I really don't believe that anyone is "born" gay or even straight and neither do many psychiatrists. Sexual orientation doesn't fully gel until around age six or seven.

Maybe, yes, maybe no. Is somebody born gay or do the enzymes that cause attraction develop at some point after birth. It'll likely be debated for ages to come. It's kind of irrelevant to me.

All I can say is that by 6 years old I knew what attracted me so you tell me????

Absolutely. There is some enzyme in your brain that causes you to be sexually attracted to the same sex. What it is exactly, I don't know but I think it's ridiculous for someone to say a gay person chooses to be gay.

I think most homosexuals/heterosexuals are born with the genetic trait that stands to *lean* them in a direction. Now is there something else in environment that reinforces it, or sets it off, during those formative years? Maybe yes, maybe no. Everyone is different, so it's hard to get a definitive answer.

I think so. Sexual orientation isn't chosen by anyone, it is just natural whichever way you fall on the k scale!

Regardless, orientation cannot be changed. I think it's more important to foster respect for the individuals rather than pity for a condition. It doesn't matter how it develops.

I think everyone is born bisexual (by that I mean with a "neutral" emotional slate when it comes to M/F attraction). Through cultural influence and emphasizing, most people start going over to one of the 2 definitive sides (heterosexual, homosexual.)

stonestatic wrote:

I think everyone is born bisexual (by that I mean with a "neutral" emotional slate when it comes to M/F attraction). Through cultural influence and emphasizing, most people start going over to one of the 2 definitive sides (heterosexual, homosexual.)

I don't subscribe to that theory at all. A newborn baby has no sexuality and calling neutrality "bisexual" just rings silly to me because bisexual implies ATTRACTION. IMO people are born with the "trait" like someone says and as they develop the trait becomes more and more refined, but I don't think we're all born "neutral".

Here it is. It's both. Just so you know here is what a leading doctor says about it:

"Overall, genetics accounted for around 35 per cent of the differences between men in homosexual behaviour and other individual-specific environmental factors (that is, not societal attitudes, family or parenting which are shared by twins) accounted for around 64 per cent. In other words, men become gay or straight because of different developmental pathways, not just one pathway."

Homosexual Behavior Largely Shaped By Genetics And Random Environmental Factors

I don't believe that people are "born gay."
I think that's a crock of shit, actually.

You have a choice to be straight/gay/bisexual, just like a lot of things in life. We aren't born to be a doctor/lawyer/homeless/etc. so why would our sexual orientation be any different?

Jaws wrote:

I don't believe that people are "born gay."
I think that's a crock of shit, actually.

You have a choice to be straight/gay/bisexual, just like a lot of things in life. We aren't born to be a doctor/lawyer/homeless/etc. so why would our sexual orientation be any different?

You have a choice, eh? When did YOU choose to be straight? Please, give us all the details - date, time, circumstances.

Better yet, could you choose to be gay right now? Not just have sex with someone of the same sex, but to actually be attracted to, and demonstrate all the physiological signs of attraction when seeing someone of the same sex? And conversely demonstrating NO physiological signs of attraction to someone of the opposite sex? Could you CHOOSE to have your heart rate increase and your pupils dilate? Could you cause your endocrine system to secrete pheromones? Could you choose to have the blood flow to your genitals increase?

If you HAVE experienced all of these physiological phenomena in reaction to both sexes then you don't have a "choice", you're bi-sexual, as almost 80% of the population is.

I simply don't understand people like you, who insist on ignoring the anecdotal evidence of literally millions of gay men and lesbians, who insist they had no choice in the matter. I don't understand how you can ignore the FACT that regardless of a given society's views on homosexuality, the percentage of homosexuals in that society is going to be somewhere between 5 and 10 percent, even if that society espouses death for homosexual behavior. Who would "choose" to be gay under such circumstances?

I know I didn't choose to be gay, just as I know you didn't choose to be straight.

I think that once again, the words sexuality and sexual orientation do a disservice to discussion as sex is such a small part of what they are meant to refer to.
I knew what sex I wanted to marry as soon as I had a concept of how married people interacted, about seven.
Was I born that way? Who knows. Humans are far too complex to boil down to the product of a single factor.
A more useful question is whether one may choose their sexual orientation. I most certainly didn't have a choice, though believe me, I tried!