Throughout my life, I have grown up being taught that being gay is a choice. I would always remember my father telling me, “Bon, you know that being gay is a choice.” This concept always gave me an uneasy feeling because in all reality I had no clue if that statement was real. I questioned it. Many of my friends have been gay, many of them are amazing people and whether it was a choice or not, it did not matter to me whether they were gay or not and it still doesn’t change the fact that I love them no matter what. Over time I have come across this thought process of if being gay was a choice or not. I finally came to a conclusion, but let’s get to that later. I mean come on, we got to keep you reading some way. Class ended on Thursday and I immediately called my mom,“Mom, you have to read these articles that my teacher gave me in class that cite many wonderful research behind whether being gay is a choice or not.” That day I couldn’t help but seem to feel so intrigued with the knowledge I had gained just in the last two days of classes, being able to share this knowledge with my mother to see if she agreed with my thoughts. I finally felt like understanding whether it was a choice or not had finally clicked in my mind. I felt like not only I was lacking knowledge, but the world isn’t knowledgeable on this topic based on the research and studies done. So, is it a choice or is it biological? Many studies have taken place to find out if being gay or lesbian is biological. One study that scientists have done is testing twins. If it is biological, then if one twin is gay the other has to be 100% gay too due to genes. As many tests and studies have been run on twins, many scientists found that when one twin was homosexual, they only found about 50% or less of the other twin felt like they were homosexual. Most of the time the other twin did not claim themselves as homosexual. I found this quite interesting because wouldn’t the twins need to both be homosexual if it was biological? Another stance on biology was the study that was given by a man with the name LeVay who did brain research. He took a very small sample of men that passed away, he tested these men and found that half of them who were homosexual had a bigger brain than the men that were not homosexual. He did not conclude in his research that his findings were proof of homosexuals having a different brain than non-homosexuals, in fact he felt like his findings didn’t relate. It was interesting to conclude from his research that most of those homosexuals died from HIVS and we do know that HIVS cause brains to enlarge, therefore not necessarily proving that homosexuals have a different brain. There have been many other studies taken by scientists to see if there is proof of being biological. Many scientists have first thought it was biological then have concluded that it isn’t after they have done research. In reality, I need to find more research done to fully comprehend the biological side, but what I have found so far based on my class is that nurture plays more of a role versus nature. And that many studies have shown that there is not much evidence when it comes to being homosexual biological. So, let’s take a spin reviewing the nurture side and the environmental factors of being homosexual. One thing that many scientist think is that being homosexual is a choice and that your environment does play a role. Studies have concluded that if someone is sexually abused or molested as a child, whether it is super young from an infant or when they were 12 they have been more likely to claim to be homosexual. During this class period when we learned this, we watched a YouTube video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJhyzqdzpnM) that interviewed many young men who went to therapy for help to overcome homosexuality, many of them concluded that they had been sexually abused as a child. This was so interesting to me because there are some people I know that are homosexual now, that I do know that they too have been sexually abused. Something for all of us to really think about. As we discussed this issue in class, we talked about how many of the feelings from sexual abuse can get confused with real sexual feelings. It is more of a problem of intimacy and not such a problem of sexuality. Another thing that we talked about was that the most affected ages for a child to discover being homosexual is 5,8, and12. During these ages the child is very susceptible to a lot of things. Some examples that we came across were feeling not accepted by peers or if their father isn’t always around. Also, sometimes the father might be too masculine. Another factor that was noted was that sometimes if boys grow up having older brothers they have a more likely chance of being homosexual. So how can peers play a role? If children at schools such as boys having feelings of neglect from peers at a young age, they will want to find a way to fill those missing feelings, by filling them later in life to be homosexual. They begin to yearn for those feelings of being accepted by the opposite sex. I found this quite interesting because you would think that it would be the opposite, them wanting more to do with girls than with boys if they felt neglected by their male peers. This shows that our environment does play a role in future feelings. Another thing I mentioned above was the father’s role. Sometimes fathers can pressure their sons to turn towards sports or masculine things like the father, while the son might not have interest in those things and might be more artistic or something. An example of this is if a boy is playing with Barbie’s, the father could freak out and try to make him not play with them. The father is going wrong about this in so many ways, it’s not like the son is having sex, he is simply playing with Barbie’s. What the father can do here is play Barbie with him and be the Barbie while the son be ken, encouraging the son to explore and accept the child. Accepting the child is what the father needs to do. Also, same with older brothers they can pressure the younger brother that the things he is doing are too girly and he needs to be more “manly” or “like the boys”. Many scientists and therapists have said that feelings of intimacy can get confused with sexual feelings. As we discussed in class my eyes were opened that sometimes we have feelings that are normal that we do not understand and can confuse them with real sexual feelings because of that misunderstanding. I found this very interesting because I feel like many people confuse feelings all the time, for example, sometimes people do not know if they have feelings for someone as just a friend or if they have feelings for someone more than a friend that can lead to a love relationship. All in all, I concluded that being homosexual is a choice. I love and respect all my friends and family that have those tendencies, but I feel strongly that it is a choice. I feel that way even about heterosexuals, we choose who to love and that is that. Sometimes I feel like when it comes to love heterosexuals and homosexuals get confused on what love really is. Sometimes we all have misunderstandings of feelings and that is a learning process of itself. The Family Overall the family needs to be strong. My personal belief is that marriage is between a man and a woman. I feel that so strongly. Children need to have a loving mother and a loving father. This leads to my concluding thoughts of this blog post, let’s take a step into gender. Gender Roles Gender is so crucial to raising a family. Families need to have a loving mother who is nurturing willing to be there for her children showing them love and the nurture they need. While fathers roles are to be the providers, helping the family grow and being an example. In order for the family to grow and become children need these strong roles in their lives. I personally think moms should spend time helping their children, not saying they cannot work, but that their focal points are their children. I strongly believe that fathers need to provide, being that strong example for their children. Male and female cannot be without each other because their differences are so important for the family. Women bring qualities that men don’t have and men bring qualities that women don’t have. For example, men are good at fixing things and coming up with solutions to problems. Whereas women bring nurturing and already know the answers to their problems, but would rather want to talk about them. Oh, how interesting gender roles are. One thing that stood out to me about genders was the idea that we both have the same amount of emotions, but we just express them differently. So yeah, that was a myth that women are more emotional, more like they are more expressive! Conclusion The family needs to be protected because it is a beautiful thing. What a blessing we have to have such an amazing opportunity to create a family. The family is truly the gateway to success. XOXO Bonnie
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