Is Homosexuality a Choice?

The question of whether someone was "really" straight or "really" gay misrecognizes the nature of sexuality, which is fluid, not fixed, a narrative that changes over time. . . . It reveals sexuality to be a process of growth, transformation, and surprise, not a stable and knowable state of being." —Marjorie Garber, Vice Versa: Bisexuality and the Eroticism of Everyday Life, 1995

Is it or isn’t it? Does it matter? Many heterosexual people believe that homosexuals choose to be gay. They believe all gay people made a conscious decision, whether out of sexual pleasure or a desire to be different. Is sexuality something you can take off and put on like a hat? Not to ride the fence here, but…yes, and no. Some people DO choose their sexuality. We live in a time where it’s cool to be “different”. Everyone wants to stand out, to have some quality that makes them a little different from everyone else. (The downside of this is that everyone’s trying so hard to be different, that they all end up the same!) People “coming out” as bisexual in high school is not uncommon. I can’t speak for other people, but I strongly suspect that some students do this for the “shock factor”. They know this is going to upset their parents, and they’ll be a topic of conversation for weeks. Does this negate the struggle of those that are gay or bisexual? These individuals live in fear of their friends and family finding out, and possibly disowning them? In high school, I divided gay students into two groups: the “truly gays” and the “newly gays”. There were two openly “truly gay” students at our school. Both were beaten repeatedly by other students and were dropped by most of their friends. On the other hand, we had about 20 “newly gay” students—teenagers that announced to everyone and anyone that was listening that they were now bisexual. They usually followed this with acquiring a new partner of the same sex—preferably another “newly gay” –and making sure that everyone knew they were now in a homosexual relationship. One of my “newly gay” friends confided in me that she didn’t really like her new girlfriend “that way”, but it was fun having a girlfriend. http://www.queerbychoice.com/ is a website devoted to “those of us who consider ourselves "queer by choice"…true radicals”. They reject the theory that sexuality is something that’s written into your DNA. At first glance, I thought, “They’re mocking homosexuality! What about people that have always been gay, who struggle with their same-sex attractions?” But this site is all about throwing away the labels, acknowledging that sexuality is fluid and forever changing. What you like today may not be what you like tomorrow, or 10 years from now.

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