How can a person CHOOSE to be gay?

Question

I cannot comprehend this one.

I never choose to be straight, i see a hot chick i get horny. I never thought about it, i never made a note and said this is how i should think, thats just how it is.

I am guessing its the same for homosexuals, they see a hot guy/girl and presto they get horny..

Now does acting out those impulses make a person straight or gay or does the impulse itself dictate what you are?

All these people that talk about a choice, are they lying to themselves about what THEY "choose"?

The only people that i can see making any choice at all would be those that actively seek something OTHER then what they are attracted to.

What am i missing?

Answer 1

I agree with you 100%.

I am astonished by the number of people that think that being gay is a choice. My guess is that it must be something to do with religion. For example if you are Christian and you admit that people are genetically gay then that would mean gay people are made by God. It follows that not only it isn't a sin but you would also have to confront a whole bunch of other issues about their understanding of God's will.

Anyway for me two points prove it isn't:
1) Why would someone choose it ?
2) Gay tendencies start showing before puberty and so cannot be linked to a sexual choice.

Ironically people who insist it is choice can only know that because they made the choice to be straight themselves, and so in all likely hood they are probably closet gays....otherwise they wouldn't have had a choice to make.

Answer 2

Bizarrely, growing up I was taught by people around me that being gay is a choice, until after went to study oversea, I had some gays and lesbian friends came outta the closet. I now believe that for many people it is not a choice.

One of my friend in Holland, who also believed it was not a choice, would often use his famous quote, “You couldn’t pay me a thousand euros to go into a bar and make out with a guy, I didn’t choose to be straight - I am straight. I think being gay is something you cant choose, why would someone willingly choose a lifestyle where they will be oppressed.”

Each my gay guy friends have had girlfriends (some have had many) and they just knew that that lifestyle was not for them. The homosexual lifestyle is not all glitz and glamor - my friends have, in many cases, been oppressed by family.

I’m basically saying that I’m quite sure why you would choose a lifestyle like that, with my point being that I don’t think they choose it, I think they know from a young age that being gay is a part of them. This is why people need to stop passing judgment, it is their life and each person deserves to find happiness in whatever way is best for them.

You can’t tell me you’ve never been madly in love with someone, even though you knew that person was bad for you. And maybe you couldn’t get over it, and you kept going back for more even though you knew you were going to get hurt in the end. One of two things has to happen: Either you let yourself be dragged around forever, or you choose to step back from the relationship.

I think that’s the choice gay people have. People cannot control to whom they are attracted, but they can choose to ignore that attraction.

Answer 3

Why do people continue to ask questions like this when all they want is for someone to agree with them? Why don't you just say that part at the beginning instead of acting like you actually want a reasonable, thought out answer, even if it happens to be in opposition to your own ideas?

People say that they don't choose who they love, either, but that isn't true. Not all choices are made on a conscious level. You choose by determining what is important to you and in what manner any of it is important to you, whether you actually sit down and make a list or you do it on some level without consciously considering it.

If you don't like that answer, tough. I'm sick of people wanting to live in denial and trying to romanticize and justify certain things they do and choices they make by claiming they had no hand in the matter.

Additional: Another thing that gets me is one of the arguments gays have that it isn't a choice, which is that of "why would anyone choose to be gay if they weren't made that way". They make it sound as though they themselves feel the life they are leading is perverted and disgusting, and therefore anyone who argues that it is a choice is also saying that the choice is perverted and disgusting.

How can you have "gay pride" when you are sending a message of "don't blame me for this deviant lifestyle of mine, it isn't my fault"?

Answer 4

I personally am in the minority. I am a gay person who feels that I choose to be gay. I choose the person that I love. I have chosen to fall in love with a woman. I have been in the past attracted to men and have felt for some time that I could be with either. In this respect I consider myself a sexually bi person. But I have chosen to turn away from men and how horrible I feel that they are and I have turned to a woman. I made the decision. I feel empowered by the choice.

Answer 5

Excellent question....I wish I had a real answer for you, but I agree with almost all of what you said. There is no choice, it is what you are. It's not a thought process or waking up one day and saying hey I want to be gay. Some people like myself don't realize their true self till later on in life. This is something I've had to come to terms with. I didn't all of a sudden choose to be attracted to guys, it is part of who I am and what I like. People that think they choose to be gay are often in self denial. They don't want to recognize their feelings, because they are afraid what society as a whole will think.

Answer 6

When they say it's a choice.. They don't mean it's an actual conscience "choice".... But more of a natural emotional response to their environment.

It's the nature vs. nurture argument.

Actually, if you read the older DSM index(pre-1973), homosexuality was categorized as a mental disorder and was reportedly successfully treated. Many people searching for treatment are now being denied and told to just "accept" who you are.

Answer 7

In my reports on the alternative end of this question, it incredibly is on no account approximately my answer. maximum often, human beings assume to get an enhance out of me by inferring my sexuality is a decision. they are going to cite Leviticus, or articles produced by conservative agencies which declare to be secular, mutually with concentration on the relatives, or the national corporation for study and scientific care of Homosexuality (NARTH.) contained in the top, it comes all the way down to a conflict of attitude, and an lack of ability to appreciate education opposite to them. We as human beings have a want to be precise. This is going for the professional-gay individuals too. we are able to combat for our strategies, often while they have been shown to be unfounded. in many situations, I run in the time of this wall, whereupon somebody won't settle for evidence to the alternative. the thought that they are "contained in the understand," and something I say will do no longer something to alter it. no longer all are like this, and there have been many discussions wherein, while provided with evidence they hadn't time-honored of (start order study, pheromone study, concepts test study, and so on.) they concede, and start to think of in any different case. it incredibly is uncommon, whether, as maximum are informed many times by ministers, acquaintances, and guides that each and each physique gays are activists and could't be depended on. i've got heard wild and wacky issues to this regard. we are curiously out to "recruit" all united statesa.'s youth, sexually deviant and firms to pedophilia, liars and hedonists who've given into sinful impulses, and greater. None are real, yet all and sundry with effortless experience, finding at this variety of interest from the outdoors, can see the parallels to the Salem witch trials, and different undemanding propaganda. If we are all so undesirable, why ought to they hear what we ought to declare? -George

Answer 8

you don't CHOOSE your sexual preference there is something called the "gay gene" that has been figured out recently. you're kiind of born "gay" you don't realize it until you grow up really that all your life you have been playing with dolls and more interested in femine things. it just kind of comes to you that you are interested in men more than women. you don't choose it you don't wake up one day and say " i am gay". it doesn't work that way. a straight person says women turn me on and that has always been the case for a gay guy a man has been the turn on, but since they were younger they may have thought women were their turn on but not realized that they were gay yet. there is a lot of research going on for the "gay gene" different ways of people realizing they are gay.

Answer 9

People do not choose to be gay because they got it from genetices. If you are bi you have a choice. I might be bi it in reality it is just a phase. If I am actually bisexual I will only be with girls no exceptions. Which means I must never come out as a bi.

Answer 10

I totally agree with Mr. Jello...we choose whether or not to take our pants off and who to take them off with. I am attracted to a lot of different men, but I choose not to act on it. Does this mean I am just squelching my inner desires? No, it means I am choosing to do what is right.

The same with being gay...you may be attracted to other men, but that does not make acting on it right.