Ok, if people didn't choose to be gay, explain the prison thing to me

[ringmastery]

Maybe for the majority of gay people they are born that way, but I do believe a minority chooses to be gay for whatever reason.

The most striking example is homosexuality in prisons. Many of these prisoners, knowing full well that they may never have sex with a woman again, made a conscious choice to become homosexual.

[LearnedHand]

1. I have 3 cats...

...two males, one female. All are neutered/spayed. The younger male, however, has a hormone or two blasting out his ears occasionally, so he finds one of the other cats to hump (gross!)

Inevitably, he "chooses" the other male cat, even though the female cat is always nearby. Is my kitty going to hell? Did he choose to be homosexual?

[rooboy]

4. Your kitty WILL be going to hell if it's a calico cat...

John Ashcroft says so.

[LearnedHand]

20. Oh, whew!

He's a Siamese, so he's safe.

[KT2000]

32. Cows too

Every once in a while I see dairy cows jumping each other - maybe its the hormones in the feed or something.

Regarding your male cat - I bet the female would beat the poodoo out of him if he tried to jump her! They are like that sometimes.

[rooboy]

2. I think sex is like water...

after a certain amount of deprivation, it will flow to the point where the resistance is least. Prisoners don't 'choose' to be homosexual, because they aren't really offered a choice, are they? It's more a case of finding a way to 'get off', not a romantic attachment, from what I understand.

[zmdem]

3. What's the point here ?

I have no idea whether homosexuality is genetic or learned behaviour. Whatever a citizen chooses to do, in privacy, with another consenting adult and not in violation of the law, is none of my business or that of the government.

[wtmusic]

10. What's the point of your point?

So sex is private. Does that mean that we can't discuss sexuality? :eyes:

[zmdem]

14. Sure we can

Do we we need to discuss homosexuality in the context of male convicts so horny that they will forget about women and lust after their fellow prisoners ?

That's not a serious discusssion, that's a B movie.

[Swede]

5. All I know is that I am heterosexual.

I cannot choose to be attracted to another guy. I ain't wired that way I guess. Going by my on life therefore homosexuals did not choose to be attracted to same sex,that is the way they were wired. If you think they can choose,then you must have homosexual attractions inside you.

[zmdem]

11. If all you know is heterosexuality

then perhaps it would be wise not to tell others about their supposed homosexuality ?

[Swede]

15. Not sure what your saying.

What I'm saying is that it's not a choice,it's human nature.

[zmdem]

19. Choice vs. nature

I don't know, does anyone ?

[Swede]

22. Exactly! So why demonize a person for something they were born with?

Like being left-handed or having blue eyes,a percentage of the population will be homosexual.

[zmdem]

24. Why demonize period ?

Whether homosexuality is genetically determined or chosen, I see no reason why a persons sexual orientation is any of my business.

[Swede]

29. The rightwing seem to think it a perversion of choice.

Maybe you havn't been reading the papers?

[gpandas]

37. when did you choose your sexual orientation?

[Dark]

6. From what I've heard prison rape is about power, not sex.

It's about emasculating the incarcerated neophyte and making him subservient.

[burrowowl]

17. It also occurs in the

Armed Forces (although they now have women soldiers to rape) as a show of power.
I have seen boss cows hump the other cows to show them who the boss is and very dominant female dogs lift their leg to pee.
As for being attracted to the same sex and loving, it is another matter altogether. One can't help to whom one is attracted to.

[lukasahero]

36. All rape is about power, not sex. eom

[Solly Mack]

7. more like a conscious choice to survive

prison can be deadly you know..

I abhor rape of anyone and, in prison, the choice is often giving in or dying.

Also, prison has an entirely different value/social system..code..whatever you want to call it than on the outside. I don't pretend to understand all the whys and hows...I've never been there and hope to never be. But I don't think we can apply "outside" reasoning to "inside" living.

[aquart]

8. And you have the statistics there in your hand, do you?

Prison rape, like every other rape, is about dominance and power. It isn't about sexual preference.

And it's good that you have your beliefs. Beliefs being articles of faith that require nothing in the way of fact, proof, or truth.

[cardlaw]

9. They don't "become" homosexual.

These guys do it out of "necessity," not out of a desire to have sex with men. Just because a man has sex with another man does not make him gay. And just because a gay man has sex with a woman does not make him straight.

[Zorra]

31. I think you're right, because from what I've read, when heterosexual

men that have gay sex in prison usually prefer women after they get out of prison.

[JSJ]

12. some organisms will spontaneously change gender...

...when one of their opposite number isn't around- like them there dinosaurs in 'zorrassak park'.

[mare]

13. I don't really get the point

of this discussion. So if someone decides to be gay instead of just being gay? So what? What do I care? It's none of my business.

[zmdem]

27. I agree, Mare

Welcome to DU, from another newbie ;)

[maggrwaggr]

16. some people are so uncomfortable with the idea of male homosexuality

that they just don't want to accept that some people simply ARE gay.

If you think people choose to be gay, you must be one of those who are choosing to be straight.

And if you're choosing to be straight, you ain't straight.

[zmdem]

21. Partially agree

Some people are gay. Why they are so does not concern me, any more than why some people drive Fords. It's their business, not mine.

Live and let live.

[wickerwoman]

18. Sexuality isn't a binary- gay or straight period.

It's a continuum. Some people are born with a strong preference one way or the other but most people are somewhere in the middle and then social conditioning takes over.

People will have sex with whomever they can. In all male or all female boarding schools, in the navy, in prisons, in brothels, people develop sexual relationships with the handiest (pardon the pun) partners. Does that make them gay? Not necessarily.

The whole concept that "gay" or "straight" is an indelible part of your identity like race or sex is less than 200 years old.
Some people are born with gay preferences and some people are born
with straight preferences. But gay people can have straight sex and straight people can have gay sex without fundamentally changing their identities.

[porphyrian]

35. I think you're right.

I look at it as a scale, with most people falling somewhere in the middle 3/4. It's hard to say for sure, though, as long as social stigmas prevent accurate data collection and skew natural behavior. I believe prison homosexuality to be an incarnation of an entirely different monster, more closely related to dominance than sexual preference.

[PurityOfEssence]

23. The magic word is "preference"

Personally, I hate Ranch Dressing, but if I was stranded on the proverbial desert island with no foodstuffs but 55 gallon drums of the crap, I'd find a way to learn to love it.

Sure, some is choice, but lots is programmed in. The two work in concert. Lest we forget, there's a very real bisexuality out there, too, although many people choose to whistle in the woods and slag the switch hitters as cowardly gays who just can't admit it.

Regardless what you prefer, when the hunger hits, Ms. or Mr. Right Here can suddenly be little sweetykins. If you're locked up with similar enough flesh within range, a few odd physical characteristics tend to lose their sacred importance. Makes sense, huh?

[Placebo]

25. You take what you can get.

If you were in prison long enough, away from women for years maybe decades, maybe for the rest of your life, that tight young piece of 19 y/o male 'tang might just start lookin' mighty fine.

For the same reason that boys who go to all-male boarding schools often develop an internal sexual hierarchy. Older boys use younger boys, stronger boys use weaker boys, and the majority of those go on to life perfectly normal heterosexual lives. In the absense of the opposite sex, even the straightest person can "turn gay" at least for the moment.

The vast majority of people were born gay though, just as you were born straight, simple as that.

[Taylor Mason Powell]

26. You gotta be kidding with this!

Prison sex has nothing to do with sexual orientation. Making a conscious choice to have sex is not the same thing as choosing to "become homosexual." In the context of rape especially, I have to say I find the analogy particularly offensive.

[Cats Against Frist]

28. There are whole books written on prison sex

and I'm pretty sure, as most other posters have stated, that it mainly boils down to a social hierarchy and dominance/submission.

It's an interesting psycho-sexual study, though.

I also agree with the above poster about gay or straight being a relatively knew construct. Most of the literature I have read come to the conclusion that some people MIGHT be pre-disposed to homosexuality, but mostly it comes from sexual socialization -- a -philia. This is the basis for the most sick-o and hateful arguments against gays. It is assumed that if it is a paraphilia, one must be "introduced" to it, as a child -- and further, that gays actively recruit children.

This is a bad and innacurate extrapolation of data. One does not have to be molested to become gay. Though, I would stand behind the idea that one could be psycho-sexually socialized to eroticize same-sex intercourse if one has been exposed to molestation, or non-consentual same-sex sex.

This will not make me very popular with gay people. But I like the truth, not agenda. I fully support gay rights, gay marriage, and I honestly believe that most gays DO NOT choose to be gay, and they cannot be converted from being gay. I think it is perfectly normal quirk in sexuality. A normal quirk. I like that.

The Biblical stuff is horseshit, and shouldn't even be considered in public policy discourse.

[necso]

30. Most people just don't have very good imaginations...

But I am curious, do you speak from experience --- or just from watching too many bad movies? And while this may sound flippant or insulting, it can be hard to understand why another person acts the way he does unless you have been in similar circumstances.

Sex is about many things: pleasure; escape; satisfying a primal need; "love"; and also ugly things like domination. Myself I cannot imagine having sex with another man, but a couple of decades on the "inside" might change my mind -- but then again I have a very good imagination.

[Bridget Burke]

38. "Have you ever been in a Turkish prison?"

http://students.washington.edu/mherzog/airplane!1.jpg

[TomNickell]

33. It's not relevant. Prison is a pathological environment.

When women become available.....

[ibegurpard]

34. Having sex with someone of the same sex does NOT make you gay.

What makes you gay is your hard-wired DESIRE, what it is you fantasize about and what really turns you on.