Do you think you're gay or bisexual because of genetics or do you think you became that way during early childhood? Or do you think everyone is inherently bisexual?
Also, is there any danger in either viewpoint?
Discuss...
Submitted by
on May 25, 2005 - 4:52pm.
born gay for sure
It's a genetic hiccup...
Caroluoling wrote:
Identifying the specific causes of orientation has been elusive, no doubt. Brain chemistry is very complex.
I don't have ready at my fingertips a suitable rebuttal using citations, although I did have them on the hard drive (that died) at home. However, because I am lesbian, I can speak with some authority on the subject. I have spoken to literally hundreds of LGBT people. Every single one says the same thing - they were always oriented the way they are. The circumstances of their environments run the gamut - there is no apparent causality there.You can cherry pick research all you want. I know (and so do you) that the data on the subject weighs heavily against you.
That's just the way it is.
http://www.findbilover.com
Okay, I am prepared to be
Personally, I believe that homosexuality/bisexuality is genetic. A mutation, if you will. By mutation, I AM NOT in any way implying that being anything other than heterosexual makes you a freak of nature, or that your sexual preferences are wrong, or a mistake. There is a certain stigma to the word "mutation"; adults who are able to drink milk without any effects of lactose intolerance are "mutants", for crying out loud. That doesn't make them freaks. Neither does homosexuality or bisexuality.
However, I believe that humans, as animals, are predisposed to have sex to reproduce, and that can only be done naturally with a member of the opposite sex. One can say that finding a soulmate is about so much more than sex, that it's about connection, and respect, and about a million other things. But in the end, I believe that all we really wanna do is make babies.
Maybe my opinion is tinged with a bit of bias, but it's just that: an opinion. I'm not saying I'm right. Again, I hope that no one takes any offense to my post. I just worry that as a straight person in a predominantly gay online community, I have to keep walking on eggshells so that I don't get any nasty messages from anyone.
Nature vs. Nurture
I'm a total romantic. I firmly believe that everyone has a soulmate, and when you are meant to find that one person- whether it is a man or a woman- you will. Even though I define myself as a lesbian, I think that if I were to meet a man, and he were my sould mate, I would not be opposed, and I think it works the other way around as well. I think that they only factor your upbringing plays is if you are raised opened or closed minded and are willing to accept yourself or not. Call me crazy, but I can't help but believe in some higher power.
scientists in utah turn worms gay...
Yesss, i think i found the appropriate thread to post this in!
Anyway scientists in Utah have apparently created female worms who are attracted to other female worms by tampering with their genes. No idea what this proves for humans. Cuz we're kind of. not worms. Anyway.
Link:
http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/?p=381
omg, inbd
I think a major problem when
I think a major problem when trying to understand why there are gay animals, is assuming (at least for humans) that sex is about reproduction and nothing else.
The role of sex and intimacy in a social creatures life is about much more than reproduction. The way humans interact in society is very complex, and keeping society (with it's diverse variety of personalities and opinions) running smoothly is an amazing feat. The way we interact, and create bonds with each other is part of the glue which holds it all together.
Passing on genes to the next generation is ofcourse important to a species, but humans have also evolved to survive in a social environment. This means the evolutionary pressure has been to create strong social bonds within groups and therefore give the group a better chance of survival. I can easily imagine how this might lead to same sex attraction. though it would never become the norm for the majority as then the species would die out.
Consider for ex. Bonobo's, which are share the greatest amount of DNA with humans. They are highly promiscuous and social animals, and sexual activity is just another kind of social interaction for them. It helps to develop strong bonds within a social group, and therefore strenghtens the group as a whole.
Anyway, I guess the point I'm trying to make is that we can't separate sex from its context... as I think tends to often happen too often. An important part of what makes us human is how we've evolved and developed within such powerful group societies... and this needs to be considered as a major factor in our develoment as well as genetics.
Regarding Druj's post:
You never know, when overpopulation finally becomes a critical issue for our survival, the scientists may instead decide to turn everyone gay to reduce breeding ;D
Just quickly another point
Just quickly another point that came to me...
There's been research that shows the chance of a male being gay increases the more older brothers he has. Theories as to why is occurs includes that having younger brothers who are gay means they wont challenge for dominance and for females in a group. Therefore less resources of the group (ie, healthy young men) are wasted with men fighting each other for the women, and more resources are put into the groups survival as a whole.
Nature vs. Nurture
I'm a total romantic. I firmly believe that everyone has a soulmate, and when you are meant to find that one person- whether it is a man or a woman- you will. Even though I define myself as a lesbian, I think that if I were to meet a man, and he were my sould mate, I would not be opposed, and I think it works the other way around as well. I think that they only factor your upbringing plays is if you are raised opened or closed minded and are willing to accept yourself or not.
i agree 100%. i've dated guys, i've dated girls, and even though i prefer girls and am generally more sexually attracted to them, i have nothing against dating guys. i couldn't care less if someone is a guy or girl; it's who they are inside that i care about. although i do believe that most people are inherently bisexual on some level, most women anyway, i also think that people are born either homosexual or heterosexual, and that they can't be turned or fixed or whatever. there's nothing wrong with who you are, and other people should'nt give a damn who you love, as long as you're a good person and don't hurt other people in the process.
Genetics, hormones & more
Well, I partly agree ^^" I think the environment can have a lot of influence on sexual behaviour. We had a very interesting lecture on sexuality and about the fact that sexuality among animals can be changed by inducing certain hormones in the critical period.
It's a shame I can't show the video, but basicly what they did was: they injected a hormone in the critical period of a male rat, which led to the rat not defeminizing. It's body was of a perfectly developed male, but the feminine behaviours weren't gone. When put in a cage with another male rat, it showed all the signs of female behaviour. When put in a cage with a female rat, it acted like a normal male rat. So, I guess the rat was bisexual XD
Now, I'm not saying that this is proof. We're not rats and it's only male rats I'm talking about here (yeah, I wondered why all the results we were shown were of males, but apparently they are easier to get a clear result from) But you have to start of somewhere. And a pill, used a while back (sorry, the name escapes me) on pregnant women seemed to have a slight influence on the sexual preferences of the children. (the number of gay children was slighty higher than with the control group)
I also recall something about that with identical twins, when one is gay, the ratio of the other one also being gay is higher. But it just seems such a weird thought that sexuality would be heraditary... Would that mean that crossing gay people over and over again would result in a population with a 100% gay ratio? lol strange thought....
Anyway, I'm hoping I'm not offending any1 either, with all my talk about rats and such... I think all the biological stuff is just a foundation... We're not rats and I don't think that we choose partners purely on physical attraction. The emotional part is at least just as important.
And sorry for just throwing info around...I just noticed how Long the message is I wrote... I just thought it was So interesting when I heard it ^^" (I'm sorry I couldn't attend the seminar about transgenders too...) And I thought, maybe you'd find it interesting too :)
P.S. sorry for the spelling & grammar... my grammar is so poor ^^"
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~The blue sky reaches so far that none can escape it~
ergh?
Okay, I totally don't get why my post ended there and not logically under the post I replied to....
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~The blue sky reaches so far that none can escape it~
SiZZ LeTEEN
mutation
Nature vs. Nurture
I firmly believe that you are born straight/gay/bisexual. And anyone who claims that everyone is bisexual can never be my friend.
The danger in my belief is if scientist ever find exactly what defines your sexual identity in the human body, some hormone or substance in the brain or whatnot. That kind of knowledge could theoretically be used by religious fanatics and such to medically/surgically change gay people's orientation to whatever suits them. This may sound overly paranoid, but come on, we all know that they would do it if they could.
Nature vs. Nurture
My being sexually abused as a child has always made me wonder if that's why i'm a lesbian. It really dosen't matter,too much. I would never want to be anyone else.
Thanks for your feedback. I would still like to see some kind of statistics on it.
Great group you have here :D .
Robin
Nature vs. Nurture
[quote:237972e7cc="little726"]I would still like to see some kind of statistics on it.[/quote:237972e7cc]
Hi Robin,
Nice to have you aboard. :wave: I'm sure you can look up the studies cited in the article (quoted above) for more specific statistics. The one oft-quoted source by Diane E.H. Russell refers to a complete book about sexually abused girls titled "The Secret Trauma: Incest in the Lives of Girls and Women".
Nature vs. Nurture
Thanks, koma. I will try to find the book. Sounds interesting.
Thank you, also, for the welcome.
Nature vs. Nurture
I believe it is both, depending upon the individual. It could be that a person has an inclination towards homosexuality, but does not act upon it. Then something unsavory happens in their life and that is the catalyst. I very, very much hate the stereotype that if you are gay, then you must have been abused or had bad experiences with the opposite sex. However, I have always held that there is some amount of truth in many stereotypes - no matter how much we dislike this notion.
Statically speaking, the majority of women do have same-sex thoughts or desires. Some act upon these and then return to the straight life. Some find that this is what their lives have been missing. So the whole 'women's statistics' on this does sort of throw a wrench into the nature-side of the discussion.
Another way to look at 'nurture' - Does that necessarily only denote one's upbringing? Personally I feel that women are more nurturing on the whole, than men are. Perhaps some simply want that emotional connection in their lives. Or those who were not abused when younger, but had an emotionally distant parent.
Unfortunately, many of the gays and lesbians I know have had some bad experiences in their lives. Not necessarily sexual or physical abuse, but what I outlined above. So I do feel the 'nurture' side cannot be completely ruled out as coincidence - But I believe there needs to be that natural inclination there.
"Study" Claiming That MOST Women Have Same-Sex Desires....
Quote: Statically speaking, the majority of women do have same-sex thoughts or desires.
What I find problematic about these types of "studies" is twofold. First, there are billions of women in different continents across the earth, and I find it hard to believe that they conducted a study on a random sampling of the global population. If these studies did not do that, then they haven't much right to draw a collective conclusion on women in general. Secondly, there's absolutely no way to know the thoughts of another person. You can ask a person what he or she is thinking, of course, but people often lie for various reasons, including, but not limited to, such factors as wanting to seem "cool" (remember, female bisexuality is very much en vogue in this era and therefore, a lot of straight women pretend to be bi for attention). Therefore these types of studies are completely unscientific (although some use pseudo-science to sound more credible), inherently flawed...liable to inaccuracy. Since there aren't any actual facts here to measure, my suspicion is that the results of these so-called studies are more likely to reflect the wishes and prejudgments of the "examiner" himself/herself rather than actual reality. The reason I feel the need to refute these studies is because I see them as inherently inaccurate, and also because many straight men use the "studies" as a tool to convince their girlfriends that they must really be bisexual, telling her that since these "studies" prove that most women are bi, then it's very likely she (girlfriend) is bi, too, and should give it a try. A man who does this is being manipulative; he's attempting to control and manipulate a women's sexuality for his own ends, as well as attempting to claim female bisexuality as his own, and therefore it rubs me the wrong way.
I don't believe most women are attracted to other women, but I do think more females than males are curious about people of the same sex. I don't think it's the natural state of things that this imbalance of same-sex curiosity exists, but rather that it's due to the oversexualization of women in the media. We're constantly being shown, told and implied to that women are naturally beauty and sexy and that men are disgusting, and their genitals repulsive and displeasing. I think these two factors together have a degree of influence (society is part of the "nurture" portion of the nature vs. nurture thing). That's why I said earlier that no study (and certainly no non-study) could be accurate if it's measuring women in only a Western nation or nations yet claiming these studies as universal (not to mention that it's racist...). Not all populations have been have heavily influenced by the media--yet--as others have, and not all think that the male sex is physically gross by nature (actually some teach that the female sex is). That said, I'm a woman who is attracted to women and men.
Harpy
Nature vs. Nurture
[quote:469471aeb1="LesKidd"]I very, very much hate the stereotype that if you are gay, then you must have been abused or had bad experiences with the opposite sex. However, I have always held that there is some amount of truth in many stereotypes - no matter how much we dislike this notion...
Unfortunately, many of the gays and lesbians I know have had some bad experiences in their lives. Not necessarily sexual or physical abuse, but what I outlined above. So I do feel the 'nurture' side cannot be completely ruled out as coincidence - But I believe there needs to be that natural inclination there.[/quote:469471aeb1]
I also don't believe that abuse or bad experiences with the opposite sex necessarily makes them gay, but that it can serve to "pull" you in that direction, especially if you already have a natural inclination towards the same sex.
I think that's kind of how it happened for me. When I was younger, I often had crushes on girls, but then around puberty, all the guys in my class appeared to turn into huge immature perverts that were constantly making (in my opinion) perverted and disrespectful comments about sex and girls. Actually, even now, I still find their comments disrespectful and I'm still offended, but at least I don't feel totally...I can't think of the word. My vocabulary isn't very big...but I just felt...almost like...emotionally, mentally sexually assaulted...if that is possible...
maybe I was just a very sensitive kid, because I was very naive, but that's how I felt, and those feelings stayed with me, and for a while, I was very angry with the male gender lol and distrustful, etc of them, and I think that definitely contributed to my gayness. I think, like LesKidd already said, it acted like a catalyst and sped up the maturation of my gay feelings lol and it also increased the amount of my gay feelings (much like increasing the temp of a chemical reaction! lol)........sigh...no, that's not funny. :roll:
Nature vs. Nurture
I came across this article and figured I would post it. I'm not sure what to think of it. I mean, how does one determine a 'gay ram'? And that would only denote a sexual preference as far as sex goes - Which I find too limited really, since the attraction is much more then sexual (in humans).
And besides that, I mean if you put a frigging log in front of some animals they will, uh, try to procreate with it. I dunno, it just doesn't seem like the answer lies in testing animals, in my opinion.
[quote:2069e223d1][b:2069e223d1]Study finds brain difference in gay rams[/b:2069e223d1]
[i:2069e223d1]Christopher Curtis, PlanetOut Network
Monday, August 15, 2005 / 03:47 PM[/i:2069e223d1]
Researchers at Oregon State University have announced another finding linking sexual orientation to biology, as opposed to learned behavior.
The scientists recently discovered biological differences between the brains of homosexual rams and heterosexual ones, and the news will likely contribute to the "nature vs. nurture" debate over homosexuality's origin in humans.
The project began in 1995, when researchers at the federal Sheep Experiment Station in Dubois, Idaho, noticed that some rams would not mate with ewes, preferring rams instead.
Wanting to ensure breeders could purchase heterosexual rams, researchers began a study in the hopes of determining the animal's sexual orientation. They received grants from the National Institutes of Health: one for about $800,000 in 2001; a second for $2 million in 2004, according to the Associated Press.
Fred Stormshak, distinguished professor of animal science at Oregon State, and one of the researchers in the project, told the PlanetOut Network on Monday that his team found striking differences in the brains and hormones of certain rams.
"The anterior preoptic area of the hypothalamus was about half the size of this part of the brain in heterosexual rams," he explained.
Stormshak also noted that aromatase, an enzyme that converts testosterone into estrogen, was much lower in the homosexual rams.
"What we're showing is what Simon Levay showed in human beings," Stormshak said, referring to the researcher who found a certain part of the homosexual hypothalamus was smaller than its heterosexual counterpart.
"The ultimate hypothesis we're testing is that something happens in utero. By birth a person's orientation is already set. There's nothing you can do about it," Stormshak said. "That's what our evidence would suggest, but whether that's the case with humans, I'm not sure. The human is a much more complex organism than a ram."
"We're telling you there is a similarity, but we're not saying that is the sole difference between heterosexual and homosexual behavior," Stormshak added.
Stormshak and his study partner, Charles Roselli, who are both straight, say they have received plenty of support from the LGBT community.
"My personal outlook to the gay community has been, 'Live and let live,'" Stormshak said. "I have no feeling on whether gay marriage is good or bad. I am completely neutral. I know there are very right-wing individuals who are not going to be willing to believe this study, though. That's OK -- everybody is entitled to an opinion." [/quote:2069e223d1]
Nature vs. Nurture
Gays and lesbians have been here since the beginning of time and they will be here after we die or until the world ends. Through history, the percentage of the gay population around the world has stayed the same. I don't know the exact figures I think it's something like 5-10%. Coincidence? You decide.
sexuality a spectrum
I think sexual identity is partly inborn like all character traits but largely determined by social codes. By nature, we all fall somewhere on the wide spectrum of sexuality, but because of the way sexuality is categorized, we learn to think of ourselves as gay/straight, sometimes bi. If there was no homophobia and it was equally okay to be gay or straight, I think most people would be somewhere in the middle, liking the same and opposite sex to varying degrees, with a small percentage being 100% gay or straight.
I myself am probably 70-80% gay, but I choose to identify as "lesbian" rather than bi because of my political beliefs and because it's the closest concept we have for what I am. If you think about, three categories is a pretty narrow way to define the complexity of human sexuality. I guess that's why other categories like trans, genderqueer, heteroflexible, etc are emerging, but most people still grow up with the gay/straight extremes as the only models.
Nature vs. Nurture
I certainly think it's nature, ofcourse l have nothing to back it up but damn it l know l'm right!!! :P
I've seen some docos and stories about people who were born one sex but where raised the other sex cos of medical procedures gone wrong or other factors and these people said that they never felt like they were the sex that they were brought up to be. There was doco that many people may have seen, l think it was called 'a boy called Bruce' (something like that), anyway when he was a baby his mother wanted to have him circumsised but the doctor that was doing the procedure made a mistake 8O and so they advised the mother to raise him as a girl. They interviewed Bruce (l think he was in his thirties or something) and he said that he was made to believe that he was a girl but that he never felt like a girl.
So l certainly believe it's nature!
Nature vs. Nurture
I think it's both, leaning towards nature. Seems quite impossible that so many different cultures throughout time, including cultures that disdain homosexuals and times of downright persecution, would result in the existence of homosexual people if it was just a nurtured behavior. Hell, my parents didn't exactly nurture me to be "different", though I suppose it's easier to say they somehow failed to nurture me to be "normal". My sister must be the mistake. :wink:
Eh, someday some genius with no foresight at all will show it's all in the transcriptome. Some silly mRNA gone antisense on the genome or some such immoral blesphemy.
I better go read the "restoration" article. 8O
Nature vs. Nurture
I think it's gentetics/nature because there are people from all over the world, from completely different backgrounds who are GLBT and there have been all throughout history. Plus if it was nurture, wouldn't all our siblings be gay? And soon nearly everyone would be queer and we could take over the world!! Mwahahahaha!!!!
I don't think everyone is inherently bisexual because.... well actually I'm not so sure about that one. Maybe we all have it within ourselves to fall in love with a member of either sex but I'd say that is a gift granted to few. Maybe if society didn't have such ridgid rules on sexuality.... dammit starshideyourfires! Now I don't know what I think! :? But mostly, no, I'm pretty sure it's not cos I don't think I'm bi. Am I? :google:
Quote: Plus if it was
Quote: Plus if it was nurture, wouldn't all our siblings be gay?
Not necessarily, because the parent-child relationship is not the only thing that constitutes "nurture" (as used in the Nature vs. Nurture arguments). Nurture refers to a variety of things, such as family, friends, environment, individual experiences, etc. Siblings, even those who are raised together, don't share the exact same interaction with their parents (relationship style differs based on personality...there goes that Nature bit again...), don't always share the same friends, and everyone experiences things in their life that no one else has (one sibling could have cancer or be bullied and the other not, for example)...and so on. I don't think most people believe nurture alone shapes someone's personality, but rather a combination of nature and nurture. I think that's why when you have a set of identical twins, 52% of the time both are gay (while when you have fraternal twins, both are gay only 22% of the time). Identical twins have identical DNA, so if nature was the only factor that determined sexuality, identical twins would share the same sexuality 100% of the time.
Nature vs. Nurture
I've been thinking about this alot. I wonder alot if with me it was nature or nuture. I never met my dad he never wanted anything to do with me. And after my dad my mum really went off men. She never had another relationship. so there were never any men around. And my mum is very anti-men. and sometimes i think never having anyone to call dad or anykind of father figure/male rolemodel maybe at least to some degree contributed to my gayness. men have just never been around you know? there kind of alien to me. I find it difficult to relate to a man. I've always been around women and with my mum telling me that all men are useless and everything. I really have a strong hate for my dad and i dunno contributes to my disconfort with men 8O maybe i have issues with men. But at the same time im a tomboy i even have a slightly deeper voice lol so maybe its nature. I don't really know what to think. Maybe its both. ohhhhhh... the confusion
I don't really want this to be something that came from my dads rejection i would like to think this is me - naturally the way i am. But i can't deny my upbringing was pretty shitty and pretty messed up. i dunno maybe it tilted me. ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Nature vs. Nurture
Copied from a duplicate thread:
[quote:ff087f63da="samm"]ok, i no lots of ppl who hav like theories on why theyr gay, like if its how your born or its a choice. and like if its a chemical thing in your brain or just random. Your thoughts or theories?[/quote:ff087f63da]
[quote:ff087f63da="dweeb089"]haha this reminds me of but im a cheerleader
like when they had to find there root[/quote:ff087f63da]
Nature vs. Nurture
[ADMIN EDIT: Spam deleted :bringit: ]
Nature vs. Nurture
[ADMIN EDIT: Spam deleted]
Nature vs. Nurture
[ADMIN EDIT: My delete key eats spam for lunch]
Nature vs. Nurture
My two cents: I literally had a crush on Karen Carpenter when I was 3 years old. I don't know why, but I LOVED to listen to her voice and I'd sit there imagining her singing. I had a few more of these in childhood. My family life was fine - parents and siblings. Nothing too traumatic. I think I've always been this way, and that's that. My life only got tougher later when I KNEW I was differnt and had to figure out a way to hide it high school.
I therefore think it's mostly inherent. I also think homosexuality is one of nature's way of preventing overpopulation. Sex without conception - IMAGINE THAT! :twisted:
Nature vs. Nurture
[quote:fcfc9477c0="Druj"]
The danger in my belief is if scientist ever find exactly what defines your sexual identity in the human body, some hormone or substance in the brain or whatnot. That kind of knowledge could theoretically be used by religious fanatics and such to medically/surgically change gay people's orientation to whatever suits them. This may sound overly paranoid, but come on, we all know that they would do it if they could.[/quote:fcfc9477c0]
Yes. I was thought about that too. But WE could also use it against THEM and turn them all gay! So quick Druj, lets become scientists and discover this property and carry out the true gay agenda! Mwahaha....ha....ha?
O god, I need to stay off the sugar and get some sleep....
Nature vs. Nurture
[quote:209c2e6891="Druj"]This may sound overly paranoid, but come on, we all know that they would do it if they could.[/quote:209c2e6891]
It doesn't sound paranoid at all - I worry about that, too. I think it's quite true that there are some people who would do it if they could.
My personal opinion about my own sexuality is that it was completely innate... and therefore, I suppose, that there must be a gene for it somewhere. (The one good thing if they did discover a gene for it would be that maybe parents would have to stop blaming and ocstracising their kids... in fact, the kids could say "You made me this way! You passed on the gay gene! It came from you!" Which I basically think is probably what happens).
I think in most cases sexuality is probably inborn... however I do think there are some situations (such as same-sex environments: prisons, schools, etc) where people who would normally be heterosexual can develop homosexual inclinations, at least for as long as there are only ppl of the same sex around. This is why I think that, even if they did find a gay gene and start aborting foetuses that carried it, they still wouldn't manage to wipe out homosexuality from the planet. It's just always going to be there, as a human possibility... and homosexual behaviour will probably always emerge in certain circumstances.
Plus: sexuality is so complex. I really don't think it falls into completely neat categories of gay and straight (or even bisexual)... there are people all along the spectrum. So they might find that, if they wanted to abort people who had any possibility whatsoever of having homosexual inclinations, they would be wiping out an awful lot of people.
It would be interesting, by the way to see the fundamentalist Christians tying themselves into knots over "homosexuality is evil" on the one hand and "right to life/abortion is evil" on the other....
But I suppose the Christian position (at least the majority one) is not exactly that homosexual people should be wiped out: it's just that they should live their lives without ever acting on their homosexual feelings. So maybe the discovery of a 'gay gene' wouldn't really make any difference to their take on things, anyway. It's not that they don't necessarily believe that you can be born gay.... it's just that they seem to think that, even if you are born gay, you should repress it. :evil:
Nature vs. Nurture
i actually wrote my feminism final on this topic this year.... got an A+ (surprisingly) ... anyways it basically comes down to ... after hours upon hours of research... its both, based on my research.
Nature vs. Nurture
FYI, we've also had this discussion here:
http://www.afterellen.com/community/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtop...
and here:
http://www.afterellen.com/community/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtop...
Just Wondering???
How many women here, were sexually abused when they were a child? I think that could also determine our sexual preference.
Robin
Re: Just Wondering???
[quote:ff8391b525="little726"]How many women here, were sexually abused when they were a child? I think that could also determine our sexual preference.
Robin[/quote:ff8391b525]
Hi Robin,
That's a terribly misguided stereotype that I don't believe has ever been proven.
From http://www.ncf.ca/ip/social.services/youth-services/orient/ori2 (the first non-religious/non-biased site I could find that actually went so far as to quote studies) :
[quote:ff8391b525]Another area of misinformation that perpetuates a negative
view of same sex orientation is the belief that sexual abuse makes
people lesbian or gay. Research has indicated that the vast
majority of sexual abusers of both boys and girls are men. It is
illogical to conclude that the experience of being sexually abused
results in men being attracted to other men, while women
become afraid of them (Russell, 1986). In addition, studies among
adult women show that the incidence of sexual abuse among lesbians is
the same as the incidence among the general population of all women.
If sexual abuse led to the development of same sex orientation, the
incidence among lesbians would be much higher. Conversely, if all
girls who were sexually abused developed a same sex orientation,
there would be many more lesbians (Bradford, Ryan and Rothblum,
1994; Loulan, 1987; Russell, 1986).[/quote:ff8391b525]
Nature vs. Nurture
:P