You surely know that there’s a big kerfuffle about whether being gay is a “choice” or—the implied alternative—a biological imperative: something that results from an individual’s development: hormones, neurons, or whatever. I happen to fall into the latter camp, along with the American Psychological Association.
The former camp, those saying that homosexuality is a “choice,” largely comprises religious individuals. This is, I think, for two reasons. First, many religious folk are already conditioned to believe in fully libertarian “you-could-have-chosen-otherwise” free will, for that’s a tenet of many faiths. Lots of Christians, for instance, require libertarian free will to support their foundational claim: that you can freely choose whether or not to accept Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior. After all, that choice is supposed to determine whether you’ll either fly or fry in the afterlife.
Too, many theologians try to explain the existence of human-caused evils on the planet as an inevitable byproduct of God having given us “free will”. That divine bequest goes along, they claim, with the possibility that humans could make the wrong choices, leading to stuff like Auschwitz. (Yes, that example has been used, and was dismantled by someone who excoriated the idea that the Holocaust occurred so that Nazis could have free will.)
It struck me yesterday, as I was reading one of WordPress’s most popular posts of the day (“Yes, homosexuality absolutely is a choice,” by minister John Pavlovitz [it doesn’t say what the title implies, for the guy is sympathetic to gays]), that the Christian insistence that being gay is a choice is also wrong. In fact, it cannot be right!
The idea that people “freely choose” to be homosexual is of course a way to damn them for making the wrong “choice,” a choice that supposedly is deemed sinful by the Bible, as it indeed is. And so, in Catholicism, if you commit homosexual acts, and don’t confess them, that is a “grave sin” that can send you to hell. That view makes sense only if, at any moment, you could freely choose between performing or abstaining from homosexual acts.
The most famous recent example of religious stupidity about homosexuality was former neurosurgeon Ben Carson’s remark to CNN (yes, he’s a Christian, and apparently a Republican Presidential candidate) that being gay must be a choice because of reasons:
“Because a lot of people who go into prison go into prison straight — and when they come out, they’re gay. So, did something happen while they were in there? Ask yourself that question.”
Now that’s just ridiculous on the face of it. (Carson later apologized for the remark.) Going into jail straight (if you were straight) and coming out gay doesn’t mean that you’ve made a “choice”. All it means is that your sexual orientation and/or behavior has changed because your surroundings have. To a determinist, that’s simply the effect of your environment (prison) on your neurons.
Which brings us to the point. If you’re a determinist, then being gay can never be something that a person chooses freely. Your genes and your environment—be it your peers, your “internal” environment (whether or not it comes from genetic endowment), and your social surroundings—must ultimately be the “cause” of homosexuality. It can’t be a free choice because we simply do not have free choices about anything.
And it doesn’t matter whether the factors determining gayness are hormones and genes, or your experiences and environment (both, of course, can act together). There is no distinction between “biological” and “nonbiological” causes of homosexuality, for the trait ultimately results from how your brain works, and that’s completely biological. Being gay cannot be a choice any more than being short (like me) or being Asian.
Maybe I’m off the mark, here, but I don’t think so. If nothing can be a libertarian choice, then neither can being gay. Period.
Now compatibilists (those who believe in both determinism and some form of free will) may be able to find a way that being gay somehow reflects “free will”. Perhaps they’ll say that there’s a meaningful difference between, say, a developmental feature that produced homosexuality (the equivalent to them of “coercion” or “acting with a gun to your head”), and being gay because you had a homosexual experience and it seemed natural and enjoyable. But I don’t think that difference (if it is a difference) is a meaningful one. In neither case is being gay a choice in the sense religious people mean—a free choice where you could have decided not to be gay.
And that’s yet another advantage of emphasizing determinism over the diverse and conflicting definitions of “free will” promulgated by compatibilists.
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Reblogged this on JerBear's Queer World News, Views & More From The City Different – Santa Fe, NM and commented:
A compelling argument for what we know intrinsically…
Just today I saw that one can make adult rats gay with the right combination of the kinds of hormones that bond us to our partners. See it here.
“So, did something happen while they were in there?”
Well no, a compatibilist is unlikely to respond like that.
To a compatibilist “choice” is about the range of possible outcomes given the normal range of different day-to-day situations.
For example, the very same person may, at different times and places, desire choose to have chicken, or steak, or salmon.
Nothing about that concept is a rejection of determinism. On each occasion the selection is determined, but the range of different situations produces a range of different selections.
Now, as regards a gay person, a normal range of different situations would *not* produce gay feelings some of the time and straight feelings at other times. If that were the case that person would be bi, not gay.
Thus, in a compatibilist account, a gay person does *not* have any “choice” about being gay.
Through *all* the normal range of variation of situations, the outcome would still be gay.
This is the advantage of emphasizing determinism over one’s novel re-definition of “free will.” An important social issue becomes much clearer under determinism. How many people have the savvy to do the kind of analysis you did above?
Besides, your version of compatibilism is of course different from other people’s. There is no generally agreed-on definition of “compatibilist free will.”
But your analysis says people don’t have a choice over whether to have the chicken or the beef, and that simply doesn’t ring true to people.
Thus I’m not convinced that your analysis is the better way of persuading people.
The distinction between being able to choose whether to have chicken or beef, but not being able to choose who ones feels sexually attracted to, is what is actually important here.
Further, the word “choice” does *not* necessarily imply libertarian ignore-laws-of-physics acts.
The OED defines: “choose” as (1) “Pick out (someone or something) as being the best or most appropriate of two or more alternatives” and as (2) “Decide on a course of action”, where:
“Decide” is defined as “Come or bring to a resolution in the mind as a result of consideration”.
These definitions are entirely in line with a deterministic and compatibilist account.
The word “choose” here essentially means “compute”, as in a (deterministic) computer coming to a (determined) output.
A gay person is like a computer program that will never produce an output state of “straight” regardless of the environmental input state. In that sense they don’t have a choice.
If quantum randomness is introduced into the calculation does it mean that a gay person might have a choice?
Randomness is not choice – it is randomness. It is also still deterministic in that the random event’s effects are still dictated by physical laws; it simply makes prediction more difficult.
I do like the idea of “deciding” being similar to a mathematical function that takes a range of inputs and produces outputs. Where variation in inputs creates different outputs, one “chooses” and where variation in inputs produces one and only one output, one has no choice.
Now if I could only integrate that.
This analysis seems reasonable to me. I’m thinking of a behaviorist approach. Choice operates on two levels of meaning. One is at the level of laws of physics which are unalterable and therefore determined since the big bang. The other level is in the context of likely outcomes in particular situations from the point of view of a human observer. We can observe the likelihood of gays turning strait, and see that it is not a likely choice.
Why is that a problem? In yesterday’s comment thread we saw an array of diverse and conflicting opinions from self-proclaimed determinists. Judging from your many posts on the subject, your own views about determinism have undergone substantial revision since you first brought it up. So if disagreement is allowed among incompatibilists about what determinism means, why shouldn’t compatibilists be permitted some internal debate about what free will means?
Yes, it was interesting in the last thread that the vast majority of rationals brought against the death penalty, by both compatibilists and incompatibilits, were quite diverse, few appealing to the rational Jerry was promoting in his post. Which should be telling…
Even if people “go into prison straight — and when they come out, they’re gay.” it says nothing for individuals who have never been straight. Perhaps he should review the research on conversion therapy. Maybe he can take a class on logic while he’s at it.
You know, I think he was actually victim blaming people for being raped in prison there.
I doubt there is any actual data on change of sexuality due to incarceration. This is probably just built on anecdotes about homosexual activity within the prison system.
Or more likely, from watching episodes of Oz.
Of course the whole question is only an attempt to leverage social norms against gay people. Do the people raising the question ever ask if it is a “choice” to be “straight”? No, because to do so would reveal the illogic of their assertions. If it is a choice to be straight, that is an admission that humans by nature can go either way, and the only difference between ‘us’ and ‘them’ is a simple decision.
Growing up in straight culture, what straight person even feels they have a “choice” about who attracts them? And yet, they make hundreds of “choices” every day to deny themselves same sex closeness (I’m not even talking about sex here) and affection. What a sick culture we live in.
I have taken to asking people who believe that being gay is a choice, how they came to choose being heterosexual.
They imply that gays weighed the alternatives, and chose to be gay. Therefore, they must have weighed the alternatives and chosen to be straight. So, ask them when that happened in their lives.
I’ve gotten a few “aha” reactions, which is very gratifying. L
I always do that too. It does make people think, and I’ve never had anyone able to respond.
However, I continue to be dismayed that people place so much emphasis on a person’s sexuality and sexual identity when judging them, and consider it one of the biggest problems of religion. Unless you’re considering a sexual relationship with a person, who cares? What difference does it make? There is so much more to a person than this, and most of the time there’s no need to know.
Btw, I agree with Jerry on this, but I never thought being gay was a choice even before I learned about determinism.
I’ve never actually had this argument with anyone, so I’ve never received a response, either…*but*…I can easily imagine a conservative theist trying to argue that heterosexuality is simply the “default” position for everybody, which some people then choose to abandon. It’s the same argument some theists make when they insist that, deep-down, everybody is xian, it’s just that some choose, perversely, to deny it.
Yes, they might argue it is “god’s choice”. But then they have to justify that against 1) our genes’ “choice”, 2) our culture’s choice (through the imposition of cultural norms), 3) other environmental factors, such as chemical variances or unique learning experiences…
It is hardly an impregnable position, and, as Jerry so often points out, completely vulnerable to the simple question, “How do you know?”
I too have posed this question many, many times to others. Moreover, I always make them agree up front that this “decision” is not a “decide once and then it is a set in stone” type of a choice. Thus, I assert to these folks that they have to make this choice every. single. morning. of their lives.
One of my guilty pleasures is to remind my younger brother, an atheist interestingly enough, who INSISTS that being gay is a choice, that his record on decision-making is a remarkable 13,505 – 0 in favor of being straight (give or take a few hundred days).
I’m a sexual compatibilist. If it’s consensual and compatible, you’re free to do whatever you please.
I agree on the gay/straight issue, but I think there are some intermediate issues where — despite accepting determinism — we can make changes, or we can change the environment to favor changes.
The following is based on pop medicine, and may be BS, but for the sake of argument assume it is true.
Let’s say that we have a sweet tooth and just have to eat sugary foods. Going on a low-carb diet is torture. We never succeed.
But suppose by changing our diet and by exercising, the population of gut bacteria changes over time and begins to favor bugs that like a less sugary diet. And suppose that those bugs have significant control over our food preferences.
At some philosophical level, determinism may be absolute, but I do not believe that determinism rules out changing the environment to improve our lives. Determinism is not the same thing as fatalism.
We now have a pretty good “cure” for congenmital deafness, but some deaf parents are not happy with the prospect of having their children not part of the deaf community.
Suppose we had a “cure” — perhaps a pill — that when administered in infancy, would ensure heterosexuality. Would anyone object? How do you even talk about that?
I never said that determinism was the same as fatalism. All I said is that if someone is currently gay, that wasn’t a “choice” they made. I never said or implied that it could not be changed if the environment changed. For example, if some cases rest on prenatal hormone titer, that might be altered. But you’re missing my point, I think.
I have no problem with your point, but I think it is irrelevant whether people can change their sexual preferences. Even if one could choose from day to day whether to be gay or straight, the government has no legitimate business regulating who puts what appendage in what orifice.
But I am curious — assuming technology some day gives us the choice — whether homosexuality will be considered a “disease.”
Larry Moran, the other day, asked whether we should — if able — modify the germ line of people carrying “bad” genes. These are academic questions now, but I grew up in an era before organ transplants were possible and before sex change operations were possible. Things that are academic today will be front page soon.
I have no answers to most of what you’re asking, but the very last question, “How do you even talk about that?” is not so complicated, I think.
You talk about it in the same way you would talk about, say, abortion or circumcision. Is it a violation of an infant’s ‘right to chose’? Who gets to decide, the parents? The medical community? The state? What are the reasons advanced, for and against?
I’m not offering answers, but I think the framework for an intelligent discussion already exists and is in use.
Interestingly, a few hours ago, on another forum, a woman described having a foreskin transplant to help heal a saucer sized animal bite wound.
I do not miss my foreskin, and I would be happy to know that something I don’t miss might have contributed to the healing of another person.
But that’s just me being a contrarian. I am not Jewish, but I can have several warring opinions on the same topic.
That was either a small saucer or a very large foreskin.
People are born gay. (I won’t completely rule out environmental effects; but they seem unlikely to affect sexual orientation.)
I’ve seen it in several young people — we could tell when they were 4 or 5 years old!
Whenever I hear this nonsense about it being a choice, I respond with:
“A choice, eh? So, did you, when you were a teenager, look at men, look at women, and then decide which you were attracted to? Of course not — that’s not how it works! You simply are attracted to whom you are attracted.”
All this happens in subconscious processes in the brain (just like our other “decisions”) to which we have no access. And never will — since they would not mean anything to us.
“People are born gay…I’ve seen it in several young people — we could tell when they were 4 or 5 years old!”
So you simply discount 5 or 6 *years* of environmental influence? I agree with you about the choice part (I made essentially the same point above), but that does not lead one to conclude that “people are born gay”. ‘Determinism’ is not the same as ‘pre-determinism’.
Well, sure. Nothing I said was air tight (who am I to be an authority on this? It’s my opinion). I’m open to new data — I’ve never seen any that supports significant environmental influence over sexual orientation. (And I will admit (as a white, male, middle class, well-educated, married with kids heterosexual) a bias against the “choice” argument — because it seems to be the key argument deployed by the gay haters.)
In each of the cases I have seen, the kids were not only children in their family. The other children in the family are hetero-sexual. No clear differences in environment (same schools, etc.), kids not treated differently. The tendencies were clear very early. Long before it had overt sexual content (when they reached teen years).
My wife is a primary school teacher. She has seen this over and over again.
Yes, the contributions of genes and environment have not been determined in this case. (Clearly we agree that it’s not a choice.)
But I stand by my anecdotes (not saying they are true generally – my initial sentence is too strong).
These young people I know, everyone knew they were gay long before they themselves did.
I would be hard pressed to identify any environmental influence that could have produced this result. Which doesn’t mean it wasn’t there — just that is wasn’t apparent to the observers if it were there.
Two good responses, thank you. I am not saying the children you observed could not have been genetically predetermined… just, as you point out, that we don’t have conclusive data. I don’t think your anecdotes are worthless, just not conclusive.
But this discussion raises the thorny question of when and how we ever could know the environmental determinants completely. A lot of living is packed into a few years, and it only takes a few minutes of trauma to change a life forever. Just because an environmental influence hasn’t been recorded (or remembered) doesn’t mean it hasn’t had its effect. I think the only way to settle the question definitively is to find and understand the specific genes in question. Of course, if the effect is largely environmental, that will never happen. We may never be able to settle the question. Even demonstrating that environment *can* select sexual preferences would not show that *every case* is thus accounted for.
There can be homosexual acts which are not entered into by ‘gay’ people of course… – they are merely sexual acts.
Note that the argument against ‘free will’ does not depend on the brain being a deterministic machine shaped by our genes and environmental influences. The argument would still hold even if there were genuine randomness operating in the brain.
For to the extent that our choices are determined, they are not ‘free’, and to the extent that they are random they are not ‘willed’. Either way there is no such thing as ‘free will’.
Nonetheless, we can still meaningfully refer to choices being ‘free’ insofar that they are made in accordance with our desires, e.g., freely donating money to a homeless person, as opposed to being made ‘against our will’, e.g., being forced to hand over money at gunpoint.
Yes, if you’ve read here you’ll see that I do deal with fundamental unpredictability (i.e., quantum unpredictability) and claim that that, too, cannot form part of a coherent notion of free will.
I don’t find it meaningful to say that our choices are free because they are made in accordance with our desires. First, they are “made” by the brain. And what about if a parent doesn’t want to spend money to send a kid to college but does so out of duty. Is that something made “freely”? In the end, our “desires” are nothing less coercive than having a gun to our head: they force us to do certain things. I am not at all convinced by the “gunpoint” analogy, and neither are a lot of other compatibilists, who have other definitions of free will.
But I think this still overlooks a meaningful distinction: for instance, someone who raises their arm due to an uncontrollable reflex (which perhaps they try unsuccessfully to suppress and wish they didn’t have) versus someone who raises their arm intentionally.
In neither case is there genuine ‘free will’ operating; however, in the former case, the raising of the arm is done ‘against one’s will’, whereas in the latter case it is done ‘freely’- in accordance with one’s desires.
And there will be clear differences in brain activity in the two cases.
This is one of the points many compatibilists make that I have come to think is not easily dismissed. I think it’s a mistake to put the two instances of arm-raising in the same category with “greedy reductionism” (not my term!).
“…in the same category *via* “greedy reductionism”…
It’s the standard distinction between whether your desires are arrived at free of the laws of physics (they are not, and compatibilism doesn’t claim this) versus whether you are free to act on your desires (which is important to people).
My challenge to anti-gay people is to ask them what type of person they find themselves attracted to — for men, is it young blonde women with large breasts and slim waists, for example? Then I ask them if that was something they chose, and if so, could they change their preference to, say, elderly overweight women with missing teeth?
We don’t get to program ourselves, we can only discover who we are and what we like.
“We don’t get to program ourselves, we can only discover who we are and what we like.”
I mostly agree with this, but I think it would be more accurate to say we only get to program ourselves to a limited degree. We do, in fact, get to do some self-programing (or re-programing) as anyone who’s sought any specific training will tell you. (I am not implying that seeking training is an act of “free will”.)
Yesterday, PCC you made a brilliant job on why the Boston bomber should not be executed because, as a determinist, you said, & I agree, that criminals have no choice in how they behave. In fact, I would suspect that you would extend that to all humanity, criminal or not. Surely, then, the same must apply to whether or not someone is gay?
I have no doubts that being gay is not something that is subject to choice in most cases. In Jerry’s freewill context in which “choice” means libertarian contracausal choice, I agree 100%.
In the context of “whatever process it is that humans are capable of that we typically use the word choose or decide as a label for,” it seems possible to me that there might be some percentage of people that might be able to choose. Sexuality is a spectrum. It seems possible that there are some people that fall at a place on the spectrum such that for them having sex with a same VS opposite partner is on a par with deciding whether they want chocolate VS strawberry ice cream. Aside from relationship factors.
Partly because I think that that is plausible, but mostly because I think it is better ethically speaking, I think that whether or not it is a choice, by any damn context you wish to consider, should not matter in the slightest! People should be free to HAVE sex with whoever they want, period.
Though I understand, and even agree with, the tactical reasons for engaging with the religious bigots on the question of choice, I don’t like it because it is ceding (intentionally or not) to them the claim that if it were a choice that their position would be OK. I would rather simply tell them that their bigotry is not a valid or ethical reason for interfering in other peoples personal relationships, or for stigmatizing them.
Bloody brilliant! Thank you!
Thank you Jamie. Rereading it now, I see plenty of room for improvement.
Very well said, darelle. Full agreement.
I would only amend this with the obviously intended:
“People should be free to HAVE sex with any willing adult partner(s) they want, period.”
What I was going to say.
Yes indeed, agreed. And, thank you.
Well said. It absolutely should not matter in the slightest. If my sister told me, “I wasn’t born this way, I just decided that I like women better,” that wouldn’t make her choice in partners any less valid.
Ben Carson is a human faucet of ridiculousness.
> It absolutely should not matter in the slightest.
Spot on. The degree a choice is “free” or “determined” is totally irrelevant. Respect people’s desires whatever the calculation that produces the desire.
That is funny as hell. I might borrow that on occasion.
I typed up my comment, then figured I ought to scan the other comments to make sure nobody else said the same thing, first. Well, you said pretty much what I was going to say, but since I already spent all that time writing it, I’m going to post it here, anyway.
I’m going to ignore the free-will part of this (I like Coel’s comment above with choosing between chicken or steak).
Using the everyday usage of choice, I’m of two minds concerning the political importance of whether or not homosexuality is a choice. On the one hand, it’s almost a red herring. Even if it was a choice, what reasonable person should care? Whatever two consenting adults want to do together is no business of mine. And if they want to get married and start a family, numerous studies have shown that the important part for the kids is a stable family life, not that their parents be opposite sex. So even if sexuality was a choice, that’s still no reason to limit the rights of gay people.
On the other hand, when I was still a Christian, that was a very important question for me, and I’d imagine it is for many Christians. Sure there are plenty of rationalizations that Christians can use to still condemn homosexuality even if it’s not a choice, but it sets up a strong cognitive dissonance. In hindsight, I think that’s one of the main issues that led me to question Christianity.
Now, for just general curiosity about human nature and how the world works, causes and influences on our sexuality are interesting. I also think there’s a lot of cultural pressure to push this into a binary issue of gay or straight, when it seems that most people fell along a spectrum (something like the Kinsey scale, even though I’ve read that’s a bit outdated). Still, for politics and human rights, it shouldn’t make a difference.
Oh, and since reading over this comment it seems I never stated it, I think that for most people the majority of our sexuality is innate, whether that’s genetic or environmental. I think there might be a bit of wiggle room – for example, someone who would naturally be a 2 on the Kinsey scale forcing themselves to a 1, but not nearly so much as to go from a 1 to a 6.
I think it is invaluable to people like me that have never been a believer to hear / read the perspective of former believers.
I’m curious as to how much of the population carries more than two sex chromosomes, and whether that correlates with any particular combination of physical gender, gender identity, and sexual preference.
Google is your friend. 🙂
Well I’m not sufficiently curious to do actual research, I just wanted a handy table to glance over.
Exactly. Whenever listening to public debates in the media on this I find myself pulling my hair out…why doesn’t anyone ever deliver the “And who are you to stick your nose into bedrooms other than your own?!?” line?
A similar unforced error even the best minds on our side -even though they know better- repeatedly commit is during the Existence Of God Debate.
The first move, to immediately starve the topic of legitimacy, should as an automatic reflex always be: “Which god are you talking about?” Then list a number of random gods -even inventing a few of your own.
I have two points to make here. First, even though I agree with Jerry on the topic of free will, I still like to use the word “choice” to refer to decisions that our brains make. Computers that, for example, manage a complex manufacturing floor, make decisions, like adjusting the temperature of a chemical process. I refer to that as a “choice” just like I refer to my choice of whether to go to the grocery store today or tomorrow.
But which type of person you’re attracted to is not this kind of choice. It’s not a decision that my brain makes like when to go to the grocery store – it’s much deeper than that.
Second, some people advocate for gays by claiming that being gay is genetic, and I think that’s a bad strategy. So what if it’s not genetic, if it is a product of our environment, or even if it is just a choice? So what? That doesn’t justify oppression! No matter what caused the same-sex attraction, it doesn’t harm anyone, so there’s no justification to treat them differently.
Last paragraph: good point. (Well your whole post is good.)
I agree with the important point that choice is irrelevant. But I can’t see the actions of a controlling robot as a “choice”. Choices were made (by the programmers) to keep the process within specific temperature bounds for particular reasons. The computer is a simple feedback controller, triggered by its programmed parameters.
A micro analysis of human decision making may show human decision making to be very similar in some respects. But there is at least one important difference, i.e. the controller has a specific purpose and *all* of its “choices” were made for it by its designer. We do not have such a purpose and no choices were pre-made for us by any designer (not even evolution–we can chose against our own gene selection, the only consequence being we won’t propagate).
Machines can never escape their teleology. I can’t speak for you, but my decision about when to go to the grocery store is not a simple feedback triggered by the state of my pantry. I sometimes go even when the pantry is full. Imagine your controlling computer “deciding” to raise the temperature even when the process is within its specified range…
One might counter that human decisions are simply more complex (respond to a combination of triggers) and I haven’t properly parameterized the problem. Maybe. But maybe that’s also a *significant* difference between human and computer decision making.
Have you ever worked on a car or tried to do any design engineering? I can assure you that even simple mechanisms have personalities and will do things they weren’t designed to do.
I have both worked on a car and studied human psychology. We tend to project things like ‘personality’ (an ill defined concept) onto inanimate matter. Which is not to say we always comprehend the implications of our designs. Certainly programmers can make the “wrong” choices (I have also written software) and engineers can fail to consider all the possibilities and get “surprising” results.
And I am aware of the sorts of random events that cause copies of images to degrade over multiple iterations. I don’t consider those sorts of outcomes to be “decisions” of the computer.
But perhaps this is just a semantic argument. I know what ‘choice’ and ‘decision’ mean to me (and what the dictionary says they mean to most people). We say things like, “let the coin decide” when we agree to a certain course of action based on a coin toss. That doesn’t mean the copper penny is actually making any decisions. It only means we have given over our decision to a random outcome. In the case of computer controllers, we have given over our decision to an algorithmic outcome. It is nevertheless our decision, not the computer’s. (Just expressing an opinion…)
I think this position quickly runs into difficulties with, say, chess-playing computers. The programmers haven’t anticipated every board position and decided in advance what move the computer should make; rather, they’ve endowed the machine with a set of heuristics for evaluating board positions as they arise and choosing moves that look good in that context.
The programmers chose the heuristics, but there’s no reasonable sense in which they can be said to have chosen the moves of a particular game; those choices are clearly made by the machine, in the moment.
Yes. After I posted I thought that perhaps the example of temperature control of a process was ill chosen (too simple). I thought about a robot vehicle that senses an object in its path and has to make a choice to go around it, left or right, and I realized my position is shaky.
I still think teleology is an important difference between humans and machines, but I am less convinced that the locus of decision-making can’t be within the machine.
I think the biggest difference between humans and machines is emotions.
OK, so it’s a more-complex feedback triggered by a wider range of inputs. Which is merely a difference of degree.
OK, that might be it. But there is no ‘merely’ about it. It is “merely a difference of degree” that changes liquid water into steam. It may be an insignificant difference in degree… or it may be a significant difference in degree. I don’t think we know enough at this point to say for certain, but I do think the problem will be solved eventually.
Until then everyone’s entitled to an opinion, lolz.
Curt
I am not disagreeing with you.
When we separate genetics and environment, while being a useful distinction is ultimately a false one. Our genes are shaped by our environment, or at least largely by our past environment. Similarly our choices are shaped by our environment too.
Our world view of what is and is not oppression is shaped by our environment. Humans are a reflection of their current and past environments.
Would we actually want to be anything else?
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In which case it seems to me that the introduction of determinism is completely useless to the debate. If everything is X, then to all intents and purposes nothing is, because we’re not dealing in or informed about critical distinctions. If I define “blond” as “any shade of hair or even having a scalp” then in what sense can I gleefully pronounce that Jerry Coyne is a blond!? We’re just back to square one, and wondering if Jerry is the kind of blond who has yellow hair or the kind of blond who sports a different shade or color on his noggin.
Are homosexuals then ‘determined’ to be gay in the sense that our genes determine our hair color — or are they ‘determined’ to be gay in the sense that we are ‘determined to choose’ to buy hair dye and turn our hair bright cherry red instead of dark ash blond? That’s the distinction the religious care about.
Or rather, that’s what some of them think they care about — on the assumption that if it’s genetic then it’s natural and God did it on purpose and can’t be wrong. We hope this is their argument because in that case it’s a scientific claim and winnable.
But the real problem is whether homosexuality is a sin. If so, then just as people with poor impulse control and a bad childhood can still be blamed for choosing to take a gun on a shopping trip and thereby shooting someone who took the last box of Clairol, then even people with a natural propensity for being attracted to others of the same sex can still be blamed for acting on it.
“God never gives you more than you can handle” (bleeeech). He gave you your inherent genetic nature only to increase your struggle and ultimate triumph. If you didn’t resist temptation then shame on you. Thus the religious play Calvinball and duck out from the debate on genetics vs. choice.
But the debate on free will vs. determinism doesn’t seem to be relevant in the same way because even hard determinists differentiate at some level between an action which is intimately connected to a long chain of internal reasoning and an action which is intimately connected to a long chain of DNA.
I agree. We have words for things like “choice”, “responsibility”, “free will”, and so on because they carve up the space of human behavior in socially useful ways. To discard all those words as meaningless “because determinism” is to ignore real facts about our nature.
Yes Sastra, I was going to quote the same section of Jerry’s post for the same reasons. It really does sum up what is IMO the emptiness – the sort of sending everything down the rabbit hole and not seeming to realise it – I keep seeing in the incompatibilist stance taken on this site.
So being gay, like everything else in the world, doesn’t evade the laws of physics? Oh. Ok. That’s enlightening. Now can we get on to things that really matter, like making distinctions between actions that reflect and derive from people’s personal intentions and desires, and those that do not?
Very well said… I often have a vision when reading these threads on determinism of hamsters endlessly pounding away on circular treadmills that are anyway perpetual machines (so that the hamsters aren’t actually making the wheels revolve), and getting nowhere but for some unacknowledged reason enjoying the feeling, or thinking, obscurely, that they do. Yes, making distinctions between actions that ‘reflect and derive from people’s personal intentions and desires, and those that do not’, as well as between being persuaded to adopt some course of action rather than another after a rational weighing of alternatives and jumping out of the window because the drug you have taken makes you feel you can fly, and between accepting as knowledge the theory of evolution because one has read and understood it and rejecting it violently because it your pastor has said it is evil, and between accepting, because one has listened to the music and thought about it, that Beethoven is a far greater composer than Andrew Lloyd Webber – such distinctions are hugely important, and collapsing all such distinctions into a handful of cosmic dust helps neither to explain nor to understand humanity.
the usual correction – why do I notice an error immediately after pressing the button to post and just before it is sent? Now, there’s a question…
‘between accepting… that Beethoven is a far greater composer than Andrew Lloyd Webber and supposing that a taste for Beethoven over Lloyd Webber is due merely to snobbishness’
Indeedy.
It seems to be the same sort of thinking as the theists who insist that there is no “real” meaning in life if “all we are is matter in motion.”
Well, yeah, if you zoom way out to that level of description, you won’t find meaning.
It’s too generalized and coarse a perspective from which to see meaning. The obvious reply we give is that “yes, it’s true in a big picture sense that we can be described as matter in motion, but such a description does not capture all that matters about us; you have to zoom back in to notice that matter and energy, in different forms, generates varying characteristics, in our case, creatures with complex nervous systems who have desires and complex ways of thinking about those desires, and how to fulfill them, from which springs our purposes, our meanings.”
Not only that, you can not document and understand the real differences that go on in this universe if you stubbornly stick to the zoomed out “well if I don’t find meaning at THIS viewpoint where I describe everything as matter in motion, then there isn’t any real meaning.”
Similarly, the type of “zoomed out” viewpoint Jerry is appealing to does the same type of obfuscating of the relevant issue. Sure, in the grand scheme all things are (or may be) determined, including all our choices. But it’s no more enlightening or relevant to many issues as is noting that we are all matter in motion. Zooming back into details, we still have to recognize we are choice-making creatures, and that our choices occur in a large variety of circumstances, that we need to describe and categorize (e.g. when we can choose what we want, vs when we are restricted, etc).
You can’t obliterate real differences that exist, by taking the particular perspective in which they are not relevant or can’t be understood.
It just seems so strange to me that incompatibilists here can instantly recognize the fallacy of this way of thinking when dealing with theists saying there is no “real meaning” in mere “matter in motion” and then apparently fall to the same mistake (IMO) on this whole “choice” thing.
My apologies, I did not mean to write “obfuscating’ which implies intentional deceit, but rather “obscuring” which I see as an unintentional result of the reasoning described.
Would religion have come up with the whole free will business if bad things didn’t happen?
I have an incredibly strong visceral response to a certain actress. Every time I see her I feel a jolt. It is really quite distracting in movies as ever time the camera cuts to her, zap.
Damned if I can see anyway at all this is a choice on my part. If I could I’d rather not react that way, so I could enjoy the movie more! It amazes me people can see this as a choice.
Still it suggests a reply that the religious will find disconcerting. “So you are saying that when you look at Ben Affleck you actually feel the same physical desire as when you look at Rosamund Pike?” Or vice versa depending on the sex of whom you are asking.
🙂
Gay and Lesbian folks do not make the choice any more than a Transsexual does. Modern science and the actual people in these groups make this pretty clear.
The only difficulty I have is comprehending how the religious discount all of this and proclaim it is a simple matter of choice and believe the junk in a stone age book written by men who had no idea what that hot thing in the sky was.
I should add that at this time, we have a representative from Iowa who is attempting to get a bill looked at in the House of Representative that would remove the ability of the Supreme court to decide on the gay marriage issue, soon to come before them. Just the fact that we have elected this moron to such an office gives me a headache.
I was thinking that one of the ways to try to evaluate what the religious are thinking on this issue might be to perform a thought experiment:
Imagine a man or woman who feels sexual urges towards the same sex … and is horrified, appalled, remorseful, and ashamed. Now pretend that this person is a devout Christian who attends church regularly and discreetly tells others about his or her struggle against their ‘sin,’ asking constantly for Jesus’ forgiveness and always trying hard to avoid temptation and remain pure and pious. They request prayers. They praise heterosexuality as ‘normal’ and ‘godly.’
Would the church kick this person out?
Probably not — because they’re following the script.
I’m going to guess that many religious homophobes who argue that homosexuality is a “choice” would be comfortable with a scientific explanation of inborn sexual orientation as long as it was also coupled with an agreement that such predilections ought to be resisted. After all, even atheists are almost always welcomed into fundamentalist churches IF they present their lack of belief as a sad, sad problem they’re hoping and trying to fix. Repentant sinners are the bread and butter of the Christian religion.
Again…beaten to this point by Sastra! 😉
But just to re-iterate: it seems the question of “is being gay a choice?” often mushes over different questions:
1. Whether the sexual orientation – the desire for gay sex (“being gay” in that sense) is a choice.
2, Whether homosexual acts themselves are a choice.
You can have #1 NOT be a choice, but #2 can still involve choice, as Sastra mentions.
And since Christians tend to already acknowledge we have “sin nature” and “sinful desires” within us, so far as those Christians see homosexuality as a sin, it doesn’t actually negate their moral structure. Free Will or not, it’s always been acknowledged people struggle with “sinful” impulses; the main issue for Christianity has been whether you ACT on those sinful impulses or not. And to what degree one is free to act or not act on them.
So I don’t see that Jerry’s account of the Christian view of free will/homosexuality/sin quite captures the issue as accurately as it could.
BTW, a lot of the debate on the morality of homosexuality seems to center on this question of whether that sexual orientation is a “choice” or not. Even many secular folk seem to think that if it’s not a choice, if homosexuality is biologically determined, then it we’ve lost the reason to condemn it, and hence if they show to religious folk it’s inborn, they’ve undermined the reasons to decry homosexuality.
But that’s committing a sort of naturalistic fallacy – if it’s natural it’s ok. But of course there are plenty of impulses that many people have “naturally” that we don’t think they should act upon. (E.g. just because a man sees a woman in public he would LIKE to have sex with, doesn’t mean he OUGHT to have sex with that woman, for all sorts of possible reasons. A lot of people feel the natural impulse of aggression towards others; that doesn’t mean they ought to act upon it).
Whether homosexuality is genetically determined or not doesn’t really matter, morally, IMO. What matters is whether we have good reasons to condemn homosexual acts, and I do not see we have such reasons to do so. So freely chosen or determined won’t matter to me.
(Though, I have to admit, since so many people DO seem to make the naturalistic fallacy, evidence that homosexuality is genetically determined is likely to convince more people that it ought not be condemned; ironically, probably a good outcome…though for the wrong reasons).
I thought for a bit back there we were getting the Jimmy Swaggart story…
See my comment here. Yes, perhaps many will be convinced by the Naturalistic Fallacy, but certainly not the Church and certainly not the hundreds of millions who devoutly follow its teaching. If we can hammer away at the actual position, I think many religious people will see reason. Otherwise, it’s too easy for powerful religious institutions to dismiss these things as attacking a straw man. They do that enough already when the arguments aren’t straw men, why give them a real one?
It is not the job of the government to put restrictions on behavior between consenting adults where there is no way that one can show that the behavior is harming the community. When the argument over whether homosexuality is a choice or determined is voiced within politics it is simply a smokescreen used to regulate and restrict and individuals freedom of expression simply because it is upsetting to some to imagine what’s going on in their neighbor’s bedroom. I imagine that while many of the WEIT readers may find it to be an interesting question to ask within confines of the behavioral sciences and free will they would also agree that the question has no place within politics.
Understand what you say but…It is the job of government, in a Republic to protect the rights of minorities and we are very slow it seems, to do this.
Sexuality is more fluid than religious or even most mainstream folk think. A lot can depend on the cultural environment, since this can encourage or repress various desires, some which might might be unconscious. The words “heterosexual” and “homosexual” are 19th century inventions, whereas bisexual behavior was common and unremarkable in Greco-Roman societies. Before they began importing Victorian morals, even Islamic societies like the Ottoman and Persian empires were more open to same-sex attraction, though more on the Greco-Roman model than modern homosexuality.
Good points.
“But . . ., they were heathens!,” is what the response of christians to that point often is. I have encountered this reaction several times in discussions with believers on the topics of homosexuality and same sex marriage.
The standard list of arguments used by believers, that I have experienced, is . . .
1) The bible says 1 man 1 woman. (Only of course, it doesn’t say that, at least not just that.)
2) Marriage has traditionally always been 1 man 1 woman. (Only, it hasn’t, they are just ignorant of, or ignore, historical evidence to the contrary.)
3) If too many people are gay the human race will go extinct. (I shit you not, this is a common argument in my experience. I really wonder if they actually believe that.)
4) It isn’t natural! (Only, it isn’t. Homosexual behavior has been observed in many species.)
Oopps, damn. Should be,
4) It isn’t natural! (Only, it IS. Homosexual behavior has been observed in many species.)
I’m surprised nobody else has yet made the instantly-obvious-to-me point that first occurred to me.
For quite a number of people, being gay or straight is a choice (with all the regular caveats about determinism). We generally refer to those people as, “bisexual.”
And I’ll bet you a suitable beverage that any given vocal anti-gay-rights person who argues that sexuality is a choice is either bi or gay.
I’ve never felt any attraction to any man. Quite the opposite, in fact. But, among women, there’s quite a range whom I find attractive, and you could reasonably argue that I have a choice in those sorts of matters. To pick two obvious axes: age and skin color. I could “choose” to be attracted to younger or older women or those with darker or lighter skin. In reality, they’re all attractive; the “choice” would simply be to prefer the one and shun the other.
If my range of attraction did encompass men as well as women, I’m sure I could choose to prefer women over men (or vice-versa), just as I could choose to prefer yellow-skinned women over red-skinned women (or vice-versa).
Could I in the real world pretend to prefer men over women if I found myself in a Twilight Zone episode where prejudices over sexual orientation were reversed? I doubt it; I don’t tend to that type of conformation. But it’s no more a stretch for me to imagine that than it’d be for me to imagine being a devout churchgoer despite having no doubts whatsoever about the falseness of the teachings. Quite a stretch, granted — but the same type in either case, and we’ve got plenty of examples of people who have made that choice.
b&
So Ben, I’m interested. Bearing in mind our previous discussions, what do you mean by the word “choice” there?
If you’re trying to tie this back to the question of determinism and free will, I would, in that context, for such people, gender is weighted lightly in their decision-making algorithms such that other factors typically sway the balance.
More colloquially, “all else being equal,” whether or not they’re attracted to somebody doesn’t have much to do with the particular plumbing.
In contrast, “all else being equal,” if you don’t have the right type of plumbing, I’m not going to be attracted to you.
In the real world, of course, all else never actually is equal. For example, whether or not you even meet somebody in the first place and therefore have the opportunity to experience attraction? Not even remotely under your control even according to contra-causal theories. If you do meet and you are attracted, most of that’s going to be the result of unconscious hormonal goings-on.
Follow the causal chain down, and anything identifiable as “you” is just inevitably reacting to the actual circumstances that arise.
In day-to-day conversations unrelated to the incoherent philosophical notion of, “free will,” there’s an accepted shorthand that encapsulates everything I just typed. If you’re bisexual, your choice (or selection, if you prefer) of partners includes both males and females.
b&
Well, I was more wondering what you mean by the act of “choosing”; what do you think “choosing” entails?
I agree that there is a deterministic account of the sexual attraction that that person feels in any particular situation, but why do you feel that the word “choice” is useful here, and what do you mean by it?
Yes, your choice if you’re bisexual is either a man or a woman, but I think the path you’ve gone down here is a far cry from the path taken by people who make the statement, “Being gay is a choice.” They are implying that every person has a choice to make about being gay or straight; a patently absurd notion. I’d venture to say most people never made any conscious effort to decide what their orientation is, and that includes bisexuals; and excludes cognitive dissonance and guilt brought on by an overly religious family and/or community insisting that their natural inclinations are disordered.
Erm…you’re now crossing the streams.
My original comment was that it seems obvious to me that the overwhelming majority of those who claim homosexuality is a choice are themselves more bisexual (or even gay) than straight, which is why they think everybody else can make that same choice. Yes, they cite scripture or whatever to justify their assertion, but the only reason they think other people can choose their orientation is because their own orientation is flexible enough to encompass both genders.
My diversion into free will v compatibilism that you’re replying to was compelled by Coel’s threadjack, and I agree that it’s largely irrelevant.
b&
Hmmm…I think there’s still some ambiguity in terms here. Yes, let’s dismiss the free will part vs. compatibilism part for now (I don’t think you are I are on different pages about what a choice means in this context). I do think what you’re pointing out is the choice to participate in sexual acts that you find enjoyable is not the same as a choice to be gay (which you also originally point out about your own orientation). But, as Vaal points out in his latest comment, that’s not an unimportant distinction, but the two ideas seem to blend a bit in this thread. I don’t know the ins and outs of every single Christian denomination, but the many of the ones I am familiar with are in fact condemning homosexual acts, not homosexuality. In fact, this is a point Hitchens got wrong in this debate when he says the Church condemns his friend Stephen Fry for who he is (though I still thoroughly enjoyed his overall dismantling of the debate opponents).
Thus far, we would actually be on largely the same page as the people opposing gay marriage. Homosexuality may not be a choice, but who you have sex with is. At this point, it is nearly guaranteed that any religious person will insert libertarian free will which is where the whole thing would go off the rails. But I think it’s important that we’re clear on what we’re criticizing, what the opponent’s position is, and why their position is utter nonsense. Telling the Church that homosexuality is an intrinsic nature to some people wouldn’t sway their position one bit; not that I am optimistic that any argument would, but we at least need to hammer away at their actual position.
I think it was Stephen himself who, in some other setting, put that “hate the sin but love the sinner” nonsense in its proper context.
The Christian position, even in such “liberal” denominations as the ones you describe, is that gays must choose between straight sex (that they may well find repulsive) or no sex at all, whilst straights are faced with no such dilemma. It is as if gays are told that they must choose between eating dog shit or starvation; what sort of choice is that? Only Stephen put it far more passionately and eloquently than I could ever hope to do.
If you’re condemning homosexual acts, you are condemning homosexuality, period, full stop. You can no more separate gay people from gay sex than you can straight people from straight sex. Or, for that matter, horny teens and “Rosy Palm.” Or is it okay for these same churches to scare kids with visions of eternal hellfire for the “sin” of masturbation, too?
As a guy as straight as they come, I’m telling the Church that they can take their position on homosexuality and shove it up their collective asses, preferably with the help of same-sex adult coreligionists. I don’t care what sorts of “nuanced” distinctions they’re trying to make on this; they have no fucking business even attempting to control what happens in the bedroom.
…and for this “moral teaching” to come from a bunch of allegedly-virginal cross-dressing serial child rapists…well….
b&
Oh, I didn’t mean to imply the hate the sin love the sinner meme isn’t easily refuted, in fact you can tie the whole argument up just getting a definition of sin, but what they are saying should still be dismantled.
As for eloquence, fuck eloquence. Sometimes it’s not warranted or deserved, especially in conversations with many of these self righteous pricks who make a living separating logic from reality and pretending only the former matters.
Ever tried ecstasy? I’m a gay man, but I’ve had a fair number of relationships with women.
In our uninhibited state, aren’t we all just ‘availabilists’? I’ve seen enough dogs have their way with furniture and human legs to realize the target of sexual interest is more a construct- which we simply romanticize as human beings.
Honestly? That’s pretty much the definition of “bisexual.” You obviously lean more towards men than women, but your range of attraction includes both.
Honestly, no. I could no more be attracted to another man than you could be to your grandmother, available or not. Again, being “available” either direction is the definition of bisexuality.
Obviously, since this is all ultimately a matter of brain wiring, changing that wiring would change attraction — but that could go in any direction, so it really doesn’t add anything to the conversation. There’re people who have fetishes for all sorts of bizarre things, after all, including various inanimate objects.
b&
I don’t consider myself bisexual. I’m attracted to men, but when I was younger and it was 4am and I happened to be in Ibiza- well, I was ecumenical in my choices. What I mean is I think wiring has a lot less to do with it than opportunity. No?
No.
Again, think of your grandmother…or, more brutally graphically, an animal, or a corpse, or an animal corpse, or….
There’re all sorts of people (or whatever) that it would never occur to you to be attracted towards in the first place. If prompted, many of those would result in a visceral “ick” revulsion, even if your attitude towards said person was entirely positive in all other aspects.
For me, that’s the case with all men. It would never occur to me to want to have sex with a man, and, if the suggestion is made…ick. Same as for my grandmother, and so on.
Opportunity has nothing whatsoever to do with it. No degree of opportunity could possibly change that instinctive-feeling “ick.”
And my attitude towards such people on other than sexual matters have any bearing. I love my parents dearly…but “ick.”
There are gay men who have a similar reaction to the thought of women, as well as any other sort of such pairings as you can imagine.
If there’s no “ick,” then, sure; opportunity may well play a factor. But once the “ick” comes into play, opportunity is entirely irrelevant.
Again, think of whatever it is that makes you go, “ick,” and try to understand that that’s my own reaction to men.
As a data point for validation…I’ve come across more than one reference (but, sorry, no citations handy) that the most significant factor in the popularity of lesbian porn for straight men is the absence of men — much more than the additional number of women to ogle. The presence of another man acts as a mood killer.
b&
You only say that because I’ve never invited you to dinner 😛
Thanks, but I promised Baihu I’d clean his litterbox.
…and, in all seriousness, you might never have invited me to dinner, but a number of your spiritual cousins have. I’ve had a number of quite pleasant and charming dinners where, sometime afterwards, I beat as polite and hasty a retreat as I could manage after I finally figured out was on the…ah…agenda for later in the evening. There’s been opportunities that would have served quite well, were opportunity the only criteria.
Those incidents mostly happened at a time when I would also not infrequently have dinner at the home of an outrageously flaming gay couple. They were a quite a riot and good friends. They never expressed any sexual interest in me, but, I’m sure, had I let it be known to them that I was looking for somebody to “hook up” with, they would have taken great delight in playing matchmaker. It’s just that it never would have occurred to me that I would have wanted to in the first place, and I would have been (and still am) repulsed at the thought had it been suggested.
Again again: think of your grandmother. I’m sure she’s invited you to dinner, no? Probably some of the most pleasantly memorable meals you’ve had. But the thought of going to bed with her likely makes you feel as much “ick” as it would me with you — even though I’m sure you and could have quite an enjoyable dinner.
Just so long as I’m not the after-dinner agenda.
b&
Probably way too late to get this in but are you just having a joke here? I’ve never known or heard of any gays with your attitude.
Availability, really?
Not having a joke at all. I strongly believe that most of what relates to sexual attitudes is cultural rather than “natural”. The ick factor Ben spoke of is something we learn. Take marriages between cousins for example, the thought of it would produce an immediate ick in many people, but in some cultures/social groups it was/is absolutely accepted.
All we have to do is read about the history of social acceptance of homosexuality. In ancient Rome/Greece and even in the Han dynasty- situations considered ‘ick’ by the standards of many today were just a matter of fact.
We’re conditioned into a number of behaviours from a very early age. Another interesting example is the focus on particular parts of the body. The north American heterosexual male is conditioned to focus on the female breasts. The Brazilian male is conditioned to focus on the female derriere. The African male on the other hand goes for a completely different body type than the Brazilian or North American.
Whatever the source of the “ick,” I assure you it’s quite real.
I don’t like eggs. It’s not an allergy, and, indeed, I eat all sorts of foods with eggs in them — from quiche and other custards to mayonnaise to noodles to muffins and whatever else. I typically buy an half a dozen every other week or so.
But you will never find me scrambling them, or cooking one over easy, or deviling them, or whatever. I just really, really do not like eggs like that and never have, as long as I can remember. I’m not even particularly fond of fried rice that has large chunks of egg in it.
Whatever the cause of my dislike of eggs doesn’t matter. It’s real. I’ve had more than ample opportunity over the decades to “get over it” or to “meet Mr. Goodegg” or whatever else. Doesn’t matter; eggs are just not for me. I truly have no choice in the matter, using whatever interpretation of the notion of “choice” you might wish to use.
Same with sexual orientation.
You clearly have a choice, and that’s just fine. Great for you; you’ve got that many more potential partners to choose from.
But…here’s the thing.
Your continued insistence that I really do have a choice, that I could be happily gay under the right circumstances if only I’d let go of my societally-imposed prejudices…
…well, that’s simply the flip side of the Christian fundamentalist insistence that you yourself have chosen to be gay and that it’s upon you to reject the siren call of Satan, foreswear men forever, and either exclusively practice heterosexuality (within the confines of Christian marriage, of course!) or celibacy.
It’s quite clear that you’re not going to be able to viscerally grasp the true lack of choice in these sorts of things…so, please. Take not just my word for it but the words of all those gay men who insist that they couldn’t possibly choose to be straight any more than I insist that I couldn’t possibly choose to be gay.
The fact that you have a choice doesn’t mean that the rest of us do…and we really, truly, honestly, sincerely do not have a choice!
b&
Ben Does Not Like Eggs
Ben does not like eggs – not a spot
He does not like them in a pan
He does like like them in a pot
He does not like them on a dish
He won’t even eat them with some fish!
Not even green with ham!
…but I would like a slice of quiche Lorraine. I probably wouldn’t make it with spinach, myself, but I’ve eaten some good ones with it.
b&
I’m not disagreeing with you, in essence. I understand how real the ‘ick’ factor is, I’m just saying it’s more societal than anything else. My longtime partner refuses to eat any cold meats that weren’t ‘made in the UK’ 😉
And that’s the bullshit part.
Forget me.
Forget any and all straights.
There’re just too damned many utterly heart-wrenching stories from gays out there who passionately wish they were straight for me to think that “society” is the “more than anything else” factor in sexual orientation.
Time after time I’ve heard of gay guys who always, from the time other boys were dipping girls’s ponytails in inkwells, were uninterested in the girls and only wanted to have anything to do with the boys. As they grew up, society placed overwhelming pressures on them to be straight, and some of them did their damnedest, even finding and marrying women they liked as people but just couldn’t for the life of them be even slightly interest in sexually. Worse, wives whom they genuinely liked or even loved as people and who were conventionally attractive but who positively repulsed them sexually…yet they stayed together and outwardly pretended physical attraction because society demanded it of them. And, of course, reverse the genders for the complete story — women who as girls were only interested in girls and who eventually “dutifully” married men they couldn’t stand to touch.
Are you seriously claiming that those people were conditioned by society to be gay, and they really could have chosen to be straight if only they wanted to, if only the right opportunity presented itself, if only society hadn’t conditioned them to be gay?
If so…my response would be rather uncivil.
But, if not…then how dare you claim that my sexual orientation is any more “societal” and open to “opportunity” than theirs?
b&
Hmmm… I apologize if my perspective upsets you, but again, I think we’re at cross purposes. I’m not saying it’s wrong that anyone is the way they are. Quite the opposite, in fact. I think the point of alleged choice is a moot one.
I grew up in a household where four languages were spoken. That was natural to us. Not natural to most other people. The fact is it shouldn’t matter either way. If it were simply a choice, it should belong exclusively to the person making it- in my opinion.
Again with the “choice.” Again!
A simple “yes / no” answer to this question should get to the heart of it.
Do you think Alan Turing, to pick one prominent example, had any choice about his own sexuality?
b&
Again, that’s not what I meant when I used the word choice. When we started this discussion I made clear that I’m a gay male who has had relations with women. Not straight, not bisexual; Not somewhere in the middle: Gay. Alan Turing, like me, was also primarily a gay man. I just don’t get what’s bothering you in my proposition. What society asks of us isn’t necessarily in line with what society/circumstances condition us to be/feel.
Then perhaps you should clarify what you mean by that word.
Your second sentence there is what’s bothering me.
You’re telling me, in essence, that if I, for example, moved to the Haight-Ashbury district, in no time I’d have a boyfriend and be loving life as a gay man. And that, if I then moved to Topeka, Kansas, and joined the Westboro Baptist Church, I’d quickly “pray the gay away” and become straight again.
You are, in effect, granting powers to society that simply don’t exist.
Again consider Turing. Society told him he had no choice but to stop being gay. Rather than choose to become straight, he chose death. Shouldn’t that tell you at least something about how powerless society is in the face of innate senses of sexuality?
You’ve repeatedly indicated that all you think it would take for me to turn gay is a pleasant dinner and maybe some recreational drugs shared with the right person — somebody such as yourself. And, yet, you not only deny my reports that I’ve had such pleasant dinners (though without the drugs) and not followed through with the gay sex, you diminish Turing’s own choice to die rather than turn straight!
You’ve repeatedly mentioned Ecstasy as part of the “right circumstances.” Sam Harris has written of his own experiences with the drug, including a sense of overwhelming love for his best friend who was with him in the room when he took it. And yet Sam’s love for his friend and his experience that day with him was explicitly not sexual, but rather something akin to the essence of the Platonic ideal of love. I doubt that Sam would have inhibited his sexual expression under those circumstances and I very much doubt that he would have done so without reporting it to us; that’s just not his style. He would have no trouble telling the world he had sex with his friend and would cheerfully use that incident as yet another example of the physiological basis of self and how the self is so readily open to manipulation by physical factors. So there’s another example against you: a straight guy taking Ecstasy with his best friend, experiencing overwhelming love for his friend, and yet still not having any desire to have sex with him.
In the face of all this overwhelming evidence to the contrary, how can you possibly continue to insist that there’s any sort of “choice” in the matter, that people like Turning or me have any sort of flexibility or options or however you wish to phrase it?
Yes. You yourself have such a choice. No question about that. You like guys, but, if a pretty girl invites you up to her room you’ll happily oblige. Wonderful for you and for her.
But Turing was a fucking British war hero and could have had basically any (available and interested) woman he wanted, if he wanted — and yet he wanted to die rather than be with a woman! And not out of any sort of misogyny, either; he just, under no circumstances, even under pain of death — again, as evidenced by his own suicide — wanted to have sex with women.
I can’t imagine what it would be like to live in a society where homosexuality was so firmly enforced as the norm that I myself would be given a comparable ultimatum, but I’m sure suicide would be on my own short list in such circumstances, as well. Which is precisely why I’m so much in favor of full civil rights and equality for gays, especially including marriage and adoption and whatever else!
Yet, here you are, a self-proclaimed gay man (who’s also happy to sleep with women under the right circumstances but that somehow doesn’t make you bisexual), telling me I could be just as happy as a gay man as Turing could have been as a straight man, and thereby playing right into the same lies that the Westboro Baptist Church relies upon to justify their homophobia. Sexuality is just a choice, and your social surroundings are more relevant than anything else. Any port in a storm, as it were.
Can you not understand just a little bit why I’d find your “choice” and “opportunity” and “societal pressure” nonsense more than a bit disturbing? Great for those who have it — but many of us do not have it, even if we wanted it!
b&
You’ve twisted what I said. Turing was tortured because he was denied his primordial desire- and persecuted for it. That’s nothing to do with exploring alternate possibilities.
Don’t presume for a second that gay men aren’t also expected to conform to stereotypes that exist within gay culture.
We also are expected to take on a black or white role. In fact roles that are borrowed from traditional heterosexual relationships.
And as for the port in the storm comment- I’d say that’s simply the luxury of anglo-saxon 1st world white males. You don’t find too many people in Angola saying they’d rather die than eat a morel mushroom. So in essence, an affectation. If undereducated people who are incarcerated can manage same-sex relations without being bothered by the alleged ‘ick’ factor, what does that say about the ick factor? That it’s natural? Or that it’s a construct privileged people can self-categorize themselves with because it reaffirms their visions of themselves?
I’m sure this might sound strange and even borderline inappropriate coming from a straight guy…but I think you really need to take a moment to come to grips with your own sexuality. This line in particular confirms something that I’ve suspected from a number of your responses:
Seems to me that’s exactly what you’re doing here.
You’re pretty clearly bisexual and are vociferously arguing for acceptance of bisexuality. And, yet, you deny that you’re bisexual and instead claim that everybody is at least a little bit bisexual so your dalliances with women aren’t anything out of the ordinary for a gay man.
I’m perfectly at ease with being straight. I know; not a challenge, but, still — I have no more desire to have sex with guys than most anybody does with their grandparents, and that’s remained a constant despite more than ample, as you would put it, “opportunity” to “explore” other “options,” including whatever sorts of discretion or lack of coercion or what-not you might think would otherwise “inhibit” me.
You are quite clearly not at ease with being bisexual, and that seems to be what all of this is about.
I very much doubt I can do anything to help you save raise it to your attention — not that you’re likely to appreciate even this offer of help.
Regardless, I’m sure we’re now treading on the far side of Da Roolz for one-on-one exchanges, so I’ll let you have any additional words you might wish to have and end my own responses with this one.
b&
You’re right that we might not be getting very far, so I’ll tread lightly. I imagine da roolz will forgive us if the discussion is constructive!
What I meant is that I’m primordially attracted to men. I don’t see myself ever seriously involved with women. Although I do see sexuality itself, in the physical sense, as something more fluid than what society used to think of it as being. That’s all I meant.
Interesting discussion. It is precisely the “ick” factor that makes me think this is more a matter of social conditioning than genetic programming. Now maybe I’m just genetically programmed to be bisexual, and you are not, but my lived experience confirms what pinkagendist is saying. I always considered myself straight, and the majority of my sexual experience has been opposite gender. But I have had sufficient same-sex encounters to realize that 1) given the right situation I could be attracted to and enjoy sex with a person of the same gender and 2) sexual encounters can be revolting with some people regardless of their gender.
The point I’m trying to make is that this is not so much something I accidentally “discovered” about myself, or some inherent nature that pushed itself into my consciousness against my will, as it was something I learned about myself by making deliberate choices to act against my social conditioning.
Genetic predispositions is a defensible theory on paper, but I know viscerally that social conditioning has tremendous force and colors everything we think we know about the subject.
That’s where the difference comes in.
I, too, have had sufficient encounters that, in your case, would have ended up in the bedroom but that went the exact opposite direction for me. People whom I’ve liked personally, people whom I’m sure are typically considered reasonably attractive by gay men.
You’ve been in those situations and felt an attraction and followed through with it.
I’ve been in those same situations and felt no attraction and made the most graceful hasty exit I could manage.
And even if it is social conditioning, so what? I know viscerally that I really, really, really don’t want to have anything sexually to do with another guy. There’s ample evidence that there are guys who absolutely love sex with other guys, and many of them describe attitudes towards women that are the perfect mirror of my attitude towards men. And same for women, too, of course; there’re lesbians who like one-night stands with guys as well as lesbians with as much interest in men as I have — with most women being interested in men and having little to no interest in other women.
If I am to trust my own visceral reaction on the subject, how on Earth can I deny a comparable reaction in others?
Again: if you think there’s any choice to be had in terms of sexual orientation, it’s because you’re bisexual to some degree or another. A significant fraction of the population is. But there are also significant fractions of the population who aren’t bi and who are entirely straight or entirely gay — and those of us in those parts of the spectrum just simply don’t have the same flexibility and choice that those who’re bisexual do.
b&
“Whatever the cause of my dislike of eggs doesn’t matter.”
Well, you’re right that it absolutely doesn’t matter as to your right to make your choice whether to eat or not eat eggs. But it certainly does matter if you are concerned with answering question about human nature, and genetic and environmental influences on human behavior. If you don’t like eggs because of an unpleasant experience at table as an infant which you do not recall, then the conclusion that it is your nature to not like eggs is erroneous.
And yes, so what? You still have the right to excuse yourself from eating eggs, and even knowing the causes will not necessarily change your feelings or choices about eggs. But you have to be careful when you make judgements about the nature of other people’s behavior.
All I’m trying to say is that we *know* that there is genetic variation in how people experience the taste of various substances. And it is reasonable to *assume* there would be some similar genetic variance in how people apprehend the sexual experience. But I also think we *know* that a lot of what people tend to think of as “normal” behavior, what they assume is also “natural” or inherent behavior, is actually learned behavior. We have to weight what we assume in light of what we know.
You may know with absolute conviction how you actually feel given who you have become over the course of your lifetime. But I will retain some skepticism if you claim to *know* that, in a different environment with a different life history but the same genetic inheritance, you would have the same familiar “ick” feelings. I don’t think you *can* know that.
But that’s perfectly tangential to the question of what choice, if any, any given adult in our society has in the matter.
If your concern is with the next generation, sure. And maybe the percentages of bisexuals and homosexuals will rise in the future as society becomes more openly tolerant and supportive of gays.
Right back at you, on steroids.
You and pinkagendaist are damned cocksure that it’s within my nature to enjoy sexual relations with men and absolutely refuse to consider the notion that, no, that’s just not for me, thankyouverymuch.
And neither of you seem willing to acknowledge, either, that there are homosexuals who have absolutely no interest in heterosexual relationships and who never have had any from birth.
In other words, you are both convinced that everybody else is at least as bisexual as the two of you are — despite truly passionate assurances to the contrary.
No assumption necessary. Twin studies and other forms of research have confirmed that there’s a genetic component to sexual orientation, with studies on embryonic development demonstrating that that’s also a critical component. And it’s further confirmed by animal studies and and and and…
…and there’s simply no escaping the fact that genetics and pre-natal development plays a very significant role in sexual orientation. As does, yes, society and culture.
And all that encompasses people who are inherently disposed to being exclusively attracted to the one gender or the other as well as people, such as you and pinkagendaist, whose attraction isn’t exclusive, even if it might be preferential.
And, yes, of course. There’ll also be those who’re predominately but not exclusively attracted to one gender or the other, and societal factors may well play a bigger role in that person’s attitudes towards orientation than genetics.
In all of this, I’m not the one denying that there’s a wide range of diverse possibilities towards sexual orientation.
You are.
You’re the one insisting that everybody else is just like you — bisexual to some degree or another.
And your own intimate personal experiences are a powerful demonstration that your range of attraction encompasses both genders, but that’s just for you and other bisexuals.
Those who aren’t bisexual, even a little bit?
There really, truly, honestly isn’t any fluidity in the matter, no “lost opportunities,” no “curiosity,” no desire for “experimentation” — none of that. Not at an early age, not later when opportunities presented themselves, not as a matter of regret, not for secret fantasies — nothing.
I have no doubt that you can’t imagine yourself being without those feelings. You’ve made it quite plain that you experience them, that they’re real and significant for you.
Why can’t you do me and other non-bisexuals the courtesy of returning the favor? Why can’t you trust us that, no, the worng gender simply isn’t an “option” on the table for us, even if it is for you?
b&
That’s precisely why I mentioned Ecstasy/Mdma. It was only in that state that I, at first, was able to let go of my conditioning. Afterwards I was a mess and then I kept using the same substance to ‘excuse’ my behaviour. So I can’t run from the fact that there were real societal barriers residing in my mind in my early 20’s.
I’m sorry, but I think you misread me. I am certainly *not* “…convinced that everybody else is at least as bisexual as the two of you are”. I am simply uncertain of how much of “sexual preference” is genetic and how much is environmental.
I am not familiar with the twin studies you refer to, but I have some acquaintance with twin studies in other contexts, and I find them unconvincing as iron clad genetic arguments, primarily because they discount roughly 9 months of potential environmental influence, and make a host of other assumptions about what constitutes the “same” or “different” environments.
I am not trying to escape the fact that genetics and prenatal development have an influence on sexual preference. Perhaps I do need to look at the most recent studies. I am very interested in what we have learned and I do not claim to be up on the latest research. Perhaps we know a great deal more about how the prenatal environment affects (or not) prenatal development than we did the last time I looked into it. Perhaps we know now that there is no possibility of error in discounting 9 months of in utero environmental factors and can trust twin studies to be infallible.
Hell, I’m not an embryologist. I didn’t know we had already sorted prenatal development and know there are no environmental influences.
Ben, I’m sorry I didn’t really answer your primary objection to my postings. I do acknowledge that the wrong gender simply isn’t an option for you and others and that there is “no fluidity”. I agree that “choice” is the wrong word to use in a context where people have no choice, and I certainly can imagine what that’s like.
Thank you! Now, perhaps you could explain it to pinkagendaist….
b&
What is the “uninhibited state”? How much gin, orange bitters, and sambuca do I need to drink to achieve such a state?
I remember fondly the day I was about 12 years old and sat down and started thinking, “Should I be straight or should I be gay?” I thought about it and said, “Yes, I think I’ll decide to be sexually attracted to women rather than men. Seems straightforward. I also think I’ll be white and pretty tall, not too tall, but tall enough to catch the gaze of the women I’ve decided to find attractive.” And so it went, I had decided I’d be tall, white and straight when I grew up. Then I went on to choosing my profession…
ROFL!!
I decided I’d be irresistible to women. I don’t seem to recall that it worked very well…
“Yes, homosexuality absolutely is a choice,” by minister John Pavlovitz [it doesn’t say what the title implies, for the guy is sympathetic to gays])
It’s a good post. Not quite what the title says. If I read him correctly, he says orientation is not a choice, how one chooses to express it is. That gays should no more be expected to suppress their sexual orientation than straights should. (I’m oversimplifying it btw). He’s entirely sympathetic to gays.
Do you remember the day when you decided to be heterosexual? Of course not, because there never was such a day. Instead, one day when you looked across the classroom at little Susie you felt something down there that you’d never felt before. And maybe your best friend felt the same feeling looking at little Tommy. In order to think that homosexuality is a choice you have to think that heterosexuality is a choice, and then you have to have made that choice. Which, obviously, does not happen.