Most Popular
Job Board
The Choices of Attraction
Public debate about homosexuality is dominated by the question of choice. “Clinics” that aim for “cures” presuppose that it is, while the Web sites of groups like the Human Rights Campaign and Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays prominently display arguments that sexuality is not a choice. Indeed, it seems that most people take the question to be the key to determining whether discrimination is permissible.
Both sides are wrong, but my concern today is with those who defend gay rights on the grounds that sexuality is not a choice.
First, as the anti-gay community is quick to point out, that something is genetically determined does not make it okay. Some seem to be born predisposed to sexual attraction to young children or with an overwhelming desire to kill or rape, and yet these actions should not be allowed.
Second, if the genetic hypothesis turns out to be true, one natural reaction will be to seek a genetic “cure.” Already, there are researchers looking for genetic markers of same-sex attraction in breeding stock. Their goal is not to engender love and respect for gay rams.
Third, I see no evidence that the genetic hypothesis is true. It may be that there are a small number of people who are genetically wired for exclusive sexual attraction to members of the same biological sex. Given the context of homophobia in which we live, this is likely true of many who identify as gay. (If one had a choice, why choose to be abused?) But I see no reason to believe that any particular orientation is genetically programmed into the majority of us. Historical and social variation in sexual expression is enormous. In upper class, 20th century Britain, it was quite common and “normal” for boys to have sex with one another in their school days but then to turn to women after graduation. In upper-class Athenian society, most men had sex with young men or boys for pleasure and women for procreation. Such examples suggest that most people are capable of enjoying sexual relations with a wide variety of partners, with biology settling little more than what bits of our body enjoy friction. The rest is social conditioning, practice and our own creativity.
Most importantly, focus on the alleged genetic basis of homosexuality gives the bulk of the game away to the anti-gay position. One turns to an “I can’t help it” defense, only when one has agreed that something is inherently wrong — or at least morally problematic. In the face of anti-Semites, one does not defend one’s Judaism by claiming that one was born Jewish. The problem with racism is not that people have no choice about their national origin.
In each of these cases, to defend the orientation in question on the basis of necessity would be indecent. Since there is nothing wrong with being Jewish or black, the question of whether one has a choice is irrelevant. Someone who can “pass” is under no more obligation to do so than someone who can’t.
The simple fact is that same-sex behavior is not, in itself, immoral — or morally problematic in any way. Some homosexual activity is wrong — having sex with this person, under these circumstances, in this way — but the same is true of any sex and of many other human interactions. (Of course I haven’t argued for this and couldn’t go through the many specious anti-gay arguments in this space. For those interested in serious scholarly dispute, a good place to start is the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, which has a very good bibliography. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/homosexuality/ )
If I am right about this, our purpose should not be grudging tolerance, not acceptance because gays can’t help it, not the condescending “Love the sinner, hate the sin.” (Imagine “Love the Christian, hate the Christianity.”) What we should demand is embrace, celebration, love. No one asks that you tolerate a heterosexual couple’s marriage, that you accept their having a child as a sad biological inevitability. Decent humans celebrate, share in the joy, when someone finds love, happiness and stability with another person. And I am prepared to accept no less for anyone.
When my daughter asks me, as she recently did, why people don’t want her to have a chance at a family, don’t want her to even hope for happiness, I wish I had a better answer than “because they are afraid.” I wish I didn’t have to answer at all. The pain of gay folks is part of why I write this, but I urge the celebration of life and love from a selfish perspective as well. We grow with an endless barrage of influences pushing us toward a particular sexuality — everything from constant positive depictions of “acceptable” sexuality to abuse, threats and violence against those who transgress. And the pressure does not stop with the gender you are supposed to be attracted to. You are taught what it means to be a man, or a woman, what sorts of men or women you are supposed to be attracted to, what sorts of behaviors you are meant to engage in and meant to find attractive in others and how you are meant to express this love if you are lucky enough to find it.
Most such social rules are arbitrary at best and deeply damaging at worst. At minimum, they limit self-creation, limit freedom, limit possibilities, experiences and potential lives, all in ways that are arbitrary and oppressive. And they do this as much for “straight” folks as for gay. When we learn to celebrate all consensual, non-damaging sexual relations, we learn new possibilities for our own lives — ones that could make a profound difference if we can face them bravely and lovingly.
Whether sexuality is or is not a choice now, our job is to build a world in which it is.
Mark Lance is a professor in the philosophy department and a professor and program director in the Program on Justice and Peace. He can be reached at lance@thehoya.com. COGNITIVE DISSIDENT appears every other Friday.
When the choice is made to romantically or sexually pursue a person, the compatibility of that person must be taken into account. On this basis I object to your accusation, "they are afraid", regarding accepting practical homosexuality. I am not afraid that someone's sexual attraction to someone of the same sex anymore than I am afraid of someone's attraction to the opposite sex. That is not to say that I am unconcerned to some degree by other people's sexual peculiarities.
To say that sexuality should be a choice regardless of the relations involved is to say that sexual-fulfillment is an individual right. This leaves the door open for any group who might claim such affections. Polygamy, consensual adult incest, these become possibilities. When does consent begin? Can consent be retracted during or after the engagement of relations? Where does choice begin and end? If consent can be rescinded, is there damage done to future partners, or the new ex-partners?
It is questions like these that cause me concern when I read about "new possibilities" and "profound differences". The ambiguity of "new possibilities" and "profound differences" leaves too much up for individualistic determination: "The sky is green (because the names of colors are human constructs) and nobody has the right to tell me otherwise". Surely, "new possibilities" arise from any preceding action, and profound differences may refer to any contrasting concepts. Are these "new possibilities" and "profound differences" good because they are new and profound? Are they necessarily so?
The argument that homosexuality is a choice - and therefore morally culpable behavior - is a complex one and you do well to dissect the two separate issues.
Homophobes construct a straw man when they claim that homosexuals say "I can't help it" as though they were not morally responsible for their sexual behavior. This is NOT what HOMOSEXUALS THEMSELVES have actually claimed. What they claim is that they are not responsible for their sexual ORIENTATION - any more than heterosexuals are. They do, however, recognize that they are as responsible as anyone else for how they choose to behave (given that basic underlying orientation). What they want is simply a single standard; that they may be judged on the same basis as heterosexuals for their voluntary behavior.
The problem is that homophobes have built the theological concept of 'sin' into homosexual orientation itself, prior to any consideration of the free choices a homosexual makes about HOW to behave in morally relevant human interactions. This simply makes no sense. It would be like saying that heterosexuality (merely being attracted to the opposite sex) is, in itself, prior to any specific choices or interactions, a moral virtue. But how could any involuntary predisposition be a virtue or a vice, prior to choice? Upon reflection heterosexuals KNOW that their involuntary attraction to the opposite sex is no reason to shower moral praise on them. If it were then we would praise ANY heterosexual act, whether rape, incest, or pederasty as a moral virtue. What matters in the MORAL evaluation of human interactions (sexual or otherwise) is NOT the sex of the persons involved, but questions of consent, harm, and intent. If a heterosexual's involuntary attraction to the opposite sex is no reason to shower moral praise on them, then it follows that a homosexual's lack of such attraction is no reason for moral blame.
Heterosexuals and homosexuals alike have free will, and it is freedom (not sexuality) that is the foundation of morality. When will the self-proclaimed "Christians" of the authoritarian right stop perverting sex and start humanizing it? Their obsession with controlling other people's harmless, consenting sexual interactions suggests some sort of pathology, that maybe ought to be cured at a genetic level.
Regarding Doug's comment, I have to say that I don't understand the concern at all. YOu seem to be suggesting that because questions can be asked, they can't be rationally answered. One has to consider any choice, sexual or otherwise, in terms of things like whether anyone else is harmed by the choice, whether there is coercion involved, etc. Sure there are some cases in which it is hard to know, but this is not grounds for throwing your hands up and abandoning the idea that people should have as much freedom as possible.
Terri:
Thanks for this comment. I agree with most everything you say. Our one disagreement is that I don't think, in general, that something you have no immediate choice over is of no moral significance. You can't be blamed for being born a certain way, but I do think we can and should think about character. If I find myself excessively greedy, selfish, prone to anger or cynicism, I see these as vices. I can't just decide to change on a whim, but I can take all sorts of steps -- up to and including therapy -- for dealing with this, and doing so makes me a better person, even if I never act on my vices. Some people are born with an imbalance of brain chemicals that leads to extremes of hostility. Even if they can control this, they ought to seek treatment to change their "orientation".
So again, I don't really think the issue is whether sexual orientation is something we are born with, something we acquire, or something we choose. (I think each of these applies to some people. My friend Alex, whom I mentioned in the previous column insists that she consciously chose her lesbian orientation.) If homophobes were right that being born with gay inclinations were like being born with homocidal, or selfish inclinations, they would be right that gays should seek treatment to change that orientation. But that is a silly view, one that arises, as you say, not out of any argument that people are hurt by others' inclinations but rather out of fear and a desire to control those who appear different.
Just to clarify about the "I can't help it" line, I agree that it is not the view that most gays are endorsing. But the emphasis that many national groups put on the non-choice character of orientation gets awfully close to that position. If there is nothing wrong with homosexual acts, then it should not matter whether one is born with the orientation. Why would this be worth speculating on anymore than, say, whether I was born with an inclination for philosophy? If there is something wrong, then respecting the orientation gets no more than the Catholic position that gays have to live celebate lives, but can be tolerated so long as they do.
So I really think the upshot of your very well put characterization of sexual morality is that this debate about whether orientation is chosen is morally irrelevant.
Mark,
We seem to agree about much, but not on the question of whether the choice issue is relevant to the moral evaluation of homosexuality. Where we agree: Whether the orientation is voluntary or not, the state has no business interfering in an individual's personal life unless it can somehow show that the behaviour is harmful in some way. The burden of proof is with the state in this instance, and they have not succeeded in showing that consenting adult sexual relations of any kind are 'harmful' in any legally relevant way. So in that sense the issue of choice is irrelevant.
Where we disagree: But from the view of religious folks, who base their demoralization of the homosexual on a perceived 'perversion of nature', the question of choice is certainly relevant to show that homosexuality is not a rejection of the ONE universally heterosexual human nature. It also shows that issues of sexual ethics must focus not on the sex of the individuals, but on voluntary aspects of their behavior. Demonizing homosexuals for simply being homosexual makes no more sense than demonizing left-handed persons as 'sinister' and so discrimination is wrong. And it is irrational to claim that a left-handed person cannot write with their left hand because being left-handed is 'sinful'. What matters is not which hand they write with but what they write and what purpose it has in the context of the human situation, e.g. are they writing blackmail notes? If so, then what makes the behavior wrong is NOT which hand wrote the note, but the human harm intended.
I fully agree that we are responsible for our character, or at least those parts of it that are morally relevant (i.e. voluntary). So a gay person can be a selfish, greedy pig or a virtuous person, but sexual orientation has nothing to do with it. The burden of proof is on homophobes to show why there is anything wrong (harmful) about consenting adult homosexual relationships per se. So far all they can come up with is meaningless religious rhetoric that only appeals to people who believe in metaphysical explanations for all kinds of things, but this is mere superstition.
Post new comment