I recently saw this quote... "People who aren't alcoholics don't wonder wether they are alcoholic or not” and I was wondering to what extent do you think this applies to being gay?
"People who aren't gay don't wonder whether they're gay or not." I guess I agree and disagree. I think a reasonable amount of sexual exploring to find your identity is healthy for everyone, and many go through this. There are some anti-gay people however, which all they talk about is gay sex, and you just have to wonder why they think of the subject so much. Alcoholism and sexual identity are a bit different topics, though.
Thank you for your insight! I agree, I think it does apply to a certain extent but as you said the topics aren't exactly comparable.
Disagree completely. Sexuality is not like alcoholism in that it needn't be one or the other. Even the flightiest "kinda-sorta" intensity of alcoholism is a problem, but the faint non-straight leanings some may have don't mean much.
I guess it has some ring of truth in it. Most people in here doesn't even think samesex relationships/love can exist. For them, probably related to how I see alcoholism, is based on a choice not a natural thing. So you can be cured of being gay or pray the gay away... I have to point that, I never heard something similor to pray the gay away but heard similar thing for alcohol... if you pray hard enough God will help you overcome your alcoholism... which is not how it works usually. Those people need outside help.
It could definitely be 50/50. I've heard some people say that they've questioned themselves and some people have said that they knew who they liked and that's it.
I don't particularly like the comparison of being gay to alcoholism but see where you are going. Let me first say that any rule you come up with is going to have exceptions. That being said I think "People who aren't gay don't wonder whether they're gay or not" is probably actually a pretty good rule of thumb. I don't have anything clinical to back it up, just anecdotal stuff. The fact of the matter is that I've been very out and very matter of fact about it for a very long time and people have always tended to confide in me. I don't know exactly why this last bit is the case and, to be honest, I sometimes wish it wasn't so, but it's been that way as long as I can remember--people seem compelled to tell me things about themselves I really would rather not know. Given those two factors I've had a lot of very frank conversations about homosexuality with a lot of straight people. And I have to say I've never met anyone who seriously considered being non-straight who subsequently turned out to be straight. I've met tons of people who thought they might be gay, concluded they were straight, and then realized 10, 20 years down the line that they really were gay--but no one who identified as straight who had seriously considered another option. I think there's so much in society to encourage you to think of yourself as straight that when your mind breaks through all that to come up with the notion that you might be something else--many people who it turns out are LGBT take years for that question to even break through all the societal conditioning--there's probably something behind that thought. Obviously there's nothing scientific about that, but that's my two cents...
