[Marsh.]

Originally Posted by Quasar

I didn't realise people were being that literal with the thread. Of course I don't think that there are gay babies being born and they are aware of it. But the phrase, 'born gay' is just a phrase.
I don't feel I was nurtured in anyway to be gay. There wasn't anything that helped me sway towards men, nothing that influenced it, which is basically what the nuture argument is about.
When a gay person says I was born gay, they mean that at the time they felt a bit differently or acted a bit differently, looking back when they knew what that meant, it's easy to say, 'I've been gay for a very long time'

Nurture doesn't mean there has to be a specific pin point of something that made them gay.

It's saying that, just like everything else about that person, it's a combination of EVERYTHING in their life. Therefore you can't have a formula for what makes anyone anything because no two people have the same experiences/life specifically. There are too many factors involved in life to pinpoint.

It's one huge lottery. Depending on which variables in our lives change, we can be different people in different ways, sexuality included.

Like earlier, I wasn't suggesting a different culture would make you gay or straight, I was suggesting culture is ONE OF MANY ways in which someone's life can be different and therefore have created a different person.

[Glenn.]

Originally Posted by Marsh.

Nurture doesn't mean there has to be a specific pin point of something that made them gay.

It's saying that, just like everything else about that person, it's a combination of EVERYTHING in their life. Therefore you can't have a formula for what makes anyone anything because no two people have the same experiences/life specifically. There are too many factors involved in life to pinpoint.

It's one huge lottery. Depending on which variables in our lives change, we can be different people in different ways, sexuality included.

So many things influence it then?

[Marsh.]

Originally Posted by Quasar

So many things influence it then?

Yes.

But things influence it all the same. It isn't an inherent part of you that you are born with, like a hereditary condition.

[Jack_]

Originally Posted by Quasar

I didn't realise people were being that literal with the thread. Of course I don't think that there are gay babies being born and they are aware of it. But the phrase, 'born gay' is just a phrase.
I don't feel I was nurtured in anyway to be gay. There wasn't anything that helped me sway towards men, nothing that influenced it, which is basically what the nuture argument is about.
When a gay person says I was born gay, they mean that at the time they felt a bit differently or acted a bit differently, looking back when they knew what that meant, it's easy to say, 'I've been gay for a very long time'

You won't feel that your sexuality was nurtured though or be able to pin point specific things that helped develop it, of course not. Just as you won't be able to recall specific things that created your mannerisms, your interests, your style choices, your personality, etc etc. It's not something you can really look back on and correlate saying 'yeah that caused that and x caused y', it just happens without you even knowing.

When people realise they are gay, even when they're very young, that is because their sexuality has been formed in the early years of their life. I'm sorry but I really can't buy into the notion that you're sat in the womb, or even as far back as being part sperm part egg, and already you're gagging for the d or v. Or both. Babies are the the furthest thing from sexualised you can get.

[Glenn.]

Originally Posted by Marsh.

Yes.

But things influence it all the same. It isn't an inherent part of you that you are born with, like a hereditary condition.

So how does the nuture argument have any basis then?

[Rob!]

Originally Posted by Marsh.

Yes.

But things influence it all the same. It isn't an inherent part of you that you are born with, like a hereditary condition.

Is it not a genetic thing though somewhere along the line or is that all just bull****?

[Daniel.]

People thinking anything other than your born gay

[JoshBB]

Originally Posted by Rob!

Is it not a genetic thing though somewhere along the line or is that all just bull****?

My personal belief is that it is a mixture of environmental exposure and recessive genes.

Not that it matters, just a theory of mine. I don't think its a choice whatsoever though, and not something that can be 'cured'.

[Marsh.]

Originally Posted by Quasar

So how does the nuture argument have any basis then?

All of the influences in life IS the nurture argument.

Are you still thinking it's somehow about a parent teaching which sexuality you should be?

Nature is something that you are born with, nurture is dependent on all of life's variables and influences on who we are, which change from person to person who all have very different factors affecting their lives.

[Marsh.]

Originally Posted by Rob!

Is it not a genetic thing though somewhere along the line or is that all just bull****?

Personally, I don't think sexual orientation is something you inherit genetically.

[Glenn.]

Originally Posted by Marsh.

All of the influences in life IS the nurture argument.

Are you still thinking it's somehow about a parent teaching which sexuality you should be?

Nature is something that you are born with, nurture is dependent on all of life's variables and influences on who we are.

I think is rather just stick with I was born gay. The nuture argument is as vague as the whole God created the universe crap.

[Marsh.]

Originally Posted by JoshBB

My personal belief is that it is a mixture of environmental exposure and recessive genes.

Not that it matters, just a theory of mine. I don't think its a choice whatsoever though, and not something that can be 'cured'.

Oh I don't know, I've turned a few lesbians in my time.

[Glenn.]

Originally Posted by Marsh.

Oh I don't know, I've turned a few lesbians in my time.

Did you drug them before hand?

[Marsh.]

Originally Posted by Quasar

I think is rather just stick with I was born gay. The nuture argument is as vague as the whole God created the universe crap.

It's not vague.

Just as I couldn't sit here and pin point exactly why I have any of the personality traits /preferences I have in any area of life doesn't make the argument itself vague.

I wasn't born with specific food preferences or sexual preferences, it developed later. Not being able to sit and write a simple formula doesn't make it automatically invalid. Psychology of humans and our behaviour is insanely complex. I'd be worried if they could say "abc=straight / xyz=gay"

[Marsh.]

Originally Posted by Quasar

Did you drug them before hand?

No, I was just only allowed to use my fingers.

[Gstar]

Agree with OP

[Glenn.]

Originally Posted by Marsh.

It's not vague.

Just as I couldn't sit here and pin point exactly why I have any of the personality traits /preferences I have in any area of life doesn't make the argument itself vague.

Of course it's vague. It's all assumptions and how we think our brains and bodies work.

[Rob!]

Originally Posted by Marsh.

Oh I don't know, I've turned a few lesbians stomachs in my time.

[Marsh.]

Originally Posted by Quasar

Of course it's vague. It's all assumptions and how we think our brains and bodies work.

No, it is how we work. That's how we are all unique because no two lives are exactly the same are they?

Otherwise, we'd have test tube babies being born with the parents choosing what sexuality they want them to have, whether they want them to have little patience or a lot, they want them to have a short temper or a penchant for throwing breakable objects.

Just because you can't sit down and go "Right, Jay loves being smacked around the bedroom because of xyz" doesn't mean he was born being a sadomasochist.

Why do you think people go to therapy? To learn more about things, to work through their issues. If we were all conceived as the people we are there'd be nothing we could do to evolve as people.

[Marsh.]

Originally Posted by Rob!

[Jack_]

Originally Posted by Quasar

Of course it's vague. It's all assumptions and how we think our brains and bodies work.

So you believe that people's personalities, mannerisms, characteristics, interests, etc etc are all inherent, were all created when the egg was fertilised? Genetically? You don't believe socialisation is a thing, and that the way people act and are is dependent on the place and time in which they are brought up in and live?

Seriously?

[Lostie!]

Originally Posted by Quasar

Then I don't quite get the thread? In your first post you state quite ignorantly that you don't think people are born gay. Have I missed something?

She said she believes some are but it's a different case for others, the way I took it she was merely saying that the "born gay" stance isn't a blanket term that accurately covers all. She also never suggested in the OP that it's a deliberate choice.

I don't see how she's being ignorant or stupid.

[Jack_]

Slightly related - I thought this was quite an interesting excerpt from an article on the Guardian I just found:

These issues highlight a fundamental problem that goes well beyond the peculiarities of these particular studies. Scientists are asking whether homosexuality is natural when we can’t even agree exactly what homosexuality is. Homosexuality, as with all sexualities, is a social construction.

What does that mean? In his book The History of Sexuality Michel Foucault charted a major shift in our construction of sexual desires over the past few centuries. There are two important changes. First, we have developed the idea that our sexual desires reveal a fundamental truth about who we are, and second we have created a conviction that we have an obligation to seek out that truth and express it. As Jesi Egan argues, “within this framework, sex isn’t just something you do. Instead, the kind of sex you have (or want to have) becomes a symptom of something else: your sexuality.”

Instead of just being a thing we do, therefore, sex has become an essential part of our identity. Hence the creation of the terms “homosexuality” and “heterosexuality” — terms which were never related to physical truths, but instead to social truths. This picture of sexuality is where we stand today: our sexual desires help construct our social identity, one which we believe tells a fundamental truth about who we are.

To understand this a bit more it is worth looking at past expressions of sexual desire.

Ancient Greece is usually noted as one of the most open societies when it came to male homosexual acts, which were seen by some as “the most praise-worthy, substantive and Godly forms of love.” Greece’s ancient culture is known to include a form of relationship called pederasty, a socially acknowledged and acceptable form of erotic love between an adult male and a younger man.

Or what about the Sambia in Papua New Guinea? Believing it possesses “masculine spirit”, boys in the Sambia are required to ingest semen as part of a ritual to allow them to mature to men. All boys go through a period in their life where they are required to perform regular oral sex on older members of society. When they become men themselves they then repay the favour by offering their semen to boys wishing to become men.

These sorts of examples are not just related to homosexual acts either. Look at the different perceptions of female beauty throughout the ages. In the Renaissance period for example more voluptuous women who had large breasts and hips were portrayed as beautiful, whereas in Victorian England women’s beauty was based around an hourglass figure created by corsets designed to cinch a waste as tightly as possible. These are both very different to mainstream perceptions of female beauty today, which are (controversially) based heavily on an ideal of model-type thinness.

This is the major problem that advocates of a gay gene face. Our sexual desires and ideals change based on our society at any given time. Do proponents of the gay gene believe that those in Ancient Greece or in the Sambia had/have a greater prevalence of a gay gene than we do today? Do our perceptions of female beauty change over the times because of shifts in the genes of straight men?

The Guardian

[Northern Monkey]

I think maybe there might not be just one answer?
Maybe there are various factors?
Genetics or social interactions through early life or hormonal imbalances or a combination?

[Glenn.]

Originally Posted by Jack_

So you believe that people's personalities, mannerisms, characteristics, interests, etc etc are all inherent, were all created when the egg was fertilised? Genetically? You don't believe socialisation is a thing, and that the way people act and are is dependent on the place and time in which they are brought up in and live?

Seriously?

I actually said in a few posts back that I didn't believe that gay babies are born. But I also don't believe that someone's environment or socialisation or how they are brought up determines their sexuality. It's like saying someone born in Brighton is going to grow and and be gay because there's a lot of gay people in Brighton