Sexual Orientation as a choice

[Miss_Piggy]

***This question is solely for women who have seriously questioned their sexual orientation***

I'm currently taking a course on romantic relationships. Just recently the topic of sexual orientation came up. We went over a bit of the current research and to my surprise some interesting findings were given with regard to sexual orientation as a choice. Apparently a certain percentage of women who are attracted to other women do see their sexual orientation as a choice. As I'm sure most of you are aware the key to good scientific study is replication. And informal polls by Piggy are just as scientific as the stuff they make out of big research grants, right?

So, I'll pose the question to you all (you all being women who have questioned their sexual orientation).

Do you consider your sexual orientation to be a choice?

I'll tell you all a bit more about the article once we've got a few votes.

[LikeMinds321]

I don't consider my orientation to be a choice. I am straight.

However, I do consider my choice to engage in sexual activities with woman separate from sexual orientation.

I differentiate the two in this way:

My "orientation" has always guided me towards men as life partners. I am drawn by men.

My interest in women is only recent, and I see my sexual activity with women as a way to develop a great sisterhood with them while having fun.

I have never felt I could live my life with a woman or love a woman like I love a man.

LM

[Mrs Spoomonkey]

My orientation is to men!!

I don't consider it a choice because if I did then I could choose to be drawn to a woman for a relationship and I can't. There is nothing in me even if I try to think about it (due to this thread) that makes me want to be more attracted or drawn to a female relationship.

I do make a choice to "play" with certain women during a lifestyle encounter with Mr Spoo but that is about as far as it goes.

Mrs Spoomonkey

[Rombi's Girl]

I have to say that for me it is a choice. While it is true that I am mostly drawn to men for romance, in the past I have also been romantically drawn to women.

Several years ago, I knew a woman that I could have lived with quite happily. She was in a high profile career and didn't feel that she wanted to be known as a lesbian. Despite our feelings for each other, she would not commit, and took male dates to her business functions. We contineued to see each other, but eventually my desire for a romantic partner was satisified by a man. She isn't the only example of a woman that I felt that way for, but it was the most serious, and most recent.

I still consider myself Bisexual. I love men, but I could love a special woman too. I would not want to have a three way relationship, but FMF or MFM sex play is fine, though my partner and I usually play with another couple, as opposed to inviting another single of either sex to join us.

Just my two cents. Your mileage may vary.

[kenora_guy]

I was born bi... not that I ever have gone lusting after other men because that doesn't happen (and never did).... It is just that since I was old enough to know what sex was (~10-11y/o) I have always wanted to have sex with couples (m/f) and to be intimate with both at the same time...

Some may say that this was a choice made early due to m/f couples porn mags that were available, but I don't ever remember wanting to have sex with only women (although women are gr8! alone)...

With that said back ~30 yrs ago when I was discovering my sexuality, I did not know that I was a passive bottom, just that the thought of being with a couple turned me a whole lot more than being with Jill by herself... the thought of being with Jack and Jill would turn me on me much faster and to a greater degree... So, now I can name my sexual 'preference' as being bi-adventurous with couples...

[Spoomonkey]

Wow...

I broke ranks and voted "sort of"...

I am somewhat surprised.

I think that for most, sexual orientation is by nature - they have no choice in the matter, nor would they want to choose. What they are feels and is natural.

However, I would argue that for SOME sexual orientation may be a choice, based on nurture, opportunity, insecurity or simple curiousity.

An example would be how many young girls are bisexual. Has nature really gone so haywire lately - or is there an amount of peer pressure that makes it expected or "cool" to make that choice?

Spoomonkey

[dangerlove]

The situation in our relationship is that we're both bisexual, and have been for years. The male half experimented with boys his age from elementary/middle school on up through adulthood. The female half realized that she was attracted to women during high school and consummated a lesbian relationship after high school.

So today, we live in a poly triad, where our male half is at the bottom of the V. I'm with him and then he has a boyfriend. So all his needs are satisfied. It's really hard to say whether or not our sexuality was a choice. I rather believe that our families overly reinforced societal expectations instead of letting us grow normally, and when we were old enough to make a choice, we decided to be "open" sexual.

[seattlecpl06]

Is sexual orientation determined by who you're attracted to, or who you have sex with? Because the two can be different.

If it's who you have sex with, then of course it's a choice. How could it not be? You can always choose your actions, even if it's not what you want.

If it's who you're attracted to then... maybe. We can't control our attraction... sort of. Long periods of fantasizing about someone/thing can make that person much more attractive. So a woman fantasizing about sex with other women over the long term might start to find herself more attracted to women than to men. Does this mean sexual orientation is a choice? Well, no, but...

It means sexual orientation is, to some degree, changeable. I know that this is not a popular opinion, because some religious groups have been trying to "cure" homosexuality. But from my own experiences and observations, we can change our orientation to some degree. That still doesn't make it a choice, but I don't think that it's at all the set-in-stone, fixed-at-birth that the politically correct party line would have you believe.

[seattlecpl06]

When I was in my 20's, I went through a period of depression (little did I know that it was caused by chronic sleep deprivation, but I digress). In an attempt to cure myself, I read a book by Don Burns called "The New Mood Therapy" -- it was a ground-breaking book about cognitive behavioral therapy.

In short, the premise of the book was "change your thoughts, and your emotions will follow." Now... like most things, it's not entirely that simple, but there's a huge grain of truth in that idea.

In the book I had (an early edition; later editions had this vignette edited out -- go figure), a man went to see Dr. Burns because he was disturbed that he was having sexual fantasies about other men.

Now, in this politically-correct day and age, we'd tell him "congratulations! You're gay! Start sleeping with men and enjoy it." And maybe that would be an okay answer, and he'd be happy. But in this case, the guy just couldn't tolerate it -- he was married, among other inconvenient facts.

So Dr. Burns told him that every time he saw a woman, on the spot the man had to invent a sexual fantasy with her involving him. The man went away and tried this for some time. He came back later quite excited to report that the treatment was a total success!

He said that at first the fantasies had felt clunky and awkward, and he'd felt rather foolish. But over time, the fantasies had become more and more involving and attractive to him, and before long he found himself genuinely attracted to and aroused by the women around him, and less attracted to and aroused by men.

Again, today, this would be seen as bigotry of the highest sort. But I take away from this the lesson that sexuality is malleable. Who we're attracted to has more to do with our ideas about what's sexy, who's sexy, and what sex means to men and to women, than to any innate "gay gene" or the like. We'd like to believe that sexual "orientation" is inborn, so we can point to that gene and tell the bigots to quit persecuting homosexuals. But my feeling (admittedly not backed by science) is that this is a story we made up to soothe our collective conscience. My feeling is that, like most human behavior, sexuality is complicated and difficult to understand and has more to do with our psychology and history and habits than to do with any medical fact you could point to.

Just my 2 cents.

[rickmccool]

Originally Posted by seattlecpl06

When I was in my 20's, I went through a period of depression (little did I know that it was caused by chronic sleep deprivation, but I digress). In an attempt to cure myself, I read a book by Don Burns called "The New Mood Therapy" -- it was a ground-breaking book about cognitive behavioral therapy.

In short, the premise of the book was "change your thoughts, and your emotions will follow." Now... like most things, it's not entirely that simple, but there's a huge grain of truth in that idea.

In the book I had (an early edition; later editions had this vignette edited out -- go figure), a man went to see Dr. Burns because he was disturbed that he was having sexual fantasies about other men.

Now, in this politically-correct day and age, we'd tell him "congratulations! You're gay! Start sleeping with men and enjoy it." And maybe that would be an okay answer, and he'd be happy. But in this case, the guy just couldn't tolerate it -- he was married, among other inconvenient facts.

So Dr. Burns told him that every time he saw a woman, on the spot the man had to invent a sexual fantasy with her involving him. The man went away and tried this for some time. He came back later quite excited to report that the treatment was a total success!

He said that at first the fantasies had felt clunky and awkward, and he'd felt rather foolish. But over time, the fantasies had become more and more involving and attractive to him, and before long he found himself genuinely attracted to and aroused by the women around him, and less attracted to and aroused by men.

Again, today, this would be seen as bigotry of the highest sort. But I take away from this the lesson that sexuality is malleable. Who we're attracted to has more to do with our ideas about what's sexy, who's sexy, and what sex means to men and to women, than to any innate "gay gene" or the like. We'd like to believe that sexual "orientation" is inborn, so we can point to that gene and tell the bigots to quit persecuting homosexuals. But my feeling (admittedly not backed by science) is that this is a story we made up to soothe our collective conscience. My feeling is that, like most human behavior, sexuality is complicated and difficult to understand and has more to do with our psychology and history and habits than to do with any medical fact you could point to.

Just my 2 cents.

That's very interesting. I've never heard of that book but the brain learns by activating new cells and synapses or connections between cells. I think it may be possible for someone to learn to enjoy new sexual experiences but not possible to unlearn old ones kinda like you can't unlearn to ride a bicycle. Once the connections are there, they're there. For instance it may be possible for a gay/lesbian person to learn to be bisexual to some degree but they can't unlearn the gay/lesbian side. Also a straight person possibly could learn to be bisexual but couldn't unlearn the straight side.

[fun4Ds]

I'm wondering why this is a women only poll ?

Miss Piggy, if you get a chance could you add more about the research ?