Nobody knows what ’causes’ homosexuality or bisexuality, just as nobody has discovered the ’cause’ of heterosexuality, although there seems to be little interest in the latter.
It makes no difference if one or both parents are gay. Research has shown that children raised by gay parents are no more likely to be gay than those raised by heterosexual parents. It also has nothing to do with having a weak father, an overbearing mother or growing up in a single-sex boarding school.
The Kinsey Institute proposed a continuum of sexual orientation rather than an either/or classification. On a scale of zero to six, exclusively heterosexual to exclusively homosexual, some people rest firmly at one end or the other, with the remainder somewhere along the line. If your sexual orientation is fixed firmly at the zero (heterosexual) end of the scale for your entire life, that means you have never had an erotic thought about, or experience with, someone of the same sex. Your position on the scale can move from time to time as you go through life and depends on particular situations. The majority of self-described gay people have had heterosexual experiences and many people who see themselves as straight have had or have occasional homosexual experiences.
Your sexual orientation depends on lots of factors — acts, fantasies, your attractions to other people, and the way you see yourself. It’s also important to point out that your choice of partner is not based purely on sexual attraction. On a deeper level you might find that your emotional needs are best satisfied by that particular person.
People can be afraid of same-sex erotic thoughts or feelings. One woman in her late forties said, ‘I saw a program on television that talked about women having fantasies about making love to other women, even if they had never actually done it. Do you know, I have been married for nearly twenty years but I have had erotic dreams about women for as long as I can remember and I thought it was really weird. Seeing that program was such a relief. I have never been able to talk to anyone about it.’
Although it is common for both men and women to have erotic thoughts about people of the same sex, there are barriers that preclude many of them from ever acting on those feelings, like fidelity to current opposite-sex relationships, fear of the potential repercussions, religious or moral beliefs, or lack of opportunity.
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