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The only difference between homosexuals and heterosexuals is that while heterosexuals are attracted to members of the opposite sex, homosexuals are attracted to those of the same sex.
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Therefore, neither homosexuals nor heterosexuals really have a “choice” in the matter, and asking a homosexual “Why are you attracted to other members of your sex” is likened to asking a heterosexual “Why are you attracted to members of the opposite sex?”
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“Why are you attracted to other members of your sex”
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“Why are you attracted to members of the opposite sex?”
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After all, why would anyone choose such a difficult lifestyle?
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Rather, the only actual choice is whether or not to be open with one’s sexuality and sexual preference; whether to act on one’s sexual desires, whether to tell others about such feelings, or whether to live a whole life as a lie and suppress these attractions (Marcus 9).
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To supplement my findings from research, I have conducted personal interviews with two adolescent homosexual males, James Dobbens and Daniel Woods.
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Both were asked how what they thought determined homosexuality (nature vs. nurture) and why, when they realized they were homosexual and how they knew, and similar questions.
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Both believed that homosexual was a result of nature, rather than nurture (Dobbens & Woods).
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Dobbens reasoned that most parents would not raise their children to be homosexual; “They’re not like ‘My child’s going to be gay!”’
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‘My child’s going to be gay!”’
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(Dobbens).
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Dobbens believes that he was born homosexual.
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When why he was a homosexual, he explained “It’s just the way you are, you can’t explain it, I was just born that way, it’s like asking how the world was made – no one really knows” (Dobbens).
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“It’s just the way you are, you can’t explain it, I was just born that way, it’s like asking how the world was made – no one really knows”
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He went on to explain that while his nurture did not impact his sexual orientation, it did affect his view of it.
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When discussing the role of parents and upbringing in a child’s sexuality, he commented “They can bring you up [to be] open minded to [homosexuality], but they don’t bring you up [to be a homosexual]… I grew up in a place where [homosexuality is accepted], so that’s why I’m so open about being gay; I accept myself… [Whether or not you accept homosexuality and can be honest with yourself if you are homosexual] depends on how you’re brought up” (Dobbens).
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“They can bring you up [to be] open minded to [homosexuality], but they don’t bring you up [to be a homosexual]… I grew up in a place where [homosexuality is accepted], so that’s why I’m so open about being gay; I accept myself… [Whether or not you accept homosexuality and can be honest with yourself if you are homosexual] depends on how you’re brought up”
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Woods generally agreed with Dobbens, and justified his belief that homosexuality was caused by one’s nature, rather than nurture, when he commented that “there’s nothing in my upbringing that exposed me to anything like [homosexuality]” (Woods).
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“boyhood”
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In fact, Plato even considered love between two members of the same sex to be the only “real and lasting love” and necessary for democracy.
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When asked why he was gay, he explained that it is simply “something that I can’t help… embedded in my head; nothing made me do it” (Woods).
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He went on to explain that it the same thing as the primitive attraction between males and females, only it was between males and other males.
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He added that “nothing happened [to make me homosexual]; it’s always been there.
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“nothing happened [to make me homosexual]; it’s always been there. I’ve always been attracted to guys”
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I’ve always been attracted to guys” (Woods).
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What I find to be extraordinary about Woods’ case is that he remarked how while he has always been sexually attracted go guys, he is romantically attracted to women in the sense that he has always wanted a girlfriend and to be close with other females, etc… but never in a sexual sense.
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Though he has “always kind of fantasized about getting married [to a female],” these feelings come from his “romantic side, which is different from the sexual side” (Woods).
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“always kind of fantasized about getting married [to a female],”
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What, exactly, causes homosexuality?
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He says that if he married a female with which he shared a strong trust, maybe he could work it out.
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“real and lasting love”
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“It’s like race. It’s all something you can’t help; it all comes to you… It’s internal, you can’t help it”
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It’s all something you can’t help; it all comes to you… It’s internal, you can’t help it” (Woods).
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When asked if he thought homosexuality was caused by a gene, he commented that he thought that it was more of an instinct.
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He gave the example of birds, which are born with instincts such as knowing how to build a next, or catch their prey.
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Woods also thought that maybe it was caused by something in the development of the embryo.
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Furthermore, there were many occurrences of homosexual behavior in Greek mythology; Hercules is rumored to have had 14 male lovers, and Zeus himself partook in such behavior.
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All in all, Woods views homosexuality as “fascinating.”
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“fascinating.”
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His final thought: “I also believe everyone has at least one homosexual attraction.
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“I also believe everyone has at least one homosexual attraction. It’s not black and white [homosexual vs. heterosexual]; it’s a spectrum”
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It’s not black and white [homosexual vs. heterosexual]; it’s a spectrum” (Woods).
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Yet there are arguments against homosexuality as caused by genetics.
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According to Darwin’s theory of natural selection, the advantageous traits are passed on, while the disadvantageous ones eventually die out.
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For instance, heterosexual males have an average of five times as many children as homosexual ones, as a female is required to reproduce children, yet homosexuals are, by definition, not sexually attracted to females.
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Because consequently heterosexual men contribute five times as much genetic information to the next the gene pool, if homosexuality was indeed caused by a gene, it would have died out entirely by now, or at least been reduced immensely in the number of occurrences.
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Since neither of these events have yet taken place, it can be concluded that homosexuality is not caused by a gene (Fulkerson).
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My findings throughout my research have led me to conclude that there is no definitive answer on what causes homosexuality.
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No one knows for sure now (although many think they do), and perhaps no one ever will know the whole truth.
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Nonetheless, I am apt to believe that homosexuality is the product of some kind of combination of genetic and environmental causes.
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Perhaps one may have a genetic predisposition towards homosexuality that has been passed on from previous generations.
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However this does not necessarily determine a homosexual; rather this predisposition must be triggered by environmental factors.
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Even Homer wrote about Achilles and Patroclus, who have been considered to be the perfect model of true love (Emond).
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This is why Bailey and Pillard found in their study that while they was a greatly elevated chance that two males sharing the same genetic makeup would also share the same sexuality, this was not the case 100 % of the time.
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This seems to be the most likely explanation as of now, but even as I write this, new studies are being done.
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Perhaps the truth is right around the corner.
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Works Cited
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APA Online. 2003. American Psychological Association. <http://www.apa.org>. Bailey, J. M., and R. C. Pillard. "A Genetic Study of Male Sexual Orientation." Archives of General Psychiatry 1089-1096 (1991).
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Dobbens, James B. Telephone interview. 6 June 2002. Emond, Charles. Mountain Pride Media. June 1999. <http://www.mountainpridemedia.org>.
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Some would say it is a gene, passed on from parents to child.
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Fulkerson, Richard. Nature and Nurture. 15 Dec. 1999. Iowa State University. <http://www.public.iastate.edu>.
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Homosexuality. Ed. William Dudley. San Diego: Greenhaven P, 1993.
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Isay, Richard A. Being Homosexual. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1989.
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Marcus, Eric. Is it a Choice? San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1993. Wikholm, Andrew. gayhistory.com. 1998. <http://www.gayhistory.com>.
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Woods, Daniel S. Telephone interview. 6 June 2002.
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But it was not until 1869 that the term “homosexual” was first used, to describe “a man or woman whose feelings of sexual attraction are for someone of the same sex” (Marcus 1).
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“a man or woman whose feelings of sexual attraction are for someone of the same sex”
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At this point in time, Karl Maria Kertbeny used the word in a pamphlet which fought to repeal the current antihomosexual laws of Prussia.
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Kertbeny derived this word from the Greek word for “same” and the Latin word for “sex,” whereas a heterosexual is a person” whose feelings of sexual attraction are for the opposite sex” (Marcus 1).
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“sex,”
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” whose feelings of sexual attraction are for the opposite sex”
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Others would argue that it is a result of a child’s upbringing.
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Hirschfeld also founded the Scientific Humanitarian committee, which was mostly homosexual, in 1897.
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The committee published many books and other forms of literature, which gave Hirschfeld a great amount of prestige in his field.
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He became known as one of the founding fathers of sexology, and furthered this position when he opened the world’s first sexological institute, the institute for Sexual Science in Berlin, in 1919, which was destroyed by the Nazis 15 years later.
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Still more would claim that it is a mental illness that can and should be cured.
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The debate over homosexuality has been one of the most long-lasting and controversial ones ever.
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Hirschfeld largely supported the Urning theory of Karl Ulrichs, with minor additions; he believed in some hormonal theories as a cause of homosexuality, but this only led to unsuccessful attempts to “cure” homosexuals with the use of hormone injections.
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This theory, which defined Urnings as males who turned to other males as sexual partners, was published in twelve pamphlets by Ulrichs, starting in1864.
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The first, Vindex, defended Urnings, while the second, Inclusa, which followed shortly after, described the first scientific theory of homoerotic desire.
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“hermaphrodites of the mind,”
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Perhaps then, it is a combination of some of these?
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This, he claimed, made laws such as paragraph 175, a law adopted by King William I throughout the German Kingdoms at the time of their unification which forbade sex between males, and forced criminal penalties upon individuals partaking in such behavior, unfair and unreasonable .
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No one knows for sure, and it is possible no one ever will, but that surely does not stop everyone from coming up with their own theories and beliefs on the matter.
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A couple thousand years after Plato and Homer, Sigmund Freud still believed homosexuality to be a natural behavior.
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In an interview in 1903, he professed his beliefs: “I am… of the firm conviction that homosexuals must not be treated as sick people… Homosexual persons are not sick.
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“I am… of the firm conviction that homosexuals must not be treated as sick people… Homosexual persons are not sick. They also do not belong in a court of law!”
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They also do not belong in a court of law!”
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In 1935, he furthered his claims when he wrote a now famous “Letter to an American Mother” of a homosexual, which stated that “Homosexuality is assuredly no advantage, but is nothing to be ashamed of, no vice, no degradation, it cannot be classified as an illness… Many highly respectable individuals of ancient and modern times have been homosexuals” (qtd. in Isay 3).
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“Letter to an American Mother”
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“Homosexuality is assuredly no advantage, but is nothing to be ashamed of, no vice, no degradation, it cannot be classified as an illness… Many highly respectable individuals of ancient and modern times have been homosexuals”
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However, the general public of the 1800s and early 1900s, including the medical professionals, regarded homosexuality as a curable mental illness.
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Treatments such as castration, hysterectomy, lobotomy, and electroshock therapy were used as attempted cures.
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By the mid 1900s, psychotherapy became the most common “cure,” and many homosexuals spent countless hours being analyzed in hopes of changing their sexual preference (Dudley 125).
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Dr. Evelyn Hooker, a heterosexual psychologist, conducted a ground-breaking study in the mid 1950s that went along similar reasoning as Freud.
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In this courageous experiment, Hooker compared the psychological profiles of sixty men, half homosexual and half heterosexual.
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She disagreed with the popular belief at the time that homosexuality was a mental illness, and concluded that there was no significant psychological difference between homosexual and heterosexual men; “gay” men were no more insane than their “straight” counterparts (Marcus 183).
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“gay”
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Documented homosexuality dates as far back as ancient Greece and other cultures of the time, where it was considered to be a very normal and natural occurrence (Emond).
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