Is it a Choice?

My Tivo captured an episode of the Tyra Banks show (its programmed to record anything having the word 'gay' in it) where she interviewed gay guys that hate being gay. The videos on YouTube are here. At the end of the show, Tyra asked:

"But the big question is, do you think that someone can ever really just stop
being gay?"

I thought that I'd answer that question here.

My answer might surprise you. The answer is both no and yes.

Speaking from the "gay" side, the problem is that we are assuming that everyone is just like us. However, the reality is that sexual orientation is not a binary, straight/gay issue. Consider the Kinsey Scale where Kinsey rated sexual orientation on a scale from 0 to 6. A '0' indicates that someone is exclusively heterosexual whereas a '6' indicate someone that is exclusively homosexual. The problem is that the gay community is predominantly composed of 5's and 6's. Why? Because we 5's and 6's are the most miserable trying to live a straight lifestyle and therefore more likely to come out. Of course for us 5's and 6's, it isn't even close to a choice and we wonder why this isn't as obvious to everyone else as it is to us. Why can't they understand that we can no more like women, than they can like men?

The reason that this argument can't work is that many of the people believing it is a choice do like men... or at least a little anyway. I think the people making this argument is most likely composed of the 2's, 3's and 4's. This means that they have probably had same-sex desires from time to time and perhaps even had an encounter or two. They really do choose. They can't choose who they're attracted to, but they can choose who they have sex with and enjoy that choice.

We'll ever convince them that our gayness is not a choice because their own life experiences, which they absolutely will never admit to, tells them otherwise. We will eventually win equality, but it won't by using this argument.