Is being gay a lifestyle choice or are people born that way?

Question

Question speaks for itself.

Answer 1

Born.
Sexuality is a matter of attraction. Whether you 'choose' to act on it or not, you certainly can't 'choose' who to be attracted to. Wouldn't life be so much easier if you could? And wouldn't therapists be out of a job?

Answer 2

Being gay has been shown to be based on biological differences, therefore one is born gay. Some people struggle with their sexuality and make a lifestyle choice to try and be straight, but they usually come out of the closet at some point due to the stress of trying to live as someone that they are not.

Answer 3

Neither. I believe it is a combination of genetic predisposition and environmental triggers. You may be born with a tendency toward becoming gay, but it might only occur under certain conditions. The trouble is, the combinations aren't exclusive. For example, someone might have the predisposition toward becoming gay if they are raised with a domineering mother (a popular theory at one time) but not if they are abused as a child (an unfortunate fact among gay people is a high incidence of abuse as a child), while someone else might have the exact opposite tendencies, and a third person would come out straight under either of those circumstances but ends up gay because he was given a doll for his fourth birthday. You can't really say what exactly caused each particular person to become gay, and there aren't any hard and fast rules, but in the end there was some sort of environmental trigger that sent them in that direction.

In short, between your two limited options, it's more the latter than the former, but it's not totally predetermined.

Answer 4

I can tell you this. I don't know if it's a choice or if your born that way. However, I am a lesbian but I was married to a man for 11 years and had failed male relationships after that. I always had a thought of being with a woman until long after my divorce. It's the best choice ever made. The connection is so much different.

Answer 5

Being a gay man I believe there are both types of gay men. Some are born into it and others have made the choice.

Answer 6

I think i made a choice to be myself in a world full of bigots. I also made a choice to ignore them. As far as being born that way, YES, It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that I wouldn't choose to love someone of the same sex, IT IS THE WAY I WAS made by GOD!

Answer 7

I answered this somewhere else, but here it is again, my stance on things:

I actually don't believe that we are born with a predetermined sexual orientation. There are too many people who find their sexual preferences changing over time for this to be true, in my opinion.

I do believe, however, that you don't per se CHOOSE/LEARN to be gay. You don't wake up one day and say "Geez, I think I'll eschew women and go for men instead." But just because you didn't choose it doesn't mean it's biologically a part of you, you know? It's not something you can change, I feel. Take this example, for instance- you are a cat lover. You just love your pet kitties. Never been a dog person, thanks. You just know for sure that you wouldn't ever want to own a dog. So, someone says- you choose to love cats. Well, no, you reply, not really. I mean, I just like cats. I've always been that way. Does that mean, then, that there is a cat-loving gene in your body? Of course not. It means that this is a preference in your mind, one that you cannot consciously change, but is not innate, either.

I think that human sexuality is immensely more complex than the labels we have today like gay and straight. I also believe that love is gender blind and a straight man can find himself falling in love with another man, still completely attracted to women and utterly not attracted to men, but emotionally and sexually satisfied with that one man he loves. Our sexual desires come from our personalities, our past experiences, our childhoods, socialization, and more. It's a heady, deliciously messy mix of everything, and it gives us all that's wonderful about our sexuality today, so diverse.

That's my stance on things. I know that a lot of gay/bisexual people claim they are born that way, and I understand why they feel that way. For them, the claim feels true. In my opinion, a lot of straight people call it a choice so they don't have to ask hard questions about God (creating that which He supposedly hates?) and their source of intolerance (how can you hate something that someone never chose to be, like skin color, or, in this case, sexual orientation?). Like I said, I think it's neither, but I don't mind people claiming they were born gay. Just as long as they don't say that all gay people were born gay, or all straight people were born straight, etc., etc.- until they have scientific proof to back that up.

Hope that helps!

Answer 8

Lifestyle choice!

Answer 9

hy hons gay boyfriends daviie and steeviie, gay porno stars and nude waiters gay mens bar restaurants and male strippers, and my current boyfriend and i stevvie here, i grew up in a very very abusive childhood i had a alochalicc father and a womanizerr, my dad was a travelling insurance executive, mega bucks, would find out laterr on, he alsp picked up cheap whores on the side on the road etc. anyways, my curent boyfriend and i also grew up as boyhood friends and into the male modelling busines s at a young age. anyways, we are now 21 and 22 and have known trusted each other all of oour lives. anyways]. i came from a abusive childhod knock downe drag out fights busted up furniture and smashed windows and sherr torture. now if it hadent have ben for my current boyhood friend and lover now i may not have ben alive today because of the many night we spent up in his tree house after the torture would start rom the drunk. the arguing fighting and, abuse still haunts me today. i am with my curent boyhood friend and lover because he was there for me. its, a materr of choice here he was with m e threw the darkest days anyone could imagine. the torture my mother went threw as a punching bag. i thank you daveyy my loverr and my depest friend even today-

Answer 10

Of course they are born that way - why would anyone choose it? I think society is easier on gays today than it has been in the past but I do think it is definitely easier to be straight. Ask yourself this question - do you think straight people choose to be straight?