Nature or nurture?

Question

Is homosexuality a way someone is born, or is it the way they're brought up?

Answer 1

there is a spectrum to sexuality. super hetero-----bi-----super gay. some outside fators can definately play their part. some of it your born with. either way, who cares whether it's choice or not. what 2 consenting adults do is their own buisness.

Answer 2

I think some people grow up knowing they are gay. I also think that some people meet other same sex individuals in their lifetime and fall in love with them. Personally, I grew up curious about same sex relationships but I never questioned my heterosexuality per se. However, when I was 31 I met a woman who changed everything about how I viewed my sexuality. I was immediately attracted to her and once I realized that I was in love little by little I let my guard down to consider the possibility of what it would be like to love and be loved by a woman. I realized that I find other women attractive and that I really liked the way loving another woman made me feel.

Nature? Some already know. Nurture? Some are never permitted to think openly and may at some point in their lives realize they are gay when they find themselves in a situation where their feelings are difficult if not impossible to deny. It's a very strong attraction.

What do I really think? I think I would have loved her like this if she were a man, if she were a woman, or if she were an alien. I just love HER. I knew that I knew that I knew... the very first time I saw her face. We'd talked for months but... that first innocent hug was all it took to confirm the fire that burned within me is real.

I think it's a matter of allowing yourself to be open minded enough to let love in... no matter from which direction it comes from.

Answer 3

Seeing that I've come from a conservative Christian gay bashing home, I hardly think it was nurture. And if it WAS nurture that makes people gay, all of you STRAIGHT parents that we came from are to blame, so get off our backs.

However, I'm sure you could use the nurture argument for lefthandedness or anything else society has a problem facing. Personally, I've always thought that heterosexuality was nurtured, because it definitely seems unnatural to me. Men and women can't even get along. They fight and b*tch constantly about their differences. They are cruel to each other. Heterosexuals have a larger than 50% divorce rate and MILLIONS of children without married parents, though you claim marriage is a holy and sacred institution while barring marriage to homosexuals.What a joke. In case you haven't noticed, heterosexuals make up the vast majority of guests on Jerry Springer. Maury Povich has nearly devoted his entire show now to people who can't even identify the father of their babies! Now contrast all of that to homosexuals, who contribute to society, whose neighborhoods are not slums, who revilatize communities and bring prosperity everywhere they go, who don't live off of welfare for their fatherless babies, who pay taxes for schools when they are not even allowed to adopt children in most places, who are peacemakers in a world of war-mongering and violent heterosexuals. The planet would be a happier place if everyone were homosexual. And if you need a kid, go to a sperm bank. Put females on one side of the planet and males on the other side and put an end to all the hetero madness.

Answer 4

There are a slew of good answers on this question, except for the religious, which make reference to a book with "Cherry Picked" gospels by priests who were influenced by corrupt & cruel Romans. Everyday that passes, the bible will be chisled away, until it is no longer valid in our lives. In short, attaching psalms or gospels written in the 2nd & 3rd centuries, (then rewritten by King James), by individuals that didn't possess any knowledge as we possess today, regarding homosexuality is illogical, and should be considered as irrelevent.
That's my view on this Bible -v- Homosexuality!

In regard to "Nature or Nurture", there are several scenarios to consider here from conception, upbringing, psychological (Parent, Adult, Child), environment, trauma, experimentation, rebellion, genetic, testosterone/progesterone levels, physical features, sociological, diet, and as strange as this may appear even thoughts of 'Reincarnation' (the meeting of a loved one from a prior life).

I believe that there are a multitude of reasons why men & women engage in homosexual activities.

Answer 5

you cant be "brought up" gay. You cant just live in a society with openly gays and lesbians and decide that you want to be gay. People realize that they are gay at different ages, for me i knew I was gay when I was in 4th grade, but when i was as young as five i would help my dad fix his car rather than play with dolls. Some people don't realize that they are gay until they are married, which is why It os so hard to determine if people are born gay. The only thing that gays have control over is whether or not they want to tell anyone about their sexual orientation.

Answer 6

I really wish I had a dollar for every time this question is asked every day! I'd be a millionaire!
It's genetic...nature....pure and simple. despite what another poster...and other close-minded people like him, it has nothing to do with "suffocating" mothers, or being molested or any other of the lies, assumptions and generalizing stereotypes just like that.
I was born to straight parents (like all of us are), I was never molested, raped or abused. I didn't know anyone gay or lesbian growing up. I was never hurt by a man nor do I hate men (I have lots of male friends). I have simply never been attracted to men, only women. Gee, how many other lame stereotypes did I miss? Nothing "caused" me to turn lesbian, nor did I "choose" to be lesbian. When did you "choose" to be straight? you didn't....you were born predisposed to be straight, as I was born predisposed be lesbian.

Answer 7

Both. I believe a person is born with a predisposition to be gay, and some become gay if the right conditions are present. Then again, some could just be gay regardless of conditions, and vice verse. No one can say for sure right now.

Answer 8

as to the people who are saying molestation has something to do with it consider this:about 1 in 4 women in North America were molested in childhood before the age of 18. Now wouldn't there be a whole lot more lesbians and gay people in this world if this theory of being gay because you were molested was true?

Answer 9

people are born with their sexual orientation.. however transsexuals who go thru hormone replacement therapy sometimes will experience a change in sexual orientation (although this is quite rare) after completing their therapy.

as far as how people are brought up? well, they don't change a person's sexual orientation, but it can certainly cause somone to take longer to realize their true orientation.. (people are generally "taught" that it is "normal" to be straight, so many people assume they are straight, even if they are not. sometimes it takes years for them to actually realize they are not straight).

similar situation with me.. i never thought that being a transsexual was possible. i just couldn't believe it.. then one day, i looked at myself and saw how i lived, what i was doing. i was dressing like a girl all the time, i was having sexual fantacies about me being a girl all the time.. all my attempts at romance with women seemed to all turn out like bestfriends instead..

my parents never talked to me about sex or sexuality or sexual orientation, so they obviously had no influence over this.

Answer 10

I think a person is born either heterosexual or homosexual, and how they're brought up has nothing to do with it. It *can* however determine whether they admit they're homosexual or try to live out life as a heterosexual.

Answer 11

Scientific studies have shown that homosexuality is based on biological and genetic factors; therefore, it is nature and not nurture.

An October 2004 scientific research publication stated that scientists at the University of Padua have found that women tend to have more children when they inherit the same - as yet unidentified - genetic factors linked to homosexuality in men. This fertility boost more than compensates for the lack of offspring fathered by gay men, and keeps the “gay” genetic factors in circulation. Mothers of gay men produced an average of 2.7 babies compared with 2.3 born to mothers of straight men. And maternal aunts of gay men had 2.0 babies compared with 1.5 born to the maternal aunts of straight men.

Another study published in Human Genetics in February 2006 examined X chromosome inactivation in mothers of gay sons and mothers whose sons were not gay. Normally, X chromosome inactivation occurs at random: half of the cells in a woman's body will have one X chromosome inactivated, while the other half inactivates the other chromosome. Researchers found that in about a quarter of mothers who had at least two gay sons every single cell in these women inactivated the same X chromosome while only 4 percent of mothers with no gay sons showed this type of extreme skewing.

A Canadian university study published in June of 2006 stated that, although researchers have known for years that a man's likelihood of being gay rises with the number of older biological brothers, that the new study found that the so-called "fraternal birth order effect" persists even if gay men were raised away from their biological families.

A January 2007 Australian report suggested to be gay you need to receive one gay gene from both parents, and that those with only one gay gene have a selective advantage because they are heterosexual but have increased style, male sex drive, charm and seductiveness towards women.