Choosing lesbianism, less personal.

[Ravenvalles]

It is not conscious, it is trial and error. We repeat behaviors that pay off, and stop behaviors that do not. If a person is Bi, society pushes them to Hetero, and has many rewards for Hetero behavior.

So homosexuals are pushed by societal pressure to be homosexual based on the many rewards of being homosexual?

No, Bi are pushed to hetero by society. Homo are too for that matter.

[Dakini]

Please fix your quotes, I didn't say that.

I can fix my own damn quotes.

Not everyone does.

[Femnipotent]

Perhaps you can. Many people have experiences which tell them they can't.

I have been repeatedly told this is impossible, based on other people's 'experiences'.

I was not alive during the time political lesbianism was at it's height some 30 years ago. From what I've read, back then there were communes starting up all over the western world and numerous publications.

The participants found the truth that women could be just as abusive, controlling, and manipulative as men can be.

They found that real (natural) lesbians had many different viewpoints on feminism.

Even political lesbian "feminists" fought constantly about what that even meant.

I don't know if there are still any pure "political lesbians" (ie, people who are lesbian "by choice" ) still practicing. Nearly all of them realized how impractical it is.

You just admitted you do not know how many still practice it, so how can you claim that 'nearly all...realised how impractical it is'?

Nor do I understand the constant need to discuss how 'women are just as [insert claim here] as men'. Is this so that people choosing this path change their minds and just accept men because humans are supposedly 'equally flawed'?

The ones who still call themselves by that term now tend to be actual natural lesbians who deal with both men and women in their daily life, having long ago abandoned the idea of working on a farm with other women they can't stand just to make a political point that no one but a handful of individuals could even understand.

"Natural lesbians" (so if they did stay in homosexual relationships it was because they were always this way, the Catch22 of the debate).

I have no need to go work on a farm or live in a commune.

[Iuuvic]

So homosexuals are pushed by societal pressure to be homosexual based on the many rewards of being homosexual?

No, Bi are pushed to hetero by society. Homo are too for that matter.

Societal pressure swaying orientation had plenty to do with his point.

He was only making the argument for bisexuals.

So no Bi's become gay? Or gays who were Bi only come from societies that reward homosexual behaviour?

[Femnipotent]

What I am seeing here as I saw in the other thread, is that people are extremely threatened by even the discussion of sexual orientation as a choice. Again, why is that?

Why do you think?

A great many gay people (and no few bisexual people) at one point wanted to be straight. A great many invested much effort to become straight: not just "choosing to be attracted" to people of the opposite sex, but having sex and having serious relationships with people of the opposite sex, and sometimes undergoing "reparative" "therapy" to "fix" themselves. None of it works.

Now, you might say, they shouldn't have felt the need to try--heterosexuality is not morally superior to homosexuality--and it makes no difference to the rightness of gay rights whether or not homosexuality is a choice. And I agree. But that misses the point. What do you make of all those people's experiences? Are they liars? Are they deluded? Were they just not "really" trying?

What about people who identify as "ex-gay"? Having accepted the legitimacy of "conversion," ought we to take such people's declared "straight" orientation seriously, as much as we might disagree with their moral views of homosexuality? Instead of emphasizing the importance of authenticity, and of the freedom to live authentically, should we instead emphasize the importance of "choice," of seeing sexual orientation as something like a taste in food, perhaps not directly under conscious control yet nonetheless subject to change through conscious will? Should we do this despite the fact that as a matter of actual, concrete fact this notion has meant, not freedom, but rather an immensity of suffering and shame for many gay and bisexual people?

I did attempt to address this issue in the other thread, pointing out that I do believe the refusal to even discuss this is based on the way hateful bigots have used the issue of 'choice' versus 'nature' to suppress and punish homosexuality.

That is not a reason to not discuss it at all.

[New Heliopolis]

Hate to tell you this, but you don't choose to make your heart beat either. There's no evidence sexual orientation is a choice.

There are actually some fringe cases of people who have mastered their heartbeats...

I'll find a source eventually, but for now please be as satisfied with my non-sourced statement as I was with yours.

Not really...

How does therapy work then? Especially the way they treat phobias, which is exposure...

and why would you medicate something that isn't a disease?

ADHD isn't particularly disease-like, and there's medication for it.

I had the good points, shouldn't I be the one getting a cookie or something?

You didn't give me those. You received my thumbs up.

[Mimic]

I did attempt to address this issue in the other thread, pointing out that I do believe the refusal to even discuss this is based on the way hateful bigots have used the issue of 'choice' versus 'nature' to suppress and punish homosexuality.

That is not a reason to not discuss it at all.

This seems to be a very common tactic, tbh. Making statements that implicitly or explicitly diminish the worth of others and dismiss their negative experiences as not real, refusing to address them explicitly and then playing the victim when people call you out for it -- hiding behind the "just asking questions" screen. It's like all those people who make "hypothetical" statements about how women might just be biologically wired to be inferior to men, or who are "just asking questions" about why blacks commit more crimes than whites, etc etc. Gaslighting is bad mmkay.

[Iuuvic]

So no Bi's become gay?

I might like males more right now but I still like both, so I don't see how that works.

It does not work, thats the point. Its unfounded to say that bi's become hetero due to societal pressue but not homosexual...Orientation is not the result of some kind of super peer-pressure & there is no convincing evidence to say that would be the case.

[Femnipotent]

Type not so much, gender very much so.

So you claim. I will also take the liberty of just ignoring your various insults.

Unless you believe that the ex-gay shit is reasonable which means that you've apparently ignored studies demonstrating that it's nothing other than abuse that doesn't change a person's sexual orientation at all (the "best" it does is forces gay men and lesbians into the closet).

Unlike gays shamed into pretending they are heterosexual, I am not being shamed or forced into anything. My growing attraction to women is real, because I am a conscious being who can actively control my reactions.

The idea that love and attraction MUST be things that merely crash over you, and cannot be controlled or in any way brought out intentionally from within is ridiculous romantic mush. Rich people don't suddenly decide that in fact they really do like living with some trailer trash welfare queen. Nor are they told that they cannot choose what class of people they are allowed to be attracted to.

I do not think gender is such an important thing that the line of what you can choose must be drawn there. For people who claim that gender is a social construct and that sexuality is fluid, it seems bizarre and contradictory to then claim that you cannot choose to be attracted to either gender if you choose. Either you believe gender is NOT a social construct that can be overcome and that sexuality is NOT fluid, or you don't. Which is it?

And you know what, how about you stop using my word (well, a word shared with others and that I didn't coin, of course) while you're at it. Stop calling yourself a feminist. You are not a feminist. Feminists want equal rights. You are a misandrist who belittles women and treats them like perpetual victims while ignoring all of their flaws.

It isn't your word, and you do not get to define me out of it. Sorry. Nor do you get to assume a great many things about me and pass it off as truth.

[Femnipotent]

Once again the claim is being made that you have absolutely no power over who you are attracted to, as though you were imprinted at birth to find a specific gender and type attractive, and that's merely your lot in life. That makes very little sense given how people do in fact change their preferences over time.

But do people do so consciously (that is, as effect of a choice) or subconsciously (that is, as effect of something beyond the control of their own will)?

What in your subconscious cannot be in your control, if you take the time and effort?

We are not slaves to our unconscious minds any more than we are slaves to our biology.

[Femnipotent]

But arguing that sexual orientation is a choice

No. I said it can be a choice. The rest of your post is therefore based on a false foundation and no longer relevant.

[Ravenvalles]

Affection, is independent of the object. A straight man may feel attraction for a lesbian.

The cardboard box may feel attraction for the man if you can withhold disbelief.

If the cardboard box feels anything, it is within the cardboard box, not the object of it's affection. As a side note, I have a cardboard box that has pasta within. What is the box feeling? My guess is fulfilled.

[Femnipotent]

To me, I hope it's a choice simply because, well...I don't like being biologically forced to have one orientation, or at least, for other people to be. That would just be a depressing hit to my belief in willpower...

If people had much willpower you wouldn't be living in a corrupted corporate pseudo-democracy.

Not all people do. Not many people even try. Especially when they are told that there is no point because the choice is entirely out of your hands.

Sounds a lot like religious reasoning actually.

[Femnipotent]

I did attempt to address this issue in the other thread, pointing out that I do believe the refusal to even discuss this is based on the way hateful bigots have used the issue of 'choice' versus 'nature' to suppress and punish homosexuality.

That is not a reason to not discuss it at all.

This seems to be a very common tactic, tbh. Making statements that implicitly or explicitly diminish the worth of others and dismiss their negative experiences as not real, refusing to address them explicitly and then playing the victim when people call you out for it -- hiding behind the "just asking questions" screen. It's like all those people who make "hypothetical" statements about how women might just be biologically wired to be inferior to men, or who are "just asking questions" about why blacks commit more crimes than whites, etc etc. Gaslighting is bad mmkay.

Gaslighting indeed, only not in the direction you claim.

I am not making any hypothetical statement. I am speaking about my own work in this area as someone who has consciously chosen to become a lesbian. If it sounds 'hypothetical' that is only because the last thread was closed for being 'too personal' and I am forced to frame the question as though I am not speaking directly about myself.

[Ravenvalles]

No, Bi are pushed to hetero by society. Homo are too for that matter.

He was only making the argument for bisexuals.

So no Bi's become gay? Or gays who were Bi only come from societies that reward homosexual behaviour?

Not saying that, just that society pushes Bi to Hetero. There may be some outliers that are the exception, but this is true in most situations.

[Soheran]

That is not a reason to not discuss it at all.

It's not the discussion that bothers me. It's the discussion as if those experiences don't exist, as if we don't have a great and powerful reason to reject the "choice" model of sexual orientation, as contrary to the experiences of the many gay people who have attempted to become straight under intense pressure.

It is not a neutral or idle fact that "hateful bigots" press this point so strongly. Instead of authentic self-expression of the nature of one's sexual and romantic being, homosexuality becomes an expression of moral or political conviction, or, sometimes, a cultural fad. Instead of an identity, it becomes merely a species of conduct, the next step in "sexual liberationism." It would be one thing if this were actually what homosexuality is. I would demand equal respect for it anyway. But this is not what homosexuality is: not for the vast majority of actually existing gays and lesbians.

[Iuuvic]

So no Bi's become gay? Or gays who were Bi only come from societies that reward homosexual behaviour?

Not saying that, just that society pushes Bi to Hetero. There may be some outliers that are the exception, but this is true in most situations.

May want to be careful with that word 'true'...

[New Heliopolis]

If people had much willpower you wouldn't be living in a corrupted corporate pseudo-democracy.

Willpower can affect others' minds as well...not even in the supernatural/psi manner, but well...force of personality exists.

Not all people do. Not many people even try. Especially when they are told that there is no point because the choice is entirely out of your hands.

And this, though less the last part.

[Ravenvalles]

No, Bi are pushed to hetero by society. Homo are too for that matter.

Your argument doesn't really work because there are plenty of places in the United States that are perfectly accepting of bisexuals. I don't think they have abnormally high rates.

My experiences are that accepting is not the same as endorsing. How many openly Gay parents hope that their children are also Gay? I would venture not many.

[Femnipotent]

That is not a reason to not discuss it at all.

It's not the discussion that bothers me. It's the discussion as if those experiences don't exist, as if we don't have a great and powerful reason to reject the "choice" model of sexual orientation, as contrary to the experiences of the many gay people who have attempted to become straight under intense pressure.

It is not a neutral or idle fact that "hateful bigots" press this point so strongly. Instead of authentic self-expression of the nature of one's sexual and romantic being, homosexuality becomes an expression of moral or political conviction, or, sometimes, a cultural fad. Instead of an identity, it becomes merely a species of conduct, the next step in "sexual liberationism." It would be one thing if this were actually what homosexuality is. I would demand equal respect for it anyway. But this is not what homosexuality is: not for the vast majority of actually existing gays and lesbians.

This discussion is very much centered around the impossibility of choice having any part in sexual orientation. I have not in any way said that experiences to the contrary (ie, no conscious choice) don't exist but I have had man people repeatedly claim there is no way I or anyone else can control the process of attraction or sexual orientation.

How is that better? Is pretending that only one way is possible (ie. no conscious choice) going to protect homosexuals from anti-gay bigotry? Really? I sort of doubt it.

[Slakonian]

I don't have anyhting against homosexuals as long as they look they stick to their ''job'' and i mine of course.No offense inteded..just to keep it on the record,i hope you understand.

[Ravenvalles]

Not saying that, just that society pushes Bi to Hetero. There may be some outliers that are the exception, but this is true in most situations.

May want to be careful with that word 'true'...

Well, show me how that would work, and where. I can only think of a few instances or places.

[Iuuvic]

May want to be careful with that word 'true'...

Well, show me how that would work, and where. I can only think of a few instances or places.

Thats kind of the point...It does not work, you are saying heterosexuality is defined by societal pressures but homosexuality is, what? Immune to societal pressures? Your argument makes no sense and shows no evidence to support that the orientation (of hetero from bi) is the result of societal pressure...And yet you say its true.

[Soheran]

This discussion is very much centered around the impossibility of choice having any part in sexual orientation. I have not in any way said that experiences to the contrary (ie, no conscious choice) don't exist but I have had man people repeatedly claim there is no way I or anyone else can control the process of attraction or sexual orientation.

How many gay people do you think have successfully managed to choose to be straight?

How is that better? Is pretending that only one way is possible (ie. no conscious choice) going to protect homosexuals from anti-gay bigotry? Really? I sort of doubt it.

As a matter of practical fact, "It's not a choice" tends to be rhetorically effective. But my concern here is not so much protecting gay people from anti-gay bigotry (I don't think the wrongness of anti-gay bigotry hinges on this question), but rather illustrating how the "choice" picture marginalizes the experiences of gay people. It undermines an important message of the gay movement, a message rooted in those experiences: don't try to change, accept yourself for who you are.

[Dread Lady Nathicana]

please read like Winston Churchill

*flame generals urgent meeting*

It would seem our old foe codenamed "Feminazi" has made a new thread. Trying to restart her old thread about turning a sexual preference: "lesbian" into a horrible mutated ideology known as lesbianism.

Now there are several routes to attack her "stronghold" (see image http://www.ecotopia.co.uk/product_images/medium/BB0124;Warehouse;Warehouse.jpg).

Route 1 - Logic

She continues to believe that you can somehow avoid sexuality and bypass it with ideology. She will argue with pseudo-science myths that you will have no problem defeating this argument. Simple explanations of how sexuality is not a choice or even examples from personnel experience will crush her arguments and bring it to a close.

Route 2 - Natural

If she perseveres on the false idea that somehow nothing is natural and everything is socially constructed. This is a condition of her ideology and so should be fought vigorously with matters of ideology. Once again you can use simple or complex explanations or examples from experience.

Turn around - The Patriarchy and Male Hatred

If the matter of the patriarchy should arise or a matter where she obviously tries to disregard men as inferior, no matter how subtle, she should be notified immediately of the consequences via multiple convincing messages that will break apart the false ideas she holds high.

Finally - Flaming Guidelines

Remember don't go too far, play safe let them take it to the next level before you do.

Now fly safe and flame calmly.

The Yremia Corporate: Clearly your last warning didn't hold. Take a day off to reconsider. If you have nothing of content to offer a conversation past inflammatory rhetoric, kindly leave off and go do something else with your time. Thank you. 1-day Ban.