Elwin
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Preference vs orientation - 2004/02/11 23:44
Whether strictly genetic or only partially so, it is most definitely not simply a preference, any more than a heterosexual orientation is merely a preference. A gay person can no more change his orientation than a straight person can. Gays often ask straight people to try to imagine themselves attracted to a member of their own sex -- to, in other words, see how impossible it is to change one's basic focus of desire by will. Could you, as a straight man, make yourself desire another man if someone told you your desire for women was only a "preference" and your romantic and loving feelings -- the whole complex of emotions which define a _relationship_ rather than simply a sexual interaction -- "should" make you want to marry another man? I sincerely doubt you could.
There is no difference in the way a straight man feels toward women -- in all its variety, from one-night stand to life-long committed monogamous marriage -- and the way a gay man or Lesbian woman feels toward his/her partner(s). None whatever. Any person who cannot comprehend that, rationally if not emotionally, is a homophobe. That's not an attack or a value judgment; it's simply a fact.
Now, human beings are not rigid; sexuality is much more fluid than many people believe, and those who are open to the variety of the human condition will know that the world is made up of many more shades than just "gay" and "straight". But whatever any one individual may find out about his/her possible relationships, none of those relationships involves some abstract rational CHOICE of the possible variety of partners. And any person who later in life realizes s/he is gay, bi, transsexual, or any other orientation will see, looking back, that there were hints in his/her earlier life, signs that the orientation was hard-wired into the person, whether he/she fully realized it or not. Some do much earlier than others. Some gay people know as early as nine or ten that they are gay, some at the beginning of puberty, and some only years later.
But they see the signs in their earlier life and go "So THAT's what that meant!" I can see now that I was Lesbian long before I understood what that meant. I'm sure you can see that you were straight long before you understood fully what that meant in your mature life.
Is there nothing more for you to being a straight man than simply fucking? If so, I feel sorry for your wife.
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Outlander
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re:Preference vs orientation - 2004/02/12 03:18
Environment plays a large role, especially once an individual becomes politically (e.g., "out") homosexual. Many immerse themselves in homosexually-oriented magazines (as Karen noted one was "like Time for [homosexuals]"), literature, causes, etc., so that it overwhelms their former worldviews.
"Reorientation" is controversial (especially among the more political homosexuals), but many people do succeed in altering sexual behavior and identity. The following site has a lot of useful information, including scientific studies, about homosexual therapy.
http://www.narth.com/
Apropos for Karen:
http://www.narth.com/docs/change.html
And another:
One night as I sat and watched lesbian couples dancing and socializing in the bar, I pondered over a particular irony of lesbian life: Here were women who didn't like men, acting just like them! Gradually, I began to question what I was seeing.
There was something unnatural about this lifestyle, something fundamentally distorted. In a few fleeting thoughts I wondered about the Bible that I had always trusted as my guide--it never seemed to mention people of the same sex having sex.
http://www.narth.com/docs/okay.html
It's probably a good idea for homosexual men to modify their behavior:
Internet dating is behind the alarming rise in syphilis cases among gay men in San Francisco, new research says.
Last year, San Francisco recorded almost 500 new cases of syphilis, the highest rate in a generation and a more than tenfold increase over 1998. Of the new cases, 434 occurred in gay men, who now account for about 90 percent of new syphilis cases in the city.
Much of the spike, researchers say, can be linked to the ease of finding sex partners on Internet sites, which have been called the "bathhouses of the 21st century." http://health.excite.com/article/id/516609.html
Homosexuals are also at high risk for suicide and domestic violence.
http://www.psychpage.com/learning/library/gay/gayvio.html
http://www.ncptsd.org/facts/specific/fs_domestic_violence.html
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Elwin
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re:Preference vs orientation - 2004/02/12 06:52
<snip>
So I gather you believe you would be able to make yourself gay.
Give it a try, jonnie -- let me know what success you have.
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Elwin
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re:Preference vs orientation - 2004/02/12 08:24
The more I read of your posts, the more obvious it becomes you are trapped in the standard right-wing homophobic through-the-looking-glass world of people who have little or no contact with real gay people. Homophobia comes from willful ignorance. Gay people act like people -- a wide variety of people, good, bad, indifferent, foolish and wise, and you regard it as unique to gays. Every behavior you fault in gays is found *in equal proportion* in straights in the same kind of situations. I could bring up levels of illegitimate pregnancy in young, unmarried, straight-identified girls and then claim that made them uniquely sinful -- because a lot more young straights then young Lesbians have sex with their boyfriends. But that wouldn't mean straight girls were different from Lesbian girls -- it would just mean they were straight.
No -- heteroSEXISM. Heterosexuality, like homosexuality, is an orientation.
Ipse dixit.
No. A lot of young people, straight and gay, explore their orientation by reading about sexual behavior. Young straight men read things like _Playboy_ (or more explicit mags); young straight girls read _Cosmopolitan_; both read porn or "sexy" stuff of one kind or another.
As for the wedding announcements, advertisements, and romance
Yes -- that's what I said. Heterosexism pervades our culture, and gay people have to struggle against it to find their own orientation.
No -- my LIFESTYLE is about as mainstream as you can get. I work a regular job, I go to church, I go to movies and post on Usenet. My lifestyle is overwhelmingly ordinary.
And your body, I assume, told you to desire a person of the opposite sex.
We all have habits; we all have a sexual orientation. One can be changed, the other can't.
<snip>
Oh please...could you be any more stereotypical? Lesbians wear all kinds of clothes and all kinds of hairstyles. I just had dinner a day or two ago with a Lesbian friend of mine who was wearing long hair, lipstick, a sheath-dress, and high heels. I know a very sweet Lesbian lady in her eighties who wears conservative clothes like those my mother wore. Lesbians, like straights, wear what fits in with their social group. You are SO trapped in homophobic myth.
<snip>
So? Was there a companion article about the rise in STDs among straight men in Omaha? Or among young straight girls in New York? See the homophobic bias in your statement: "homosexual men", as if all homosexual men engage in internet dating or live in
SF. What about the vast majority of homosexual men who don't do either?
Very much a myth. I want to see a companion article about straight men engaging in the same behavior. And you know Lesbians are one of the groups lowest at risk for STDs -- though not immune, of course. Its behavior, not orientation, which is the issue.
<snip>
As I said -- no shit. You see it is not anything inherent in a gay orientation which makes them depressed here -- it is the rejection by their families. Straights who are rejected by their families face the same problems.
Precisely because homophobia is less common now than it was in earlier years.
Focius on the Family is not an objective group. Thry are virulently right-wing and homophobic.
The same is true of any oppressed group. I won't bring up examples, because they perpetuate racist myths and stereotypes, but they are easy enough to find if you look.
Not in your case. It's true.
(Who isn't going to peruse this thread if it degenerates into standard anti-gay drivel any further.)
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Outlander
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re:Preference vs orientation - 2004/02/12 09:55
<...>
Isn't it ironic that the first cultural element you list is sex magazines. As for the wedding announcements, advertisements, and romance novels, that is part of mainstream culture -- which, aside from racy ads, isn't inherently *sexual*.
Why is it everywhere? Because it's mainstream. You live an alternative lifestyle -- a very marginal lifestyle.
God spoke in the Bible, and there he clearly spoke against sexual impulses outside of marriage between one and one woman. To suggest God told you to be a lesbian is denial of Scripture and nature.
Bingo. Your body and your perverted mind told you to stick your face in another woman's crotch and call it "love." God didn't.
Habits are hard to break, and it's not acceptance of reality. It's giving in to urges rather than exercising one's will.
What's with the butch haircuts, flannel shirts, Wrangler's, and chain wallets then?
Ipse dixit. The article points out that syphilis is rising in SF among homosexual men.
90% of the cases of syphilis in SF involve homosexual males. They make up, what, 10% of the population? You play around with the math, or get
Lesley to help you (hehe).
You snipped a link that showed that's a myth.
But homosexuals attempt suicide for many reasons. For example, Dr. Mark Goulston, a board member of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, said homosexuals, whose families reject them, feel very alone. He said they are euphoric in a homosexual relationship, hoping for acceptance.
"But then, when it turns sour, the hurt is much more deep and much more quick. You can imagine why they might become acutely suicidal," Goulston said.
The University of California study also found that the age of homosexual men attempting suicide is also dropping, many before they're 25. Goulston agreed older homosexual men are less likely to attempt suicide.
"If you can make it past 25, you develop a kind of perspective, so that any single thing that goes badly doesn't feel as devastating," he said.
Dr. Bill Maier, psychologist-in-residence at Focus on the Family, does not believe anti-homosexual bias leads to attempted suicide.
"If you look at the attempted suicide rate in San Francisco, it's extremely high among gays, as is the rate of substance abuse, alcoholism and homosexual domestic violence," Maier said.
"So, it seems quite a stretch to blame the attempted suicide rate on anti-gay bias."
The studies were done in cities where the homosexual lifestyle is largely accepted. Given that fact, Maier said it is highly unlikely that anti-homosexual bias would be the major contributing factor.
BTW, calling other people homophobic is ad hominem.
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Elwin
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re:Preference vs orientation - 2004/02/12 10:32
The same is true of heterosexism. Many people who have a gay orientation have been overwhelmed by the pervasive heterosexism of our culture, ignored and denied their basic orientation toward same-sex partners, and, after immersing themselves in the tide of sex magazines, love stories, romance novels, ads for products showing straight couples groping each other, wedding ads and announcements, and the other flood of opposite-sex/romance/marriage propaganda everywhere around us, end up trying to believe they're straight and even marrying. It HARD to find gay-themed stuff -- not as hard as it was when I was young, but still hard. Straight stuff is everywhere.
People like me, like Swan, like Bishop Robinson, were propagandized into believing they "ought" to be straight, and married. Later, they realized they'd been brainwashed into denying what God and their own body were trying to tell them.
They may end up changing behavior and identity -- but they cannot change their orientation. Most of them eventually give up and accept that reality.
A) Lesbians often DO like men -- they just don't want to have sex with them. Its a homophobic myth that Lesbians "hate" men.
 Lesbians don't act "just like" men. They act like Lesbians. This is another homophobic myth.
And among straight men everywhere. It's not the gay orientation, but the behavior which transmits any disease. Another homophobic myth.
Anybody going to bring up the fact that the vast majority of AIDS cases are transmitted through straight sex? The vast majority of any STD cases are transmitted through straight sex.
<snip>
No shit, Sherlock. Any oppressed class is at high rick for stress-related anger and depression. It's homophobes like you who foster this behavior among gay people.
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terencecm
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re:Preference vs orientation - 2004/02/12 13:17
Don't be such a fool. Of course one can. The preference is likely so deeply seated that one is unlikely to do so, but one can.
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