Is it possible? Yes. Shifts in personality, desires, etc. can happen for a number of reasons. People have had head injuries and had shifts in sexuality, including a heavily increased/decreased sex drive or shift in orientation, as a result. Sexual traumas, particularly on children, can have lasting effects on their sexuality and sexual development both before and after adolescents, possibly (likely even) including homosexual behaviors where it may not have happened before… though that’s obviously not possible to know for sure. And to a lesser extent, situations like long term isolation, desperation, abuse, or social pressure can make people more likely to act in ways that wouldn’t have before as well.
Is any of that the norm or common for homosexuals? No. First, none of those situations is likely to result in a mentally stable, well adjusted adult that simply has attractions to the same sex. Those shifts in sexuality are likely to be just one of many symptoms of those traumas, most of the rest of which will be notably aberrant behaviors or traits. Second, the majority of people who have same sex attraction, whether exclusively or in addition to opposite sex attraction, have similar stories about being interested in the same sex from the time they first began to have any such attractions. Whether there is some genetic, developmental and/or environmental component that differentiates or influences ones sexual interest is not really clear. What is clear is that those interests seem to be largely set by the time they begin to manifest and be expressed in adolescence.
Excellent answer. Well written, informative, objective and with good intent.
I don’t think it’s possible to ‘become gay’ save through some sort of change to the brain eg head injury as described below.
If you’re straight, flip the question, when did you choose to be straight? Of course, unless you’re in the closet, you never chose that, it’s just the way you are wired.
flip the question
This. Belive me. If it was possible for gay people to “become straight” they abso-fucking-lutely would. The reason why they don’t is because it’s impossible.
If it was possible for gay people to “become straight” they abso-fucking-lutely would. The reason why they don’t is because it’s impossible.
I don’t doubt that some would, but I’d actually be surprised if it was the majority. A lot of people see their sexuality as an important part of their identity and wouldn’t just give it up like that, even if doing so would make their lives easier.
I was talking to a gay family married who was married to opposite gender for 20 years and had a family before coming out. We both grew up in a world that said homosexuality was a choice.
He said he “chose to be straight” for 20+ years and it almost killed him and ruined the lives of others.
I actually knew someone who “chose” to be gay one day. She was SA’d by a man and decided that she could never trust men again. So I wouldn’t say it never happens or that it’s impossible. It’s just not the norm. People are complex, and there are so many of us that even things that have a 0.000000001% chance of happening will happen to about 8 of us.
Now that said, I suspect that this person in particular has always has been bisexual, but chose to not be with women before her incident and chose to only be with women after her incident. I lost contact with her about 15 years ago, so I can’t really get an update on her.
Sorry but your suspicions are correct. Your friend is clearly bi, and choosing not to be with men. That’s not ‘turning gay’, that’s just being selective who you sleep with. Is a monk ‘turning gay’ when he decides to take a vow of celibacy and not sleep with any women?
There’s an interesting stat which I can’t remember exactly, but a high proportion of female strippers ‘become lesbian’… this is because women are more likely to express bisexuality (background rate is the same as men, but it’s far less socially-acceptable for men to express bisexuality so the apparent rate is lower), so after given a crash course in how gross a certain category of men are, they (understandably) write the rest of them off and stick to women.
It is possible to become gay by surgery. I have a friend who did that. He went into the surgery as a straight guy, and she came out of it as a lesbian.
In bisexuality there is the idea of “compulsory heterosexuallity” where a lot of people look at themselves and identify as straight because they have been trained to ignore their attraction to same sex partners because to chose otherwise is punishable. It’s theorized that bisexuality might actually be more common than heterosexuallity and lead to the idea that geing gay is “a choice” because for a bi person it kind of is.
But for gay or hetero folk it is like trying to eat a food your palette finds disgusting. Like if you absolutely hate olives and keep forcing yourself to eat them you might get better at ignoring your sense of taste while eating them… But you will never get to the point where you initiate the neurological flip to where you actually enjoy it. While enjoying more bitter foods is just a function of aging up at some point certain things unique to you are hardwired in.
If you try hard enough, you can become anything you want.
But on a more serious note. We don’t know. It’s the whole nature vs. nurture debate and there are no clear outcomes.
But, as for I am concerned, you can be anything you like. Just don’t bother me with your choices. If it makes you feel good, than good for you.
I have a male acquaintance who said he deliberately chose to make himself bisexual (from straight). But I’m not sure what methods he used; and I’ve heard other folks say he was probably pretty bi before this purported self-modification.
Bro just wanted some D
Society made me do it, I just had to have all that D.
Probably a misunderstanding from him of how his brain works
Realistically, no. Your just kinda born that way. You might not be aware of your sexual identity but it’s in there. Some people take years to “come-out” to themselves. Often there’s denial from years in internalized homophobia.
Same sex attraction isn’t a choice, but if you’re asking whether one’s sexuality can change by itself over the course of a lifetime, the answer is yes, but it’s not very common. I was straight, but sometime in my early 30s, started being attracted to women as well. I was not “always bi,” as some people claim must be the case in these circumstances. I had interrogated my sexuality quite thoroughly in an open and accepting environment years ago and found I was straight. It just…changed.
I guess it means on what you define “become.”
I think it’s definitely possible like that some just don’t know they are, but become curious at some point and try. I think that probably happens less now though, since access to porn is so easy for younger people these days, there’s probably not a lot of people that are unaware by say, age 20.
I know people experience things differently, but I went through a questioning period about being bisexual. Turns out nope, I’m straight as they come.
I wouldn’t count on porn as a reliable way to explore and understand your sexuality. I still don’t find much appeal in gay porn but I came out as bi when I finally experienced having an older and more sophisticated man pursue me. Sexual dynamics were always the other way around with girls growing up and to flip that was a revelation for me. Far more emotional and situational than anything you could capture on video.
If you try hard enough, you can become anything you want.
But on a more serious note. We don’t know. It’s the whole nature vs. nurture debate and there are no clear outcomes.
But, as for I am concerned, you can be anything you like. Just don’t bother me with your choices. If it makes you feel good, than good for you.
It is more likely for women than it is for men - male sexual orientation tends to be more fixed. Men who “become gay” were likely always predisposed to it or bisexual at the very least. The causative biological mechanisms for male and female sexual orientation are different, and in the case of women, less clear
A lot of gay people state that they were born that way. OK, fine. I’m not going to argue that, but when many gay people also try to “turn” straight people into being gay. So how does that work?? That’s like having your gay cake and eating it too.
This question is full of aggressive energy so I’m not sure I should try to answer it. But I’ll give it a shot.
There is a difference. That difference is that our culture is predominantly straight and it programs people with the belief that straight is normal. Much of the time it also programs people to believe that gay is evil.
So there might be people out there who are predisposed to be gay, but have never allowed themselves to explore that. Those people will only ever discover their true selves if they feel it is safe, and can imagine it leading to a life they would be okay with.
Encouragement from healthy gay people can be part of that. This encouragement can also be badly done and somewhat abusive. Not every gay person in the world is healthy or very smart. And there are situations where people get too aggressive about “come on just try it you’ll like it.”
But I would say don’t judge all gay people based on that. And don’t ignore that our culture is biased toward being straight so coming out is often a process of unlearning what you have been taught.
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Based on what I read in Innate: How the Wiring of Our Brains Shapes Who We Are, being gay seems to be an innate property. The actual mechanism is so complex that we’ve only started to scratch the surface, so we’re still waiting for the results. There may as also by a way to turn gray, but as far as most gay people are concerned, it’s innate.
While most people want to believe their traits are innate, the fact is Rome wouldn’t have been able to function the way it did if this were true. The existence of Rome and its sex as an institution empirically disproves the hypothesis.
I’m sure there were some men in Rome that were disgusted by the prospect of sex with men and either did it anyway as a duty or found every excuse not to, and I’m sure there were men that salivated at the idea from an early age. But by and large most of the men’s sexuality was malleable. This is certainly also the case today, there are probably some people strongly predisposed to one or the other from birth, but for most people sexuality is largely conditioning.
Please quote sources if you are stating stuff like this as a fact.
No.
Then please stop wasting everyone’s time.
I think you misunderstand the concept of evidence, particularly empirical evidence.
Probably mixed up empirical and imperial. Happens all the time when dealing with those silly Romans!
😄
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i know nothing about that coma story, but a near death experience could certainly push someone out of the closet.
as far as I’m concerned, sexuality is as innate as every other preference. what food someone likes, what music someone likes, etc.
I think most folks are bi, but a lot of people push homosexual thoughts down because of social pressures, whether they know it or not.
Kinsey scale and such i think.
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Pedarasty was practiced in Greece, and Romans viewed it as a distinctly Greek activity. It was never a foundational institution of Rome.
OK, Cicero, but I’m pretty sure nobody mentioned Rome…
This is so strange. There was a comment that said pedarasty was a foundational institution in Rome that I replied to, but I can’t seem to find the comment or the other replies to it.
I’m 100% certain I hit reply on that comment and not the one my comment is showing as a child of. Furthermore, I can’t even find your or my comments on the main post. Just your reply in my inbox.
I wonder if this is my lemmy app’s problem or a lemmy server problem. Anyways, sorry for the confusion!
No worries, these things happen lol
This seems to be a software problem. Maybe because someone deleted their comment?
