Sexual Orientation: Nature or Nurture?

Jerlene said:

I was thinking about a study I read about years ago. The study showed that sexual orientation, specifically in men, is likely to be a biological (prenatal, in fact) occurrence. It showed that men are likelier to be gay if he has biological brothers through his mother. I thought it was interesting. But then there is a part of me that feels like if someone who received little to no attention in their childhood finds that attention with someone when they're older they are likely to form a romantic partnership, regardless of sex.

What are your personal opinions? Is sexual orientation based on nature or nurture?

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A lot of work has been done. It doesn't seem like there's any one cause. Here's the summary from the Wikipedia article. As far as I can tell, this is a reasonable summary of current opinion:

"Although scientists favor biological models for the cause of sexual orientation,[3] they do not believe that it is the result of any one factor. They generally believe that it is determined by biological and environmental factors; they state that most people's sexual orientation is determined at an early age, and sexual orientation development involves a complex interplay between nature and nurture.[1][4][5] The biological factors are genetic and hormonal, both of which affect the fetal development of the brain, while environmental factors may be sociological, psychological, or involve the early uterine environment.[1][3][4] Scientists generally do not believe that sexual orientation is a matter of choice.[4][157]"

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality#Causes for more information.

Note however that there's a spectrum. Not everyone is purely homosexual or purely heterosexual. Indeed I think a minority of people with same-sex attraction are purely homosexual. While you don't seem to be able to choose your orientation, you can choose to some extent how you respond to it. Particularly if you're not purely homosexual.

I note that almost every homosexual, man or woman, sooner or later seems to come forward with a story of abuse at a young age. Lesbians report past rapes and gay men report some sort of dysfunctional home.

Strictly from a Darwinistic Evolutionary perspective, homosexuality is a significant reproductive disadvantage that should genetically extinguish itself (like having a genetic propensity towards still births). The fact that we see reported homosexuality on the increase strongly suggests more “nurture” and less “nature”.

atpollard said:

I note that almost every homosexual, man or woman, sooner or later seems to come forward with a story of abuse at a young age. Lesbians report past rapes and gay men report some sort of dysfunctional home.

Strictly from a Darwinistic Evolutionary perspective, homosexuality is a significant reproductive disadvantage that should genetically extinguish itself (like having a genetic propensity towards still births). The fact that we see reported homosexuality on the increase strongly suggests more “nurture” and less “nature”.

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If it's every person, you've got an unusual sample. But it's true that homosexual children are more likely to have experienced abuse. To the extent that cause can be determined, it appears that it goes the other way. That is non-gender conforming kids are more likely to be abused. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26619850. This one showed a possible bidirectional link https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3535560/.

This kind of study is hard to do in retrospect, so there are limitations to the work, but it does warn against the danger of assuming that correlation implies causality in the direction you want it to.

Note that in the second study about 7.6% of those with same-sex attraction were abused, so it can't be the major cause. However not all results are like this. This study https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0139198 reported 14% for gays and 7% for heterosexual. It's worth looking at the second chart, though you'll need skill with your browser to do so. They show varying measure of abuse. The non-sexual ones (which are more common) are actually less. It's not uncommon that different studies show different numbers, based on the details of questions, and the population. But this is far from all gays being abused.

From Wikipedia:

The American Academy of Pediatrics stated in Pediatrics in 2004:

“ There is no scientific evidence that abnormal parenting, sexual abuse, or other adverse life events influence sexual orientation. Current knowledge suggests that sexual orientation is usually established during early childhood.[3][158]

We are, by nature, sinful people. We seek to fulfill our pleasures. Without God's guidance we will ignore his guidelines regarding sexual pleasures. In this area of sexuality, God has clearly expressed what is pleasing and displeasing to him.
I suggest people read what Rosaria Butterfield and Christopher Yuan have to say on this subject. Both came to faith while enjoying homosexual relationships. Both look at sexuality the same way we all look at sinful pleasures. We are in a position as to whether we will submit ourselves to God's will or whether we will feed our own sinful pleasures. May God give us the moment by moment grace to obey Him and put to death our sin.

I was molested by a pedophile and I believe it caused a great amount of damage to me but it definitely didn't turn me into one nor did it give me any homosexual thoughts.
I can't speak for the majority of victims tho.

hedrick said:

A lot of work has been done. It doesn't seem like there's any one cause. Here's the summary from the Wikipedia article. As far as I can tell, this is a reasonable summary of current opinion:

"Although scientists favor biological models for the cause of sexual orientation,[3] they do not believe that it is the result of any one factor. They generally believe that it is determined by biological and environmental factors; they state that most people's sexual orientation is determined at an early age, and sexual orientation development involves a complex interplay between nature and nurture.[1][4][5] The biological factors are genetic and hormonal, both of which affect the fetal development of the brain, while environmental factors may be sociological, psychological, or involve the early uterine environment.[1][3][4] Scientists generally do not believe that sexual orientation is a matter of choice.[4][157]"

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality#Causes for more information.

Note however that there's a spectrum. Not everyone is purely homosexual or purely heterosexual. Indeed I think a minority of people with same-sex attraction are purely homosexual. While you don't seem to be able to choose your orientation, you can choose to some extent how you respond to it. Particularly if you're not purely homosexual.

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I agree....


It SEEMS there are many "reasons." It's both nature AND nurture. And I agree there seems to be a spectrum involved.


What I DO think is a factor is how the very young are influenced. I think those around puberty (and a bit before) can be influenced; it can be a "confusing" time and sexuality can be "blurry." In the past, homosexuality for most that age wasn't even know, kids didn't even know that existed, and society presented them with the heterosexual option - and I think that impacted many. No, I don't think it was usually a case of forcing them into the closet, forcing them to deny themselves, but simply supplied nurture and encouraged a path. Some, OBVIOUSLY, were not so influenced (there have always been homosexuals). The "problem" I have is that KIDS are told (by the media, by liberal public schools) that they very well could be gay and what a gay and wonderful thing that is. Whereas society once put the light on the heterosexual path, it now seems to be doing that to the homosexual path.


Thinking about the gays I know.... Some just seem to be gay. It's rarely (to never) an issue and they seem to have no "agenda" about it. I tend to think THEY are the ones "born" that way. But I know a couple who are angry, militant, a bit "in your face" and I tend to wonder if they are gay mostly for nurture reasons, as a response to stuff that happened, that "tipped" them in that direction. When I was a kid and involved in youth theatre, the two directors (and owners) were a male couple and very stereotypically gay (my first real exposer to such) but neither EVER mentioned it, neither EVER seemed to have an issue at all, neither had any agenda. I also remember a beach friend of mine who "came out" when he was like 13..... only to be totally straight a couple of years later.




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The issue is not vague with God. God calls homosexuality a sin in the Bible and he hasn't changed his mind

Be it nature or nurture. it is certain that in the vast majority of cases homosexuality is not a choice

Josiah said:

What I DO think is a factor is how the very young are influenced. I think those around puberty (and a bit before) can be influenced; it can be a "confusing" time and sexuality can be "blurry." In the past, homosexuality for most that age wasn't even know, kids didn't even know that existed, and society presented them with the heterosexual option
.

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I've been following this issue for years, and there are things that are really hard to know.

I keep pointing out that among those with same-sex attraction, there are more who also feel at least some attraction to members of the other sex as well. One interesting number I haven't often seen quoted: Among LGBT Americans, 10.2% are married to someone of the same gender. But 13.1% are married to someone of the opposite gender. It's possible that some of those are mistakes. My cousin ended up in a situation like that; the outcome wasn't good. But I'm guessing that most of them are people who are attracted to both genders.

It's certainly likely that people who feel at least some attraction to both genders would have gone ahead and married people of the other gender in previous times, but now identify as homosexual. So the availability of that option surely has made more people think of themselves as gay than would otherwise. On the other hand, the unavailability of the option almost certainly led people into marriages that should never have happened, or into unnecessary psychological harm. Do some identify as gay because it's cool? I don't know how to assess that. Even today, it's a big step.

You mention people who are aggressively activist. Again, it's hard to know whether in another world they would still identify as gay. It's easy to understand the activism. There are still kids being thrown out of the house for being gay, and much of the public sees "God hates fags" as representative of Christians. Activism is a natural reaction to this. And of course adults remember times when their situation was much less favorable than today. If trends continue, and acceptance becomes widespread, hopefully this will die away. But this may be unjustifiably optimistic. We's still dealing with race relations, 150 years after the civil war.

Jerlene said:

I was thinking about a study I read about years ago. The study showed that sexual orientation, specifically in men, is likely to be a biological (prenatal, in fact) occurrence. It showed that men are likelier to be gay if he has biological brothers through his mother. I thought it was interesting. But then there is a part of me that feels like if someone who received little to no attention in their childhood finds that attention with someone when they're older they are likely to form a romantic partnership, regardless of sex.

What are your personal opinions? Is sexual orientation based on nature or nurture?

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I can't help thinking it's a bit of both.

One lesbian I know commented on how, during her teenage years, both she and her parents struggled with her sexual orientation. All of them, her included, wanted her to like boys but she just didn't. After some time they all accepted that she just didn't and wouldn't like boys in that way, and now she has a long-term girlfriend.

A couple of guys I knew when I was growing up thought they were gay because they found themselves drawn to older boys. Obviously I only know so much about their stories but from what I can tell what they were experiencing was little more than a form of hero worship, where young people look for older role models. Had that happened in this day and age the chances are they would have been pushed into the whole gay scene. Both are now married and, as far as I was aware the last I saw them, are happy in their stable, heterosexual, lifestyle.

These days society is a lot more accepting of gay people but back in the days when homosexuality was something kept very quiet it seems improbable that people would choose a lifestyle that they knew would lead to a lot of hostility, discrimination and the like. I mean, why choose that when you could just hook up with people of the opposite sex? Of course the flipside is that young guys like I mentioned above are more likely to figure they are gay and not pursue women.

Then of course there are the people who chop and change. Maybe they are truly attracted to anyone and everyone or maybe, to paraphrase Woody Allen, they are just looking to double their chances of getting a date.

hedrick said:

It's certainly likely that people who feel at least some attraction to both genders would have gone ahead and married people of the other gender in previous times, but now identify as homosexual. So the availability of that option surely has made more people think of themselves as gay than would otherwise. On the other hand, the unavailability of the option almost certainly led people into marriages that should never have happened, or into unnecessary psychological harm. Do some identify as gay because it's cool? I don't know how to assess that. Even today, it's a big step.

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How big a step it is depends on where you live. If you're in a sleepy small town where everybody knows everybody else's business it may be a big step. If you live in an area known for being gay-friendly (I'm thinking most specifically of places like Brighton in England, Amsterdam, or maybe San Franscisco), it seems like much less of a step. I remember in Amsterdam seeing a guy with green hair wearing a gold leotard roller-blading down the street and barely drawing any attention at all.

If someone truly has no desire for the opposite sex at all it's really unhelpful, as you say, for them to merely pick one at random for the sake of ticking the "marriage" box.

You mention people who are aggressively activist. Again, it's hard to know whether in another world they would still identify as gay. It's easy to understand the activism. There are still kids being thrown out of the house for being gay, and much of the public sees "God hates fags" as representative of Christians. Activism is a natural reaction to this. And of course adults remember times when their situation was much less favorable than today. If trends continue, and acceptance becomes widespread, hopefully this will die away. But this may be unjustifiably optimistic. We's still dealing with race relations, 150 years after the civil war.

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Activism does little to protect kids thrown out of the house for being gay. How is a protest, however well attended, going to change the minds of parents who would literally throw their own child out of the house for being gay? Activism to provide things like next-of-kin rights for gay couples (where a registered gay partner is consulted about hospital treatment, for example, rather than being sidelined in favor of a long-estranged sibling) make sense, although in many ways it seems we're long past a point where that is needed.

Yeah, we're still dealing with race relations. How much of that is manufactured is always hard to tell. For as long as we can have groups focused on "anyone who isn't white" while equivalent groups for whites only are banned for being racist, we'll never move forward.

Just imagine the problems a "Straight Pride" march would create, or if there were designated times when we focused on White History, with contributions made by non-whites ignored. What if a black candidate were sidelined in favor of a less-suited white candidate because there were already more than enough black faces present? We as a society either are blind to these issues, or we are not. For now it's clear we are not.

There are signs that a lot of younger millennials are saying that they have at least some attraction to both genders (https://www.out.com/news-opinion/2016/3/11/less-50-teens-identify-straight-says-new-study) and that some who consider themselves LGBTQ are avoiding any of the traditional labels (https://today.uconn.edu/2019/02/many-lgbtq-youth-not-identify-traditional-sexual-identity-labels/).

If you're concerned that kids are identifying as gay because it's cool or for temporary reasons, that may actually be a good thing. It's easy to see why social scientists and pollsters want to know how everybody down to babies identifies, but that doesn't mean the kids have to choose.

hedrick said:

There are signs that a lot of younger millennials are saying that they have at least some attraction to both genders (https://www.out.com/news-opinion/2016/3/11/less-50-teens-identify-straight-says-new-study) and that some who consider themselves LGBTQ are avoiding any of the traditional labels (https://today.uconn.edu/2019/02/many-lgbtq-youth-not-identify-traditional-sexual-identity-labels/).

If you're concerned that kids are identifying as gay because it's cool or for temporary reasons, that may actually be a good thing. It's easy to see why social scientists and pollsters want to know how everybody down to babies identifies, but that doesn't mean the kids have to choose.

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Attraction is just that...attraction. Acting upon attraction and consumating that attraction with some form of sexual gratification is where God's condemnation falls. As a Christian, we must follow God's requirements regardless of our attractions.

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MennoSota said:

The sensuous Christian is one who lives by their feelings, rather than thrugh their understanding of the Word of God.

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Used in this context, this posting is an ad hominem attack. It's also reversible, since the amount of passion directed against homosexuality is out of all proportion to its importance in the Bible. There are three references in the NT, two of which refer to abusive forms of same-gender sex, and one of which (Rom 1) is almost certainly part of a quotation from someone with whom Paul disagrees.

Jerlene said:

I was thinking about a study I read about years ago. The study showed that sexual orientation, specifically in men, is likely to be a biological (prenatal, in fact) occurrence. It showed that men are likelier to be gay if he has biological brothers through his mother. I thought it was interesting. But then there is a part of me that feels like if someone who received little to no attention in their childhood finds that attention with someone when they're older they are likely to form a romantic partnership, regardless of sex.

What are your personal opinions? Is sexual orientation based on nature or nurture?

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Neither; there is no immutable quality to sexual orientation (no so-called "gay gene" has ever been found in mankind) so to compare it to immutable items such as race and ethnicity is frankly an insult to minority groups because unlike race or ethnicity, you can change your sexual orientation. The reason you don't hear more about this is because the LGBT community has built up such a strawman argument against the idea that its' almost become a third rail in American society....

Webster said:

Neither; there is no immutable quality to sexual orientation (no so-called "gay gene" has ever been found in mankind) so to compare it to immutable items such as race and ethnicity is frankly an insult to minority groups because unlike race or ethnicity, you can change your sexual orientation. The reason you don't hear more about this is because the LGBT community has built up such a strawman argument against the idea that its' almost become a third rail in American society....

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“There is no published scientific evidence supporting the efficacy of 'reparative conversion therapy' as a treatment to change one's sexual orientation” the American Psychiatric Association has officially stated. "Clinical experience suggests that any person who seeks conversion therapy may be doing so because of social bias that has resulted in internalized homophobia, and that gay men and lesbians who have accepted their sexual orientation are better adjusted than those who have not done so."
Perhaps the most famous case study in the failure of reparative therapy is that of two founders of Exodus International in 1976, Michael Bussee and Gary Cooper, who worked to "convert" gay people for three years, until they fell in love and left Exodus in 1979. In 1982, they held a marriage ceremony and lived together until Cooper died nine years later. "The desires never go away," Bussee said. "After dealing with hundreds of people, I have not met one who went from gay to straight. Even if you manage to alter someone's sexual behavior, you cannot change their true sexual orientation."
Consider the reverse situation. As a heterosexual person I cannot imagine having to undergo some sort of therapy to convert me to homosexual. Moreover I cannot imagine it working. Homosexuality is certainly not a choice. Moreover, given the hatred, the condemnation and the persecution so prevalent in society, I cannot imagine anyone making that choice.

JRT said:

“There is no published scientific evidence supporting the efficacy of 'reparative conversion therapy' as a treatment to change one's sexual orientation” the American Psychiatric Association has officially stated. "Clinical experience suggests that any person who seeks conversion therapy may be doing so because of social bias that has resulted in internalized homophobia, and that gay men and lesbians who have accepted their sexual orientation are better adjusted than those who have not done so."
Perhaps the most famous case study in the failure of reparative therapy is that of two founders of Exodus International in 1976, Michael Bussee and Gary Cooper, who worked to "convert" gay people for three years, until they fell in love and left Exodus in 1979. In 1982, they held a marriage ceremony and lived together until Cooper died nine years later. "The desires never go away," Bussee said. "After dealing with hundreds of people, I have not met one who went from gay to straight. Even if you manage to alter someone's sexual behavior, you cannot change their true sexual orientation."
Consider the reverse situation. As a heterosexual person I cannot imagine having to undergo some sort of therapy to convert me to homosexual. Moreover I cannot imagine it working. Homosexuality is certainly not a choice. Moreover, given the hatred, the condemnation and the persecution so prevalent in society, I cannot imagine anyone making that choice.

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Conversion therapy is a false concept. One cannot convert away the innate sinfulness of humankind via counseling.
God must make us alive to Christ, by grace through faith, before we can see that our passions are to be under the authority of the Sovereign King, Jesus, our Redeemer.
Like all sinful attractions in our lives, we must continually submit them under the authority of Christ and give our temptations over to God. When we fail, we must confess our sins and God will be faithful and just to forgive us our sins (1John 1:9). God may ordain the temptation for our entire life, or He may remove it as He wills. Our task is to walk in obedience, according to God's word. We cannot excuse our sins away. We must confront them and confess them so that we might have blessed fellowship with our Redeemer. May we faithfully entrust our temptations to our Savior...whatever those temptations may be.