When Did You Choose To Be Straight?

[DeSwiss]

Run time: 03:00 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJtjqLUHYoY   Posted on YouTube: February 14, 2008 By YouTube Member: ranchorialto Views on YouTube: 107081   Posted on DU: October 16, 2010 By DU Member: DeSwiss Views on DU: 583

 
- A good question can sometimes change minds instantly.....

[defendandprotect]

1. K&R ---

:)

[MadMaddie]

2. Great Question!

It really made people think about their lives in relations to gay lives.

Well done to the interviewer!

[valerief]

3. Terrific clip with a simple question. nt

[gateley]

4. Perfect. nt

[Rhiannon12866]

5. K&R! Well done!

And off this goes to The Greatest Page! :applause:

[Wednesdays]

6. I remember the exact date...February 23, 1979

A girl in my college dorm bed...I never thought being with a girl could feel so great, so I said to myself, "Damn, I think I'm gonna be straight from now on!"

Oh, wait. Damn it, that's right...I'd already been fantasizing about girls for years before that.
:loveya:

[Karenina]

7. Cut to the chase!

:applause:

[dmr]

8. See what happens when people stop & use their brains!

Too bad someone had to come along & make them think about it, but I'm glad he did.

Awesome video. Thanks for posting it.
:hi:

[DeSwiss]

9. You're welcome!

[felix_numinous]

10. People make the decision to be Christian

or to have an ideology, but cannot make the decision to be who they are. I was just posting this on another OP about agnosticism and the challenge they are having to be heard. I said that we have beliefs, we are not our beliefs. People say I am a christian instead of I am ____who believes____. This reductionist use of language makes people over-identify with their beliefs and ideologies.

It is another issue altogether to apply this kind of thinking to gay people, since gay is not even a label, it describes someone's being. So I guess my contribution to this discussion is this: if people cannot fathom that they are not their beliefs, then it would follow that they would then label people as their state of being, and think this was a decision. I hope I am making sense here.

This is in no way an excuse for ignorance and bigotry, just an observation about the misuse of language.

[DeSwiss]

11. You make two excellent points.

In my experience though, it's less of a decision and more the result of familial/group persuasion/coercion. I say this because exposure to religions more often than not begins in childhood. And when one grows up seeing family members and close friends adopt religious beliefs it becomes virtually impossible to resist. Fear of being ostracized obviously plays a large part in this decision. This may also explain why people "become their labels" since such religious experience occurs at a time when identity is first being formed.

However, when children become religious followers, they are doing so at a time when most are least capable of making an informed decision. Rarely do they seek out comparisons or alternatives to religious belief and religions don't encourage such comparisons. Although with the advent of the internet this is changing quite a bit. Usually by the time a person reaches an age where they may begin to have doubts and question their prior decision, it is usually a fate accompli.

As to how all this applies to sexual orientation, I agree with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinsey_scale">Alfred Kinsey's view:

"The world is not to be divided into sheep and goats. It is a fundamental of taxonomy that nature rarely deals with discrete categories... The living world is a continuum in each and every one of its aspects."