Is it nature or nurture?

[raymar2020 (imported)]

Hi all,

Had a discussion the other night with some friends about sexuality. Are Gays born , that way or nurtured to be gay ?

One friend said that he thought that a domineering Mother could sway a boy to choose to be gay rather than deal with another domineering woman. I totally disagree, since if the idea of male to male sex was repulsive to you, you would NOT follow that path no matter how dominating the women in your life are.

For myself , I KNOW that I was born Gay. I never felt any desire at all to be physical with women, although I did try it a few times just to be sure I was right.

In my own case, my sexuality started to wake up pretty early. I have a really strong memory of our first ever family vacation. My folks raising two boys on a single income,buying a house, and all the other things that go with having a family were not able to save for a vacation til 1965 when I was 7. That Palm sunday we drove to Rehobeth Delaware to look at and reserve a cottage for the summer vacation. I was so excited that we were actually going to be at the beach that summer!!!

My folks chose a place that was maybe a block and a half from the beach, and I started counting the days til vacation. When the day finally came, we arrived and settled in , and changed to go to the beach. On the beach at the end of the street the cottage was on, right in the middle of the beach was the lifeguard stand. They were spaced every 100 yards or so in those days. As we walked past the lifeguard stood up and stretched, and said hello. He was slim, and built and very tanned ( no one used sunscreen in those days) and I was instantly mesmerized. I didn't know why , but I knew I liked what I was seeing.

Keep in mind that in those days, sex was NOT on television, and violence was something that was only in shows that came on after my bedtime. I knew that boys and girls were different, but that was the extent of my sexual knowledge. I had not been exposed to gay/straight, as that was simply NOT discussed by anyone. Hell this is before Stonewall even.

As you can expect , the life guards changed several times a day, and it seemed that each one of them was more fun to look at than the last. I did play with my brother , and swam in the surf, but I spent a vast part of our beach time simply laying on my towel, facing the lifeguard stand and staring. I can't say that I got aroused, but I was drinking in the lovely hunk up there and really enjoying it.

After that vacation, I started to notice handsome guys when we were out shopping, and kind of developed a crush on a young and handsome teacher at my school. There was still no sexual grounds for any of this, I just KNEW that looking at handsome men made me feel good.

Another of my friends said that when he was about 10 , there was a neighbor boy who occasionally babysat when his parents went out. He was about 18 and very handsome, and he said he used to pray that friday night his parents would go out, so he would come over.

Neither my friend or I had any exposure to homosexuality and we were NOT abused. This awakening to our interest in men, was totally natural. I think that is strong support for homosexuality being natural.

Over the coming years when my family went away for those beach vacations, my pattern remained the same. I watched the lifeguards and as my teens came along, I knew enough to have fantasies about them too. I think as a result of the combination of those experiences, and my virtually testicle free life up to age 16, I was comfortable coming out when in high school. The mid 70's was not a time to be "out" but I was, and I have never retreated back into the closet for even a day.

I'd love to hear from others about what your thoughts are. When did you develop an interest in men ? How long was it before you actually acted on those desires?

Raymar

[Jorge2008 (imported)]

Nature, according to contemporary research. The theory ''

that a domineering Mother could sway a boy to choose to be gay

'' is Freudian rubbish.

[Peter47-NL (imported)]

Dr. Dick Swaab, a Dutch scientist who studied almost his whole life the human brain wrote a book, Wij zijn ons brein - van baarmoeder tot alzheimer - We are our brain - from womb to alzheimer that became a bestseller in the Netherlands. In chapter IV Seksuele differentiatie van de hersenen in de baarmoeder - Sexual differentiation of the brain in the womb - he explains that the development of gender identity and the sexual identity of a child depends on the testosterone or the lack of testosterone on certain moments in the womb. Part 4 of this chapter is called Homoseksualiteit: geen keuze - Homosexuality: no choice. I hope this is an answer to Raymar.

[kristoff]

All I can say is I knew when I was five that I was not the same as other boys. Didn't belong there. I fooled around abit when I was 13-14 with Lynn. I didn't know what to do... she was PO'd... said she wasn't a damned teacher. I left.

When I was 18, I had my first "sexual" experience with a woman. Cindy had had her eye on me since about age 13. I had my eye on Dougie since the same time. Dougie was hot for Cindy. Such wonderful dilemma. We were all students at the same university. I was stoned and fairly drunk - I tell folks who know that she raped me, doing all the work. All I knew was that a stiff prick had no guilty conscience. Net result: nine months later, Identical triplet boys. After four months, she kicked me out (in many ways, I am thankful, but missed the opportunity for being a dad, not just a father). She married Dougie; he adopted them, and they did very well. Later, they all attended the college where I was teaching, on a faculty scholarship. They are well and just turned 39. Incidentally, they are all gay, as I am. My maternal birth family and Cindy's have many gay members; hers has many multiple births. I would say that heredity has a massive impact, in many ways.

[Am I you? (imported)]

There is no question about it where I am concerned

As I was growing up I knew that I acted differently than boys my age. I disdained almost all sports, except swimming and water skiing.

While still in grade school, at age 11 or 12 I would go swimming with friends on Saturday at a pool called a Natatorium.

Young boys were required to swim naked, while older guys in their later teens thru their 60's would always be in speedos.

While none of the boys were actually molested, we did interact with the older guys. They taught us to swim different strokes, and

they would frequently support us in the prone position with their hands on our stomachs and our groin. I never thought anything

wrong with this situation.

Years later when in high school I always looked forward to gym time when we got to shower together and play "grab ass"

I joined the swim team in the 12th grade and that was great. The speedos of the time were larger than they are today.

After that I always wore a bikini when swimming or at the beach

My earliest sexual encounter was with a friend of mine who taught me about jacking off. We would do it together, to each other and progress to oral sex.

I got married at age 26 and we had a baby who died shortly after birth. I am still with my wife of 43 years. Yes, she knows I am gay and accepts me

as I am

It seems strange to me to see other men afraid to hug a friend, are overly shy about being naked in front of other guys or

being a loud mouth homophobe

It is NATURE

[cheetaking243 (imported)]

100% nature. Especially because, when I started my hormone trial, I actually felt my sexual orientation shifting a little bit. It has nothing to do with willpower or a personal decision. It is completely guided by your own natural reactions to other people. As a total heterosexual, nothing that other guys did could ever make me feel turned on or attracted. I just found the entire look of them, and smell and the body hair, to all be completely disgusting. (And trust me, I tried. I wondered if maybe I was gay back in high school when I began noticing that I was WAY different from other guys, but no matter how hard I tried to drum up sexual thoughts for the same gender, they just did not come. I found NOTHING attractive about them.) And then, miraculously, my HRT started, and out of the blue suddenly my gut reactions changed, and I felt myself getting more bisexual, less attracted to women and for the first time able to understand what was attractive about men.

Say what you will about why it happens, be it hormones or brain chemistry or genes or whatever, (possibly prenatal stress,) but something is for sure, it is NOT a conscious decision. It's a gut reaction that comes out of nowhere, and cannot be changed by sheer force of will no matter how hard one may try. (Now by sheer force of hormones, on the other hand, that is a different story. That DID have an effect on my sexual orientation, shifting it from completely heterosexual to more bisexual.)

The same can be said with gender identity. For me, transsexualism was NOT a conscious decision. Trust me, I tried the "pray away" route for years, being a religion major and going to a very conservative Christian church. But no matter how many times I tried to "rebuke Satan" from my head, (and I did think that it was working at one time,) my transsexual thoughts never completely went away. I could suppress them, or ignore them, but they were always there. And trust me, there was a time where if I could have been rid of them I would have, but it's not that simple. They always come back. The same can be said with anyone who tries to deny who they are on the inside. No matter of willpower can make those natural feelings stop. You can ignore them, or pretend that they are not there, but they never go away, and never truly change. And no matter how good you are at suppressing them, that feeling that something's wrong, and the frustration from constantly having to fight it, never goes away either.

[_g (imported)]

It's not nurture, it's nature. It's not black and white it's shades of gray with a third factor thrown in sexuality, abstinence to over active. Most are not gay other wise we would not reproduce like we have.

_g

[Milkman (imported)]

There is a large body of research that supports the nature argument. The triggering of gene expression, T levels in the womb and other physiological explanations are supported by current research. Another statistic is that the % of men who are predominately homosexual is relatively constant across cultures at about 7% despite varying levels of tolerance and opprobrium and even if sexual orientation is not allowed to interfere with marriage and child bearing as in our society...

[SplitDik (imported)]

Anyone who thinks it is nurture is bisexual. No amount of horrible mothering would make me interested in any interaction with guys. And every gay person I've known since youth was obviously gay at a young age, and furthermore had normal mothers.

[foxytaur (imported)]

genetic nature, nuture and environmental(internal and external factors such as pre birth hormonal exposure from mothers womb, physical genital trauma before puberty and synthetics and aromatics environmental exposure), with nuture playing a small minor roll.

remember gene allele expressions can change overtime abeit some.

DNA is a very very complex structure to begin with.

The chromatid paks a lot of code ya know that switches on and off!!!

I say nature bc we a born with a great degree of genetic makeup ingrained since our conception however everything else is luck of the draw.

Im happy sexually preffering males, females, trans , androgyne and whatever floats my boat.(call me a nympho I don't care just gimme what i want!)

gender wise again i don't need to stress im this alphabet soup of various letters mixed together.

NB = least we forget dogs we nutured to become domesticated (over a long period of cycles) to be our companions and the results speak for themselves!!!!

With the gentic variation for tameness markers in dna flipping to ON mode.If you don't belive me check out russian tamed silver foxes!!! so cute and the changes are astonishing!!!.

Of course if there were genetic markers for tameness, surely there has to be several genetic markers for homosexuality, bisexuality ,gender variation, whatever

NB = I have a theory that depending on where the adenine, gaunine and thiamine, etc... markers get clipped, added and subtracted it will impact a humans behaviour.

Then theres chromatid crosslinking.

Wow if you think about it theres soo much statistical variability going on its hard to keep up.

Everything including what you eat, stress, smog in the air will change you slowly. You don't notice it because you caan't measure yourself at that instance but ever open a diary, searched through old videos or pictures?

OMG was that me?!!!!

[janekane (imported)]

Parked on a bookshelf, usually slightly out of arm's reach from where I usually sit when using this computer system, is Emil Durkheim, "Suicide: A Study in Sociology," tr. John A Spaulding and George Simpson, ed. George Simpson, The Free Press, New York, 1951.

I got to be a member of the eunuch community mainly because I decided to not commit suicide by plausibly surgically-preventable cancer, such as activated the deaths of my dad and brother.

I made that choice based on my understanding of biology, and I find that I am among the apparent ranks of perhaps-leading-edge theoretical biologists. My theoretical biology research is focused on human destructive violence as a biological phenomenon and on the design and development of pragmatic alternatives to such violence.

Yesterday, I re-read Susan Sontag, "Illness as Metaphor," the 1979 First Vintage Books Edition, copyright 1977, 1978. It is a "small" book, only 85 pages.

I surmise that I know and understand vastly more about biology than would allow me to regard nature/nurture as other than one phenomenon; nurture is an aspect of nature, nurture is totally contained within nature, and the notion of "nature (exclusive-or) nurture" or "nature versus nurture" are biological absurdities.

Psychologist Elizabeth Loftus, and many others, have promoted the view, one with which I substantially agree, that memory is reconstructive and memory reconstruction does not exactly represent the events being remembered.

The earliest memory I can find regarding my sense of physical gender is of a time well before I was born. In contrast with what I find to be generally true for people who go through the traditional infant-child transition at, commonly, around the age of 18 months in some societies, I never developed amnesia for my early life experiences. I find that I remember the onset of "the quickening" (or "the baby has started kicking"). That event came before I started kicking. My arms were in the classical fetal position, my left wrist closer to my chest than my right wrist, and I became aware of my wrists bumping for the first time (becoming aware of said bumping) ever. Is my memory of that event accurate? I have no clue as to how to test, or even begin to evaluate, such a question.

What I can remember now is what I can remember now, and certainly is not exactly the event represented by the memory I now have.

So, my first memory of what informs me that I am of the gender diversity spectrum came notably after I began to "kick" with my legs. I had been exploring my surroundings for some time (I have no memory of recognizing that the boundary of the space I could explore, my placenta (the placenta is embryonic or fetal tissue, not maternal tissue) forming the boundary, nothing I remember informed me that my cells formed the explorable boundary of my in-utero environment.

What I remember, or mis-remember, during my intra-placental exploration was finding nothing particularly unexpected until I found "IT" was, to the best of my memory now, seriously unexpected, unexpected in the BIID sense.

I cannot tell of what I do not remember because I do not remember it.

What I do remember, be the memory a psychotic delusion or somewhat factual, is that the unexpected "IT" seemed to not belong to me, and what I do remember, somewhat accurately or not, is a sense that "IT" did not belong to me. After a while, I remember (or only fantasize remembering?) pulling on "IT" as though to remove "IT" from where my mental model of me said "IT" did not belong. Only, what I remember, or don't know that I don't remember, is pulling on "IT" as though doing that would remove the unbelonging "IT" from me. The result was my first, to the best of my memory, encounter with pain. That was, as I now remember, a new experience for me and a learning event for which I had no precedent. I learned that pain, for me, indicated something to learn to not do.

What was that "IT"? My name for it now, is, "scrotum." And pain, ever since, for me, has been an indicator of that which I have learned to not do as best I have been able to so learn.

I was with my dad when he died as a consequence of cancer, and his life, shortly before he died, was severely painful. My dad's death taught me to work to avoid dying as he had died; and my understanding of family cancer history and such led me to seek to avoid dying a painful death if avoiding such became practical. Which, so far, it has been.

When I got my orchiectomy, I decided to keep my scrotum, as a reminder that pain indicates that which, when feasible, is wisely avoided.

In summary, I find the prior post by foxytaur to be wonderfully profound.

There is a name, in the annals of biology jargon, for the relationship of nature with nurture, to wit, "Independent Assortment of Genotypic and Phenotypic Traits."

Or, in the form of an "old saying," "Variety is the spice of life."

To me, what is normal is what is, and nothing that is can ever actually be abnormal.

If you are enamored of frequentist statistical methods, the sad news I have is that, for me, the whole normal curve (normal density curve or normal distribution curve) is normal, even out beyond a googolplexion of standard deviations. Life, in its entirety, is normal to me.

My theoretical biology perspective informs me that we are all absolutely and perfectly normal because life exists as it is only because of its magnificent diversity.

I encountered people. I encountered pheromones from people. For about 35 years, pheromones told me, "not quite." Then I met pheromones from an XX chromosome person and pheromones told me, "okay?"

I guess the pheromones were correct. Wedding anniversary number 38 is fast approaching.

Had I come upon an XY and pheromones said to me, "okay?" that is how my life would have gone.

The late Walter M. Elsasser, a theoretical physicist and recipient of the 1987 National Medal of Science in the U.S.A., studied and wrote extensively about biology from a physics-methodology perspective. To paraphrase his work, he found that what happens in a single living cell during one second of time is of unfathomably transcomputational complexity, such that, a binary digital computer made of everything in the observable universe could not compute what happens in one living cell in the astrophysics-based estimate of the duration of the life of the universe.

The mental model of something is never the something mentally modeled.

The luck of the draw is an aspect of nature.

To me, "nature" is synonymous with "all that is."

Life is manageable for me if I accept that what is is what is, and accept that what isn't is what isn't, and I also accept that I don't have to know or understand which is which.

[tugon (imported)]

I believe it is nature. My sexual orientation is fixed (pardon the pun on this site) and I could not change. If I was gay due to nurture then praying away the gay might work. I knew I liked boys before I entered puberty. I had crushes on a few boys. I used to marvel at those who thought it was choice. All I went through and I chose it.

I enjoy reading the progress they are making in the studies of the human brain and genetics. I am glad they are better understanding human sexuality. I used to get very annoyed when I was expected to explain why I was gay. My usual response was why are you straight? Now today I have better answers. Of course I still wonder why anyone would choose to be straight.

[loveableleopardy (imported)]

100% nature. Especially because, when I started my hormone trial, I actually felt my sexual orientation shifting a little bit. It has nothing to do with willpower or a personal decision. It is completely guided by your own natural reactions to other people. As a total heterosexual, nothing that other guys did could ever make me feel turned on or attracted. I just found the entire look of them, and smell and the body hair, to all be completely disgusting. (And trust me, I tried. I wondered if maybe I was gay back in high school when I began noticing that I was WAY different from other guys, but no matter how hard I tried to drum up sexual thoughts for the same gender, they just did not come. I found NOTHING attractive about them.) And then, miraculously, my HRT started, and out of the blue suddenly my gut reactions changed, and I felt myself getting more bisexual, less attracted to women and for the first time able to understand what was attractive about men.

Say what you will about why it happens, be it hormones or brain chemistry or genes or whatever, (possibly prenatal stress,) but something is for sure, it is NOT a conscious decision. It's a gut reaction that comes out of nowhere, and cannot be changed by sheer force of will no matter how hard one may try. (Now by sheer force of hormones, on the other hand, that is a different story. That DID have an effect on my sexual orientation, shifting it from completely heterosexual to more bisexual.)

The same can be said with gender identity. For me, transsexualism was NOT a conscious decision. Trust me, I tried the "pray away" route for years, being a religion major and going to a very conservative Christian church. But no matter how many times I tried to "rebuke Satan" from my head, (and I did think that it was working at one time,) my transsexual thoughts never completely went away. I could suppress them, or ignore them, but they were always there. And trust me, there was a time where if I could have been rid of them I would have, but it's not that simple. They always come back. The same can be said with anyone who tries to deny who they are on the inside. No matter of willpower can make those natural feelings stop. You can ignore them, or pretend that they are not there, but they never go away, and never truly change. And no matter how good you are at suppressing them, that feeling that something's wrong, and the frustration from constantly having to fight it, never goes away either.

A great thread Raymar, and I am in full agreement that it is nature over nurture.

But what about over medication?

I am very intrigued by what you say Cheetaking. You feel definitively gay now as a result of HRT? Whereas prior you were straight?

The idea of being able to change your sexuality through choice is something that has interested me for a short while. Not in the sense that I'd decide to be gay tomorrow if I could, but the idea has been planted, and from there it is possible for further growth in my interest.

It just seems to me that if something isn't working in your life why not look into changing it if such possibilities exist?

I LOVE women. Not just physically. They INSPIRE me. They bring the best out of me. Thus far though I have been unable to make anything stick for any significant period of time with one. And I have some nice confidence, believe that I have charm, loveability, etc, so there are actually no major issues.

I've seen both sides of this. I've seen the side of a HIGHLY needy boy, and one who couldn't get anywhere with women mostly because of that. But then I've seen the side of the boy with confidence, one who could get women.

But the thing with me is, it doesn't matter on confidence levels when it comes down to this: If I like them too much then it's a massive deterrent for them. There just isn't the challenge. I do understand this.

I also do NOT want to have to settle down with someone that I don't like HEAPSY.

As a disclaimer I think that some guys can not put off the woman they love the most, but these are more robotic, emotionless guys. Guys whose idea of romance is asking their darl "to throw us another beer would you love". They don't write meaningful metaphorical stories like I can do when I'm highly into someone.

So it makes sense that at least for me, a man/man relationship can work better. Logically. Because it's fulfilment vs. fulfilment rather than fulfilment vs. challenge. In actual fact you can remove the 'vs' alltogether.

I read this thread last night in bed, being a little bored - not getting a message on RSVP from who I want, and whom logically should want to write me - and I very much enjoyed reading the posts. I don't believe that I fit in very well on here in most cases, but I really like the conversation here. And I wondered what it would be like if I could and did switch to being gay, and say, entered a gay bar. For some reason I sense that I would be more successful with gay guys than with straight women. I am not sure that there is any substence to such a comment, but I sense that I could interest them more in me, and more to the point, keep that interest over a longer period of time.

That is what I have failed miserably to do with women.

I don't want to be gay - and there is still much anti 'gayness' in society - but am always willing to look outside the square.

So I would love to hear more from you on this chemical effects on your sexuality Cheetaking.

Then again, as Janekane indicates, should I just accept what is rather than try for what isn't? I was also wondering, what if changing my sexuality changed me? I mean changed me greatly? Would I lose the interest to write and instead develop a love of shoes? That would be a disaster.

[fhunter]

A great thread Raymar, and I am in full agreement that it is nature over nurture.

But what about over medication?

I am very intrigued by what you say Cheetaking. You feel definitively gay now as a result of HRT? Whereas prior you were straight?

The idea of being able to change your sexuality through choice is something that has interested me for a short while. Not in the sense that I'd decide to be gay tomorrow if I could, but the idea has been planted, and from there it is possible for further growth in my interest.

------8<--------------------8<--------------

I am not the one, to whom this question was directed. But I have the answer, due to similar experience.

In short: NO, it does not work this way. In my experience, the orientation shifts, but never turns 180° to the other side.

[foxytaur (imported)]

I believe it is nature. My sexual orientation is fixed (pardon the pun on this site) and I could not change. If I was gay due to nurture then praying away the gay might work. I knew I liked boys before I entered puberty. I had crushes on a few boys. I used to marvel at those who thought it was choice. All I went through and I chose it.

I enjoy reading the progress they are making in the studies of the human brain and genetics. I am glad they are better understanding human sexuality. I used to get very annoyed when I was expected to explain why I was gay. My usual response was why are you straight? Now today I have better answers. Of course I still wonder why anyone would choose to be straight.

Of course it is nature > nuture Tugon. I'm not disagreeing with any of you guys. The evidence speaks for itself. But nuture does play a tiny roll in coordinating your train of thoughts, at the molecular level of switching on secondary minor traits.

without nuture from their mothers, ducks for example would be unable to switch on theyre "flight compass "mechanism genes responsible for coordinating them to travel down south.

likewise the coming out process would be much much simpler and gene expression wise would be comfortable for lgbt folk to come out to their kindred. Again queerness is coded deep at the genetic level. But these genetic markers would be easier to express themselves given a better environment with proper gay nuture "wink"

[tugon (imported)]

without nuture from their mothers, ducks for example would be unable to switch on theyre "flight compass "mechanism genes responsible for coordinating them to travel down south.

Sadly I grew up without nurture. There are many things I am unable to switch on.

[cheetaking243 (imported)]

I am very intrigued by what you say Cheetaking. You feel definitively gay now as a result of HRT? Whereas prior you were straight?

No, no, I think you misread. I didn't switch from heterosexual to homosexual at all... what happened is that I went from 100% hetero to more bisexual, maybe about 65% women 35% men at the moment. It was a gut reaction that just suddenly started to appear, and suddenly I started feeling things that I never did before. Before, it was impossible to even understand what could possibly be attractive about the other gender, but then suddenly it just started happening. The whole point of my post was that it is a gut reaction, and not a conscious decision. And it's a number of factors. Hormones are definitely one of them. Many people who go on hormone-altering drugs report changes in sexual orientation. Reports of switching completely from one gender preference completely to the other are pretty much non-existent, but there are many cases, like mine, where one slides further down the scale in one direction.

Side note: again, I'm on estrogen, so it's not just some "magic pill" to mess with your sexual orientation, it's probably because I'm in the process of becoming female, mentally and physically, that my thoughts are changing a bit. You know, given pheromones and whatnot, which I definitely react to differently now. Also, I should mention that I've ALWAYS had low testosterone, and my adult sex drive has always been tangled up with my transsexualism, so there is a real question here over whether I was ever really truly attracted to women in a normal masculine way in the first place, or whether I find them attractive because I'm always imagining myself with their bodies. I am definitely NOT normal in that regard. So whatever I say, don't necessarily take it to mean anything bigger. It's just the experience of one very sexually-confused guy/girl/whatever. Honestly, most of the time I feel more asexual. Imagining normal sex, and just looking at normal standards of physical attractiveness, have never really done anything for me. It was always by imagining that I myself was a girl, or imagining what it would feel like to be an amputee (one other weird thing of mine,) that got me going. It was never typical male things like big boobs and skinny waists and wide hips and watching sex videos. Hell, I didn't even like breasts at all until I touched them for the first time when I was like 23. So, yeah, I am definitely not a good test subject here. I'm turned on by a lot of bizarre stuff, and not so much by traditionally-attractive things. And I'm still not really attracted to either gender in that traditional way.

[foxytaur (imported)]

many trans women report too of intensified feeling for men beyond what they were originally attracted in males.

I will try my best not to "gaga eyes" on douchebag males.

Emphasis on try.

That is technically my only fear. hehe.

I sure my willpower is greater than my "primate" senses

NB = I really wish i were a real foxytaur. not a chimp

See Mr nelson above Pippi longstocking's shoulder giggles

[Jorge2008 (imported)]

No, no, I think you misread. I didn't switch from heterosexual to homosexual at all... what happened is that I went from 100% hetero to more bisexual, maybe about 65% women 35% men at the moment. It was a gut reaction that just suddenly started to appear, and suddenly I started feeling things that I never did before. Before, it was impossible to even understand what could possibly be attractive about the other gender, but then suddenly it just started happening. The whole point of my post was that it is a gut reaction, and not a conscious decision. And it's a number of factors. Hormones are definitely one of them. Many people who go on hormone-altering drugs report changes in sexual orientation. Reports of switching completely from one gender preference completely to the other are pretty much non-existent, but there are many cases, like mine, where one slides further down the scale in one direction.

Interesting. I've tried antiandrogens myself like Androcur and Spironolactone and they neither had an effect on my libido nor on sexual orientation. I was 80% straight, 20% gay before and the proportion is quite the same now. Perhaps when a drug finally has an effect on my libido, my orientation may shift somewhat too.

[loveableleopardy (imported)]

Thanks for the comments guys. No actual shift as a total turnaround regards sexual orientation possibility seems to be the consensus.

This whole 80 or 65 % straight, or 20 or 35 % gay thingy is interesting discussion though. Like, we all know men who are more/less femenine than others, but it doesn't really matter if you are 1% gay or 35%, in the sense that both men still do not desire to sleep with other men.

But what these percentages possibly mean, is that if there were chemicals to push us towards homosexuality, then the already more feminine man would need less 'push' to turn, so to speak.

Because there has to be a dividing line here. We could say hypothetically that it's 40% that would push a guy into being bi. If medication is able to push us to being more gay then why could it not be possible to cross that dividing line? Or can such medication only make us more feminine in our way of thinking, our calmness, our interests, but not change who we view as attractive? It's been mentioned that by becoming more feminine we can now see what makes a man attractive, but this is a lot different to looking at an attractive guy and viewing him with the desire of approaching him and kissing him. Well at least I think so. Anyhoo, if it's a simply chemical balance (or inbalance, whatever you want to call it) that makes us straight/gay, isn't it feasible that at some time in the not too distant future one would be able to take medication that directly changes this balance and therefore their sexuality?

It's a kinda funny thought that one month I could be straight and chasing the ladies, but then that doesn't work so I take a pill and hit the gay bars for a month! And in which case you could also switch back too.

I have taken anti-depressants, plus spirolactone, androcur and tamoxifen: none of which have led to more viewing women as less attractive, or men as more so.

There was a documentary I saw once which spoke of some guys who had had a stroke or hit their head badly or something and something had happened to switch their sexual orientation. It went into detail of their change in personality too. One man suddenly developed a passion and talent for drawing which he'd never previously had.

[kristoff]

Thanks for the comments guys. No actual shift as a total turnaround regards sexual orientation possibility seems to be the consensus.

This whole 80 or 65 % straight, or 20 or 35 % gay thingy is interesting discussion though. Like, we all know men who are more/less femenine than others, but it doesn't really matter if you are 1% gay or 35%, in the sense that both men still do not desire to sleep with other men.

But what these percentages possibly mean, is that if there were chemicals to push us towards homosexuality, then the already more feminine man would need less 'push' to turn, so to speak.

Then the body builder, ultra masculine types could not be pushed over that edge. What about the muscle boy who, when he opens his mouth his purse falls out, and his legs float up?

Because there has to be a dividing line here. We could say hypothetically that it's 40% that would push a guy into being bi. If medication is able to push us to being more gay then why could it not be possible to cross that dividing line? Or can such medication only make us more feminine in our way of thinking, our calmness, our interests, but not change who we view as attractive? It's been mentioned that by becoming more feminine we can now see what makes a man attractive, but this is a lot different to looking at an attractive guy and viewing him with the desire of approaching him and kissing him. Well at least I think so. Anyhoo, if it's a simply chemical balance (or inbalance, whatever you want to call it) that makes us straight/gay, isn't it feasible that at some time in the not too distant future one would be able to take medication that directly changes this balance and therefore their sexuality?

It's a kinda funny thought that one month I could be straight and chasing the ladies, but then that doesn't work so I take a pill and hit the gay bars for a month! And in which case you could also switch back too.

I have taken anti-depressants, plus spirolactone, androcur and tamoxifen: none of which have led to more viewing women as less attractive, or men as more so.

I would think it extremely rare that a chemical imbalance were found to cause one's orientation to change. Some freak occurence in one's being might cause something. Sometimes transgender issues will cause changes as one progress through transition. But a chemical causation is one I've never seen evidence for.

There was a documentary I saw once which spoke of some guys who had had a stroke or hit their head badly or something and something had happened to switch their sexual orientation. It went into detail of their change in personality too. One man suddenly developed a passion and talent for drawing which he'd never previously had.

System won't allow me to repost without 10 additional letters. Here are a few.

[gareth19 (imported)]

Of course it's obviously entirely nurture. Without his ever present hyper-masculine father image in the picture, we can all see how easily Dubya might have turned into a pansy. Without Dick Chaney's virile duck-hunting presence or Brian Burke's butch hockey coaching, one of their kids could easily have become gay.

[kristoff]

Of course it's obviously entirely nurture. Without his ever present hyper-masculine father image in the picture, we can all see how easily Dubya might have turned into a pansy. Without Dick Chaney's virile duck-hunting presence or Brian Burke's butch hockey coaching, one of their kids could easily have become gay.

But is Dick Cheney's daughter butch?

[foxytaur (imported)]

Of course it's obviously entirely nurture. Without his ever present hyper-masculine father image in the picture, we can all see how easily Dubya might have turned into a pansy. Without Dick Chaney's virile duck-hunting presence or Brian Burke's butch hockey coaching, one of their kids could easily have become gay.

Not sure whether sarcasm or fact based response?

(im serious btw I can't detect jokes well, being honest)

[Cainanite (imported)]

I'm going to try and formulate a response to this thread. As is well known, I am what I like to call an asexual-bisexual. By that, I mean that I can enjoy the thought of myself being romantically involved with either males or females, but that when it comes to the actual act of sex, I find the thought a bit too daunting to consider, no matter the gender of my partner.

Have I always been this way, or did something happen to me to make me the way that I am? I really don't know. Long before I entered puberty, I entertained the fantasy of being with both males and females. I remember being told that all kids experiment with their fantasies. Boys, girls, supposedly it is perfectly natural for a heterosexual boy to have romantic or even sexual thoughts about another boy while growing up. I certainly did. But, I also had those thoughts and feelings about girls. As far as I can tell, nothing about that has changed for me. I am still who I was when I was a child, at least as far as my romantic thoughts go.

As a child I thought there would come a time when I would naturally start to think about girls more. It never happened. Nor did I start to think about boys more. It pretty much stayed in the balance/ratio it always was for me. Of course, if I had grown up with more testosterone in my system than I did, maybe I would have turned out different. I just don't know.

As far as to how I was nurtured, I think it was always expected of me that I would turn out traditionally heterosexual. My home life was certainly geared in a very traditional way. I also grew up in a place where homosexuals were a bit like tales of leprechauns, or unicorns. Whatever they were, they certainly didn't exist where I lived. At least no one ever dared admit they were one. If nurture were the only factor, then I should have been heterosexual.

A few people outside this community that I have tried to explain this to, seem to think I could just make a choice, and magically become 100% homosexual, or 100% heterosexual. As if I had a choice. It would certainly be easier if I could just turn off one side of myself or another. But it just does not work that way.

As far as my romantic thoughts go, I am truly bi-sexual. I know I was born that way.

As far as my sexual thoughts go, I simply have not developed the mature biology to find it enjoyable. Try as I might, it just doesn't work for me. This too, seems to be just the way I was made.

It is nature, at least for me.

I worry that if people ever find the "cause" of homosexuality, bisexuality, or asexuality, that they will then try and "cure" it or prevent it medically. If you think we have it bad now, just wait until science perfects the "Gay-B-Gone" pill. Yikes!

Just my two cents... for all that's worth.