The choice
RougueBambi said, regarding comments left by other readers of my previous post:
I really don’t understand, how someone can “not understand the bisexual thing” after what Thumper just wrote. It’s not a thing you choose. It’s a fucking sexuality.
I think what they were saying when they wrote they couldn’t understand bisexuality was the same thing I said in my post, “It’s hard for me to relate today to someone who doesn’t find something appealing about both male and female forms.” The word “relate” is probably better than “understand” because I can understand how someone would not find those of their gender sexually attractive the same way I can understand how people find all kinds of bodies and acts attractive I don’t. We all have our types. We all have our kinks. But, as someone who is firmly attracted to both genders, it is difficult for me to relate to those who aren’t (especially those with an equal yet opposite determination).
I don’t want to dwell on that so much as I want to talk about her other point. “It’s not a thing you choose. It’s a fucking sexuality.” I agree entirely that I did not choose to be attracted to both genders. I’m not sure, all things being equal, I would have chosen it and that is, ironically, the giant hole in the argument for all those who claim homosexuality is a choice. Like anyone would choose to be ostracized by their friends and family, discriminated against by their employer and the government, and basically treated like a social waste product for fucking centuries upon centuries of Western culture. Or, more personally, that I would choose to lose some of the most productive sexual years of my life because I couldn’t find a way out of my own crossed signals to a place where I could enjoy myself with willing partners of either gender. No, what you want to fuck is not a damned choice. It’s hard-wired. Like handedness and Tea Party psychosis.
But.
I did make a choice. I chose the heterosexual path. I chose it because I felt more emotional satisfaction with women but also because it was, of course, the far easier choice to make. I chose it over having to come out to my family and friends and over uncertainly in how I’d live and what I knew was a very real prospect of never being able to form a lasting relationship with a man. I chose having my own kids with my own partner and I chose not to be treated like a moral deviant. I made this choice fifteen years ago and times have certainly changed, but I’m sure the core of the choice would remain the same if I had it to do all over again. One could argue that my inclination was already towards heterosexuality, but I am far more than just a little homosexual. I am very definitely a “rounded up” heterosexual. I eventually rounded myself up and essentially locked 45% of my sexuality in a box for the rest of my life in order to have a “normal” relationship with a woman.
I cannot be alone. I know I’m not. I remember all those guys I sucked off who are now in the same place I am with a wife and kids and everything. I don’t think many of them were as close to the middle of the Kinsey scale as I am and most were experiencing ”situational” homosexuality driven by their teenage hormones, an inability to score with the chicks, and a more than willing slut of a boy readily at hand. I’m sure that many of them, when pondering the whole “is homosexuality a choice” thing, think it may be based on their life experience. They experimented with the gay thing and decided not to explore it further. Therefore, it’s a choice. They might even look at me, the willing and eager participant in their experimentation, and see someone else who made their “choice”.
So no, you can’t choose what turns you on. But you can choose how to live your life. If that choice goes against your nature, you will be miserable and probably pretty unsuccessful at it. I made my choice and that choice allowed me to get on with my life. Because of it, there are things I want and will never get that sometimes eat at me from the inside out. Simultaneously, there are other things that fill my life with joy and contentment and a sense of purpose. In the end, I made the only choice that made sense for me.

