Everyone is free to choose and to be, in my opinion.

As far as homosexuality goes and as with many other things in life, what is most difficult is inside a person, not what other people think of you or how they react. Interior conflict is to a great extent unavoidable, it is through such episodes that one grows.

There is always an element of choice, one chooses one way over another, grosso modo bisexuality or homosexuality; but both options are part of human nature and one is necessarily repressing certain feelings or desires to give a fuller being to others. Sexuality is the stage for very strong feelings, from the earliest age on.

Everyone is free to choose and to be, but in life you have to have cojones and know how to assume your choices and your acts.

Well, yes, what happens inside is important. On the other hand, if you are being excluded, assaulted, discriminated against, shunned, or murdered simply because of who you are, you might think that those things are more difficult than your internal thoughts for the day.


Well, I certainly can't argue with cojones helping with life, although at least half of the human race needs to cope with an alternative, don't they? And, honestly, testosterone can sometimes be more trouble than it is worth.

In terms of freely choosing, I was referring to whether or not one could choose to study the piano and still be true to your personal identity, not whether one could choose one's sexual orientation.

It would be very interesting to hear you or Silverwood Pianos or one of the other contributors to this thread share how you chose your sexuality...

One can only assume that you are naturally attracted equally to both sexes...Did you then make a list of 'pros' and 'cons'? Did you "date" across the spectrum and compare notes? Very curious to hear about your process... I'm sure I am not alone in my eagerness to hear all about it as I have yet to meet anyone who "chose" their sexuality.

Please enlighten us!

If that would be interesting to you cheers but that will have to be on another forum!

As for choosing their sexuality, that is to say, straight or gay, in my opinion all human beings do.

Well, I respect your opinion. However, your opinion seems to be in direct opposition to both the objective, hard science on the subject as well as the personal experience of millions (billions?) of other human beings...

You are indeed special!

Hard science of sexuality? That's either a contradiction ... or a pun !

No.

There have been more developments in our objective understanding of the brain and human beings' in utero development in the past +/- 48 months than in the entire history of the world. And, unless you believe in speculative bronze age myths, fairy tales or magic, you must admit that you, including your sexuality, are your brain and body.

We all carry biases within us. Fortunately, however, the lights are gradually coming on and we don't have to live by superstition and false beliefs anymore...unless we choose to.

When there is evidence bearing on a subject, personal opinion is not of interest.

lol...

You, including your brain and your body (and your piano!) are your sexuality.

Even if there wasn't any scientific evidence, it's still pretty obvious that we don't choose our orientation. I started getting feelings of infatuation at a very young age. Funny how I never felt that way about any males. Did I, as a little tot, decide that I wasn't going to be attracted to males? ...

How very Darwinian of you!
And to think I am managing quite well thank you very much with an-under-six-footer....

Apparently you mean infatuation with girls. But so it is with all boys, even if later in life they don't remember.

Do you really believe that you know today what you felt as a child?



You seem to be quite young, you will certainly be surprised at many attractions that you feel along the long road of life, and at how you will in the future interpret feelings that you had in your youth.

Ah, apparently you have an upright !

Not right now, no.

Uhhh yeah... probably because I have memory. That might be it. You know what, *snap*, by golly that is it! Who would have thought?

How many of you would trade in your present sexual "preference" to become a wealthy concert pianist?

Surely you jest.

I've never met a single person who "chose" their sexual orientation, and I'm a couple of weeks shy of 63. I was attracted to girls at age 5, and yes, I have very clear memories of that, because those thoughts occupied most of my childhood fantasies. (OK, maybe they still do.) So what sort of "choice" could I have been making at the age of 5, when I had never even heard the word "sex"?

And what about the millions of gay people in this world? Are they a mass of raving masochists, who "choose" to be gay so they can enjoy being insulted, ridiculed, and beaten to a pulp? Society may be more tolerant of homosexuality today, but it still remains one tough slog, so the idea that anyone would choose to be gay is ludicrous. Any more than I chose to be straight, or chose to have blue eyes.

By extension, would you also say that left-handed people choose to be lefties so they can struggle their entire lives with appliances made for the rest of us? Frankly, I'm stunned by your comment.

With due respect landorrano, I would have to agree with Old Man. His post certainly makes more intuitive sense.

Old Man,
Nicely spoken.

I don't agree with the Old man!
Homosexuality gets forced down my throat! They tell me that all gays are nice people, they are loving, they are kind,... & bla bla bla . . . Well I remember the first time someone told me what homosexuals do. I said "They put their "WHAT" into another guys "WHAT"??? I was shocked cause I thought, maybe homosexuals missed sex education class. So poop came from that place and I just couldn't wrap my thinking around the strangeness of "doing" that to someones' . . . Each to his own, but I ummmm well, . . . well, I still can't and won't go for that. Nor should I have to!

I watch a tv program where this guy had a love interest in his "sister"! She didn't like how he was acting around here, so the guy went for help from a councellor and solved his stronge desires for his sister. She didn't have the same feelings he did!

Anyways, there are some of us (me) who will never understand how men want men or how woman want woman. It's not that we are "homophobic" just like if I don't want to take "illegal drugs" makes me "drugaphobic"! I don't want to get high, I have a right to not do drugs if I chose not to. I have had people try to force me to take drugs & verbally abuse me for not going ahead with it. Call me a goody 2 shoes but leave me be!! . I personally just won't agree with homosexuallity, nor should I be forced to. I think when a man lays with a woman, a baby is produced. When a man lays with a man, nothing is produced. It just doesn't sit right with me. I don't understand it, so please . . . don't force it down my throat! I'm not beating up gays, I'm just not comfortable with the whole . . . with the whole, thought of it!

Thank you for understanding my side. I have a right to not accept it. Please don't verbally abuse me for having a different view of this than you do!

I play the piano. What I do in my bedroom is my business!

Well then please take your self-satisfied, blissful, ignorant, and intolerant stupidity somewhere else. I don't give a crap what you do in your bedroom.

Just go away. Most of your posts on this board have frankly disgusted me anyway.

You DO know what comes out of the "regular" place, right?

Then what on earth are you doing here?!?!

The one minute you don't like it when someone creates a blood thread about Valentines day in the teachers forum and you vent in there complaining...

And then you come here in someone's thread to proclaim that you don't accept the way of life of others?!?!

As is the business of anyone else here or in the world. Why should you care?

Can a mod please close this thread already?

Yes, her post. Though the 'regular' stuff must be pleasantly fragrant compared to what Diane posted.

This thread was going very well until the turd-in-the-punchbowl arrived to add that extra spice to our otherwise civil discussion.

And good night.

I am sure that this post is representative for any number of forum members who have the self-control to bite their lip, count to ten and avoid posting it on a public forum. Thank you for posting, Diane! It demonstrates why there is so much more work to be done to move our societies from being based on ignorance and hatred instead of love and mutual understanding. I imagine that you are doing the best you can and I have compassion for you as a human being.

Freud would have a hay day with the subconscious-revealing fact that the some of the most rabidly intolerant and homophobic people seem to absolutely love the phrase " forced down my throat ". What's that about anyway?

You seem to be suffering from quite some muddled thinking. Comparing homosexuals to hard drug users makes no logical sense.

As to procreation, actually, the overwhelming majority of all heterosexual sex has nothing to do with producing a baby, just like homosexual sex. It has to do with love and sharing and reveling in "God-given" pleasure.

Goody two shoes because of your bigotry? Hmmm. We wouldn't call you a " goody 2 shoes " if you came on here to proclaim that all Asian-Canadians should be forced to live in ghetto work camps or sent back to where their ancestors came from. So, why would exposing your bigotry towards homosexuals & suggesting that they have no right to be visible in society to avoid impacting your sensibilities make you good?

Interestingly enough, the sodomy laws that for years were on the books (next to the laws legalizing slavery, marginalizing women and prohibiting whites from marrying inferior "coloreds", etc.) all across North America and are still on the books in such lovely, freedom-loving places such as Iran and Saudia Arabia, prohibit all sex between men and women that takes place in the throat and in the other WHAT?. Yet, among teen and young adult heterosexuals, especially on the North American continent, promiscuous casual hookups and throat sex are as common as the common cold and sex in the other WHAT? also has resilient popularity. Yet many homosexuals may have only strictly monogamous decades-long relationships and neither one in their repertoire of sexual behavior. One does not necessarily lead to the other.

You are confusing things and are letting the primitive disgust programming of your reptilian brain and your strange focus on sex acts override your human, humane and rational-thinking pre-frontal cortex. You are in turn choosing to cling to ignorance and beliefs that are bigoted and discriminatory.

There is a difference between a person's innate, "God-given", sexual orientation and one's sexual practices.

Do you honestly believe that if a law were passed making it illegal for you to be heterosexual, that you could simply go to a counselor and, after a few sessions you would be "cured" and sexually attracted to and aroused by women? Is that an underlying fear that feeds your stridency?

But no one is forcing you to be homosexual.
No one is forcing you to have obsessive, uncontrollable prurient thoughts about others' sex lives (although you are one of the very few to choose to even bring them up actually).
No one is forcing you to have a " gay marriage ".
No one is forcing you to have jet black skin.
No one is forcing you to be a Canadian Native American or Inuit.
No one is forcing you to be left-handed, or blind or born without legs.

What people can reasonably expect, however, is that you respect all of the above groups of people for what and who they are and that you work on yourself instead of tearing others down through a childish disgust reaction and bigoted social conditioning.


And, if that is too much to ask, then you might want to follow my mother's advice and "if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all."

It's funny how many arguments against homosexuality, when scrutinised, turn out to be nothing more than 'eeeeeeeew bumsex'. There are far more heterosexuals who engage in the activity which disgusts you. The pure statistics make it so.

As for making babies, well, what you say is also true of the elderly and the infertile, and people who don't want children. There are enough human beings in the world already, why should we be judging the validity of someones love for another human being on whether or not they could produce another mouth for the world to feed?

Oi! This is daily reading for many of us bystanders. Mods, let's stick with the free speech.

LOL!