Is it natural if you have to be taught how to do sex?

Question

I know I'm not a lesbian because I don't know how to have sex with a woman. Do straight men know how to have gay sex or would they need instruction? You can teach yourself to like anything. That doesn't make it natural.

Answer 1

Humans, unlike most of the other living things in the world, have very few innate behaviors, and many of those disappear in infantcy. Besides a newborn finding and recognizing something like a nipple, and knowing to suck when it is in the mouth, little of our behavior comes with the package of simply being. That is why folks like B.F. Skinner went on such an extreme of saying all we are is what we learned.

What is mechanically "natural", as in innate, is that when the hormones of one's gender rise, we look for a way to discover their release. And particularly after we discover the hormonal high of a climax, we start making conclusions on what that means and how we got it and how we can do it again.

The natural part, beyond the hormonal/behavior spurring, is a large part of what makes and keeps many heteros as heteros. The male part goes in the female part and you make babies. Beyond that, females trying to get the copulative high by doing with females what they would have done with males--it is strange (or words to that effect, the "q" word is a good word, except for the baggage in this context). The same for males doing male things to other males, or males doing the female thing with other males--it is a strange conclusion to those who know how the mechanics and process are designed to work.

You've discovered, as has any mechanic, that, figuratively-speaking, a screwdriver also works as a prybar, a chisel, a knife, etc. Males have two orifices in common with females, so why can't they use them like they would use those orifices on females? Females have three orifices, so why can't they use them with females instead of just males?

Exploring and making connections, trying different things, that is natural behavior for humans. But then so is making value judgments and enforcing them socially. Both come with the territory.