It pays to be knowledgeable on a topic before being dogmatic.
From a current College Psychology Textbook available online
CHAPTER 11 WHAT DRIVES US: HUNGER, SEX, BELONGING, AND ACHIEVEMENT 401
Myers, D. G., & C. N. DeWall (2021), Psychology, 13th edition. New York: Worth Publishers.
Today’s psychologists view sexual orientation as neither willfully chosen nor willfully
changed. “Efforts to change sexual orientation are unlikely to be successful and involve
some risk of harm,” declared a 2009 American Psychological Association report. A con
sensus of British mental health organizations agreed that such attempts are “unethi
cal and potentially harmful” (Gale et al., 2017). Recognizing this, in 2016, Malta became
the first European country to outlaw the controversial practice of “conversion therapy,”
which aims to change people’s gender identity or sexual orientation. An increasing num
ber of U.S. states and cities have likewise banned conversion therapy with minors.
Sexual orientation in some ways is like handedness: Most people are one way, some
the other. A smaller group experiences some form of ambidexterity. Regardless, the way
we are endures, especially in men (Dickson et al., 2013; Norris et al., 2015). Women’s
sexual orientation tends to be less strongly felt and, for some women, is more fluid and
changing. Heterosexual women may experience genital arousal to either male or female
sexual stimuli (Chivers, 2017). In general, men are sexually simpler. Men’s lesser sexual
variability is apparent in many ways (Baumeister, 2000). Across time, cultures, situations,
and differing levels of education, religious observance, and peer influence, men’s sexual
drive and interests have been less flexible and varying than have women’s. Women, for
example, more often prefer to alternate periods of high sexual activity with periods of
almost none (Mosher et al., 2005). Baumeister calls this flexibility erotic plasticity.
“ There is no sound scientific evidence
that sexual orientation can be changed.”
— UK Royal College of Psychiatrists, 2014
Origins of Sexual Orientation
So, if we do not choose our sexual orientation and (especially for males) cannot change
it, where do these feelings come from? In an early search for possible environmen
tal influences on sexual orientation, Kinsey Institute investigators in the 1980s inter
viewed nearly 1000 lesbian/gay and 500 heterosexual people. They assessed nearly every
imaginable psychological cause of same-sex attraction—parental relationships, child
hood sexual experiences, peer relationships, and dating experiences (Bell et al., 1981;
Hammersmith, 1982). Their findings: Gay and lesbian people were no more likely than
heterosexual people to have been smothered by maternal love or neglected by their
father. And consider this: If “distant fathers” were more likely to produce gay sons, then
shouldn’t boys growing up in father-absent homes more often be gay? (They are not.)
And shouldn’t the rising number of such homes have led to a noticeable increase in
the gay population? (It has not.) Most children raised by gay or lesbian parents display
gender-typical behavior and are heterosexual (Farr et al., 2018; Gartrell & Bos, 2010). And
they grow up with health and emotional well-being similar to (and sometimes better
than) children with straight parents (Bos et al., 2016; Farr, 2017).
So, what else might influence sexual orientation? One theory has proposed that people
develop same-sex erotic attachments if segregated by sex at the time their sex drive
matures (Storms, 1981). Indeed, gay men tend to recall going through puberty somewhat
earlier, when peers are more likely to be all males (Bogaert et al., 2002). But even in tribal
cultures in which same-sex sexual behavior is expected of all boys before marriage, most
men are still heterosexual (Hammack, 2005; Money, 1987). (As this illustrates, sexual behav
ior is not always indicative of sexual orientation.) Moreover, though peers’ attitudes predict
teens’ sexual attitudes and behavior, they do not predict same-sex attraction. “Peer influ
ence has little or no effect” on sexual orientation (Brakefield et al., 2014).
Environment likely contributes to sexual orientation—nature and nurture work
together—but the inability to pin down specific environmental influences has led
researchers to explore several lines of biological evidence. These include same-sex
attraction in other species, brain differences, and genetic and prenatal influences.
SAME-SEX ATTRACTION IN OTHER SPECIES In Boston’s Public Gardens, care
takers solved the mystery of why a much-loved swan couple’s eggs never hatched. Both
swans were female. In New York City’s Central Park Zoo, penguins Silo and Roy spent
several years as devoted same-sex partners. Same-sex sexual behaviors have also been
observed in several hundred other species, including grizzlies, gorillas, giraffes, monkeys,
flamingos, and owls (Bagemihl, 1999). Among rams, for example, some 7 to 10 percent
display same-sex attraction by shunning ewes and seeking to mount other males (Perkins
& Fitzgerald, 1997). Same-sex sexual behavior seems a natural part of the animal world.
