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An acquaintance of mine used to be of the belief that some gays are homosexual because of bad childhood experiences with women. Is there any sort of truth to this statement? I'm pretty sure it doesn't apply to every single gay person out there but it sounded possible given how the human brain works.

Feel free to disprove the concept with whatever degree of emotion. I'm just interested in its veracity.


[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children) | Copy Link

It stands as a poor explanation for any significant effect. Our understanding of homosexuality at present is largely a biological one. Psychological causes are not currently favored by the scientific community. This is a stance I personally think is accurate.

As well many gay men, though sexually attracted to men, socially associate closely with women. This would be in contradiction of the female-related-trauma theory for that select group.

lastly, negative feelings for women do not necessarily translate into positive attraction towards men. Even if there was significant trauma in one's youth to cause heterosexual dysfunction, I don't see that it would cause homosexual desire.

Ultimately your friends explanation is not a good one. It lacks any evidence to move it from the realm of speculation. It does seem to be, at least in part, a way to pathologize homosexuality.

[–]raredare3591 point2 points  (2 children) | Copy Link

Me personally, I think I was born gay. I do remember having random "crushes" on girls around 1st or 2nd grade...but I can't really tell if that was "authentic" or was she the one experiencing the crush. Either way, around 3rd grade, I do remember thinking of another boy in my class in strangely sexual ways.

I didn't think it "sexual" at the time, but it was. I would basically picture them without clothes on. I knew that was wrong somehow and never brought it up.

That was the first realization I was gay & I don't think anything in particular caused it.

My mother did lose custody of me to my father when I was about 4 years old, but she was still very much in the picture and I don't think that would affect me.

Just my view point

[–]Nitrobroom[S] 0 points1 point  (1 child) | Copy Link

Eh, I sort of remember a similar experience during puberty. Dreamt of a slender naked man and woke up with the evidence of a wet dream. I remember feeling thoroughly disgusted with myself, and then a few weeks later I dreamt of hot girls and woke up with a wet dream as well. I'm heterosexual, and that occurrence always bothered me because I could never figure out why it happened.

[–]raredare3590 points1 point  (0 children) | Copy Link

Hmm - that's interesting. I'm not sure what the reasoning behind that dream was. I don't think I ever had a sexual dream involving a women.

[–]should_1 point2 points  (0 children) | Copy Link

I can see this making more sense for lesbians than gay men, except from having problems with men. I have an inkling that a lot of lesbian and bisexuality among females doesn't necessarily come from the sex drive. They've done studies that show that women are equally aroused by man/woman and woman/woman sexual activity, so being gay might be a literal matter of choice/preference for them, though I know at least one lesbian who insists she was born this way.

If what you're saying was a cause of gayness, it couldn't be the only reason. Every human on the planet has at least some neuroticism, and that stems almost entirely from varying levels of neglect and/or abuse by the primary parent, often the mother. That would imply that anyone who was even a little neurotic was gay, since that counts as problems with women. I've also heard of a study that showed that for each older brother an individual has, it increases that individual's chances of being gay by a ridiculous amount. And there isn't a lot of reasoning as to why a younger brother of older brothers would have more problems with women. Then there are gay identical twins. There are a lot of these. One is always hotter than the other. Hehe

[–]caius_iulius_caesar0 points1 point  (0 children) | Copy Link

Or good childhood experiences with boys ...

You can kill a man, but you can't kill an idea.

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