Can you change sexual orientation? - Is "born this way" just a meme?

[Non-Expert!]

To get back to the question if we are "born that way" I am going to go ahead and say "no" because this is not in keeping with what we know about DNA, and the epigenome.

By the way, a lot happens between conception and birth. There are some identical twins who don't look identical because the conditions in utero were different for each baby. Just to offer a measurable example.

Our DNA is in place upon conception. All kinds of tendencies will be inherited. Your height and muscle-tone, talents, intellectual abilities ... Your DNA presents a range, and after conception, environmental stressors flip certain switches on, and leave other ones dormant.

So just like a child is not 'born ugly" or "born with allergies" s/he isn't "born gay."

Not everybody is susceptable to allergies for example, but those who are can get hypersensitized to environmental contaminants, depending on how the immune system handled them, at a particular moment in time.

Some kids might have something in their biochemical makeup that masculine or feminizes them from the get-go, but that doesn't mean they are born gay.

Are we "born straight" or "born bisexual?"

 

[Lemmingwise]

So just like a child is not 'born ugly" or "born with allergies" s/he isn't "born gay."

I'm not following you here. Some children are born ugly or with allergies, right?

I mean essentially you're asking people not to forget about the giant field of epigenetics, right? Or am I not following you right?

 

[Queen Elizabeth II]

5. There is something strange about a culture that simultaneously attacks incels and defends homosexuality. Neither offers societal benefit (children, perpetuation of culture). Yet the latter defended on the basis of their innate desires, whereas incels are attacked for it. Okay. So why aren't incels defended on their innate desires? It's a strange hipocrisy of a hedonist/feminist culture.

Perhaps this one has something to do with more recent western culture?

There has been a lot of scandals surrounding the traditional religions of Europe; most notably the Catholic Church but not solely, where supposedly celibate men have been linked to a range of crimes.

There is a stigma attached to anyone, male or female, who is single past a certain age as being somehow broken, faulty or otherwise dangerous. A healthy sex drive and regular partners could be perceived as a sign of normality (i.e "Here is my proof I don't rape children or do really weird shit").

 

[Inflatable Julay]

No but apparently I can change the sexual orientation of my exes

 

[Not Really Here]

Once upon a time "homosexual" meant "can only have an orgasm with a member of the same sex", the current 'definition' seems to be whatever you screech during the parade.
Without a static definition the OP's question can only be answered "no way to tell".

 

[Sigma]

Maybe if you're exposed for long enough but I think it usually just makes you heteroflexible rather than full on gay or whatever.

 

[Lemmingwise]

Perhaps this one has something to do with more recent western culture?

There has been a lot of scandals surrounding the traditional religions of Europe; most notably the Catholic Church but not solely, where supposedly celibate men have been linked to a range of crimes.

Yes, the last one was specifically about western contemporary culture.

I think that the people that have their hands on the levers of culture want people to think that celibacy/chastity is an impossibility. That's part of the reason why there's a pushback against things like no nut november.

The catholic bad press is well deserved and I don't think we've even seen the entire iceberg under the surface of the water. The rumors I try to investigate seem to indicate this is something that is worse at the top of the catholic church. Though I find it also interesting how hollywood's pedo problem has received so little attention, even with the weinstein scandal, especially compared to how ubiquotous knowledge about the catholic pedo problem is.

I think that E Michael Jones pointed toward CIA infiltration of the vatican decades ago, but I really haven't looked at these things closely. In any case things seem worse the top rather than better, but I don't know if these things really tell us something about sexuality, due to the strong political motives involved.

People often point toward power as a corrupting influence and I don't want to dissuade from that. But I also think that there is a specific incentive to get blackmailable material on powerful people and thus many handcrafted temptations aimed specifically at those in power.

If it is possible to awaken a taste for non-conventional sexualities/fetishes/attractions (as I believe there is), then it would also stand to reason that people that have more knowledge and less scruples would use that to awaken a taste, for which they can offer the supply to fulfill the created demand.

 

[Non-Expert!]

I'm not following you here. Some children are born ugly or with allergies, right?

I mean essentially you're asking people not to forget about the giant field of epigenetics, right? Or am I not following you right?

What I am saying, is that "born that way" is a reckless assertion, considering what we know about how the DNA is something of a base and the epigenome is the superstructure.

Some kids really are born ugly, but it is often due to some sort of deformity.

Otherwise most of us are born average looking. Those who grow into unattractive adults perhaps lack the diet, nurture, resources, talent and social support to make the most of what they inherited.

That is the epigenome, right?

So when does gayness descend upon the fetus?

The entire idea is perverted.

We are superimposing sexuality on newborn babies, albeit retroactively.

But it begs the question, when you are in L and D, if your baby boy was born a flaming faggot.

The "born this way" meme backfires on so many levels, it is an epic failure.

 

[IceGray]

I am not sure if you can be really born that way, but I think sexual preference is an innate nature that is hard to change.

Does beg the question about the recent crop of Twitterinas claiming to be lesbian coming from formerly straight declarations though. Is it just because yuri is the new yaoi that they can play lesbianism? The Western version of S-class schoolgirls?

While I previously thought I was straight, some serious introspection led me to realize I might be otherwise. However, I am not inclined to make up for lost time by desperately hooking up with a Waifu Charming, knowing that fairy tale relationships actually take a lot of work.

 

[Unyielding Stupidity]

I'd argue that you sort of can, but only to a certain extent. You aren't going be totally flipping peoples sexualities, but you can certainly leave them with at least a moderate attraction to whatever gender they weren't attracted to beforehand. You can do that simply via excessive porn consumption, as people will begin gravitating towards more and more niche fetishes, due to the fact that the more normal stuff has lost it's luster for them, that have some overlap with the opposite sexuality, that then lead to the person in question developing an attraction to whichever sex they weren't attracted to beforehand.

Take for example, all the cases of formerly straight dudes that end up wanting to suck cock because they've jacked off to too much trap/sissy/futa porn.

 

[💗Freddie Freaker💗]

If you could, why would gay people even exist as a thing?

Like yeah, there may be social benefits to being gay now (in the West, anyway), but that's a new thing. If you could change your sexuality, wouldn't you just do so if you lived in a place/time where homosexuality is punished by death?

I assume it's not easy to change. In the few cases I've heard of that weren't transpeople living out their fetish, the orientation change seemed to come out of the blue.

2. People can be conditioned into developing certain types of sexual attraction. Whatever you were doing right before your brain was flooded with endorphins and other reward hormones, is behaviour that you are conditioned to do and seek out. That's why people condition their partners bit by bit into playing along with what they're into (for one publicly available example, look at Patrice O Neal explaining how to get your girl to do anal).

That makes sense. That's how many fetishes develop, attraction to different types of genitals should be no different. I have met lesbians who were penis repulsed because of rape, they might have been heterosexual if they hadn't gone through that.

5. There is something strange about a culture that simultaneously attacks incels and defends homosexuality. Neither offers societal benefit (children, perpetuation of culture). Yet the latter defended on the basis of their innate desires, whereas incels are attacked for it. Okay. So why aren't incels defended on their innate desires? It's a strange hipocrisy of a hedonist/feminist culture.

I think it's because incel forums are chock full of delusional talk, Elliot Rodgers worship and threats of violence. Most people were involuntarily celibate at one point or another, so I think they'd agree that being single doesn't make a person bad. It's just that a lot of people who call themselves incels seem to be batshit crazy.

 

[Sinner's Sandwich]

Take for example, all the cases of formerly straight dudes that end up wanting to suck cock because they've jacked off to too much trap/sissy/futa porn.

You don't know if these guys where really straight or just bisexuals in denial tho.

 

[Lemmingwise]

If you could, why would gay people even exist as a thing?

Like yeah, there may be social benefits to being gay now (in the West, anyway), but that's a new thing. If you could change your sexuality, wouldn't you just do so if you lived in a place/time where homosexuality is punished by death?

There are a lot of things that people do that there are little benefits to though.

Take for example murder suicides. Or gambling addiction. Or even the average lolcow behaviour.

Severe negative consequences has never been a complete deterrent against types of behaviour.

 

[Spastic Colon]

I think it is a complex issue. I'm inclined to think that most people who are gay simply have it hard wired that they find the same sex attractive. We are still animals, after all, and so much of our sexuality is driven by the biological imperative to reproduce which is hard wired. It isn't a conscious decision for the most part. Sometimes we can be very sexually attracted to people who have traits that are otherwise repulsive to us. They just arouse us, but they aren't someone we would actually want to have a long term relationship with. And sometimes we meet those people who are amazing in every other respect and we wish we could be sexually attracted to them, but we just aren't. We don't have quite as much control over our sexual attraction as we like to think we do.

Others, though, have a much easier time being "fluid" because they aren't seeking to pair bond or reproduce. They are seeking sexual gratification for themselves. Usually narcs or sociopaths are like this. It isn't about being attracted to someone else, it is about someone else being a sexual object that exists solely for their own pleasure. They don't really change attraction -- they just see any body as something to be used for their benefit. A true pansexual would be like this. As long as they can get their rocks off, they don't care about any other trait their partner may possess. Also, porn addicts (like any other addict) can graduate to things outside their initial comfort zone once they build up a tolerance for their initial drug of choice. They might eventually find themselves getting into beastiality or other things that they certainly weren't born to prefer.

Still others may talk themselves into being more fluid than they really are. Social pressure / ideology can be a factor. If you don't want to be seen as boring, vanilla cis het, you might convince yourself that you are more fluid or open than you really are. You might engage in things that you are not wildly enthusiastic about, but only because it fits with a world view that you've adopted. (On the flip side -- there are people who repress their homosexuality because it is too dangerous to be openly gay or they can't reconcile it with other values they hold).

TL;DR: Sexuality is complex because of the social/moral issues that we have attached to it. It's likely that not everyone is "born that way", though I do believe that many gay people indeed are born hard wired to prefer the same sex just as the majority of us are hard wired to prefer the opposite sex.

 

[melty]

I was craving men.. the first time I gave a blow job and he came in back of my throat, OMG.

Yeah I don't believe this guy was ever not gay. I could tell you that's a gay male, not a "woman", with no other context to the quote.

I think it's probably possible. We don't understand a lot about our brains, but we know that they can be rewired to some extent through CBT, drugs, and odd cases like getting a brain tumor or an object shot through your brain (eg Phineas Gage). People's entire personalities can change for reasons not entirely understood, so I guess why not? But there would need to be some real advancements in neuroscience for such a technique to exist.

It's also not useful to say any of this, since there's no known way to do it. If anyone with credibility ever admitted you might be able to make gay people not gay, the "pray the gay away" people would go nuts trying, and we know that doesn't work. It's literally easier to change society. They're not hurting anyone, and if society was theoretically 100% accepting, would there be any reason to fuck with people's minds for something that isn't actally a problem? Societal change is happening much faster than the theoretical future advancements in neuroscience and psychology.

I also think that lots of people are bi and most of the cases in this thread of people claiming to change orientation are just bi people that are claiming they're now completely gay or straight for political reasons. The guy in OP reddit cap is likely bullshitting to prove he's a true & honest woman and a totally different person now, and is just a typical autogynephile that thinks porn is a how-to guide on being a woman.

 

[Terrorist]

It probably depends on the deviant, but good luck trying to research that in GloboHomo academia.

 

[Plague Dog]

I also think that lots of people are bi and most of the cases in this thread of people claiming to change orientation are just bi people that are claiming they're now completely gay or straight for political reasons.

Well, yes. But let's go back in time forty years. Awakening a bisexuality might be enough to get people out of suspicion because being gay then was a bad thing. Maybe a man's attraction to other men might not go away, but he could "find the right woman" and settle down.

I think a lot of people can imagine going to their non preferred gender for the ideal person (literally the 1 in a billion thing) so I think sometimes that could be built on.

Preferences are probably naturally hardwired, but there are things that can be done to make someone more bisexual.

 

[SpergPatrol]

They actually do teach in classes like psychology now that yes this is true and possible.
The thing is though women are the one who are more easily and able to change their position on the sexual orientation scale then men due to men's minds are more wired to be dead set on whatever they are attracted to, but women are more fluid and easily able to change their sexualities.

There is even research done recently by the NAMS (North American Menopause Society) and the University of Utah who did studies that even show women due to both hormones and psychology changes after menopause are more likely to explore a lesbian relationship despite it being very later on in life.

 

[Tragi-Chan]

I think most people have the capacity for bisexuality, even if only in extreme circumstances (e.g. with one particular person or when absolutely desperate).

I think also that people often take a while to figure themselves out. I’ve known plenty of people who started out thinking they were straight and ended up gay, and vice versa.

 

[Whatsup bud?]

Is "born this way" even the mantra anymore? Exploring fluidity is in fashion now I thought.