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Comment by DubiousPusher | Hacker News Reader

I find it reasonable to think that people can broaden their sexual interests over time somewhat like their experience of foods, arts and even work.

I think there is a knee-jerk reaction to "acquired homosexuality" because it was used so long a an excuse to persecute homosexuals. But like many arguments in our society, I think it is the wrong hill to die on. Because to overly concern oneself with winning the argument over whether homosexuality is acquired or not somewhat cedes the ground to the authoritarians. It implies that there is something to be lost if homosexuality is acquired. That if it were, we should probably then accept some regulation of the sexual lives of consenting adults.

I do understand there is a purely scientific interest in many questions. At the same time, this seems one of those questions that's very easily confounded by a myriad of social factors.

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> I think there is a knee-jerk reaction to "acquired homosexuality"

Acquired homosexuality is actually very common in some settings, such as prisons. The catch is that not all homosexuality is equal; the kind of homosexuality that's common in prisons is easily described as toxic, hypermasculine, domination-based sex. The common social aversion to acquired homosexuality is clearly based on the idea that it must necessarily, to a greater or lesser extent share these characteristics; that much is clear even from primary sources that reflect this same aversion. But we should be very clear that the modern LGBT movement is advocating for something remarkably different: equal relationships between people of the same sex based on express consent, perhaps best typified by the idea of legal gay marriage (where the 'marriage' descriptor should be read as neatly encompassing analogous traditional practices, such as sworn brotherhood). How far can that sort of culture spread and even perhaps be "acquired"? And can it socially outcompete the legacy model of homosexuality as masculine domination, even in places where that model still carries some influence? I think these are very interesting questions for those who want to take this topic seriously, and not be limited by historical or present-day ideological stances!

Can't agree more. You see these imo weird and almost religious arguments that we need to justify that something is good and natural by some kind of divine standard in order to accept it. And as you say, that if we can't show that, it's ok to discriminate.

We, both legally through government and as a societal standard, should not be discriminating about what people do (whether its sexual, religious, or whatever), regardless of their internal motivations.

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