What makes someone gay or straight?

[Meldread]

I am interested in everyone's view on sexuality, what makes you gay or straight?

Here is mine:
I believe the "natural" (by natural I mean default) sexual orientation is 100% bi-sexuality (equally attracted to both men and women). However, early on during pregnancy certain genetic switches are triggered allowing you to swing one way or another. I also believe sexuality exists similar to how it is portrayed on the Kinsey Scale. I see sexuality as a slider or a scale - not something that is black and white.

I also believe that the majority of the population has some same sex erotic feelings (that is: sexual fantasies), and I do not believe that the majority of the population is either completely gay or completely straight. I believe that most people tend to gravitate toward the middle (complete bi-sexuality) while still gravitating relatively close to the opposite ends of the spectrum.

I think bi-sexuals can clarify this belief, as most of the bi-sexuals that I have spoken to give out some strange percentage such as: "I am 30% attracted to men and 70% attracted to women." I always have to wonder: "How do they come up with that?" I only know one bi-sexual person who stated, flat out, that she was 100% equally attracted to both sexes.

Because of the above beliefs I do not classify "gay" or "straight" as based on who you sleep with. According to some studies as many as 37% of men experience an orgasm with another man at some time in their life. I certainly wouldn't classify 37% of the population gay for a single (or more) sexual encounters.

I classify heterosexual and homosexual by who that person wishes to enter a relationship with. I think most of us can agree that being gay (or straight) is much more than just about the sex.

I think this also might explain the seemingly wacko theory that gay people can "turn" other people gay. Folks saying things like that may have, in the past, had sex with someone of the same sex or have sexual thoughts about someone of the same sex. Therefore they perceive themselves to have the ability to "choose" to be gay or straight. This also could easily account for so-called "ex-gays".

I am interested in what you guys think.

[bonito]

1. Color of first toothbrush n/t

[Vanje]

3. Yes. absolutely. Toothbrush color

Yes indeed

[Selteri]

2. I think it depends upon genetics and how one is raised

The genetics for how someone is attracted, some people are born with a preference... then others are taught to have a preference.

I think this is borne out in history. Greece, for instance, held it standard for bisexuality in Athens. In Sparta bisexuality was considered to be a part of war.

As a note - I see myself as being straight. I'm very gay friendly, yet find no real attraction to about 95% of all men out there, then again I don't find myself attracted to about 80% of all women out there either. To my sexuality is more an extension of love than about gender with some physical attraction.

[Meldread]

5. Well, you see, that's my point.

Although, I would caution against using the word "taught". Taught would imply that someone actually was physically going out of their way to cause someones orientation to lean one way or another. Although, I do agree.

Culturally speaking there are acceptable things and there are unacceptable things. Having sexual relations with someone of the same gender is, for the most part, still considered taboo even though it is becoming more and more acceptable.

Look at the culture one lives in. I would theorize that in a more accepting culture you would find more people who self-identify as "bi-sexual" to one degree or another - such as ancient Greece. However, travel to some place such as the Middle East and I theorize that you would find a significant drop in self-identified "bi-sexuals".

I also agree that sexuality is more about love than erotic thoughts. Which is what I am disputing here because I believe that the labels of "straight" and "gay" (but in particular "gay") are put there based on erotic thoughts. A gay person can have sex with a woman, but would not want to be in a relationship with that woman. A straight man may have sex with another man, but may not want to be in a relationship with that man.

Like I said, however, I believe very few people in the world are 100% gay or 100% straight - most people tend to gravitate somewhere near the ends of the spectrum. However, that is not to say 100% gay or 100% straight people do not exist - I believe they do, but I believe that those people would be proportionate to the number of 100% bi-sexual people. I do not think any of those numbers go higher than 10% and I think 10% might be stretching it.

[iamjoy]

4. You May Be On To Something

I also wonder how much society shapes our sexuality and we aren't even aware of it. I consider myself a heterosexual female - I can't break it down by percent but I am happily married to a man, have never been with a woman or fantasized about a woman. Although, I have seen a few adult movies and the woman scenes were always appealing (if you get my drift).

I totally understand bi-sexuality though, and sometimes wonder if it weren't for societal pressures if there isn't something more natural about it. After all, if you really love some one, why should their gender matter? Sex is just one aspect of a loving relationship and sometimes, physical attraction stems from mental and emotional compatability.

[mitchtv]

6. If you ever get the chance, read "the Circle of Sex'

by Gavin Arthur , late grandson of Chester, and onetime owner of the Metaphysical Bookstore in S.F.. It puts sexuality on a wheel, rather, a clock face. It goes from the Don Juan type at midnight , to the Julius Caesar(bi)type at 3PM. It goes on thur the Lady Chatterly type at 6PM and on. It is short, but has done much to influence my thinking on the continuum

[kweerwolf]

7. Sexual orientation is so complex ...

... that it's almost impossible to "quantify."

As Freud wrote, we are polymorphously perverse, meaning that almost any person or object can become an object of sexual attraction to us given the right conditions and stimulus.

But Freud aside, I think the big rift between the conservative/fundamentalist view of sexual orientation and the "real world" view is that they define orientation strictly as behavior. To them, a man is straight if he has sexual intercourse with a woman. They don't take into account that he may be thinking of playing hide-the-sausage with Matt Damon while he's schtupping the missus.

Behavior alone is an overly simplistic way of thinking of sexual orientation ... but it falls in line with the whole fundie binary good/bad, black/white world view. That's also why they really believe "ex-gay" programs work. If such a program can convince a gay man not to act on his natural orientation, then they count it as a success; meanwhile, he can still masturbate to male fantasies, have sex with a female by fantasizes about males, or can completely sublimate any sort of sexual behavior and still be considered an "ex-gay" because he doesn't engage in same-sex behavior.

I think over the next few decades we'll come to an even more complex understanding of sexual orientation that goes beyond the linear, two-dimensional continuum model and incorporates a more three-dimensional diagram that includes not only sexual attraction and sexual behavior, but include mental/fantasy images, perfered gender and sexual roles, etc., etc.

[begin_within]

8. For boys, eating only the the Wilmas in the Flintstones vitamins.

[FuzzyDicePHL]

10. ROFL

I was going to say my love of dick made me gay, but your answer is a lot funnier.

[kweerwolf]

11. OMG! You voted for Nixon!

Oh, wait ... not THAT "Dick." :hi:

[Dark]

9. Part nature, part nurture in my opinion.

Don't misconstrue my statement. It's NOT a choice. But every other psychological aberration is part nature and part nurture.

Take schizophrenia for example (no, I'm not saying that homosexuality is a mental illness. Just that, like schizophrenia, it is not normal in the sense that the majority of people are not psychotic nor is the majority gay.)

People in all walks of life get schizophrenia, so it must be genetic.

But poor people tend to get it far more often, so it must also be environmental.

I would assume the same thing here. It is all formed before a person can walk and talk, but not everything is genetic for everyone.

[bluedawg12]

12. Lot of it is also nurture. growing up even at a young age I knew.

I am 100% gay, no bi-tendencies.

[TechBear_Seattle]

13. Graffiti on a men's room wall....

My mother made me a homosexual.

Written beneath that, in a different hand:

If I buy the yarn, will she make me one, too?




(Ok, an old joke but not yet ready for retirement)

[davidinalameda]

15. yarn?

they come apart in the wash and you have to get them specially cleaned

stick with cloth

[Terran]

14. I think every human is capable of functioning bi-sexually

and that it's a combination of culture and genetics that make people tend to go one way or the other. It's so hard to say, really. For myself, I don't put much importance on the "nurture" argument because I don't think I raised any differently from my hetero siblings; and yet I know a family with five siblings, two bothers and three sisters, and four of them have turned out to be "gay". I put that in quotes because all three sisters managed to have kids along the way.

I used to say that I was 100% homosexual. Never been with a woman, have no desire to do so. But as I get older I can feel certain things opening up inside...pathways to alternative approaches to my sexuality, both within my gayness (changing from a bottom to versatility, for instance) and without (i.e., I can now imagine/fantasize about women sexually where I never could before). That latter evolution in myself convinces me more than ever that bisexuality is the norm.

Of course, we haven't talked much about love versus sex. I think most people are somehow wired toward an emotional response with only one gender, be it the same or the opposite. Why this should be I'm not sure, but I believe it to be true. I also believe that same-gender emotional ties are probably inherently more lasting than opposite gender ties...in most cases, not all.

Sorry, rambling a bit.