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Comment by GuiA | Hacker News Reader

> more than 70 percent of the self-reported adolescent nonheterosexuals had somehow gone “straight” as older teens and young adults.

Sexual orientation isn't a fixed value that stays the same forever. Especially during teenage years, a lot of people are still unsure of their preferences and may identify a in a certain way at a certain point in time that they won't down the line.

And yes, of course teenagers are likely to check random boxes as well - either to be silly, or because they fear that their results may be identified and used against them by parents/teachers.

None of those 2 things should be shocking for anyone who's ever worked with teenagers.

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Say that to some gay rights activists and they will get VERY upset (usually those that defend that gays are born gay, and thus this is why gays must have several rights, and why the religions should not consider it wrong).

I had a particularly heated discussion once, with a hetero woman that was sympathizer of gay rights, she was VERY convinced that sexual orientation was fixed, she told me that there is no such thing as "ex-gay", and all "ex-gay" are just closeted homosexuals and will become gay again given enough time.

I gave her some articles about ex-gays complaining about receiving MORE flak after becoming ex-gay than when they were gays (including there is a existance of... closeted hetero, people that were gay, and do not assume to be hetero because both hetero and homosexuals then attack them, assuming he is still a sort of traitor gay), this still did not convinced her.

Then I showed a discourse by Luiz Mott (leading gay rights activist in Brazil), where he claims that he was hetero, and now is gay by his own choice, and that he was NOT born gay.

This STILL did not convinced her, she told me that Luiz Mott was a liar, but only in that case (and that everything else he says is true).

Sometimes people disappoint me.

"Then I showed a discourse by Luiz Mott (leading gay rights activist in Brazil), where he claims that he was hetero, and now is gay by his own choice, and that he was NOT born gay."

That is a truly remarkable claim that a person with one sexual orientation could choose to change it and become a different orientation.

However, when I examine the discourse in question, I find that the claim is false: http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/archive//ldn/2010/may/10051...

"Although Mott attributed change to people who were "not 100% homosexual," he made it clear ... that he believes that "all human beings have, as Freud said it, a bisexual desire," and that sexual preference is something fluid and changeable."

The claim that people are by default bisexual and choose between two preferences is very much different from the claim that people with one well-defined sexual orientation may arbitrarily change it. The latter doesn't hold up.

"Some" of any group are morons.

When I was coming out, uniformly the response from mature members of the LGBT community was that defining myself was not useful, and that it wasn't important to stress out over whether I self identified as straight, bisexual, gay, queer, or whatever. What's important is that you're happy, that you're not preventing yourself from forming romantic and sexual relationships with people you want to do so with, and that you're not facing discrimination for those relationships.

I've personally had probably a dozen friends who thought they might be bisexual later decide that they were straight (and many who decided they weren't). I applauded them for their open mindedness in seriously considering it, and experimenting to see the truth of the matter (we were all scientists and engineers, after all). After that process, I am certainly more confident that they are actually straight than if they'd just assumed it to be the case without evidence.

So yeah, in my experience people are "born gay" "born straight" or "born flexible". Some people "born straight" experiment with bisexuality, and end up the better for it. Some people "born gay" experiment with heterosexuality, and end up the better for it. And unlike some, I do believe in bisexuality, or being attracted to someone based on personality alone. It's much more rare than a fixed sexuality, but I've definitely met people who very legitimately are interested in both men and women.

Real people don't fit neatly into one of the three 'gay', 'bi' or 'hetero' boxes. At certain times, ages, around certain people, in certain situations, anybody might feel more or less attracted to someone than they would in other situations for a whole range of reasons.

Trying to pigeonhole people as 'ex-gay' or 'gay by choice' doesn't seem like a useful exercise.

I must be weird - I fit neatly into one box and I've never left that box, and I'm a real person (honest). Pretty boring huh.

Using a throwaway as I am not out yet and If I am out, I would be disowned at best or killed at worst. Sexuality is fluid. That is 100% true. Though I'd never been attracted to women, sexually, I had fooled with a friend in Uni, who is bi. He says that he started liking guys only after he was 20. He never thought about having sex with guys before and asked why he wanted to have now, he said initially he was curious and now he likes it after trying for the first time.

The concept of sexuality being fluid can be a touchy topic to gay activists and also some gay people is because of the religious people. If everyone starts to think that sexuality can be changed, the bigots and crazy religious people will put more effort into the conversion therapy. In the current state of the world, that will do more harm than good.

I suspect there are degrees of fluidity: that some people have a flexible orientation largely driven by choice and experience (I know at least one person who reports this is how it is for her), but for others, orientation is largely fixed and even significant conditioning efforts don't make much of a difference.

> The concept of sexuality being fluid can be a touchy topic ...

I sometime wonder if sexuality is fixed and if a gene is found for it (and hence a "cure" is available) that the bigots and crazies would be even more vocal.

The woman you were talking to was an idiot. For proof look no farther than identical twin studies that show that while sexuality has a large genetic component, there is an environmental component as well. Furthermore people can be confused over their sexuality - either way - for a very long time. And other people don't have an easily classified sexuality.

To give an interesting example, how would you classify a male who is mentally a woman (had not yet had the operation) and into BDSM with both genders? (For the record, I don't do hypothetical examples ...I know enough interesting people that I don't have to.)

In general, if you have a simple model of how people work, it is almost certainly wrong. And if it is both simple and in accord with your personal politics, the likelihood of it being wrong goes way up.

Making her bi-sexual makes it too easy!

What about a post-top-op, no-bottom-op, FTM that is only into lesbians or bi-women?

kinky pre-op MTF bisexual?

yay for stringing adjectives!

It's correct that sexuality changes throughout your life. It's also correct that it's fixed, because a person doesn't decide how that changes.

> This STILL did not convinced her

You basically presented a collection of anecdotes. That hardly constitutes compelling evidence.

Credible counter examples are indeed compelling evidence against a universal claim.

Anecdotes, particularly those pertaining to a subjective experience, are almost by definition not-particularly-credible.

I'm sure there's no shortage of people who will swear quite convincingly that faith healing ceremonies are legit. Doesn't mean I would accept their testimony as evidence, though.

How are anecdotes any less credible than scientific data? They are both reports of observation, both subject to error and subjective influence.

As with any other data, the credibility of anecdotes depends on the credibility of the reporter and evidence.

Anecdotes are not adequate for conclusions that require data, but a single credible anecdote is adequate to counter a universal statement.

> a single credible anecdote is adequate to counter a universal statement.

What constitutes a credible anecdote?

What constitutes credible data in a study?

Obviously the more credible the reporter, the more evidence, the more witnesses - the more credible the anecdote.

Are you implying that no story from a layman can be considered credible, but scientists have some magical power that makes them credible?

Data is mismeasured, misinterpreted, misremembered, or simply made up in studies all the time.

> Data is mismeasured, misinterpreted, misremembered, or simply made up in studies all the time.

Scale matters. You're basically arguing that because evidentiary errors occur in scientific studies, that all evidence from all sources is therefore equivalent. That's simply not the case.

However, if you insist on maintaining this stance - we'll just have to agree to disagree.

I am simply saying that a single counterexample is sufficient to disprove a universal statement. That is logically unassailable.

The only discussion then is around the credibility of the example. Scale is completely irrelevant to disproving a universal statement with a counter example.

Say that to some gay rights activists

Which ones? Besides the unnamed one you mentioned, I mean.

Well placed fear in these uncertain times.

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