Why would people 'choose' to be gay? | Science | The Guardian

Contents:

• WHY ARE PEOPLE GAY? GAY BY CHOICE OR IS BEG GAY GEIC?
• WHY WOULD PEOPLE 'CHOOSE' TO BE GAY?
• DO GAYS HAVE A CHOICE?
• IS BEG 'GAY' A CHOICE? SCIENCE SAYS Y (BUT NOT THE WAY YOU'RE THKG)
• BEG GAY NOT A CHOICE: SCIENCE CONTRADICTS BEN CARSON
• THERE IS NO ‘GAY GENE.’ THERE IS NO ‘STRAIGHT GENE.’ SEXUALY IS JT PLEX, STUDY NFIRMS

WHY ARE PEOPLE GAY? GAY BY CHOICE OR IS BEG GAY GEIC?

It very much appears that same-sex sexual attractn is not a choice but actg on is; so if you fe gay as the mere prence of same-sex attractn, then om everythg we unrstand, beg gay is not a choice. If, on the other hand, you nsir someone to be gay only if they act on their same-sex attractn then beg gay n be nsired a choice pendg on an dividual's behavr. Whether science n ultimately prove the blogy of beg gay or not, 's important to support all adults their choic no matter how they intify.

There are doubtls many reasons for this, but one recurrg paranoia among many I’ve met (all of whom were men, out of tert) is that I’m gog to tell them that they’re gay. Bis, even if I did thk they were gay, ’s certaly not somethg I’m gog to brg up when first meetg someone, given how ’s a) irrelevant, and b) none of my damn don’t feel the same though. Homosexual members of society n unfortunately expect to regularly be challenged, sctised and nmned by belligerent type who are seemgly nvced that homosexualy is a “liftyle choice” issue has e up aga (for what is possibly the 12, 456, 987, 332nd time) for several reasons.

Also, UK prime mister David Cameron recently ma ments that suggt he nsirs homosexualy the aforementned “liftyle choice” (although this uld easily have been poorly chosen wordg). A high-profile homosexual person dog this (or pretty much anythg) is certa to get objectns om those who “don’t approve” around the thgs is evable, and so is the whole “beg gay is a choice” accatn. Most ce relig beliefs, although the notn that relign is flat-out opposed to homosexualy is far om accurate, and gettg more uncerta as time progrs.

WHY WOULD PEOPLE 'CHOOSE' TO BE GAY?

The mastream media has always been somewhat blunt or ham-fisted s portrayal of even heterosexual relatnships (for evince of this, see pretty much any married uple an advert), so was a long shot that they’d show homosexuals accurately. Normally heterosexual characters sudnly displayg homosexual leangs when a boost viewg figur are need is a mon trope the days, so you n sort of see how this might make some people thk ’s a “choice”, if they lack more realistic sayg that sexualy is set stone om birth is also not que right, the ma emphasis of those g the choice argument is that homosexuals have weighed up their optns and nscly cid “I am gog to be gay om now on”. This suggts that those who are about to choose their sexual orientatn look at the nsequenc of homosexualy and thk ’s a better optn.

This seems, to put dly,, as many have poted out, if sexual orientatn is a choice, then you should feasibly be able to choose to be straight aga if beg gay isn’t “workg out”. Comedian Todd Glass mak a brilliant pot his book (which is great, I got for Christmas), which is that if you genuely believe sexualy is a choice, then you’re not actually straight, you jt haven’t met anyone persuasive enough those who argue that homosexualy is a choice variably assert that is a wrong choice.

So people who opt for homosexualy are nscly pursug anythg om timate relatnships to random sexual enunters wh people they are not physilly attracted to. Overall, if homosexualy is chosen, the most logil reason people would make such a choice is that they’re attracted to people of the same genr. The Amerin Medil Associatn is agast therapy that is “based on the assumptn that homosexualy is a mental disorr or that the person should change their ’s important to know that there is nothg wrong wh lovg people of the same genr as you.

DO GAYS HAVE A CHOICE?

Gay activists favor this perspective at least part bee survey data show that people are more sympathetic to gay if they believe that sexual orientatn is immutable. It is difficult for most people to thk objectively about homosexualy, large part bee bias agast are lerally of biblil proportns. Thoands of Amerin pulps to this day repeat the old biblil junctns, which fuel disfort wh homosexualy at every layer of our society.

IS BEG 'GAY' A CHOICE? SCIENCE SAYS Y (BUT NOT THE WAY YOU'RE THKG)

In the 1968 edn of the Diagnostic and Statistil Manual of Mental Disorrs (DSM)—the dispensable diagnostic tool ed by therapists—homosexualy appeared the sectn on sexual viatns as an stance of an aberratn which sexual terts are “directed primarily toward objects other than people of the oppose sex. It was largely gays themselv—unrstandably tired of beg viewed as eaks of nature—who began to assert that their orientatn was not pathologil. Now lled the Stonewall Rts (named after the Stonewall Inn, which was at the center of the melee), they galvanized the morn gay-rights movement Ameri and iated a shift toward greater cultural acceptance of homosexualy.

BEG GAY NOT A CHOICE: SCIENCE CONTRADICTS BEN CARSON

A mere four years later, 1973, the nomenclature mtee of the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn (APA) set about reasssg the profsn's dark characterizatn of homosexualy.

In other words, isn't this therapy a retrenchment to the old disease mol of homosexualy that Spzer and his lleagu dispatched more than 30 years ago? As for the claim ma by Godey and others that homosexualy is the rult of poor parentg, there is simply no legimate scientific evince to support .

THERE IS NO ‘GAY GENE.’ THERE IS NO ‘STRAIGHT GENE.’ SEXUALY IS JT PLEX, STUDY NFIRMS

Whereas is te that some homosexuals had poor relatnships wh their fathers when they were growg up, is impossible to say whether those fathers produced homosexual tennci their sons by rejectg them or, stead, whether some fathers simply tend to shun boys who are effemate at the outset.

As for the effectivens of reparative therapy, a landmark study published October 2003 the Archiv of Sexual Behavr, Spzer terviewed 200 men and women who once nsired themselv homosexuals but who had lived their liv as heterosexuals for at least five years. And send, if gen do help terme orientatn, do they actually create two distct typ of orientatn—gay and straight, as most people believe—or do they create a ntuum of orientatn? Although no one study is entirely nclive, studi of tws raised together, tws raised apart and fay tre suggt—at least for mal—that the more gen one shar wh a homosexual relative, the more likely is that one will be homosexual—the hallmark of a geic characteristic.

Whereas most people may believe that “straight” and “gay” are discrete tegori, there is strong evince that they are not—and this fact has important implitns for the way we unrstand the different ntroversi that surround homosexualy. ” In other words, sexual attractn is simply not a black-and-whe matter, and the labels “straight” and “gay” do not pture the plexi.