Sexual Orientation: Nature or Nurture

[Eden]

[Sniper_Zegai]

There are alot of ex-gay groups out there that say if you are abused or have a bad realtionship with your father that you will become gay as a result and a gay person who says they have'nt been neglected by their father figures are simply lying. I think that is BS by the way and I think there are things in your life that either re-inforce or condemn certain sexualities however I beleive that nobody can force you to have a certain sexual oreintation.

Thats why I voted both but mostly nature.
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[Urn]

At a point I would have argued that people were raised to be gay through how they were nurtured, but my opinion has changed drastically since then. I do think that nurture does have a lot to do with the sexual preferences of a child. How a child is raised and what they perceive in their environment as natural will effect how they relate to others sexually.

In this respect, the parents have a huge influence on a child. Such terms as "conditioning" the sexual preference of a child is not uncommon. When a child sees a male and a female relate with one another they are inclined to perceive this as a natural and right way to behave. Of course, through extreme circumstances, such as traumatic events, one can be swayed from a particular preference due to fear and detestation of a particular sex.

But, nature, certainly overcomes a lot of what is taught to a human being through nurture. One cannot be anything else but what they are meant to be. Deny it as hard as you can, but you would just be denying yourself.

So, I voted both, but I am more inclined to lean towards nature.
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~ Humbly walk the path of death

KOOLUK SUPPORTS TINTO MINERS

[Rune hunter]

Personally i do think its both. But i believe its more on "nurture". I can speak from experience that when i did decided to experiment with same-sex relationship/sex it was not becouse I was destined to do so. I CHOSE what to do.

[Urn]

Was that choice based on the fact that it was just something to do, or were you simply innately attracted to that member of the same sex?
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~ Humbly walk the path of death

KOOLUK SUPPORTS TINTO MINERS

[Sniper_Zegai]

Its said that a straight man will likely have at least 1 homosexual fantasy or experiment of some kind in his life. And I think women can be attracted to eachother without being lesbian.

This sounds worse than it is, I think it means that you have just thought about it at some point just out of curiousity. You may have chosen to have an encounter of some kind but it was clearly nature that played a part in it.
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[Rune hunter]

[Sniper_Zegai]

I guess what Im trying to say that I doubt you went to the person you had in mind and just asked.

Any sexual encounter has a strong play with nature and natural instincts. When you see someone from across the room your eyes meet that sort of thing. You dont decide for that to happen thats nature.

But to be fair to you Rune a decision has to be made, so your vote for half of each is'nt a bad one and is'nt a decision I completly disagree with.
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[Fu Su Lu]

Solid opinions here.
My own opinion is that what the way you are born is important, but i think the way things are taught to you at an early age are even more important. So my vote goes for both, but more nurture
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Uncle Weirdo is on hoilidays... by now

[abs9palisoc]

I actually their is another type of sex say the combined sex its like you like men but you also fall in lover with woman

[Firefly]

OK, how about the two twin boys born in Canada. One of their circumcisions got botched and he lost his penis, so his parents thought the next best thing would be to raise him as a girl. They gave him hormones, changed his name, basically he was their little girl.... now, if nurture had a large part in sexual orientation, you'd think that "she" would grow up to like boys like any "girl" would, right?

This was not the case, as "she" knew somehow that something wasn't right, "she" had feelings for girls and it majorly messed up "her" life... she finally started living as a man again, but eventually killed herself. I think that if sexual orientation was MAINLY nurture, this poor person would have grown up liking boys like normal...

or how about my boyfriend of 3 years, Joel? He is gay, and is the 2nd youngest of 8 kids, who are all straight and married now... if he turned gay because of the way he was raised, then why aren't any of his siblings gay?

In fact, I've read studies that each time a woman gives birth to a boy child, the chances of each subsequent male child being gay increases by 10% or something (I forget the exact figures), due to something about her hormones reacting with the male child's antibodies in her womb.

I've already read studies on fratnernal boy and girl twins having a much higher chance of being homosexual than other children... and guess what? I'm a fraternal twin.

So no, I don't think it's mostly nurture, although I think nurture can sometimes play a factor... I believe it's mostly nature.
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[Amyral]

Firefly: The thing this, there are countless examples of all of those where the person is straight. I know two guys with fraternal sisters, both are straight. I know a guy who is the youngest of 5 brothers. He and all of his brothers are straight. At the same time, I know someone who is gay who is an only child. There are people of all sorts who straddle opposite sides of the fence, so I think, if anything, it's shown that there is a biological component, but how much of a component is as of now still unknown.

And there is a lot more to the nurture side than just how parents raised a person, it's every factor in a person's life that's not inherently genetic. It encompasses every bit of culture, media, and relationships a person has. Even if children are twins (I know, I'm one myself), the life experiences are often vastly different.

Me, I think it's a mixture. I don't think any study has done enough to prove conclusively that's it primarily nature, but I'm not discounting that there are certain biological components that certainly affect it. At the same time, nothing has convinced me that it's primarily one's environment. As such, I'm going for a mix, but that nature of the mix isn't known yet.

[Firefly]

Oh, I definately know it's a mix of nature and nurture too, I just think nature has more to do with it... for example, I know of some studies done on identical twins seperated at birth, where one turned out gay and one didn't-- if one was gay I believe the study said that there was only a 50% chance of the other twin being gay, so if it were ONLY nature, that couldn't be possible-- so nurture definately has some say in the matter.

If anything, I think sometimes nurture may help "push along" one's pre-existing homosexual urges, but I think the foundation for being gay or not is more often laid down by nature than nurture.

In other words, I don't think nurture alone can make a biologically straight person gay--- unless they were sexually abused or something, but then that's a whole other topic.
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[Luceit]

I'm definitely for the mixture theory. As it stands, neither side is conclusive enough for a definitive statement on the issue. Though it seems that nature would play a great part, scientists cannot find what's responsible for it. (some flops include the immune system theory where the younger siblings had a higher chance of being gay and the theory of a gay gene). On the other hand, when people say it has to be nurture, it's pointed out that gay parents do not neccessarily have gay children.
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[Sniper_Zegai]

I dont know you guys. Im still all for nature.

For example even 50 years ago when being gay was the lowest of the low there were still an underground gay scene with secretive clubs and the lot.

And every single gay person Ive ever heard about has said they knew ealry in their lives that they were gay but did'nt act on it thinking it was a "phase". But they always came back to it.

I think the nuture part of this is where familioes condemn homosexuality and the people invoolved are too afraid to come out about because they fear the retribution from their families. People are dissowned all the time for simply being gay.
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