And now, the other side of the story, for balance:
A spectacular example of how to question your own assumptionosity!
Posted by Greg Laden on October 14, 2010
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Comments
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I use that one a lot, (When did you choose to be straight) but devil’s advocate, it doesn’t have to be ‘born’ or ‘choice’. It could conceptually be nature causing someone to be one way or the other early in life, but after birth.
Although that one IS only a semantic different from ‘born’, and nowhere near ‘choice’.
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I read somewhere… I don’t remember where but I remember thinking it a not-bullshit-laden place, that homosexuality could be explained (or possibly a better word would be correlated with) 30% of the time by genetics, 50% of the time by childhood experiences and 20% was still unaccounted for. In particular, seemingly like the previous poster, I don’t see the conflict with saying that childhood experiences can influence whether you become gay or not but still not saying it’s a conscious choice. I _also_ object to the gay/straight dichotomy. I think a metric should be devised/used that has two variables: one that measures your attraction to someone of the same gender and one that measures your attracting to the opposite gender. I think it worth having two rather than just ‘degree of straightness’ since I know people who aren’t gay and aren’t straight, they just aren’t interested in sex or relationships, and this system would be able to include those sorts of people as well.
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That’s exactly why I thought that Dan Quayle must be the first openly bi-sexual vice-president when he said homosexuality is a choice. I figured that what he was saying is that he had an equal interest in both sexes and simply chose heterosexuality. Certainly, I knew for me heterosexuality was not a choice but innate.
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I’m a little blown away at how many people in the video had apparently never been confronted with that question.
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My long departed step-brother was gay. Looking back, it’s obvious he was always gay. He certainly never had any choice in the matter, though I don’t think he regretted it either.
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happyevilslosh, Kinsey developed a one-dimensional metric that’s a very good starting point: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinsey_scale
BruceH, my college friends heaved a great collective sigh of relief when I finally came out, and that was in East Tennessee! No, I had no choice in the matter either. Behaviorally I’m a 6, but I’ll admit that Seven of Nine did at times make me want to squeeze those Bodacious Tatas just so I could know what they feel like. Other than that I’d have no idea what to do with her. I want to meet her brother.
I’ll have to watch and listen to those videos after work. -
Yes, I’m aware of the Kinsey scale but I couldn’t for the life of me remember the name, thanks for helping.
However my problem with it is that it doesn’t distinguish asexual from bisexual people. It also is a little deficient if for example you want to distinguish if you really like women but are indifferent to men vs somewhat liking women and somewhat liking men. So what I mean is that it works on the idea that your preferences should range from male to female, whereas I think a better measure would range from disliking to liking one particular gender on each axis. Now of course this isn’t perfect either because I’m assuming that gender is the same as sex, and that it can be discretely partitioned. But I think it would be a step in a good direction.
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Actually remove my second complain sorry, I misread how it work. I still (naturally) think my proposed system would be an improvement.
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@HappyEvilSloth
I dunno, most “asexual” people I know (myself included) still have a preference for either men or women (or not if they’re bi). It’s just that the urge to be in a sexual relationship is either so small as to not be worth the trouble, or just not really there at all. Personally I think there should be two scales: one for gender preference (or, as you suggested, two scales for gender preference) and one for… how to put this? …urge to have a partner.
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*HappyEvilSlosh not Sloth. Sorry.
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a bit of humor about gay men and assumptions-
http://notalwaysright.com/stereo-griping/7735Stereo-Griping
Clothing Store | Auckland, New Zealand(While stocking items on the shelf I notice a guy sitting by the changing rooms with the bored, “being forced to go shopping with the missus” look on his face.)
Me: “Girlfriend making you comment on everything in the store?”
Guy: “Me? No. I’m gay. My friend only just found out and figured we could go shopping together despite my protests.”
Me: “Sorry bout the mistake, you just had the usual ‘get me out of here’ look.”
(At this point the girl comes out of the changing room to show off her outfit.)
Girl: “What do you think?”
Guy: “I don’t know. It’s good, I guess.”
Girl: *in a huff* “You’re no good at this! What’s the point in being gay if you don’t like shopping for clothes?!”
(She storms back into the changing room.)
Guy: “Jeez, this is worse than having to come out to my parents.”
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HappyEvilSlosh, of course.
The Kinsey Scale is a first attempt at such things, and thus opens up avenues for further thought. A two-dimensional scale which rates attraction to women on one axis and to men on the other, is a little less primitive. I don’t know how it is for you, but for me, only certain men and a very few women, are attractive. Seven of Nine makes me curious, Kayleigh is almost hot in that masculine overalls, and oooh, Legolas has me panting. Strider and Boromir … not my type.
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, which is now available for the 
