Scarlett O'Hara

I was actually being sarcastic, it didn't really come across. As in, no **** people want to know if someone is ***.

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This_Is_Corey

I consider myself to be a casual bi-sexual

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SATCHMO

Does a history of sexual abuse play a part in one's sexual orientation?

VEGANGELICA

I've done a little reading into this issue, SATCHMO, and my feeling is that no, sexual abuse doesn't cause people to define themselves later as feeling heterosexual or homosexual (or bisexual or pansexual!):

The issue gets a little more complicated than quoted above, because people's sexual behaviors don't always match what they feel their sexual orientation is, for example. Also, people of different sexual orientations may have different likelihoods of remembering or reporting sexual abuse, or even viewing the sexual conduct as sexual abuse.

About the issue of "turning" someone. One of my frustrations with the whole terminology of human sexuality is that it seems to oversimplify people's sexual feelings. For example, if people were to label me "heterosexual," this makes it sound like "I am sexually interested in men," when in reality I'm not interested in 99.9% of men sexually...so it seems strange to label me "heterosexual" because I might find 1/1000 men interesting in a sexual way.

I think the idea of turning someone from homosexual to heterosexual, or vice versa, sounds as implausable as someone trying to get me to feel sexually interested in the 999 out of 1000 men with whom I only feel friendship or only want to feel friendship. It's kind of like you commented: sometimes there may be chemistry, sometimes not. I feel you really can't force yourself to feel what you don't, or to change people, if there isn't much sexual interest there to begin with. Maybe other people have had other experiences, though.

My other comment on this issue of childhood sexuality and adult sexual orientation is that I've read that quite young children (age 5 or so) early on know they are sexually interested more in same-sex people or in opposite-sex people (or neither, or both!). I think sexual leanings occur quite early, based primarily on the person's physiology, long before most children are ever sexually involved with anyone.

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SATCHMO

The thing is, I see some incongruity here between gay males and gay females, and forgive me if this sounds like a statement made out of ignorance, but it's really just a mater of my own collective experience and observations.

I think there is much more evidence of a genetic predisposal toward homosexuality in men than there is women. First of all, you see many more cases of the so called "four-year queer" in women, girls who sexually experimented in college, or lived a lesbian lifestyle only to leave that lifestyle to return to a heterosexual one.

Two, our societal norms and cultural conditioning dictate that it is much more acceptable for women to be physically affectionate and sexually intimate with each other without calling any abnormal questioning about their particular orientation.There is also, in our culture, much more of a stigma attached to physical intimacy between men and being gay how that represents their 'manhood', or lack thereof, although that stigma is quickly diminishing.

Three, since I think it's safe to say that over 95% of the perpetrators of sexual and physical abuse are men, then it would stand to reason that some women who have been the victims of sexual abuse would seek to avoid having physically, and sometimes emotionally intimate relationships with a gender that, by regressive association, represents a threat to their well-being, namely men.

Stone Birds

unfortunately i have to say for the most part you're probably correct.

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boo boo

I don't think f*cking a lesbian is gonna make her not a lesbian.

I do think it's possible that sex abuse can influence someone's orientation somehow, but I dunno, I can't claim anything whatsoever. Even if I were to try and look up statistics for that, abuse often goes unreported so yeah.

Isn't it true that a lot of the things people are sexually into influenced by various events that happened to them as a child or during puberty? Does development plays a role or is it entirely something already imprinted in the brain at birth?

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Consolator

I'd like to post my two cents here..sorry if it's slightly jumbled/disorganized.

I definitely see improvement in the future. As a homosexual (why is *** censored?) man, born and raised in Texas, I can say without a doubt progress is being made. I was your pretty typical boy growing up. I loved legos and hot wheels. It took me a long time to finally realize that I may be homosexual (god, I feel awkward saying this), as it was something I was never exposed to. My family (or I guess I should say my mother) had a pretty good reaction to my coming out, she had suspected it for years. My days in high school were pretty miserable, though not because others were giving me a hard time. I felt so alone for most of my time in high school -- I had no friends the first two years of high school. I was socially awkward and introverted. There was also the period of denial, which was obscenely difficult to deal with. I came out my junior year. My senior year I made absolutely amazing friends, and found support in the most unlikely places. The absolute worst I had to face in high school were random morons trying to tell me that I was demonic or mentally ****ed up and justifying their hateful words by throwing bible passages at me. I knew they didn't understand, and it's OK. Even those happenings were rare. Most people assume I'm straight. I never once felt physically threatened.

In regards to same-sex marriage..

It really isn't any of your business if you think same-sex marriage is wrong. The whole argument about calling it something else is nonsense -- separate but equal did not work with segregation, and it shouldn't even be suggested again. America was founded on the basis of freedom and equality. Not everyone in the country practices a religion. Don't you find it a bit inconsiderate to force your views on them? You could argue that I'm doing the same, but what I'm arguing for is neutrality on the issue. Religion shouldn't even be a part of something like this. If you fear the "sanctity of marriage" will be threatened by homosexuals getting married, then I think you may need a bit of a reality check. The current divorce rate in the US is what? Estimated to be between 40 and 50%? Right. I think the "sanctity" (whatever the hell that even means) has been gone for a good while. Please keep in mind, when I say same-sex marriage, I mean the legal contract. Not the religious ceremony. No church should be forced to marry someone they do not see fit, imo.

It is my personal belief that if two people love each other, they deserve the same rights, and privileges as any other couple. There's a fair amount of research on the causes of homosexuality, but few sure things are known. According to the American Psychological Association, homosexuality is something innate and immutable. I could talk about the theories, but if you're really curious, you can google them. In the end, what it comes down to is respect for others.

I'd also like to mention same-sex couples adopting children. The only state I recall that has completely and totally outlawed anybody deemed homosexual/bisexual to adopt is Florida. In most other states, it is deemed "unfavorable" in the approval process to be homosexual, or the boundaries are simply unclear. This isn't completely fair in my eyes, because of the basis they deem homosexuals to be bad parents. Sexual orientation does not determine whether someone will be a crappy parent or not. My father was completely heterosexual, and suffice it to say, he is someone that should not have been a parent. He was all sorts of abusive towards my mother, and was a terrible influence on me. He let me drink hard liquor when I was a child, and has probably smoked enough cigarettes in my presence to give me several rounds of lung cancer.

There have been numerous studies to make sure that the development of children was not stunted (or whatever you want to call it) when raised by same-sex couples. The findings? It doesn't matter what gender your parents are. It matters that the parents are loving and supportive of you. I actually had a very in-depth discussion about this with a psychologist friend of mine, whose argument was similar to mine. He said that one parent would naturally become the more dominant one, while the other would be the supportive one. He saw absolutely no reasoning behind not allowing homosexuals to adopt, or to discriminate against them in the adoption process.

There's also the whole notion of making laws to protect homosexuals/transpeople from discrimination in the workplace, though I won't get into that as its something I'm not as knowledgeable about.

To end my post, I'll try to address some of the points boo boo made. Looking back on it, I should have known at a relatively young age that I was homosexual. I've always felt a slight attraction towards men, I just never fully realized it until puberty brought along my sexual urges. Funny sounding, I know.

chiron

The way I see it *** parents are probably better than no parents and since they have to go through the adoption process they are also probably well prepared for parenting.

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Exterminate all rational thought.

Arya Stark

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