Dummy Boy wrote:
I'm going to watch this when I have time. This is the single most divisive issue in the gay community. If indeed the "gay mind" is a defect caused by: your genes, biochemistry, and emotional vulnerability (to name a few failure modes), then homosexuality can be cured. There are those that describe their behavior as a lifestyle choice and others that claim they are born that way. Both of these perceptions are polar opposite from one another, since a choice is like picking from a menu and those that believe they were born that way typically spend their life searching for what that means and may voice it among their straight friends, which is why I bring it up.
I'm going to watch this when I have time. This is... (
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Then, is heterosexuality a "choice?" Can we "choose" to only have sex with those of the opposite gender?
A very dear friend of mine was married to his wife for about 17 years. They couldn't have kids, so they adopted a child from China. About a year after that, he "came out." According to him, he'd felt sexually attracted to men ALL his life. He even told that to his wife before they married, but promised to refrain from homosexual encounters.
Come to find out, he'd been with many men over the span of their marriage. He'd still be living his "behind her back" lifestyle if he hadn't contracted syphilus of the mouth and was compelled to 'come clean.' He said that he was glad he caught the disease as it forced him to realize who/what he really was - gay.
While they did divorce, they remain very good and close friends. They even take family vacations together?
One of my wife's first cousins was in a similar situation, although he never married, until recently, and then, to his partner of 15 years. He tried for 25 years to suppress his sexual desires for men. He dated several women and was intimate with a few of them, too. But, he never could get the same kind of sexual and emotional satisfication from women that he got from men. Finally, he gave up trying to "hide from [him]self" and admit to the world that he was gay.
One of my own first cousins shares a story very similar to my wife's cousin. After a long time of frustration, denial and living in shame, he decided his life was worth living, even if as a gay man.
A common factor with these 3 men is that they tried to live as heterosexuals. They all came close to suicide multiple time in their lives, just because our society, through the guise of religion, says that their lives aren't worth living if they live as open homosexuals.
Another common characteristic is that all 3 claim that they KNEW they were "different" as young children; yet, try all tried to conform to society's and their Christian dictates.
My wife has another first cousin. Now, he is what I'd describe as a "flamer." He's really out there with his gayness. He dresses, acts and talks the part. Plus, he's a fairly recent "convert" to the gay scene. I say that he definitely "chose" to be gay. He claims its his way of rebelling against his very strict Christian upbringing. He knows that by him behaving in this manner that he's hurting his parents. This is their punishment from him. For what, I can't answer.
So, from these experiences and a few others of gay men I know, I draw my conclusion that in a portion of the gay community there are some who "choose" the lifestyle and others that are, simply "born that way."
Lastly, DB, if, as you say, being gay might be a disease, and as such, fixable, how would one classify a birth defect that leaves a baby deformed? I tend to think of being gay in those terms; not a disease, necessarily, but perhaps a defect. In which case, the person, literally, has no control over it.