Choose your sexuality. Can't? Try harder.

Since anti-gay people continually demand that gay people should just change our minds and become straight because sexuality is so obviously a choice, what question should we ask of anti-gay folks to turn the tables? So far, I've heard pro-gay people ask, "Why don't you try to become gay?" Answers have been, of course, "I tried, and I just can't be gay," "No, I'm not a sinner, so I would never choose to go against God," other similar answers, and no answers. Pro-gay folks have also asked, "When did you decide to become straight?" Answers include: "... I guess I never really had to decide," "I've known I was straight since forever" (That doesn't answer when you decided to be straight), and "I've never thought about that before." I don't think I've ever heard anyone say, "I decided to be straight," unless they were coming from ex-gay therapy.

[Note: When I say "anti-gay," I mean to describe people who are against the existence of queers and queerness. Not to describe people who are cool with queers but don't support gay marriage; I have had friends who felt this way. It took me a short while to wrap my head around that way of thinking; I don't agree with it, but I understand it now. I'm ok with my friends thinking like that. It doesn't affect me as much as I thought it should have. That being said, what they think should not (legally) dictate how I get to live my peaceful, harmless life haha.]

I think we should ask sexually straight people to try to become asexual. Why? Because asking them to become gay doesn't help us prove a point unless they're actually open to giving it a shot. Even if they think they do give it a try, because they are straight, they don't try very hard to experience the emotions or attraction and just believe they naturally make the "right decision." They have nothing to lose if they can't feel anything for the same sex, while queers who desperately want to be "normal" do feel like they have everything to lose and will try their fucking hardest to feel what they're "supposed" to feel. But when they don't feel it, they're "not trying hard enough." If straight people can't feel queer emotions or attractions, they can't explain their "decision," believe that they are making a choice (in the sense that gay does not feel like an option for them, just like straight doesn't feel like an option for queers), or believe that we are so abominable that we can go against the natural instinct of being straight--it feels like instinct to them.

Now, why ask straight people to try asexuality or ask them to try anything else at all? To make them see how ridiculously difficult their question is to answer and to provide evidence for. Being asexual is different from the norm and doesn't go against any religious beliefs and thus doesn't make them feel like they're sinning, so they can't try to throw that in our faces as an excuse to not try. When straight people say we can choose not to be gay, that's them saying we can choose not to be attracted to the same sex; so it should be true that straight people can simply choose not to be attracted to the opposite sex. Since they think it's a choice to be attracted to either sex, and we queers generally know they can't choose to be attracted to the same sex, I think it's fair to request that straight people attempt the same proposal to prove to us that it is possible for anyone, straight or queer, to make that choice. We could put them in a room full of sexually attractive members of the opposite sex and tell them not to notice their sexual attractiveness and not to feel sexual attraction whatsoever.

When a straight person tells me (to choose) not to be gay, this is the scenario that I think they want to see: They show me a female whom I find sexually attractive at that moment. At the snap of my fingers, I don't think she's sexually attractive at all anymore. I've chosen to find her non-attractive right then and there because I can.

If you tell anyone to do that, would that actually work? If someone said they could do that, I would think they were lying to me. But that's just because I can't believe them. I don't trust that they're telling me the truth. Just like anti-gay people wouldn't believe me if I said I tried to find a male person sexually attractive but couldn't. I probably wasn't trying hard enough. I think this just proves a question like "Why can't you choose to be straight/gay/asexual?" is ultimately a waste of time. Even if we all attempted to answer this question, the questioners wouldn't believe any answer or explanation that doesn't meet the standards that they set when they asked the question--the standards being there is only one right answer and there is no way to change my mind unless you can make me feel what you feel. But we can't really make others feel what they strongly don't want to feel. No adamantly anti-gay person is gonna seriously say, "Oh, I saw with my own eyes that you took me seriously and tried really hard to change. And I can see that you couldn't do it. I guess I am wrong, and you can't choose." No adamantly pro-gay person is gonna seriously say, "Oh, I saw with my own eyes that you took me seriously and didn't need to try that hard to change. I guess I am wrong, and you can choose."

"Why don't you choose to be gay?" is a nice, witty retort. It makes us feel good for a moment because we bested the opposition on that point. But it doesn't really get us anywhere closer to common ground, especially now that it seems to be used by pro-gay folks only as a witty retort and treated by anti-gay folks only as a trivial retort rather than an actual challenge that deserves some serious consideration.


Random: I've been told some anti-gay folks would prefer that gay people were asexual, so that we just would stop sinning and/or committing abhorrent sexual practices. Is this true? I thought they wanted us to be straight and make babies. Or simply burn in hell.

Another random: If homosexuality is as bad a sin as murder, and murderers who stop murdering generally aren't forgiven for their past crimes, are ex-gays unforgivable for their past gay crimes too? I mean, yeah, the one-time offenders may be forgiven, depending on the circumstances. But would forgiveness be granted to serial killers or mass murderers who supposedly repent? What about the serial gays who become ex-gays? The forgiveness that I'm talking about here isn't from God but from the people who judge the sinner. And "serial gays" could mean whatever you want it to mean.


Different topic: In general, I think it's easier for gay people to imagine being straight than for straight people to imagine being gay because we're inundated by heteronormative/straight behavior just about everywhere we go. Straight is generally the default setting; we believe we're straight until some event, person, or moment makes us do a double take.

Most of the information about queer people that close-minded, straight people have tend to come from their own imagination; the stereotypes and beliefs about us come from very little exposure to actual queer people. I mean, queer people are exposed to straight people most of their lives; so we stereotype straight people, but we're aware that there are all types of straight people. There are nice ones and mean ones. It's the same in the queer community. But because of the lack of exposure, people generalize and leave it at that without taking the time to investigate their presumptions and to get to know individuals.


How I see things: Every person is a potential friend. When we judge another person before we get to know them and don't give them a chance to be a good part of our lives, we're reducing our lives' potential. Obviously, we run the risk of meeting not-nice people who aren't good for us. But sometimes, I think it's good to know firsthand who is good and who is bad for us.

Don't just assume a group of people can't add goodness to your life. All that potential will just go to waste. (I was going to make a physics analogy, but that's much too nerdy.)


I know that everything I've typed is based on sexual attraction rather than romantic attraction. It was just easier to simplify. Besides, romantic attraction is a whole other beast to tackle in regards to pro-gay versus anti-gay. Though, you can obviously substitute "romantic" for "sexual" in what I've got typed up there.

Romantic attraction is more emotional. I feel that trying to argue about emotions is even more fruitless than arguing about physical attraction. Physical attraction may be somewhat relatable and understandable just because it's considered to be an "animalistic" quality shared by all human beings. Romantic attraction isn't really considered in the same way; I don't know what descriptor fits romantic attraction. But to try to explain something so abstract, so personal, so individualized, is such a difficult task. No one can truly, without a doubt, understand what you feel. What you feel is what you feel; to get someone else to know exactly what you're feeling is so close to impossible. Even if you could, you don't know if they actually get it. You can only assume that they do when they say they do. To get anywhere close to that impossibility requires a large amount of empathy, which I tend to feel is very much lacking in these kinds of arguments.


Rawr.


I apologize for the randomness, rambling, and long-winded-ness. I was watching some The Young Turks clips on YouTube, and thoughts in my head started to bubble out. I was trying to catch them all before any of them hit the ground and were no good anymore haha. I missed a few though >: