barking_iguana | It's nice to know I helped

I sometimes hang out at the forum for the stiffs.com dead pool (guess which celebrities will die). Lately, I've been part of the successful push there that's just changed it from a place where homophobia was considered normal, to one where it's an oddball position. Yesterday, I wrote a response to someone who was friendly to the cause, but said "Wow. I can't believe there are people left on earth who still think it is a choice." Here's a slightly edited version of what I said:

Ya know, there are some people for whom it is a choice. At least somewhat.

I'm primarily attracted to women. By which, I mean that if I notice anyone sexually at all, it's much more likely that that someone will be female. But I've never seen the world as sexually as most men do, so, even in high school, I sometimes took some shit for not being the stereotypical guy. Nothing like the shit I had to put up with in elementary school, when I was the picked-on kid in many classes, but enough to remind me what being vulnerable was all about.

When I was 17, I found myself having occasional fantasies about one of my dorm suite-mates. I shut that down in a hurry! There was NO WAY I was going back to being afraid of getting beat up all the time.

So instead, I ended up afraid of my own shadow. I knew there was this thing I didn't want to acknowledge in the back of my mind. And since my heterosexuality wasn't what I was being told was normal (mostly by folks who themselves had to prove to themselves and/or others that they were straight), I feared I was really gay. I feared that all my attraction to women was just a cover I was giving myself because I couldn't afford to see the truth.

Call me pathetic, if you will, but I don't think the course of my life in this regard is all that different from what most people would have gone through in similar circumstances. It took me 10 years of gradually accepting that the attraction to men (never, to that point, repeating itself after my freshman year in college) was something I was capable of. Not just in an isolated instance, but, since I had been actively denying myself self-knowledge, likely on an ongoing basis.

In my mid-20s, I finally got reasonably comfortable with being, at least theoretically, bisexual. But I still hadn't faced what I was most afraid of. At age 27, with the support of my then-wife, I decided to simply suppose that I was gay; to go to sleep one night with that as a working assumption, and to see how things seemed in the morning.

Well, as I realized that morning, I'm not gay. My attraction to women, though occasionally over-cultivated to compensate for my libido being slow on the uptake, is real. I also realized that my attraction to men is also real, though much less frequent. Since then, I've had a few kisses and, er, made out once. It might happen again. Perhaps I'll even be in an ongoing relationship with a man some day. I doubt it, but I can see the possibility, and it doesn't freak me out. It could be quite nice.

Some guys, of course, really couldn't ever get turned by another guy. Not as many as tell themselves that, I suppose, but more than a few.

If I lived in a society where it was my attraction to women that could have gotten me in trouble, I could have forced myself into a homosexual mindset, but it would not have been a good thing for me. If men who can't be attracted to other men at all lived in such a society, they just couldn't function sexually, except furtively in illicit relationships.

Although my personal habits are somewhat staid, I hang out with a libertine crowd, because we share a lot of values, many of which have nothing to do with sexuality, except in the sense that everything is related. I have met people all over the Klein Grid. And I have met extraordinarily good parents in a wide variety of family arrangements. Some kids I've seen grow from toddlers to high-schoolers, and if I ever have kids (which I don't plan to) I would consider myself very fortunate if they would be as well-adjusted. I've also seen families break up, and it hurts the kids. Just as any breakup does. Which all just gives some background to me saying that claiming "it's a choice" or "it isn't" is too simple.

Potential isn't a choice. Various potentials can be developed or not. If no potential is there, there's nothing to develop. One can choose to be celibate. And if one is extraordinary enough in some (mostly unfortunate) ways, one might even succeed at being celibate through one's whole lifetime. But that kind of exceptionality shouldn't be required, and I don't think it's what [resident homophobe] is talking about.

Another reason I don't like relying too much on the innate-orientation argument, mostly true though it is, is the harm it does to the queer communities. It's buying into the garbage that there's something wrong with us.

Well, if you think that the individual exists only for the good of the society, and you also think that the society would be better off with a higher birth rate, then you have reason to think that homosexuality, like birth control, is evil. But we're not living in 1500 BC any more. Our tribe is not about to be wiped out, so we don't have to fuck to make more soldiers and farmers. And in the real world, there's not an iota of a reason why people shouldn't follow whatever course makes them productive and happy, provided they allow the same consideration to everyone else.

I realize that the "it's innate" argument is a necessary step for many people to recover from the hatred they've grown up with. And I realize it's something which is both mostly true and useful politically. But I can't help feel, whenever I here the argument made on TV, that the speaker is whining, in an Urkil voice, "but we haaave toooo", when they should be pointing out that queer folk are exactly as valid, full human beings as non-queer.

Today, I got an email from someone who'd read the post, saying

I want to tell you that your post was one of the most heartfelt, and sincere that I have read on that board. I am very impressed by the courage it must have taken to put your thoughts and feelings out there.

I think at one time or another, young men, and women, especially in the adolescent years begin to question their sexuality. I have two nephews who are gay and they tell me they knew it as kids, so being gay........I do not think it is a choice. I am parenting a grandson who is 16. He is a sensitive, quiet young man who is called "gay" and picked on at his high school. He began to think that maybe he is gay. We have explored various aspects of his feelings toward boys and girls, and I told him that no matter what his sexual preference is, I will love and support him, and he need not fear rejection from any family member. Unfortunately, his cousins are still unable to tell the family, which only adds to my grandson's fear of rejection. I read your post to him which I had hoped in some way would let him know that he was not alone in questioning the issue of gay vs straight. He indicated to me that yes, he did feel an attraction to another young man at one time, but now his preference is girls.

Thank you for such an eloquent post. It has helped another young man, and for that you should be proud.

Well, in the emotional state I'm in these days, proud may be too much to ask for. But it is nice to see that even when I'm having a hard time connecting with the world in other productive ways, I can still have a positive impact. It helps.