So why is it offensive to consider homosexuality as a choice?

[Gor Kur]

Ignorance is always offensive, like racial stereotypes that are "positive" like one race are all good dancers or another race are all good at math.

 

[Angelous Wang]

The problem is that bisexuality can be a choice rather than a "born with", and it throws of peoples views of homosexuality.

I've know of quite a few men who were only attracted to women sexually but like to be on bottom end of anal sex with men just because of the different sexual pleasures of it.

So in reality they have chosen to be bisexual based on the fact they like to have occasional sex with men, but on an "born with" attraction level they are still completely heterosexual and don't find men attractive at all.

And of course homosexuality is not the same, heterosexual are born attracted to their same gender.

CAPTCHA= i'm blushing

Guess Captcha is a bit sexually repressed.

But because of the fact some people can choose to have sex with a gender they are not attracted to it causes confusion and sexuality gets viewed as a choice, even though it is not.

Well you make a point...maybe....that it's possible for some people to have sex with the same gender and not be attracted to them (I suppose enough testosterone makes it possible?) however....since you know these guys, I have to ask: they like getting it from other men, but do they also deliver? Change positions, I mean? Because I can think of nothing that would kill my sexual mood more than seeing some guy's hairy ass...

No, they do it for the sexual pleasure of bottoming, nothing more, though a few of them have gotten blowjobs afterwards whilst watching porn.

Though that said I also do know a guy who is also only actually attracted to women but fucks men. He has some power fetish an having another guy be his "*****" gets him off even though he is not attracted to the guy.

 

[Caiphus]

Just going on the OP, I guess he's correct: Being homosexual isn't a choice, but partaking in gay sex is a choice. Just like every other action.

The salient point that most people are making, although it's questionable if they've actually read the OP past the title, is that this is not usually what people mean when they say homosexuality is a choice. People usually mean that the orientation itself is a choice, which is then used to dismiss gay rights out of hand. So that's the part that is offensive.

Recognising that having gay sex is a choice isn't really a huge discovery though. I mean, it's not like gay people are magnets that just can't help but fuck each other when they meet.

Edit: That said, the title is misleading, so..

 

[Mimicmatter]

As a scientific, I like to find anwser the scientific way. I rapidly search scientific article and foudn out this particular article, quite recent to say that much explain what we know so far about homosexuality.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bies.201300033/pdf

This article publish in Bioassays mainly say that homosexuality is epigenetic.

What does it mean simply is that there is genetic predominance toward homosexuality but not alone can lead to it, environnement will play a major role next. Meaning that two people having that had exactly the same live but one as the predominance and the other one doesn't have it, they will not have the same sexual orientation. Same thing, two perfect twin with the same DNA can end up one being gay and the other not because they didn't had the total same environnement (yeah meaning just a simple change like being at the left instead of the right could have a impact).

Next they point out that homosexuality do exist in the animal species. I think we could agree that animal doesn't really act upon choice, but upon instinct, meaning homosexuality is not a choice.

Having that said, saying that homosexuality is a choice is like saying 2 + 2 = 5. If someone would constantly said to you that 2 + 2 = 5, you would eventually be pissed by his comment.

In the end, some people publicly say that homosexuality is a choice to demonize while they don't have any idea what they are talking about and it's up to us to defend ourself after that.

 

[Mid Boss]

How many people would CHOOSE to be homosexual with half the damn country of the mind to drag them out of their homes and stone them to death?

"You know, it's worth being seen as less than human, wondering if someone will drag me into an alley and beat me to death, as long as I get some of that sweet sweet ass sex." - Said no one fucking ever.

 

[VaporWare]

I served as a member of the armed forces of the United States of America under Don't Ask Don't Tell.

I chose, of my own free will, to not engage in the sexual activities to which I was predisposed, for a period of six years to preserve my standing and career until other circumstances rendered it untenable and I left. Before that, I maintained a strongly hetero-normative life to avoid the hostility that I felt would come from stepping out of the closet.

People choose to act on their sexuality, including heterosexuality, all the time. Often, they do not think of themselves as acting on anything. But you can tell that, for instance, heterosexuals act on their sexual orientation on a fairly regular basis on account of we're all here having this conversation.

Is sexuality a choice?

I believe it is. Or, rather, how we compose ourselves based on our sexuality is. We are all predisposed towards, to one degree or another, a given choice of sexuality. Being predisposed to a particular answer doesn't mean you don't have a choice, it just means you know the answer you /want/, or the answer you need to reach emotional and psychological consonance.

It may not always be the best choice under the circumstances in which you make it. It may not always be the safest. But it's your choice to make, and I don't think it's right to take that from someone any more than I think it's right for us to create a condition in which such a choice becomes so perilously difficult to make.

It shouldn't be any harder for a homosexual to choose to live openly as a homosexual than it is for a heterosexual to choose to live as a heterosexual...a choice so easy we don't even notice that it is being made every day.

But I don't believe it's right to deny someone agency, particularly over so powerful and personal a subject, by waving genetics and hormones and unilaterally declaring that they are helpless before the engines of their body. It's no righter to say that, than it is to say they make that choice to spite you, or that it's a trivial choice or to threaten suffering and damnation for making that choice.

That sort of coercion, to satiate any form of greed, is evil.

Why is it considered offensive to regard sexuality as a choice?

I believe Piorn has the right of it here.
Because most people who suggest that it is do so under the misapprehension that there is only one right choice, and that anyone choosing otherwise is doing it to spite them and (worse) to spite 'god', irrespective of whether or not the subject of the choice being made even factors such.

We should try not to be guilty of the same sin.

 

[Able Seaman Staines]

In answer to this question "why is it considered insulting to suggest homosexuality is a choice" is because homosexuality is NOT a choice, it is something you are forced into at knife point in your early teens. That was a joke btw, albeit a somewhat sick one. However this whole forum question is somewhat dodgy in the whole "don't be a dick" sense of the posting guidelines, so people in glass houses and so forth...

 

[Kaymish]

i think the reason is because given that it is from what i understand not a choice and that by referring to it as such trivializes the situations many homosexuals find themselves in, in terms of bigotry and discrimination

 

[Vivi22]

So no you can't choose not to be allergic to eggs, but you choose to eat them or not.

Pretty poor comparison since choosing not to eat eggs doesn't mean going the rest of your life without food.

 

[viranimus]

The answer to the question is simple really. It is seen offensive because the concept of it not being a choice is needed to provide traction in the pursuit of recognition and rights. It is easier to dismiss something if it is seen as optional. However it is harder to rationalize and justify depriving people of something when the factor of which it is being deprived is seen as being beyond control. So it is seen as offensive because it is seen as cutting the legs out of a group by calling into question much of the work done to gain credibility and recognition.

 

[randomrob1968]

it is offensive to consider it a choice because no-one should ever have to explain who they are to someone who wants to reduce them to bits and pieces.... as a game, to kill time.

 

[nyarlathotepsama]

So, do you choose that spinach taste good to you, and do you choose not to be allergic to eggs?

Hey that isn't fair. I said that I understand that you can't choice where your sexual preference lies. So no you can't choose not to be allergic to eggs, but you choose to eat them or not.

So you're saying that I, as a homosexual man, can't choose that I am homosexual but I can choose to not have sex with men? Well that is an interesting view I'll give you that, but one I've heard more than a dozen times from my own family. "Hey (Insert real name here) I know you are attracted to men but if you'd just stop having sex with them we'll allow you to come to Christmas dinner." I guess it makes a kind of sense, but it leaves me with no other "choice" than to not have sex at all. That's what is offensive about calling it a choice; it is insulting and accusatory to tell someone that their inborn sexual desires are a choice they can simply ignore or even inverted on a whim.

The rub of the situation is that if homosexuality was a choice no sane person would choose it on the grounds that people discriminate against us and seek to do us harm. They do so over stupid, school yard reasoning too; they think homosexuality is icky and it makes them uncomfortable and in turn they throw rocks at it to make it go away. However homosexuality is as old as mankind itself and isn't going away anytime soon so they should just accept it and move on.

I actually sort of believe you do have an issue with homosexuals rutger5000, no insult either I'll explain, because of the quote above. Having a problem with someones' lifestyle isn't really a terrible thing, people don't like things they don't understand it is part of human condition and I never judge people on their views of my personal sexuality. I actually know a few people who are the reverse; homosexuals that hate heterosexuals and I tend to find them much more offensive than the other way around. People need only be tolerant of others and nothing more, no need for universal acceptance or grossly over simplified "can't we all just along" mentality, we are human beings and thus, as history has shown, we cannot all just get along. However if we all just tolerate each others' differences then we'll be just fine as far I'm concerned.

But on homosexuality as a choice... the answer is no, a resounding no back up by my intimate knowledge of the culture and personal experiences of myself and a fair sized group of others. I just want you to know that none of this is wrathful or angry but instead just an explanation of how and why such an opinion can be call offensive, as per the threads name. Thanks for reading my long ass posts, I just can't seem to keep them under three paragraphs wherever I go and I blame my job.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

Seriously, OP?

You can choose to try out new foods, but you can't choose which ones you like and which ones you don't. Taste - as in repulsion or attraction to certain foods - is very much a hind brain thing over which we have no control whatsoever. Sexual preferences work in the exact same way. Yes, I could choose to get into a threesome and have a taste of both universes; but I wouldn't be able to consciously determine in which camp I'm going to belong.

Homosexuality being a choice would imply that there's a switch you could flip on or off, somewhere, that would change the deepest aspects of your personality. Yoink, I'm attracted to woman around my age range for the night! Yoink, now I'm attracted to slightly older men!

Consider the way your own crushes have panned out over the years. I'm assuming you're old enough to have had some, and that you've experienced some before. You can't just choose to be attracted to one girl instead of another; there's something deeply rooted inside you that's going to dictate the outcome of that situation. You can very consciously choose to ask both girls out, but which one you'll really stick with is something you can't readily choose. Not everything in a relationship is the result of a conclusive first date and a few fun outings and discussions. Sometimes, you end up clicking with the last person you'd ever have suspected of being the right match.

And that's what's going on with gays and lesbians. They don't choose who they're attracted to, they can't choose which personality type they're going to feel adequately stimulated by - most of it just *happens*.

Seriously, who you love and, on some level, who you mate with is probably the one set of most primitive decisions we've inherited from our primate ancestors. Love and lust are some of the most basic impulses in the world, so it stands to reason we'd be as much enslaved to them as animals are.

 

[Spiderfro]

I don't think most people are thinking on the same wavelength when this conversation goes in to place. On one regard, most things in the mind are not static- they can be changed. On another, that doesn't stop aberrations like this from being automatic. I refuse to believe all of this nonsense where people say "sexuality is hardwired at birth." On the other hand, something needs to be understood about the other end.

Essentially, what you are asking could be asked of you. Assuming you're heterosexual, can you stop yourself from being attracted to women? I'm not talking about acting on impulses in any way, but can you actually stop yourself from automatically being attracted to any woman?

Unfortunately, most people are blathering idiots, and instead of complex answers they want one-liner soundbites.

 

[Shadowstar38]

OP. OP. OP!

Would you bang her? Well why not? Oh? What's that? You're nethers can't foster up levels of enthusiasm for that to be done?

Well do that but for everything with boobs and there's your problem.

If you're a girl insert picture of Kevin Smith and you get the point.

 

[Something Amyss]

But surely everything beyond that is a choice right?

Unless you're heterosexual. Then it's a right.

I think this is part of the problem: people only look at one side of the diction. Nobody questions "acting on" heterosexuality, and in fact it's more or less treated as an inevitability. Even the most puritanical believe it should be expressed within a marriage, which is another "right" (depending on locale, of course).

It's still kind of monstrous to say "it's okay to be gay, just don't act on it."

Being wrong doesn't necessarily mean being offensive.

In a vacuum, no. However, when one considers the relegation of sexuality to a choice is one of the primary justifications for discriminating against people. But that aside, you know what?

It's insulting to think that it's a choice because many people lose their family and friends over their sexual orientation and, in most countries, same sex couples can't marry and experience both mental and physical abuse. To say that it's a choice implies that someone is intentionally "deviating" from their heterosexuality and could just as easily chose to enter in a heterosexual relationship.

That's the rub.

I think if the LGBT community could simply "choose" to fit in with societal perceptions of normal, most of us would do it. There's a reason so many gays try (and fail) to "be straight," a reason so many of LGBT folk kill themselves or try to. There's a reason those psuedoscientific straight camps have such huge draws, even though the real science can't demonstrate any effective cure. Maybe it's the coward's way, but if it was a viable option, I think a majority of us would jump. Why? Because it really sucks "choosing" to be queer in a society that hates you.

So yeah. It is offensive to be told you've heaped that shit on yourself.

And since I'm already being horribly depressing, I'll just end with a quote from Extra Fancy's "C'mon Louie."

I can't be a good man in your eyes
Everything you got to offer don't feel right
Attaché, ugly wife, two kids, long life well
I would rather die!

 

[Lovely Mixture]

You don't choose what kind of videogames you like, you just like them.

If you're a girl insert picture of Kevin Smith and you get the point.

Hey! People have many other problems with Kevin Smith OTHER than how he looks.

 

[Images]

The real "damned if you do damned if you don't" thing is this.

Say its a choice, its offensive because it means that its something that can be changed. "Oh I just CHOOSE to like people of the same sex? Bigot!"

Say its part of how you're raised, its nurture, well once again you're left with people saying "Oh its someone's FAULT I'm this way is it? Bigot!"

Say its part of a person's makeup, that its genetic, then you get outcry that "You're saying there's a gay gene? Bigot!"

Smarter men than me with fleeter feet haven't walked that minefield unscathed. I just stand behind the warning signs and go, there's a diplomatic answer somewhere in there, YOU go look!

 

[Ihateregistering1]

Honestly why is it? Don't get me wrong I've got no problems without homosexuality, in fact I can see myself experimenting some day. But for the live of me I can't see why it's most often considered offensive to think of it as a choice.
I can see that being more sexually attracted to the same sex isn't something you do so purposfully/consiously. So if you purely regard homosexuality as being dominantly sexually attracted to the same sex. Then yes it isn't really a choice, more something that just happens to you. But surely everything beyond that is a choice right?
Again I want to stress that I think it's the right choice. Sexuality is a good thing, so I'd encourage people to do whatever they want on that area as long as all involved parties are consentfull.
But still acting upon your homosexuality is surely a choice right? So why is it considered offensive to regard it as such? Especially as the alternative is to regard it as something like an affliction, which I personally would find much more offensive.

Well, you have to look at it in the big picture: if you establish that homosexuality is a choice, then it gives ammunition to those who say that, since you CHOSE to be this way, you are not inherently entitled to anything, since you can simply choose to not be that way.

To give an example: Let's say a clothing store doesn't hire someone who applies for a job because they have tattoos all over their face, and the company argues that the tattoos are intimidating to customers and thus they don't wish to hire said person. They can likely win such a case because, when all is said and done, the person chose to get their face adorned with tattoos (with extreme exceptions).

Now, put that same idea into an example of a company saying they didn't wish to hire a homosexual because they thought it might affect their customer base. When it is understood that homosexuality isn't a choice, the company's legal standing is very weak. If it is a choice, their standing is much stronger. Essentially, when sexual orientation is comparable to biological sex, height, race, etc. (ie. things that one does not choose) it makes it far more difficult to argue that discrimination against said person should be allowed.

Now, since I'm sure someone will misinterpret what I'm saying, I absolutely think people are born gay or straight or bi or whatever other variations are out there, and discrimination is wrong.

 

[darron13]

Because it's not? And it implies that people who ARE gay choose to be ostracized, have their rights taken away and risk losing friends and family because...reasons, apparently.