Homosexuality, Nature versus Nurture
Ben wrote in his blog about gays in the military and touched on the issue of homosexuality being a choice. Years ago when I was taking sociology, I wrote a paper on this subject. At the same time I was taking psychology, and social anthropology. Talk about warping someone’s views… Anyway there is an age old debate about nature versus nurture and the issue of homosexuality falls into this category.
I believe that homosexuality is not a choice. I believe it’s something you’re born with, or at least a predisposition toward. You can look at a gay guy with raised by a mom and three sisters and say, “See what else would you expect?” But the majority of male kids raised without a male roll model turn out straight, and the majority of gay men didn’t grow up that way. I have known a couple of gay guys since elementary school, and they were clearly on the path to being gay way back then.
Did you know that there are only a few things that are common across all known cultures? Smiling, music, religion of some sort, and homosexuality (there are a few others, but only a handful). Also the rate of homosexuality tends to be constant, in terms of percentage of individuals who have experienced a homosexual act beyond kids being curious. It’s at about 5% of a given population. This is true among all societies. While our environment can certainly influence our behaviors, it does seem that when it comes to homosexuality, some people are just gay.
I’m not sure why it’s so hard for people to accept this. To a gay person, being physically attracted to the same sex is as natural as us being physically attracted to the opposite sex. To be sure there are some who choose to explore the taboo side of it, but they tend to be bi-sexual rather than homosexual. Some might choose it simply to reject the beliefs that society projects on them, sticking to the man so to speak.
Regardless of the why, homosexuality has always existed. It exists in all societies, even those tribes in the rain forests that have had very little contact with the outside world. Even animals participate in homosexuality. One study done in 1999 found examples of homosexuality in more than 1500 species of animals. Aprox 500 of these have been well documented, meaning it was just a confused dog. So it seems clear to me that homosexuality is natural, meaning it exists in nature. Because of this I think it’s impossible to say someone chose to be gay. Of course sexuality is a spectrum, not an absolute; and culture does influence behavior, but, for the most part, people are either born gay or they’re not (or somewhere on that spectrum: see the scene on The Spectrum of Human Sexuality in the movie Hiding Out).
Agree or disagree?
Jahm
this topic could go on and on like Friends reruns