody except the participants has a say in that.

From what I have seen, most people within the LGBT community view gender as being nature, rather than a choice. If gender were a choice, then there would be very few transgendered people, they would just choose to be of the same gender as their sex. Maybe you have been talking to the wrong LGBT people, but I get the feeling it is more likely just you talking out your arse.

All I do, is sit down at the computer, and start hittin' the keys. Getting them in the right order, that's the trick.

Umm... seems you are barking up the wrong tree here. Where did I claim that *all* people inside those communities say the same thing? It's not as if LGBT people were immune to talking nonsense, just because they're LGBT. Most seem to treat sexual orientation as a non-choice, and some have also adapted a postmodern gender theory. And seeing both of them hand-in-hand is hilarious.

Ah, sorry. I read the *if* in your post as *when* which created an implication that that majority you spoke of generally espoused this contrary idea. No hard feelings, eh?

All I do, is sit down at the computer, and start hittin' the keys. Getting them in the right order, that's the trick.

A lot of people are latent bisexuals. Consult the Kinsey scale. A person's exact position on the scale is inborn, but experiences can trigger those latent preferences and make the person in question more accepting of them. Not that it's a bad thing.

edited 10th Dec '11 6:05:54 AM by MilosStefanovic

The sin of silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.

I've once read a youtube comment (I know) claiming that the brain only knows bisexuality and homosexuality (at least, only those two "structures" exist). Is this true?

Murrl LustFatM

According to Kinsey, there are 100% heterosexual people, but they're fairly rare. The same goes for 100% homosexual people.

The sin of silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.

It's completely unimportant for the political/social question of homosexuality, though. The prime argument in this should be that it's simply nobody else's business...

Unbent, Unbowed, Unbroken. Unrelated ME1 Fanfic

notthisthreadagain.jpg

I am going to definitively state that it's 80% nature, 20% nurture. /thread

That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - Silasw

It's important in the way that if the notion of it being a choice is successfully disputed, anyone whose opinion on the morality of homosexuality is based on it being a choice are forced to reconcider. A small victory, but a victory nevertheless.

Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.

Both and neither. It comes down to a biological preference, a personal choice on whether or not to act on this preference, and the social standards which influence what choice an individual will make.

In very simplified terms, you can think about it like a math equation, where each of the above elements is X, Y, and Z, respectively, and then there is a variable A which is a number between 1 and 10 to show a sliding scale of how prevalent each variable is in influencing how a person is, sexuality-wise.

So... A ₁X + A ₂Y + A ₃Z = B, where B is what sexuality somebody ultimately ends up as. For the A ₁X value, you can conceptualize it as if A ₁ = 1, somebody is completely heterosexual, if A ₁ = 10, they are completely homosexual, and if A ₁ = 5, they are a balanced bisexual. Anything in between gives some shade of one of those, as sexuality is a sliding scale. If A ₁ = 0, I suppose we could say that the person is an asexual.

Now, for A ₃, the sliding scale is not sexual preference, but rather social acceptance of homosexuality. With a value of 1, the person would be unlikely to act on their preference, for fear of social reprisal, while a value of 10 would mean they are very likely to act on it, as there is no fear of social reprisal. I don't know that there's a point in having 0 for this one.

This parameter also debunks the myth that lax laws against homosexuality "create more homosexuals," which is basically impossible given that it has a biological component. The reality is, homosexuals hold fairly steady at 5-15% of the population; the changing laws just mean that more act on their preference, thus creating the illusion that we have "created more."

Also note that one can register as a homosexual or heterosexual on the scale and still have heterosexual or homosexual experiences, obviously. See: fraternity and sorority adventures in college. This doesn't necessarily reflect that the person was "really" a bisexual, so much as that person is likely more confident about their sexual orientation and thus is willing to experiment.

...please remember, this is all a highly simplified way of looking at it, but I was trying to condense it to something that wouldn't take forever to explain.

edited 10th Dec '11 10:13:26 AM by USAF713

I am now known as Flyboy.

There's a lot of variation in the amount of homosexuality found in a culture. Compare ours to the ancient Greeks for example. It's obviously extremely influenced by culture, which means choice is at least a deciding factor.

edited 10th Dec '11 11:38:43 AM by CDRW

A society's views on homosexuality will certainly affect the number of people in openly homosexual relationships, sure. That's not the same thing as the number of people physically attracted to the same sex, though.

Also I'm not sure if it's really fair or accurate to compare ancient Greek pederasty to our modern understanding of homosexuality.

edited 10th Dec '11 11:59:45 AM by joeyjojojuniorshabadoo

It's worth mentioning, they are both non examples of sexuality and culture after all.

I don't think we should assume that our present view of sexuality is 'more valid' then in an other time.

edited 10th Dec '11 1:02:30 PM by joeyjojo

hashtagsarestupid

A challenging theoroy apppears.

The tl;dr version: we don't know werther we are born this way, grow this way, wherther sexuality is fluid for everyone, but all of that doesn't matter. What matters is that there's morally nothing wrong with being queer. Using "born this way" as an argument is Appeal to Nature fallacy — many of the dysfuntional sexual orientations probably spring up similarly to queerness. We also don't need to excuse our existance, we exist, don't harm anyone with existing, and that is all justification we need.

[ed.] of course, the problem here is getting the message across easily. If I could, I'd take any homophobe to the side and explain why biologically and socially there's nothing wrong with all that, but there's too many ignorant people, and too little time to educate, so I'll just blast Lady Gaga at them, and maybe if they realize that they're on the losiing side of history, they'll get around some day.

[ed. 2 the reckonning] @USAF: Well put.

edited 10th Dec '11 1:40:15 PM by JethroQWalrustitty

well said.

hashtagsarestupid

The question of this thread isn't "is homosexuality right or wrong." It's "homosexuality: choice or nature?"

"The Daily Show has to be right 100% of the time; FOX News only has to be right once." - Jon Stewart

My point is, that question is not pertinent. There's too much weight put on the natural/unnatural debate.

And I think even most anti-gay activists these days will admit it's not a choice, more likely they'll argue it's the result of upbringing, sometimes calling it indoctrination or brainwashing.