Homosexuality

[HAnnA MArin County]

How did the subject of partying get brought up in the topic about homosexuality? I'm going to assume that that was done unintentionally.

I'll admit, I don't know everything there is to know about sexual orientation, but I don't like it when people say that homosexuality is a choice. Being gay, I can tell you that it's not. None of us choose to be this way. Why would anyone choose to subject him or herself to a lifestyle full of shame, embarrassment and discrimination where (s)he has to live in constant fear of having his/her life threatened simply because of what (s)he does in the privacy of his/her own bedroom? Honestly, how can you say that people CHOOSE to want that? If you argue that homosexuality is a choice, then heterosexuality must be a choice, too. So when did you choose to be straight?

People who say that being gay is a choice usually follow it up with, "It's a choice, so you can choose to change your ways and 'see the light.'" I for one can say that I have never been sexually attracted to a woman. Once (AT A PARTY - okay, I can see where the party issue was brought up now, lol) this really pretty blonde-haired, blue-eyed cheerleader sat on my lap and started licking inside my ear and kissing my neck and tried to get me worked up, but nothing was going on down there. Ten minutes later I had a blonde-haired, blue-eyed boy sitting on my lap doing the exact thing and long story short, we proceeded to the bedroom. (Sorry, TMI I know) Now when I was much younger (talking kindergarten years), I had a "girlfriend" (keep in mind a "girlfriend" in kindergarten is different than having a girlfriend in high school). Obviously, when you're in kindergarten, you don't have a girlfriend because you're sexually attracted to her and want to have sex with her. When you're that age, you pretty much do what your parents tell you do, and it's "expected" of boys to think girls are pretty. Now before kindergarten, during my preschool years, thinking back, I do think I had a "crush" on a boy who once stole my toy tractor while we were outside playing.

People often ask me, "When did you KNOW you were gay?" No one has ever asked me, "When did you choose to be gay?" To answer that question, I think I knew something was "wrong" when I started going through puberty. I watched a lot of "Skinemax" as a child when my parents were asleep, and I just always remembered paying more attention to the men and never the women. When I was in junior high, I had heard rumors going around that people thought I was gay. I didn't know what it meant but eventually I knew what it meant and why they thought that. I played volleyball with the girls; I didn't play basketball with the boys. All of my best friends were girls. Surprisingly, I wasn't ever bullied or teased for it (and I went to one of the smallest public schools in the state of Missouri in a very rural community).

I feel like I'm going off on a tangent. I guess in conclusion, I know that it is NOT a choice, but at the same time, I don't really feel that it can be completely genetic. It's a complicated issue, and while I can't provide many facts (I do know that homosexuality has been found in 450 species, and homophobia has only been found in one. Which one seems unnatural to you?), all I can give is my anecdotal experiences of what it's been like being gay. Hope I've contributed something to this discussion, and if I haven't, I apologize.