According to a recent poll, more Americans are believing that homosexuality can't be changed or unlearned. And this percentage has been increasing from 36% to 56% from 1998 to 2007. Of the most recent poll, 42% believe homosexuality results from environment and 39% believe it's genetic.
For me, I'm happy if people think that it can't be changed. Because the notion that it can be changed carries the implication that it should be changed or that reproducing is the purpose of life (*shudder).
The nature vs. nurture issue inevitably comes up with queerness. Like most issues worth contemplating, it's complicated. My opinion hasn't fully formed yet, but here's what I think so far:
1) Everyone is different, and I think everyone develops and discovers themselves at their own pace. This is the result of both nature and nurture. Some people, (e.g. KC) knew they were gay since they were kids (and consequently managed to get other little girls to kiss her on the playground). Others might take longer to figure it out. And others might know it, but repress and/or suppress their desires. With some people, nature may play a more predominant role in their sexuality, and with others, nurture might. It all depends on a variety of unpredictable factors.
2) I fully believe in Kinsey's scale. A lot of people aren't 100% straight or 100% gay. For example, some mostly straight people can potentially fall in love with someone of the same sex, and some mostly gay people can potentially fall in love with someone of the opposite sex. They may not know it because their environment doesn't accept a deviation from the hetero norm, or they may just not have met someone who they'd be willing to join the other team for. There could be several other reasons.
I think a lot of people are, by way of nature, in a grey area, and by way of nurture, they end up being pushed (or pushing themselves) into a category (gay, straight, bi) that's easier to define (although bisexuality still isn't easy to define).
I guess my point is that to label variations in sexual orientation as either nature or nurture is to apply a one-sided mentality that also perpetuates the limiting, binary constructs that define gender and sexual orientation.
*De de de deee!* [Insert "The More You Know" Star Rainbow Here]
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3 comments:
No matter whether it is nature or nuture or any combination of the 2, I'm glad that people are starting to recognize that it could just be nature. People in general aren't good with grey areas. So I'd rather have them thinking it is genetic and not trying to change anyone as opposed to the opposite. However, I believe it is a combination of the 2.
Hi Shane,
Do you know what seems to me?
The majority has to put his labels to what it's not common or is not normalized to fit everything into his lives, into his thoughts, sometimes limited by the family, religion or simply tradition. That's why we need the genetic or psychological explanation, or something similar.
And sincerely I believe that there is a global fear of accepting what others decide to do with his life, his sexuality, and even with it itself.
The sexuality,from my point of view, is related directly to the communication (almost as a language) than to the fly.
Finally, we all fall in love (forever, for one month, for an hour..) of the person that we have face, with his personality, his way of speaking, his ideas ... prepared with a few features that attract us ... and here it is not important that she is a man or woman. Or at least I believe that.
The only thing I feel is that there is the one who does not dare to open the heart. Everything would be simpler, the fear does not make us free.
You would have seen Madrid this weekend, everything was a party!!
Un beso and a warm hug.
PD: I will apologize again for my horrible expressiveness in your language.
Eva,
I agree with you completely.
I would have liked to have seen how it was in Madrid!
Actually, some of your English has a poetic sound to it. So I like it.
For example, "... prepared with a few features that attract us ..."
The word "prepared" makes it sound like a recipe or a product, and that could imply that what attracts us is partly determined by someone else.
Abrazos,
Shane
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