Why do people think homosexuality is a choice?

Post Reply New Topic

i'm not using biology as my argument as much as i'm using free will as my argument.

ultimately i think it's irrelevant whether or not choice is involved. if a same sex partner is what a person has or wants, i can't see why it's anyone else's business to persuade them otherwise.

however i do believe that the weight of one's words matter quite a lot when discussing things like this. take abortion for example: you can say "pro choice" if you want to throw a positive slant on the pro-reproductive-rights side of things, or you can say "pro-life" if you want to throw a positive slant on the anti- abortion side of things. you cannot rightly expect to use either of those terms, the meanings of which have been defined by the abortion debate and the biases of which are inextricable from the terms themselves, and be interpreted uniquely, based on the literal value of the words.

i know we are literalists, but most of us have probably heard terms like "pro-life," "homosexual lifestyle" before; we have probably heard terms like "communist" and "socialist" before, other examples of terms whose meanings have been distorted and cannot be extracted from the context of their common use.

the phrase "homosexual lifestyle" has been slaughtered and exploited by homophobes and cannot be taken literally.

i hope i am making sense to someone.

It occurs to me that you could replace the word homosexual with autistic and still get the same arguments and questions. Well, instead of sexual acts we'd have acting autistic with meltdowns or stimming or what have you, and instead of urges we, well they're not sexual urges (usually) but I guess how we think differently from others at times could be seen as having strange wrong urges.

I find myself agreeing very much with LovebirdsFlying, but I think that LovebirdsFlying might be caught in a semantic trap.

Using the word, "lifestyle," creates certain connotations in the mind of the reader. Lifestyle can be used to refer to a wide range of characteristics and choices that a person makes about how that person will live. The difference between living in the city or in the suburbs is a "lifestyle choice." But what of the choice between addiction and abstinence? Does an alcoholic have a "choice" not to drink in the same way that a homeowner has a "choice" between a suburban house and a downtown condo?

Similarly, drawing analogies to handedness or to addiction is, I think, a trap. It gets us into the mindset where we posit, "change is a remote possibility, but it's difficult."

I prefer a view that says, "There are characteristics about people that are immutable, or which are so fundamental to a person's self-identity that they should be respected as immutable." These immutable characteristics (age, sex, physical and mental disability, sexual orientation, national and ethnic origin, religious belief, language of expression et c.) all merit recognition and protection at law.

I don't believe that the potential for change (and hence for "choice") matters. A person can "choose" to change religious belief--that does not mean, however, that a person's protection from discrimination for their religious belief should be compromised in any way.

I love myself I am in love with myself I dont care who is going to judge me for liking men and women or that people will judge me for being bisexual they are beneath me and im better then all of them so what it comes down to is this judge me hate me I dont care I will always be better then them

Why do people think homosexuality is a choice?

I cannot answer for everybody but I can answer for myself and I think for many others that the reasoning would be the same. (And the person who said "because they are stupid" needs to look in a mirror")

It simply comes down to this. I have a monogamous frame of mind, and I see no reason that if I were raised in a culture that said that homosexuality was just as good as heterosexuality I could probably have gone through life functioning successfully as a homosexual, (so far as critics might say that was successful). But I was raised heterosexual am quite satisfied with it and I see that there are some serious negatives common in the homosexual lifestyle. So for me, I am certain the choice between hetero or homo really was a choice and have no definitive reason to know it is otherwise. Plus I think I made a very beneficial choice.

My life experience causes me to conclude that homosexuality could have met at least some of my needs for an outlet of my sexual drives and energies, but would have deprived me of my desire to reproduce and family life (as I know it) and my opportunity to appreciate the aspects of the relationship with a female partner. Likewise had I grown up in a society that approved or tolerated zoophilic relationships I think I could have functioned in that mode as well but with equal or graver negative consequences. It seems that there are some cultures that do. (Before you start railing on me, accusing me of making implications that I am not making please see the youtube video at A culturally accepted practice).

Does my sort of potential flexibility derive from me being an Aspie? I do not know, as I have never been neurotypical, but if there is any such link, I think it is weak in any genetic sense, if for no other reason than the majority of people I know, only a few of whom are Aspies, feel the same, and for them being heterosexual in orientation and practice is apparently a choice. For many of them it is a choice fortified as: a practicality, culture, and by religion. And within their right to raise their own children within their cultural context, they vehemently object to their children being taught contrary to their cultural and belief systems. That is their right! After all anyone who wants to argue for a genetic component in this sort of orientation ought to recognize that strictly heterosexual parents may have a better basis for guiding their genetic children to a successful life, than some interloper with a different genetic derived orientation (once again assuming the orientation is genetic).

I do not for one moment deny that there are measurable genetic anomalies that affect sexual orientation CAIS being an undeniable example. But in the absence of anything measurable I have to give the benefit of the doubt to "choice" in the majority of cases.

So maybe the advocates of "born that way" ought to allow that people who believe that homosexuality is a choice, are actually born in a way that for them and their progeny it is, and they have a right to choose for themselves and a right to choose what their progeny are taught about making the best choice.

If you are an advocate of the notion of homosexuals "being born that way" and eventually an undeniable genetic marker can be found perhaps you can accept that is not the only way a person can become a homosexual and it really is possible that homosexuality is a matter of choice for others and hence not their best choice.

"Rape is God's will, but being gay is a choice!! !"

talk about making stuff up as you go...

I don't get it either

I'm convinced that is just their way of trying to delude themselves that gay people can go back to being straight, thus "saving themselves". But no. Gay people are gay, and there is no changing back. As a former friend of mine said "if being gay was a choice, considering all the bull they go through on a daily basis about their character, don't you think they would choose to be straight?"

It doesn't quite help matters that girls who clam to be straight sometimes think of swinging the other way. Some either play around with it or take the dive after their last boyfriend messed around.