I don’t really have anything new to say on the subject of the heritability of sexual orientation, but it seems that occasionally I have to restate my position on it, because it’s one that I very rarely see in public discussion of this issue, and it’s one that I find immensely clarifying. My latest urge to do so is catalyzed by a post from Jonah Goldberg, on a CBS story.
One of Jonah’s correspondents writes:
Where they come from is irrelevant. Consider the question: Where Do Adulterers Come From?”
By nature, I am an adulterer. Simply put, one woman is not enough and serial monogamy is no solution. My guess is that most men are in the same boat. History supports my hypothesis. Througout history, most cultures have supported polygamy (one man, many women). An incredible number of people continue to support polygamy, including the world’s 1.2 billion Muslims.
However, I have been married for twenty years and have successfully overcome the temptation of adultery. And the temptation has been very real, including outright invitations from very attractive people. So what?
I give myself credit for withstanding the temptation. Yes, I give myself credit for overcoming my natural impulses. Am I wrong? Am I actually a psychological monster who takes great pleasure in torturing myself? I do not believe so. In fact, I believe that my adjustment to a monogamous society has been less difficult than my adjustment to the everyday society of work with all of its Puritannical poses.
So, the question “Where Do Homosexuals Come From?” is irrelevant to the question “Should I behave in accordance with my homosexual impulses?”
While I think that, strictly speaking, the writer has a legitimate point, it’s a matter of degree, and sometimes quantity has a quality all its own. Maintaining his marital vows obviously goes against his nature, but that doesn’t make it miserable. He at least is able to have sexual relations with someone who he finds sexually attractive, which is worth, I think, a lot. I don’t think that you can compare his “sacrifice” with what (I infer) he expects gay people to do–either remain celibate or engage in sexual activity with a gender that they find repulsive (sexually speaking).
Turn society on its head. Suppose that Jonah’s correspondent (assuming that he is a heterosexual) were somehow thrust into a society in which it was heterosexuality, rather than homosexuality, that was disapproved of, or even illegal. How willing would he be to have to engage in sexual relations with men?
I know that the answer for me would be Rosy Palms (assuming that I weren’t physically forced into a homosexual relationship), but I wouldn’t be happy about it. That’s the situation that he asks gay people to accept.
My theory (well, I’m not the first to come up with it–I think that Kinsey did a lot of work in this area) is that peoples’ innate (that is, the degree that is a result of genetics or womb environment) sexual orientation is not a binary state. Most are heterosexual, many are bisexual, and a few are purely homosexual, with gradations in between.
Again, as I’ve said many times in the past, people debating this issue tend to assume that everyone is like them. Even I’m guilty of this to a degree, except that as an extreme heterosexual (and not one formed by my environment–no one ever told me growing up that there was anything wrong with being gay, at least at home), I can understand that a homosexual man is just as turned off at the thought of doing it with a woman as I am at the thought of doing it with a guy (which is to say, a lot). I can’t imagine being a woman and wanting to do it with a man–if I were a woman, I’d be a lesbian.
It’s the people in between, many of whom are capable of and tempted to do it with either sex, who get morally righteous about it, because they assume that everyone is like them, everyone can do it with anyone they want, but that they are morally superior because they choose to only engage in moral, heterosexual activity. I don’t feel morally superior to gays in my decision to stick with the ladies, because I have no choice. I assume that they don’t either.
This point is key to the discussion about gays being “converted” to heterosexuality, via Jesus, or other means. If there are success stories, it’s because they were never really “gay” to begin with, but were bisexual, with potential for heterosexuality. The failures are the ones who are purely homosexual. I know that there is no therapy (short of major brain surgery) that could make me gay. I’m straight, and have been since birth, as far as I can tell. I was never “confused” about my sexual orientation. The instant I became truly aware of the concept of sex (as in desire to engage in it), I was also acutely and instantly aware of the kind of equipment that I wanted my sex partners to have. But I accept that others are not like me (as is obvious by their behavior, both in their choice of bed partners, and in their debating arguments). I don’t know if my theory is correct or not, but it seems to me to fit all the facts, and to have tremendous explanatory power.
[Update a few minutes later]
Derbyshire has a useful comment:
Jonah: That second correspondent of yours illustrates the old legal approach, i.e. that homosexuality is a thing you **do**. The current sensibility in western societies is that homosexuality is something you **are**. This is, as I pointed out in the pages of NR a year or so ago, quite a profound metaphysical shift.
Exactly, and I think that it’s an enlightened sensibility, because it almost certainly corresponds to human reality. I think that adultery is something that someone chooses to do. I don’t think that simply having (non-adulterous) sex with a person with whom you’re oriented to having sex is in the same ethical category.