Before you give your opinion on the question, you should know that I'm not referring to actions. I'm not referring to the actions that demonstrate homosexuality. I'm referring to the attraction and the internal desires of a person. What makes someone attracted to their own gender?

Here's my opinion on the matter. I personally lean towards the psychological explanation. Inherent traits have very little to do with any preferences and desires. A very large chunk of a person's behavior and mental processes are the result of what they've learned or experienced. I don't know exactly what factors cause homosexuality, nor do I know when after a person's birth are a person's sexual desires even formed. I can't say for sure there are no genetic factors though, so I won't dismiss it entirely. Sexual preference is 85-90% psychological and 10-15% genetics imo.

What a person learned from this reinforcement and punishment could remain in a person's subconscious for his/her entire life potentially deciding who s/he is attracted to; what s/he percieves as good and what he percieves as bad. There probably aren't any definitive evinronmental factors that for sure causes certain sexual preference though. Considering how complicated and bizarre the human mind is, I'm pretty sure the cause of sexual preference is also complicated and perhaps bizarre. I think sexual preference is caused similar to most components of our mind; that is, we learn behavior and form beliefs, personalities, values, etc. as a result of what we learn in life.

This does not mean that I think homosexuality is a choice though, at least not a conscious choice. Homosexuality is no more of a choice than a person's favorite color or music genre imo. Sure, the causes of those are mainly psychological, but that doesn't mean it's a conscious choice. I would say that it's a subconscious 'choice.' Essentially, a variety of factors combine and collide inside a person's mind and it eventually makes them desire certain things over another. 

Whatever the cause is, no one truly knows. So what are your opinions on the matter? What do you think effects sexuality? And more specifically, what causes homosexuality?

Summer camp.

was the OP "ask a video gaming forum anything" ?



i mean, srsly, we are hardly able to know why someone drinks Pepsi while the other prefers Coca-cola...

Overpopulation

Justin Bieber and Bud Light. Oh, and lacrosse.

I think it's a genetic mutation of some kind.

It's certainly not a conscious choice. There are far too many examples of homosexuals living in repressive regimes where they are threatened with prison or death for homosexuality. And since heterosexuals do not recall ever choosing to be heterosexual, the same follows for gays.

Environmental...it could be, partially. But plenty of segregated, patriarchal cultures have still had very low incidences of homosexuality. As far as can be ascertained, single sex schools do not produce more homosexuals than co-ed schools.

That leaves only biology. But of course, no matter what the cause, there is no reason to treat it as anything wrong or inferior to heterosexuality.

Kantor said: Environmental...it could be, partially. But plenty of segregated, patriarchal cultures have still had very low incidences of homosexuality. As far as can be ascertained, single sex schools do not produce more homosexuals than co-ed schools.

I don't think that lessens the significance of environmental factors. In my opinion, environmental factors deals more with how a person learns to perceive men vs women (or femininity vs masculinity). It deals more with how someone learns to value males or females and therefore associating pleasure with one over the other. Same sex schools have very little to do with encouraging someone to value same sex. Same sex schools only make students come into contact with the same sex. That doesn't suggest that they would value same sex. If anything, it suggests that people would value the opposite sex since it would be more rare.

See I disagree with it being genetics, being the environment, and/or it being a choice.

Being gay (in my opinion) has nothing to do with what gives you pleasure or how your dad treated you. Looking back all the way to elementary school I remember all my bro friends who I had a great time with. But when becoming a friend with one of them I never cared about what they looked like (sexy wise, not hygiene wise). Same goes for friends that were girls. For my crushes however looks always factored in. I remember all the way back in first grade having a crush on a girl. Fast forward 12 years and the image of a hot chick is stimulating while the image of a dude is whatevs.

Obviously by age six I already was going to grow up with an attraction for girls so puberty and the "environment" couldn't be what makes a person not like the opposite sex. If that was the case everyone would be straight or bi, not gay.

But then I also don't agree with there being a "gay gene". People's sexual orientation could be influenced by genetics but a specific gene fully dictating what turns you on is ludicrous.

In my opinion people are gay because there is something in the water... aka I have no clue.

I'd go with genetic factors. I don't know man. I dare not go near a dick and wanna suck it. I'm so drawn to beautiful women like Dianna Agron, Anne Hathaway and Natalie Portman. They are my dream girls. I'd give up video games for Dianna Agron.

Almost purely genetics. It is something that needs more study though.

It's certainly not a free choice, and if there was an environmental method to produce no or fewer homosexual people I'm sure religion would have found it.

It's not nearly as simple as binary gender preference. Even what people prefer in the opposite sex is wildly different, and there's more differences between possible body attributes/types than between the two genders.