Is Homosexuality A Choice?
Dating women is my choice, being attracted to women is not. The difference between sexual attraction and sexual identity.
‘Sexuality’ tends to be used as an all-encompassing term, with the expectation that our sexual attraction (i.e, who we are romantically and/or sexually attracted to) is always in line with our sexual identity (how we label ourselves- queer, gay, lesbian, bisexual, straight, etc), and sexual behavior (who we have sex with).
However, this isn’t always the case, especially for members of the LGBTQ+ community where sexuality isn’t so black and white as ‘fall in love with who you are attracted to.’
This can be due to several reasons such as the prejudice that sexual minorities can so often face, either from society at large (remember that only 3.2% of people in the UK identify as LGBTQ+, and that it was only 10 years ago* that gay marriage was legalised in the UK), or even from themselves via internalised homophobia, something which can see people labeling and presenting their sexuality in a way that does not fit with who they actually are/their sexual orientation.
Not because being gay is a choice and they are ‘choosing’ to be straight instead, but because acting on one’s sexuality is a choice and they are choosing not to act on it.
*When gay marriage was only legalised in the UK 10 years ago, (in 2014), it’s irrefutable that we are a minority and that we do face prejudice for that.
Before 2014, homosexual couples were refused the same rights as heterosexual couples. They couldn’t pledge their love for each other in a formal marriage ceremony, with their love deemed to be ‘unworthy’ of being recognised by the state, simply for being two members of the same sex.
What does that tell a kid who is realising their sexuality, confused about the feelings they have, and why what the world is telling them is ‘wrong’ feels so right.
But wrong.
But…
right?
It doesn’t offer much hope in easing that confusion/in reassuring them that their feelings are not ‘wrong’, hence why so many people do struggle to express their sexuality as it actually is and not as they think it should be in order to appease society’s expectations…
A notable example of someone who publically struggled to express his sexuality ‘back in the day’ can be seen in Elton John when his marriage to a woman (pictured above) made the news, arguably an attempt to detract attention away from any narrative of him being gay, a potential career-ender in the 60s when he first started out.
As Elton John wrote in an Instagram post to address his first marriage, ‘I wanted more than anything to be a good husband, but I denied who I really was, which caused my wife sadness, and caused me huge guilt and regret.’
Elton and his sound technician wife, Renate Blauel, divorced after four years, with Elton coming out as gay shortly afterward. Not that his coming out came as a surprise…
Rod Stewart’s congratulatory telegram to Elton on his wedding day just about summed up the mood.
In theory, I could do an 80s Elton John, just to ‘go along with’ a heteronormative life (an ‘easier’ life) but would I be happy?...
I could go on Tinder right now and change my preferences to men.
I could date a man, marry a man, and spend the rest of my life with a man.
The choice to embrace my queerness is very much that,
a choice.
However, being queer itself is not a choice. As Elton John proved, to use the example above, one can deny their sexuality and choose to live a lie, but it doesn’t change anything…
Marrying a woman as a gay man does not eradicate same-sex attraction.
And so ultimately, denying who you are, pretending to be something/someone that you are not, is futile. It doesn’t change who you are, it just leaves you thinking that who you are is ‘wrong’/something that you have to hide.
And, as we all know, when you deny yourself something, it only makes you want it more, as is proven by diets (they don’t work) and, to stick with the theme of this article, conversion therapy (it doesn’t work).
Having sex with another woman, as a woman, is a choice, but the fundamental sexual attraction to said woman isn’t a choice. People cannot choose how their nervous system reacts to stimuli.
To use myself as an example here, when I was 14, I was sexually attracted to women, I liked my friend in ‘that’ way, and she liked me in ‘that’ way too, but my sexual identity was straight because the internalised homophobia that I had was too strong for me to accept myself.
Absolutely terrified of how people would react should they find out, I backtracked, said I didn’t really mean it, ‘it was a joke!!’
And so I lived a lie, pretending to be something/someone that I wasn’t.
And again, it happened again at 17…
When I was 17, my sexual attraction and sexual identity were more in line (I identified as bisexual, a step up from straight, slow steps but I was getting there), but my sexual behaviour still wasn’t in line, because even holding hands with a woman in public made me feel ‘wrong.’
The entirety of my adolescence spent doing the whole ‘it’s just a phase’ thing.
On myself.
In fact, it’s only been in the last year that every aspect of my sexuality has aligned, and that I have reached a point where I embrace it and no longer fear my own desire, or fear what other people will think of it.
I love this part of myself now, and I love women and I wouldn’t want it any other way, but it’s taken me several years to get to this point…
Would I change the ‘journey’ if I could go back, have made it more ‘black and white?’
When at 14 I reciprocated the feelings my friend had for me in ‘that’ way, would I have told the internal monologue I had of ‘this is wrong this is wrong this is wrong’ to fuck off and have just embraced my sexuality?
Surprisingly, no, I don’t think that I would actually, for I believe that I had to go through the discomfort of ‘finding myself’ to get to where I am now, and that having felt such resentment for myself then, I appreciate the contentedness I have now, all the more, the fear I used to feel towards my desire having been replaced with pride.
To people who do claim that being gay is a choice, the concept should be turned on its head and applied to them.
‘If being gay is a ‘lifestyle choice’, then so is being straight.’
‘You have chosen the straight lifestyle, but you can just as easily choose the gay one.’
‘I want you to flip the switch and become gay.’
You can’t.
You just really, really, can’t…
But, alas, see how they respond. Because, based on their theory that sexuality is chosen, they are choosing to be straight, in which case they could sleep with someone of the same sex and be turned on.
Sounds ridiculous, right?
That’s because it is, yet it is exactly what straight people say about gay people…
When straight men say to lesbians ‘You’ve not tried this one’, as though they genuinely believe that sexuality can change at the click of a finger, ridiculous.
Ridiculous that, if a gay man were to echo this sentiment to a straight man, ‘You’ve not tried this one’, they’d be punched in the face. But as always, double standards.
‘Being gay is not a choice, just like being straight is not a choice. People don’t wake up one morning when they are 12 and decide they want to be harassed and hated by the ignorant masses for the rest of their lives.’
The choice to act on one’s sexual attraction is what some religious people use against gay people. Just because someone is born a ‘sinner’, it doesn’t mean that they should sin, is what some religious people claim.
But to them, I would ask, what’s the alternative?
To live a lie?
Because yes, one can indeed deny their desires, squash them down, wish away their existence, but they’re always going to be there (squashing something down does not get rid of it) when ‘it’ is out of control, ‘in-built’, something within, NOT a choice.
Like trying to change our eye color, we cannot change our sexuality because it is who we are, not something that we ‘choose.’
I genuinely do think that if being gay were a choice though, then I would still choose it (now). But, would I have chosen it ten years ago as a confused kid?
Probably (definitely) not…
Thinking that it was ‘wrong.’
Thinking that I was wrong.
Was I wrong?
My Grandad certainly thought so. He would frequently make comments about being gay as if it were a crime (which I understand in a way, not that it made it right but back in his day it was a crime to be gay).
‘If any of you were to come out as gay I’d disown you.’
I never told him when he was alive, never told anyone in fact, not explicitly, but when he passed away last year I wrote him a letter and burnt it, came out in the letter, told him that I hoped that he’d have loved me anyway.
Cathartic, but bittersweet, knowing that I would never get to hear his answer.
I hope he would have still loved me…
I know that I’m not alone in having grown up around these beliefs/that I have had it so so easy compared to some.
When I told my Dad last year (and when I say that I ‘told my Dad’, I was telling him about having been on a date, using ‘they/them’ pronouns to describe them (see, I’m even doing it now) until I just thought ‘fuck it’, and dropped the ‘she’ bomb.
And guess what?
He didn’t care.
He didn’t react any differently than he would’ve done had it been a guy.
But not everyone has parents who are as open-minded as my dad. Kids are kicked out of their homes for being gay, and disowned by their entire families, simply for falling in love with the ‘wrong’ gender.
If sexuality was a choice, do you really think that people would choose that?
Do you think that people would choose to risk their lives for being open about their desires?
To risk prosecution, execution, even?
Who would choose that, if it were a choice?
(Which, of course, it isn’t)…
People often point to them knowing of their sexuality from an early age to dismiss the ‘being gay is a choice’ conspiracists (i.e. homophobes). So, were there any ‘signs’ when I was younger?
Reflecting back, there were ‘signs’ that I recognise now, definitely, but knowing that the way I felt towards women wasn’t ‘normal’, it was all internalised.
I was never ‘open’ with my sexuality as such but my celebrity crushes?
All women.
I was obsessed, and when I say obsessed, OBSESSED, with Cher Lloyd (hilarious), a contestant on the X Factor in 2010 (I was 9- the earliest I can identify knowing that I had ‘feelings’ for women. Knowing but not being able to put a name to it).
And then it was Paloma Faith.
And then it was Cara Delevigne.
And then, at 13, it was Laura Prepon (Alex Vause in Orange is the new black- don’t ask me why I was watching that at 13).
And then it was a verryyy long stretch of teachers throughout school.
And then, at 16, it was my psychiatrist (who I hated with a passion but she was ridiculously hot).
And then it was Jodie Comer.
I genuinely cannot think of one male celebrity crush I had which I guess, upon reflection, is very telling, something which my inner child is mortified about, the prospect of people somehow having ‘worked it out’, the part of me that I was so desperately trying to hide (and that’s on me having the worst internalised homophobia).
But oh, how things change…
In January I was in London on a date with someone, sat outside a bar, waiters clearing up around us while we were kissing for a good (& it was very good) ten minutes, and I remember sitting on the train on my way home reflecting on how far I’ve come to be able to do that.
When only a few years prior I wouldn’t have even been able to kiss a woman in private without it feeling ‘wrong’, yet there I was, outside a bar in the middle of central London being open with my desire, and it felt so right.
It was after that night that I ‘properly’ came out to myself, and embraced it, because how could something that made me feel like that be ‘wrong?’
It couldn’t.
It can’t.
It isn’t.
It might have taken me 22 years to realise that but I got there…
To be able to kiss her outside a bar in the middle of London, waiters clearing up around us, for what felt like ten minutes*.
*It probably wasn’t ten minutes, it was probably about two but I was in my own little world where time stood still and all I was thinking about was the softness of her lips and the rhythm and how if I had more confidence I’d have said ‘let’s get out of here’ but I didn’t so I just kept kissing her and when she pulled away to ask me if I was okay I leaned back in because I didn’t want her to stop and the rhythm and the softness of her lips and the rhythm the rhythm and the feeling that overcame me when she looked at me like that and…
everything.
Everything about it was amazing.
And I ruined it by being too ‘full on’ after ( top tip: ‘casual’ doesn’t mean writing them poetry about how obsessed you are), but it was the feeling that I was obsessed with, I now realise.
Not obsessed with her, someone I had met literally once, but with what that night meant.
From kissing her to walking past two men at the entrance to Kings Cross after I’d left her, enveloped in each other’s arms- it felt like a fitting end to the night.
Overcome with a sense of gratitude for all those who came before us, for all of the people who had to fight for their right to exist in a world within which being gay was a crime, not just in their own minds but according to society at large.
When you feel like you’ve spent your whole life locked out, only for someone to give you the key and let you in, you don’t want to leave. It felt like ‘home’ because it was the first time that I’d let myself go home, to myself.
The first time that I caught myself thinking;
‘Oh, how things change.’
(and that they do).
❤