Dude you know I have plenty of respect for ya. But I would just like to let you know, you're starting to make this into a discussion about idealogy. I'm going to speak for myself in saying that I don't believe that a greater power has any control over the choices I make in life (regardless of my Catholic upbringing). I feel that I, like everyone else, chose all of my preference, sexual and otherwise, by myself.

Saying that one is fated to be gay or straight is rediculous to me. I just cannot comprehend the aspect of fate because of the simple fact that as logical intelligent creatures, we humans have the ability to chose left or right, right or wrong, and even straight or gay. I'm not trying to challenge your beliefs nor am I against the idea of you being gay, it's all cool with me, the gay communitee doesn't bother me at all, whether it's in my face or not.

Like I said earlier, I believe it's a choice. I'm not saying it's the kind of choice you make that can easily be changed, but it is a choice....Ohh and for future references here's a list for any other similar "choice" topics that probably will be made. The following I feel are all choices:

Smoking Addiction (you chose to smoke)
Alcohol Addiction (you chose to drink, and for the last time it's not a disease!)
Drug Addiction (you chose to do drugs)
Right handed or left handed (I'm living proof of this one: started lefty switched to righty)
Prejustice (you can chose to hate or not)

Saying a person is born a with any of these is implying that there is a gene that does so. In all of the years of genetic research there has not been a valid single, nor mutliple genes attached to sexual preference or addiction.

It depends on your type of education....

If you receive an agressive education to become a strong cold-hearted man you'll never become gay.... That's a fact ....

Personnaly I don't like gay; But as a i'm a left sided in politics I can't discriminate them... but lesbian i like them... because they realised that women are the best in the wolrd and If i was a girl I'd be lesbian...

Alright I'm tired and don't feel like arguing so i'll do this quick and easy. Here is you.












































And here is basic logic. (Notice the gap)

I believe you are born neutral (not giving a crap about who you want to do). which is true. have you ever heard a 3-year old say "that chick is hot!!"? no. you gradually grow into sexual urge until you hit puberty and then it sort of stays steady from there on out. whether it be by natural attraction to the opposite sex because we're animals with million year programmed instincts or be it the peer pressure of society that makes you strait, most humans are. I don't mean to sound harsh or say that gay people are deformed freaks, but imbalances in the brain are probably what makes someone gay.

as to skeleton's comment above I appologize in advance for anyone that may be offended by this next comment, but it most likey isn't a choice; if you tried spankin the monkey to some gay porn, you'd go limp faster than a diabetic in a candy store.

SOS~ im not talking about fate, im talking logic, basic human instincts. our natural instincts pretty much control us.

u cant compare some one smoking w/ some one being gay/lesbian. that flat out dumb and ignorant thinking!


being gay has nothing to do w/ SEX. it's only a small part. just as much as it for "str8's"..

there are people born w/ both male and female parts! they are different.. they are born the same as you and i.. they breath, they eat, they shit piss, they even create nasty human body odor AS u and i.. the only difference is they have both male and female organs.

they have the same " x/y" chromosome's

definition of chromosome~A thread like linear strand of DNA and associated proteins in the nucleus of eukaryotic cells that carries the genes and functions in the transmission of hereditary information.

as either a male or of a female, these chromosome's normally dont show up till puberty

definition of puberty~the time of life when sex glands become functional..

these people r called hermaphrodite's

definition of hermaphrodite~ having both male female reproductive organs [syn: hermaphroditic] n : one having both male and female sexual characteristics and organs; at birth an unambiguous assignment of male or female cannot be made.

when hermaphrodite's reach puberty, some tend to like both sexes, these 1’s don’t have a dominate “x/y” chromosome..
some have one that is more dominate then the other which makes them either attracted to females or males. Only their basic human instincts can dictate this, it is not a choice for them...

enter in homoseuxals

one definition of homosexuals~of, relating to, or characterized by a tendency to direct sexual desire toward individuals of one's own sex

* side note~Many people now avoid using homosexual because of the emphasis this term places on sexuality. Indeed, the words gay and lesbian, which stress cultural and social matters over sex, are frequently better choices. Homosexual is most objectionable when used as a noun; here gay man and gay woman or lesbian and their plural forms are called for. It is generally unobjectionable when used adjectivally, as in a homosexual relationship, although gay, lesbian, or same-sex are also available for adjectival use*


again enter in homosexuals, us homosexuals who are born this way are dealing w/ similar issues that hermaphrodite's deal w/. now we weren't born w/ both male and female organs, but we do have the similar chromosome’s issues..
we may be male(gay) or female(lesbian) but we have to much of the opposite sex chromosome.. this is why some gay males consider themselves “female” or want to be female.. same can be said for females that consider themselves males or want to be a male..
u cant argue basic human instincts.. u cant change some 1’s chromosome’s.. their there, live w/ it..

learn to live w/ it, we have and always will be around....

definition of Ignorance~ The condition of being ignorant; the want of knowledge in general, or in relation to a particular subject; the state of being uneducated or uninformed..

wow i have been described as a "cold hearted asshole" many times. and im as gay as they come. w/ out the femmy side.




ON TOPIC

but i will add tho, that there are TONS of guys and girls that choose to have "gay relations" because

1~they fell in love w/ the same sex. u cant choose who u love.

this is prolly the case w/ guys and girls that are w/ the oppisite/same sex. then one day break up and return to the "other side".
so i hope ^^^^^this^^^^ answers your question KRACKERJACK.


2~they got paid.

3~experimenting w/ it and nothing more

Not really.

I met somebody who was gay their entire life and not attracted to woman for almost 20 years, then turned around and got married to a woman who he's been very happy with, and hasn't been attracted to a man since. I've met a few people with similar stories, but that one stands out the most as it can't possibly dismissed as him being bisexual, or just "experimenting."

Like I said, what you told me doesn't really explain this at all. What would explain it is if you could tell me why they fell in love with someone of the same sex, rather than just that they fell in love with someone of the same sex. If it's the biological reason that you listed, then how does that explain the person turning back? That would be physically impossible.

If it's the other reason that was mentioned in this thread by XcarnageX, then it's a choice. An unconcious choice maybe, but if given the information that all people able to find sexual satisfaction with either sex, somebody could then make a choice to be either gay or straight.

As far as not being able to choose who you love, if you've got some scientific proof of that then i'd be really keen to see it.

have u ever fell in love w/ some one u never intended to fall in love w/? but it just happened..

when your in love, TRULY in love u dont find any one other then the person ur in love w/ sexually attractive.. meaning hes not going to find another man attractive.

wait till the guy falls out of love w/ his female (if it ever does happen) he wont be finding another women, he'll most likey be looking for another man.

I dont beleive you choose your sexuality. Personally, I find the very idea that you choose pretty dumb.

Like (I think it was Toxik) said, with all the steroeotype and ill feeling towards gay/lesbian/bisexual people, why would you conciously choose to suffer this.

I am bisexual. I have always known this. I never woke up and decided to be bisexual, I never took a pill that made me bisexual, I never drunk a potion to make me bisexual. I just am.

My life has been pretty 'normal', and I cant see anything major that would make me suddenly want to change for the 'normal' heterosexual setting, to bisexual.
Also, people say that your upbringing etc affects your sexuality. Well how do you explain two brothers, or sisters, who have been brought up exactly the same way, one turns out to be gay, the other straight. You cant really blame upbringing on that, since both have the same parents, were treated equally etc.

I also believe that noone is truly homosexual or heterosexual. It's a continuum. Like any continuum, there are two end scales (homo/hetero) and theres a middle ground, bi. Few will fall exactly on the end scale and the middle scale, most will lie somewhere in between.

I also beleive everyone is, to some extent bisexual. At least mentally.

When you fall in love with some, turly in love, you have emotional love. yes there is physical love too, but emotional love is more prominent. If something horrible happens to that person you love, for example, and say sex was out of the question, if you really loved them, you would stay with them, stick by them etc.
Its through this emotional love that I believe everyone is bisexual. If you emotionally love someone, then it wont matter what their physical appearance is. Whther they are a woman, man or a hermaphrodite, you will still love them.

Sorry to interrupt your nice chat but I don't mind to live with gays , but only
with the "Ancient Sparta" type... Fierce, brutal and gay soldiers

If it is a choice, why would you want to choose a hard lifestyle? Take it from me, if i had a choice, i would go back being straight any day. But i cant, thats just who i am. Its hard being gay for many reason.

Example:
1. Trying to get acceptence from your parents and from your friends. I live in an asian family and (trust me on this) asian people are HIGHLY against homosexual. Do you know how hard it is to walk into a room and your mom and dad are in there, knowing for a fact that they hate you for being gay? It really scarred me knowing they hate me for WHO I AM!

2. Friends, its hard to know who to turn to because you never know that your love ones might turn into your greatest enemies if there not ok with it.

3. Theres a lot of people out there are deeply against homosexual. Reigious people to name a few. Everywhere you go, there will always be someone who wants to hurt you for who you are. And there not afraid to show it.

If your straight, you dont have to worry about these things because, i dont know, people are weird. So if you choose to be gay out of no where, why would you want to choose a hard lifestyle??? Its really hard. Im even shaking writing this damn thing.

And ill be honest, i hate my life. Why is my life so hard? My parents hates me, i lost two of my best friend because im gay. Its really hard and you guys have no idea. I tried being straight 3 years ago but it didnt work. So i dont think its a choice, if it is, i would go back. But you know what, i wont because i am happy for who i am and its hard to admitt that.

Falling in love with somebody you didn't intend to fall in love with is a bit different than falling in love with sombody of the same gender you didn't intend to fall in love with.

If there's a scientific explaination for people being born gay and not having any control over it, then surely there must be a scientific explaination for people's sexuality changing in a short period of time and them not having control over it, right? Because if there wasn't then i'd have to come to the conclusion that homosexuality is a choice, which at this point seems pretty likely considering i've never heard a rational explaination for instantaneous biological change.

It's not about choosing your sexuality but it's about CHOOSING what you like and what you don't like, as DAN clearly stated you canno't be born one way or another, until you discover you like guys or you like girls, that's when you start making choices, it's not lke you're choosing being gay or not, is that you're actually saying I like guys and I dont like girls, ergo I'm gay. Same happens to Heterosexuals, when you're old enough to see what you like and what you don't you say, hey I like a nice pair of tits, and that's it, it's just choosing on what you like and what you dont like.

Dan I tricked you, I'm sending _MKS_ into that room

Who or what you like on a level as basic as sexuality isn't a choice. I almost don't get how in the hell people think that now.
In this society, we have a holy book and the natural "flow" of reproduction saying that homosexuality is abnormal. I'm saying that as a fact; I don't have anything against being gay. Still, it doesn't make sense to just pick being gay with the way gays are still persecuted and stigmatized by society. They aren't "targeted" as much, but I already know for a fact that there are a good amount of gays out there that would be straight if they could.

And here I was trying to avoid posting at all in this thread

Yo no se!

Sensitive topic.
Anyway, I don't believe people are born straight or born gay but rather develop their sexual preferences due to their environment. Even in heterosexual environments, "beauty", for example, is entirely relative to a specific culture. What makes a girl beautiful here, for example, is Hollywood good-looks, a great body, etc., while in other cultures, a fat woman is beautiful because it is a sign she is rich, while in other cultures, pale women are attractive because they don't have to work in the sun, and still, in others, beauty is typified by a girl with rings around her neck, tiny feet, or a bone in her lip. Now, I am not attracted to those latter types of females simply because that is not what my culture mandated as beautiful, and so my mindset growing up was not the same as the mindset of other cultures.
Similarly, what your own personal "culture" is would dictate your sexual preference, even if you don't believe it to be so. Sure, no one typically chooses who they fall in love with, but, in the same way, they really do, albeit subconsciously. I've fallen for a pretty face, for a personality, and for people who just made me feel needed. How a person made me feel typically determined my affection for them, regardless of sex.
People would not be having this conversation 100 years ago in America right now simply because it was the culture back then to promote heterosexual relationships and denounce homosexual ones. Being taught homosexuality is wrong all your young life would typical instill a disdain for such cross-gender affections. Not so in the modern age, here mortality has become a gray relative with no absolutes, permitting homosexuality or bisexuality to be simply a matter or preference with no moral consequences. In otherwards, it's acceptable now in many circles and has become the new "equal rights" cornerstone by which people build upon. Whereas schools previously taught the wrong of homosexuality (and other "moral" lessons), schools have forsaken that responsibility in favor of amoral rhetoric or in favor of "tolerance". It's a "politically correct" environment now, and God knows parents are so much less interested and involved in their children's lives now-a-days.
This creates the two extreme cultures we have had in the past 100 years, and the slowly evolving acceptance of a homosexual lifestyle. The environment has changed, people have changed, government has changed, parents have changed, education has changed, and even morality has changed. The sheer number of people involved in either homosexual or bisexual lifestyles in America before the 1900s and after is staggering, I think further validates my point that environment is the key component in influencing a person's mindset, be it sexual preference, morality, or any thing else pertaining to that environment.

How is that a fact?. I mean.. you can be the coldest hearted man and strong or whatever. However you can still be gay. It doesn't matter what they look like, you can be a fat/strong/weak/skinny/cold heart/stupid man AND you still can be gay.
I think you can be a strong general of the army and still be gay. I don't think having a strong agressive education will change the way you feel or who you are attracted to.

I think the problem in society is that everything that is related to Gay, always comes back to the sex part. I think people don't understand that is just a small part in gays just like it is in every other person's life.

Have you heard of reparative or "conversion" therapy? It's a practice promoted by some groups (though it's denounced by the American Psychological Association) to make a gay person straight. In the overwhelming majority of cases, it doesn't work; however, a study done a couple years ago stated that "highly motivated" gay people could be "converted" by therapy or other means. This study, however, did not account for bisexuality, and also, many of those successfully "converted" were likely religiously motivated. Therefore, what the study described as a "highly motivated gay person" would likely be a bisexual person, perhaps uncertain of the degree of their gravitation toward either end of the continuum, aka. "sexually confused."

As I said before, the reason most people identify as straight rather than some degree of bisexual is because of social prejudices, but this could be expanded to a much broader range of outside factors; among these factors is emotion. The problem with you question, Krackerjack, is that it seems to ask for a scientific explanation of "love." I don't believe love can be scientifically explained, or even discussed in scientific terms. Now, I didn't read all of Garlador's post, but he said something that stuck out in my mind: "How a person made me feel typically determined my affection for them, regardless of sex." This, IMO, can be seen as an outside factor on one's demonstrated sexual behavior in proportion to their "natural" position on the sexual continuum. Now, personally, I know I'm predominantly straight, but I do recognize some bisexual tendencies in myself, and I think that if I found a guy who made me feel a certain way that I could describe as "love," I would probably pursue a relationship with him. So in that sense, I think an individual emotional bond may outweigh a person's natural sexual gravitation.

You are one smart d00d. It's not a choice at all, just think about it, how there are more people heterosexual than homosexual, would you WANT to be made fun of? Ridiculed? Even sometimes people are so sick as to beat, hit, even murder homosexuals just for being what they are. You don't "choose" anything. It's just the way you are.

Retard.

I would die for my beliefs. I chose my beliefs, though. Dying for a belief in religion or a belief in homosexuality is not that different. If people truly believe something, whether it is right or wrong, often they are willing to die for it. Choice still applies in life, even if some choices are harder or easier than others.

But homosexuality isn't a belief, it's an identity. I'm often criticized for certain aspects of my personality and habits: the way I dress, the kinds of music I listen to, my attitudes, etc. I don't wear clothes I don't feel comfortable in if I don't have to, I don't listen to music I don't like, I don't act in a way that doesn't reflect who I am inside, because that would be denying who I am, it would be lying to myself. The choice that gays have, the choice that can put them in danger, the choice they might die for, isn't the choice to be that way, it's the choice to admit to the world that they are that way.

Or if there's no choice involved in homosexuality at all, maybe?

You don't think when you are born all that much about it. You don't think much about anything. But there's no "fate" involved in it, you don't choose, however. It's simply the fact of whether you were born that way or not, even if you don't want to be that way, you didn't "choose" it. How can you choose it if you don't want to do it? That's what choice is about, wanting.

That's doing him justice. Actually I don't think this site has enough bandwidth to make the gap between him and logic.