Meet Mike Huckabee: 2016 GOP hopeful, former governor of Arkansas, and former pastor. In one of his latest statements, he said that being gay “is akin to choosing to drink alcohol or use profanity.” He also managed to fit “Jew” and “bacon-wrapped shrimp” in the same sentence, which surely is worthy of mention. I don’t usually pay attention to outspoken homophobes like Huckabee. If I did, I wouldn’t have time to do much else. I usually laugh, to be quite honest. Not because I think it’s funny, but more because I think it’s ridiculous. But as I read through his comments, I actually realized that this guy might be screaming something immensely important, but no one is listening. Everyone is too busy laughing. What if he is right? Is homosexuality a choice? I never stopped to consider it, because it’s simply so unthinkable to me. But after really thinking about it, I came to a different conclusion. I was wrong. I was wrong to laugh at these men and women, because they are right. Homosexuality is a choice. But it has nothing to do with genes or biology or any science really. It has to do with the society we live in.
Imagine a young high school boy, 16 years old, and gay. But he hasn’t told anyone yet. He hasn’t told his mother, father, best friend, or even his dog. His most recent Internet searches have been about coming out—how to, whom to, when to. He’s scared out of his mind. He’s scared of rejection. He’s scared of disappointing his right-leaning father. He’s scared people will think less of him. Every day he switches from, “I’m going to do it,” to, “There’s no way in hell I’m going through with this.”
This goes on for what seems like an eternity. He can’t think of anything else. He realizes that once he decides to do it, there’s no going back.
Does this situation sound foreign or unimaginable? I hope not. That’s what probably every single gay teenager goes through before coming out, if they do it. As a straight man, I’ll never truly understand. I can simply imagine. So many decisions he has to make. Whether or not to accept who he is, whether or not to listen to politicians like Huckabee, whether or not to come out, and again, whether or not to accept himself as a gay man, what he’s going to do when people laugh at him at school.
The list goes on. The saddest part about this story—about all the stories—is they don’t all finish with an open closet. Actually, a lot of people never go through with it, and live on their lives.
We live in a society where living a life of lies and denial is actually preferable to being openly gay. Now can you honestly say homosexuality isn’t a choice?
I know the science, I know how genes work, and you probably know a bit of it too. But that doesn’t really change anything. It’s one thing to be sexually attracted to the same sex, but it’s another to be a homosexual individual.
The former consists of chemical reactions happening in the brain. The latter, though, is more social and anthropological.
Being homosexual implies an acceptance of the self, an acceptance of the person that you are. If a woman lives her own life hiding her homosexuality, is she really homosexual? I know she’s attracted to women and she fits the Webster definition, but she’s not allowing herself to be herself. If it is contained within her and never shared, never let out, never accepted, does it even exist? Let’s face it: She has to choose to accept it. Because it’s a choice. And it’s one of the hardest choices a homosexual will have to do in his or her life.
How is that even remotely acceptable? How have so many barriers been put between coming out and living a lie? If you think I’m exaggerating, look beyond your inner circle, beyond college, beyond your state. The United States itself, the land of freedom and opportunity, is plagued by hatred and denial. When people say that homosexuality is a choice, they’re proving their own statement. Just the fact that it is common spread “opinion” proves that homosexuals have to choose to be whom they really are. The worst part is, it becomes truer every time anyone says it.
Every time someone claims that “gays choose to be gay,” they are making it more and more of a reality. And not just those words, but so much that we do. To consider all that we do to add to that burden of decision is simply scary to me. It should be to you, too, and to all of us.
So this is for you, Mike Huckabee. I sympathize with you, for no one listens to what you have to say. No one believes you. But you’re right, Mike. You are so terribly, awfully right.
In the hopes that we one day prove the scientists right.
Featured Image by Francisco Ruela / Heights Graphics
Choosing to accept yourself as you are is NOT the same thing as choosing whether to be who you are. If you are same-sex attracted, you are homosexual whether you act on it or not. Hiding and pretending to be attracted to the opposite sex does not make you any less gay (I know … I tried). Even if you somehow manage to engage in opposite-sex relations, you’re still gay.
Christophe, you argue that “if a woman lives her own life hiding her homosexuality, is she really homosexual?” and “she has to choose to accept it. Because it’s a choice.” However, you fail to realize that we live in a heteronormative society, one in which each individual is assumed to be straight unless proven otherwise. A straight person does not have to choose or accept his/her heterosexuality for it to be true or for him or her to act on it. Furthermore, you fail to realize that sexuality operates on a spectrum and the boxes society has decided to place people into “gay” “bisexual” etc. are arbitrary and allow the dominant heterosexual population to further separate and discriminate against anyone who identifies as a sexuality other than the norm. I highly recommend that you do some research on sexuality before you write any more articles about the subject for yours does nothing but highlight the insensitive ignorance of the straight population.
I think that is what he is saying…That it is due to the heteronormative reality of society that one must choose to identify publicly as homosexual. And there are so many barriers to doing so that it becomes harder and harder for people to come out as such.
I agree with the comments below. I know your analysis was meant to point out the injustices that still exist, and as someone who does not have the experience of being homosexual (in any sense or definition of the word) it is completely understandable that you might see it this way. I would like to offer a different narrative. Because we label and categorize people based on their sexual actions (something that historically and anthropologically hasn’t always been done), and because homosexual actions and identity has stigma attached to it in our society, it makes people not want to claim that identity. This simply reflects the homophobic society we live in, which is what I think you were trying to get at. But as a heterosexual male, you have no right to say that the definition of homosexual means identifying explicitly as such.
I am also uncomfortable with the idea that coming out is a choice. One’s ability to come to terms with their own sexual preference isn’t a choice, it’s a process. A lot of times coming out means being cut off financially, entering into an identity with a social stigma and all the other barriers that you describe. Some people’s agency is severely limited by these pressures, and it becomes more than a matter of mere “choice.”
Oftentimes in discourse about coming out we talk about being able to be our “true selves,” and I would like the challenge that narrative. It is actually quite easy to “be myself” while still concealing that I
am bisexual. Because being homosexual is often also connected to one’s gender expression- how one acts, dresses, and what types of
entertainment one likes- a lot of times people feel the need to hide
these parts of themselves as well as their actual sexual preference. Only in this sense are people who are homosexual not being themselves. As a female who doesn’t come off as particularly “butch” (nor particularly “straight”), AND as someone who can talk openly about sexual encounters with men, I can very easily go about my day being my true self, minus one little caveat. Your argument conflates one’s mere sexual preference with an entire identity.
I am a big proponent of working towards a society in which we do not need to label ourselves based on sexual preference. Labeling and identifying is something that is necessary in order to point out that people who partake in non-heterosexual acts are discriminated against and oppressed, but ultimately it limits the way people think about sexuality, which is an extremely fluid part of who we all are.
It’s shamefully ignorant and reckless for you, as a heterosexual person, to try and talk about homosexuals without being one. As a bisexual, who has struggled with sexuality and other topics, I can’t say that this article really does justice to anyone facing our issues. Homosexuality in it’s passive aspects are in the thoughts we have, and in the life we wish we could live. Being that we live in a hetero-normative society, it makes it much more difficult to be openly gay without fearing passive-aggressive forms of abuse and berating insults in the work place or in social environments. Even as a bisexual, I have little control over who I find attractive, and have fallen for women just as much as men. Sometimes it comes in differing waves without any real pattern. If you’re unaware of brain studies showing links between brain chemistry and attraction, then you might want to look up stuff before stating forcefully that it cannot exist in homosexuals.Lastly, that you’re even considering listening to an uneducated, uninspired, asshole as Mike Huckabee shows that you’re almost as bad as he is– consider interviewing actual homo- and bi-sexual people and then become a voice for them rather than blowhards like Huckabee. Literally written just as tour de force of hetero-normative society’s arm.
1) Press ctrl F
2) Type “Homosexuality”
3) Replace with “Heterosexuality”
4) …
P.S Christopher, when did you finally choose to accept your heterosexuality and officially become straight?! I would love to hear your coming out story!!!!
Heterosexuality is the biological and evolutionary urge that is embedded within our essence. How does it feel to be a homosexual? To know that you serve no evolutionary purpose? If it is genetic, how could it be passed on when the gays cannot have children.
I remember just a few years ago sodomy was illegal. Now anyone that comments on the negativity of the homosexuals, who comprise 60% of all new US HIV cases (despite being max 4% of the US population) and spread propaganda oversexualizing our youth, instantly receives backlash and a title of “bigot.” Wake up America; disgusting homosexuals corrupt the uninformed. They hurt society and Mike Huckabee proudly fights for the freedom of our founding religious beliefs. Now as for his other beliefs, I need to analyze him to see if he truly believes in the ideals that founded our great land of America.
homosexuality is a sin
In the words of Phoebe
You’re a disgusting and sinful individual for believing that being gay is a sin. God said to love everyone. You don’t get to pick and chose what you want from the Bible.
So is refusing to love thy neighbor
It seems obvious just by looking at the comments here and by the anonymous voting that there is a silent majority against the homosexuals. I know of many college students that privately are willing to discuss their disdain for gays, but would not dare publicly say so for fear of backlash. This includes some of our finest athletes and “heroes” of BC. Hate to say it, but just look at the upvotes here.
that.does.not.make.it.right.
Maybe because people who engage is homosexual sex do not have the sex ed resources that heterosexual people do, or because oftentimes they have to hide their sexual encounters, and do not have spaces to ask for healthy sex ed advice
Eleanor, stop trying to avoid the biological facts. It is not a societal problem. Anal Sex/ Sodomy (the only way for homosexuals to have “intercourse”) increases the chances of spreading HIV by 18 times.
Source: Baggaley RF et al. HIV transmission risk through anal intercourse: systematic review, meta-analysis and implications for HIV prevention. Int J Epidemiol (online edition), doi:10.1093/ije/dyq057
Maybe you’re one of those sick people that want homosexuals to donate blood, without knowing the facts, out of your desire to do good in the world and promote equality. Well, there is a reason the American Red Cross doesn’t allow homosexuals to donate blood. I will let you do your own research.
I love how blatantly flawed your logic is. You know sex in general and blood donations increase HIV transmissions too. I guess you, as someone who “thinks with [their] brain,” are against those too.
Also, I love the fact that you accuse Eleanor of ignoring biological fact and pretend to know all about biology when you do not even know the difference between genetics and heredity (which everyone above 6th grade should know). Saying “If it is genetic, how could it be passed on when the gays cannot have children?” Is like saying “down syndrome is not a genetic condition. Who cares about that extra chromosome? The parents of children with down syndrome don’t have it so it couldn’t possibly be genetic!” Which is obviously ridiculous.
Get off your high horse. If you’re going to make an argument, make one that actually makes sense.
once again, who said sodomy was an exclusively homosexual practice? 😉
Also no one is calling the author of this article a bigot, he is simply misconstruing and misunderstanding the gay experience.
I am. The author is a fool and a bigot for thinking that they know better than, say, THE AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATE. What a freaking jerk.
what does the APA have to do with the article?
more plot twists:
straight couples sodomize too (so shoking!!!) (it’s actually useful for many who want to remain a virgin/want their girlfriend to remain a virgin before marriage)
not every gay couple do sodomy (yes, really. Some men are not comfortable with it)
homosexuality is not only a male thing
homophobes are so obsessed with gay SEX they are pathetic. They fail to understand that a homosexual relationship is no more and no less sexual than a heterosexual one. You know, have you heard of this thing called love?
Historically and anthropologically, people who we currently define as homosexual have been charged with childrearing within their communities, despite being physically unable to produce their own offspring. This has it’s own evolutionary value. Homosexuality has been a thing throughout human existence. In our current slice of time, for many people, it is an issue, but it doesn’t have to be.
I’d be more offended by this post if it was not written by someone who doesn’t know the difference between genetics and heredity.
plot twist: a gay person can still concieve a baby and therefore “serve the evolutionary purpose”
funny how the capacity to procreate does not have anything to do with the nature of the affective relationship which binds the man and the woman
…funny how the same people who are reproaching gays to “not serve evolution” are the ones who are preventing them from actually doing so by standing against marriage and adoption.
First of all, thank you for writing this. People are going to react negatively to some of the things that you said, but I hope it does not stop you from writing. Thank you for saying something. Maybe you didn’t say it all perfectly, or the way everyone wanted you to. I know that I have thought about similar things, and I would tackle the conversation differently, and people still would critique how I say it too. But you heard something, you reflected on it, and you responded. This is a continual and ongoing process, and I admire you for sharing your thoughts with others for there is great value in that. Some are saying that you, as a heterosexual, are ignorant to be talking about the issues that homosexuals face – I think they couldn’t be more ignorant. We’re all in this society, we all have participated in injustice towards another human being, we all have suffered injustices. This is not one group against the other. We have to work together and the only way that can happen is through conversation.
Sexuality is not a choice, and I know you know that, though others may not realize that about you through the lens with which they read your article. Knowing yourself is an incredibly difficult and ongoing process, especially during this time in our lives when we are “defining ourselves” and finding our place in the world as we are about to go “set it aflame”. Sexuality is one small part of who we are as human beings and members of society, and for some that is all it is. For others, their sexuality does define a lot of who they are, what they are passionate about, and what they experience in life. For me personally, coming out was entirely a choice, but my sexuality was not. Acting on my sexual preferences, however, is entirely my choice. And it is taking me a long time to come to terms with how my sexuality intersects and will continue to intersect with the vision I have for myself, and maybe thats a product of society or maybe thats a product of who I am. But honestly, I don’t think it matters. Because maybe I didn’t choose my sexuality, but I do choose to love. And that alone defines me so much more than my sexuality ever has or ever will.
That one word (and sentiment altogether) was missing in your article. It was also missing in the comments below. And I think that is the greatest injustice of all. Bottom line, none of us choose who we fall in love with. That tends to happen whether we like it or not. But we do all choose who we stay in love with – and I think that is the one thing that unites us all together, “the total agony of being in love”. Maybe this is beside the point, maybe I’m being ignorant to the ignorance occurring in this article, but I think this is a much more important thing to talk about. Whether a woman is in a relationship with a woman, or a man is in a relationship with a man, or a woman is in a relationship with a man, or if someone of third gender is in a relationship with someone who is pansexual (I could literally go on and on with the relationship combos here)…one thing remains true, “The greatest thing, you’ll ever learn is just to love an be loved in return.” No matter who you are or who you love, to love is a choice, it is a process, it is painful, it is beautiful, it is an ability, it is a gift.
So I’m choosing to come out as a lover of love. I hope society is okay with that.
Nice to see a left-leaning article. I was beginning to give up on BC. Just kidding, I did that a long time ago.
I don’t want to nitpick, because I think you make some good points, but I think your definition of ‘homosexual’ runs into some terminological difficulties. If I understand you correctly, your view seems to be that a person’s sexual orientation is a function of his or her external, social/anthropological behavior. Does this make misanthropes asexual? If I hit on a girl who turns out to be a rather effeminate man, am I now a homosexual? Suppose a drunk male in his college years decides to experiment one night: after fingering his own butthole does he suddenly become autosexual? By your logic, that would seem to follow. Gays who read this article are going to want to tear you a new one, pun intended!
The definitional difficulties notwithstanding, I generally agree with your conclusion. While Huckabee should not be taken seriously, the fact that members of the LGBTQ community face this ‘decision’ or ‘choice’ speaks to the longstanding prejudices of our society, and that is certainly “scary to me”, too.
You are an idiot who should stop being a journalist. Choosing to come out about your sexuality is a choice. Your sexuality which you feel innately within is never a choice.
Thanks for summarizing the thesis of the whole article- GO PAUL!
Congrats, BC Heights: You’ve fallen to a new low. I get that this is an opinion page, but you are giving an ignorant person the mouthpiece. Maybe the editor could do a simple Google check? Maybe they could look up what the American Psychological Association says about this subject? Maybe someone could turn to the author and say, “Wow, that’s a super narrow minded and foolish thought that can EASILY be overturned with 10 minutes of research,” and then BC and its paper wouldn’t look like a bunch of complete fools?
Total troll bait article.
Homosexuality refers to an involuntary attraction to people with the same gender orientation, and it’s not a choice, whether or not the individual chooses to come out. One cannot help who they are attracted to.
The only reason “coming out” is even a thing is because heterosexuality is the norm and queerness is condemned. Please display more kindness towards the LGBTQUIA+ community by understanding this, and by not writing articles putting the onus on said community to “prove” themselves by coming out.
You are an very talented who should never stop being a journalist, just saying! It’s beautifully knowledgable and brave of you, as a heterosexual person, to try and talk about homosexuals without being one, it takes compassion and an open view to address this hard to talk about subject.
Thank you for righting this! You did EXACTLY what is needed… conversation. This is something we need to talk about if we want to fight society norms and see this situation from many different angles.
I understand this article could hard for some people to read, but please everyone just try to read the words as they are there NOT what you think he is saying. Peace and Love.
So what you’re saying is you choose to be a heterosexual you made a choice? You have an innate desire to be with men and you have homosexual cravings constantly but you choose to be with women right? This journalist and you must be delusional.
We are saying coming out was entirely a choice, but the biological or innate sexuality was not. Acting on his/her sexual preferences, however, is entirely his/her choice. For both homosexuals and heterosexuals, but society puts us in a box where one expression/choice is more accepted than another.
Can’t wait to read next week’s article about slavery written by a kid from Chappaqua.
Homosexuality is a religion. No one is born with religious beliefs that their body doesnt exist, or that they are a woman trapped in a man’s body.
These are all religious beliefs. Your body is as unchangeable as time itself. Either you accept it or reject it. Homosexuals reject their bodies. Heterosexuals accept them. That is a choice. You cannot say that you were ‘born’ to reject your body.
How about the difference between intelligent people and idiots?
The former ones understand they weren’t born with all the world’s knowledge and when something is not within their realm of experience, they take the time to listen to others and learn before they judge. The latter ones think they know better than everybody else, even when it comes to experiences they have never had.
Basing on your comment, you clearly belong to the second category. And besides, you are totally mixing up gay and trans. In any case this kind of speech is causing so much damage in the world, probably more than you can imagine.
So you are saying that i am not intelligent because i look down and see my genitals and know that they exist?
I am not mixing up gay and trans. There are only two categories of sexuality. Heterosexual, and not-heterosexual. I gues what you mean to say is that you are not heterosexual. ok got it.
Trans is not a sexuality.
I am saying that you lack intelligence in the understanding that you cannot, on your own, grasp the whole reality and truth of the world. You need the point of view in others when discussing things they can see and you cannot (metaphorically speaking). You’re not God are you.
Oh, I’m not hiding the fact I am gay. But that wasn’t my point, no.
I am not g-d. I also have no doubt that you believe, in your mind, that you were ‘born gay,’ all i am saying is that your claims cannot be proven scientifically, and thus you do not have a right to teach children your personal religious beliefs because sometimes it can harm children to make false scientific claims that are presented to them as fact. So while gays want to dispute their body as representative of their gender, it is not a ‘constitutional right’ to teach others (including children) that they should hate or ‘dispute’ their body because merely telling a child that their body doesn’t exist, can result in the child actually believing it
Who cares if I was or wasn’t gay in the very first day of my life, if that even makes any sense. I don’t understand your obsession with ignoring the body and I don’t see how this has anything to do with homosexuality. I don’t see what religion has to do with that either.
But talking about religion, how come I have no right teaching my kids my religion? Don’t you teach your kids your religion? And you know what harms kids? Parents who won’t accept them as they are, all those parents throwing them out when they are gay or trans.
In any case you are very confused on the subject and it’s sad that you won’t educate yourself about it.
(about this scientific thing though… When someone tells you they have a headache, or are feeling sad, or having an experience whatsoever, are you going to question it and ask for a scientific proof ? When people say they have not chosen to be attracted to somemone else/to fall in love with them, you simply have to believe them. Or be consistant and never believe anything of other people’s experience that you don’t have a way to check. I see a lack of compassion and understanding here, and I dunno if you’re Christian, but if you are, it’s even sadder. Oh, and the only reason I can think of about you not understanding that falling in love and being attacted to someone is not a choice, is that you’re probably bi or gay yourself and fighting it as hard as you can. The definition of straight, though, is not having to fight or choose, straight people are naturally attracted to the opposit sex).
A headache, is not voluntary. Skin color is not voluntary. Who you have sex with, is voluntary. I am not saying you can’t teach your ‘children’ about your religion, i am also stating that when it comes to my children, i decide how to educate them, and no one has the right to approach my child and tell them to hate their own body by engaging cosmetic surgery on your psychology to ‘alter’ your body image artificially. So i never stated that you don’t feel sexual attraction to same sex. I think it is obviously that you have these feelings. All i am saying is that my child, will be a heterosexual. i am saying is that my child will never be gay because i will raise him straight and thus he will be straight. whatever you teach your children, is what they will learn. If you teach them gay, they will be gay. If you teach them straight, they will be straight. And of course, whenever a gay person meets someone who does not want to join their religion, all of a sudden the only explanation for it in their minds is that the person is a ‘homophobe’ and/or closet homosexual. Sometimes, people are actually heterosexual, and simply decide not to join the homosexual religion which does not mean they are ‘questioning’ their sexuality. This does not mean that they are a ‘self-loathing’ homosexual, it just means exactly what it is, which is that a person is heterosexual. In fact, you cannot even be heterosexual if you do not develop a natural repulsion to homosexuality. In order to be a real heterosexual, you have to be attracted to the opposite sex and also REPULSED by the same sex. If you do not have an equal and opposite attraction/repulsion, then you are actually bi-sexual. So a heterosexual is one that is attracted to opposite sex, and repulsed by same sex. A person who is attracted to opposite sex but undecided about attraction to same sex, is merely a bi-sexual or ‘undecided’
So much nonesense… ok, so:
1- Definition of sexual orientation = what gender you are ATTRACTED to, what gender you usually FALL IN LOVE with. Opposit, you’re hetero, same, you’re homo, both, you’re bi. Doesn’t matter who you have sex with, if you act on it or not. Therefore sexual orientation is not a choice and that is a fact. Needless to say it has absolutly nothing to do with any kind of belief or religion, it is how a person is.
2- There is no such thing as raising to a sexual orientation. Your kids will be straight or gay or bi no matter what you do about it. Know how many gays had never even heard the word homosexuality until they found out they were attracted to the same sex? What you can teach though is acceptance or hate. If you teach your kids that being gay is bad and they turn out to be gay, they will hate themselves and who knows, maybe commit suicide. If they are straight, they might bully other gay kids, fight against lgbt rights, or condamn homosexuality on various internet forums like you are doing right now and contribute to the homophobic athmosphere that leads other young LGBT to self hatred.
Of course, every parent teaches their kids whatever they want. But we live in a society that has values and that has a law, and not every opionion is considered acceptable. You can teach white superiority over blacks to your kids at home, society now considers it normal to teach them differently at school. Same goes for all kind of discrimination / racisme and yeah, homophobia too. Because every Citizen has the right to live freely and with the same rights and security than any other citizen, whatever their color, religion, gender or sexual orientation. If you dislike this you might feel more comfortable in countries where gays are put to prison, and there are many.
And once and for all, what is this delirium over body transformation all about ?! “no one has the right to approach my child and tell them to hate their own body by engaging cosmetic surgery on your psychology to ‘alter’ your body image artificially”. What the heck is THAT supposed to mean? I’m gay and my body is fine and natural, thank you very much. What’s all the nonesense? “cosmetic surgery on your psychology” ? Does this even make any grammatical sense?
I TOLD you you were mixing up gay and trans, but if you can’t even uderstand homosexuality, I can’t believe you could start to concieve what transgendered people experience (also called gender dysphoria).
What is your problem with gay people? Why can’t you just let them be? Why are you afraid your kids should turn out to be gay? No one is asking you to be gay, just to quit trying to hide part of humanity because you don’t like it. And once again, you are making a fool of yourself by commenting so much on a subject about which you keep showing complete ignorance.
I have no problem with gay people i only dispute that they were ‘born’ that way. I view homosexuality as a curable sexual disorder and nothing more. I only have a problem with the ‘gay jehovah witness’ movement knocking on my door, assaulting my children over the internet and television, attempting to convince them to join this new religion that claims genitals don’t exist.
I don’t teach my children hate. I teach them science, and science proves that it is impossible to be born gay. It is called ‘tabula rasa’ and i suggest you google the term before you keep accusing me of nonsense. I just feel that it is not productive to tell gay people that they are ‘born’ that way because it makes it more difficult to treat them when you keep telling them that they are ‘born’ that way.
We don’t tell pedophiles that they are ‘born’ that way because it will encourage them to molest chldren by thinking that they can be ‘forgiven’ for their involuntary actions.
All i am saying, is that no matter what, the only scientific fact is that people are not ‘born gay’ they choose it. I don’t have to put myself in the mind of gay people to ‘understand’ what they are going through. I have met many people who hallucinate, but i do not attempt to encourage their hallucination.
1- science cannot say if people were or were not born gay. It hasn’t decided yet! None of the possibilities are ruled out.So that isn’t a “scientific fact”
2- a curable sexual disorder?? why ? what do you base THAT on? What material is there to call it a “disorder”? And why put your nose on other poeple’s buisness? if you were gay and wanted to be straight, you could go ahead and try to cure yourself, but you aren’t gay, so how qualified do you think you are to decide whether someone else’s experience is a disorder or isn’t ?! I do not feel sick, do not bother anyone and do not need any kind of “cure”.
3- How on earth is being gay a choice when you said yourself that you don’t choose to be attracted/to fall in love with someone? You are contradicting yourself. As for pedophile, who knows, maybe they were born that way. They can help how they are feeling, yup, that is a fact. But they can help how they are acting. So them being or not being born that way doesn’t change the fact that they are criminals if they assault a child. Gays? Who are we hurting by being together? right, no one.
4- Will you please stop your obsession over genitals? Genitals don’t exist? What?
Anyway, what are we even arguing about here? In the democratie we live in, everyone should have the right to be who they are as long as they are not hurting anybody else, and live in security and have rights. Period. As for why people are gay, why people are straight, no one can answer for at moment, but the FACT is that people ARE straight, bi, gay, nobody chose to be who they are. Those are the facts. Now what do you do with those facts? Try to “cure” people who do not even feel sick, do not bother anybody? Apparently your only problem is fear: you are afraid your children should be “contaminated by the gay”. So you want to hide reality from them, you don’t want them to see gay people on TV, or in the Streets, right? Because if they knew some people are gay, they would automatically become gay too? Well I hope for them to turn out straight because with a father like you, being gay would be hellish (know the movie Prayers for Bobby?). But at the same time, if one of them was gay, maybe you would learn something about it all.
Homosexuality is not being attracted to feces!! Being attracted to feces is a fetich, a paraphilia, and as you pointed out, can happen independently of one’s sexual orientation (gay bi straight).
” If you can honestly tell me that when two men smear feces all over each other, that this is love” REALLY ? That’s homosexuality to you? This is two people with a feces fetich, and it’s not within my area of expertise to say whether it is considered a disorder or not (are paraphilia considered a disorder in the DSM? i dunno. Is the DSM a bible? nope…. I have friends who are psychiatrists who are against it… but I’m getting off the point).
Being gay is being attracted to PEOPLE, not to feces! Then, anal sex is only one of the way gay men have sex, and not even all of them do it, because some are very uncomfortable with it. As for feces, I am not the most qualified to explain to you in détails how they work it out, but I know there are ways to avoid feces during a sexual intercourse. In any case, what people do in their bedroom is private and nobody’s buisness. When you see a straight couple do you imagine the woman swallowing the man’s sperm? Do you imagine them sodomizing and “smearing feces all over each other”? Is that all you can see in a Relationship, sex and feces?
” Have you ever seen photographs of two men eating and smearing feces all over each other?” No I haven’t. Have you? I find it curious that you might be interested in looking for such things…
“What if you were walking down the street, and you saw someone pick of a piece of dog feces from the floor and start eating it? Do you really mean to tell me that you would consider this a normal act?” Who is doing this? Is that also how you see gays? eating dog poop from the streets^^? Waou… I don’t know who is the sickest from imagining such things.. Besides, eating feces can be Deadly, it’s poisonous.
Okay, so btw, it seems like you don’t consider gay women to be having a disorder.
Any form of sex other than penis-vagina intercourse, is a form of psychosexual disorder. I could care less what people do in their own bedroom as long as it does not affect me. All i am stating is a very simple scientific definition of sex which is the only definition which is accurate. Sex is defined by penis-vagina intercourse. everything else is copulation/masterbation. Persons who are scared to procreate are suffering from a psychological disorder, and if your primary fetish is forms of copulation that cannot result in offspring, then you suffer from an ‘anti-creative sexual orientation’ as that is what homosexuality is. Everyone says ‘sexual orientation’ but no one defines it. There are only two sexual orientations, which is procreative (sex) and anticreative (copulation/masterbation). If you are obsessed with all anticreative forms of copulation, then you clearly suffer from anti-creative disorder.
I am not about trying to fix the homosexual if he does not want to be fixed. I also could care less about people who are addicted to sodomy, and i assure you that i do not voluntarily seek out such material to view on the internet. The photographs i am speaking of were forwarded to me by a homosexual, and once i actually saw what a significant number of male homosexuals do in the privacy of their own bedrooms, all it did was further reinforce my belief that anti-creative disorder clearly results in behaviour which is undesirable in humans, such as attraction to feces. Lesbians are no different because even if they don’t bathe in feces as part of their love-making rituals, they still suffer from the overarching anti-creative disorder that propels them to be repulsed by sex with men.
“Any form of sex other than penis-vagina intercourse, is a form of psychosexual disorder.”
Says who? says you. You are not God and you are not Mother Nature either, and you are certainly not qualified to decide on what is normal and what isn’t what sex should be and what can be called or can’t be called sex. I take it that you are anti contraception as well because it supposes that the intercourse is not made in the goal of conception. That you are against sex between the elderly because it is not made in the goal of conception. Just to be consistent.
“I could care less what people do in their own bedroom as long as it does not affect me.”
I also think you could care less, because you seem to care a bit too much^^. Ok more seriously, what people do in their privacy do not affect you. You are affecting yourself by thinking about it and imagining things. Just don’t do that. I don’t mind what your definition of sex is as long as it doesn’t affect me either. But fact is, you’re the one who’ve been trying to impose your belief on me from the beggining. We certainly both have a different belief, you believe homosexuality is a disorder and I am saying it is normal. But the difference between our beliefs is that mine is inclusive and yours is exclusive. I’m not saying what you are doing is bad and not trying to shame you upon it. Not calling you disordered. But you…see the difference? I am only defending myself and my peers because you call me sick (pretty much, right?), while you are attacking by going to other people and confronting them on who they are.
And I’ll tell you what. I think you lack philosophical hindsight. What is normality in the first place? What do you rely on to interpret nature in the first place?
Gays always jump to the elderly and the infertile to justify their voluntary infertility.
It doesn’t matter if you are not procreative. The only thing that matters is that the force which propels you to want to have sex, is the procreative force. We are not talking about the outcome of the sex act, but rather the deep, unconcious psychological motive for wanting to have sex. If your motive is procreative, then you are heterosexually oriented. If not, then you suffer from disorder. Many heterosexuals suffer from this disorder as well.
For homosexuals the disorder is so acute that it results in more than just a fetish for oral/anal, but a fetish for complete anticreative expression. Even if a homosexual wanted to engage procreative sex with their ‘significant other”, it is impossible with the same sex anyway. At least heterosexuals have a decision to switch from anti-creative copulation to procreative sex once they decide they would like to attempt to create a child. Homosexuals are so against procreative sex that the mere thought of it repulses them into the extreme configuration of engaging copulation with the same gender.
“Homosexuals are so against procreative sex that the mere thought of it repulses them into the extreme configuration of engaging copulation with the same gender.” no this is not how it works. It’s not turning to the same because the opposit repulses. It is being attracted to the same in the first place.
So you clearly believe to be Mother Nature and to know the secrets of nature. You don’t care about the facts and you twist reality so it matches your logic, by simply stating that what does not match with it is a mistake. Way to go
Being attracted to same sex, without repulsion to opposite sex, is defined as bi-sexual. Being attracted to opposite sex, without repulsion to same sex, is defined as bi-sexual. Being attracted to same sex, with repulsion to opposite sex, is homosexual. Being attracted to opposite sex, with repulsion to same sex, is heterosexual. Thus any sexual configuration that does not contain repulsion is automatically bi-sexual. Any sexual configuration that contains an additional ‘repulsive’ component, either falls into hetoersexual or homosexual. As stephen hawking proclaimed. The universe in a nutshell. Don’t overthink it emmy. It is what it is.
And just for the record, children are not ‘born’ bi-sexual just because they have not developed sexual repulsion to either same or opposite sex. For children, an early development of repulsion to feces and urine generally starts the procedure to orient the child towards heterosexuality. So children actually start to become heterosexual at the very first moment they have a bowel movement a realize what is occuring. So all children are born with tabula rasa, but generally a child starts to develop heterosexuality within days of being born once they start to develop an understanding that they can excrement, and that doing so is releasing toxins. When a child begins to become stunted in the growth of these natural repulsions to excrement, for some children this can leave the door open to being succeptible to allowing sexual desires to become manifested without fear or repulsion to the inclusion of excrement in the sex act, and the greater a person’s tolerance to excrement, the more possible it becomes to make allowances for sexual deviences that allow for the exploration of the excrement canals as a possible repository for copulation.
tablua rasa was disproven by Steven Pinker
Tabula rasa was not dis-proven by Stephen Pinker because he doesn’t know how to separate the innate qualities of our mind’s computational mechanisms from the extrapolation qualities of our memory structure. The actual tabula rasa that our mind contains, is our memory functions. We are not born with ‘memory’ we acquire it, but after it is acquired, the mind uses its innate tri-polar processor to extrapolate the values of your memory into an interpreted ‘reality’ So without memory, there is nothing for the brains computer to process, and the only innate qualities of our natural-born brain processor comes in two distinct configurations, which are masculine processors and feminine processors. 100% of all male brains have a 2-1 core ratio that is perpendicular to the 2-1 core ratio of women, thus the brains of men and women compute differently. That is the only innate structure of our brain, which is a confirmation that the brain of men and women are different. Once that is established, the brain then receives memories and computes it according to either the male or female computational mechanisms, depending upon what gender you are. Sexuality is a language, thus like all languages they draw from memory to structure themselves. So when you have a memory disorder, your brains computational structures can make less than accurate interpretation of stimulus.
So in reality, tabula rasa refers to your memory, not the innate biological mechanism of the mind which is a mechanism that simply confirms your ‘gender’ as either male or female for purpose of making calculations which are not ‘sexual’ in nature, but rather mathematical in nature. Sexual attractions (in the form of logic structures of the memory) comes later after the memory database is expanded upon from year to year, especially on the path towards puberty.
Steven Pinker is just another snake oil salesman like all the rest.
Christophe – I think one of the major points you miss in
writing this article is his comparison of homosexuality to “choosing to drink
alcohol or use profanity.” Choosing to swear and drink alcohol are easily
avoidable in all aspects of life. Not drinking and not swearing are possible to
be avoided by anyone. Contrary to that, you have presented the decision to come
out of the closet. You claim that, though it may be a hard choice, it’s
possible to not come out and live life as a straight male or female. I don’t
mean to attack you personally, but I want to let you have an opportunity to see
why this thinking is close-minded. This decision to come out is one that has
literally killed gay people. Struck by fear from their families, friends, and
anyone who they may come in contact with, this choice to reveal their true
feelings has killed people who think it is easier to be dead than to feel
“wrongly.” It may be easy for you as someone who has never had suicidal
thoughts or known anyone who has, but it is devastating to hear that someone
has considered ending their life over something that should be as meaningless
as their sexual preferences. Every time you question someone’s inherent
feelings, you directly attack them. As you know from writing this article, you probably
hate being directly attacked. The better road is to respect the decisions of
those around you and those who may be reading your article. I respect your
courage for writing this, but I refuse to respect your beliefs as they only
cause more grief for those in the community that you essentially attack.