Sexuality – What’s Choice and What’s Not?

Recent news events remind me of how too little factual information about our sexuality is available to most people, and inspires a desire to educate. I was raised in an era of bigotry that included ‘queers’, blacks, and often women and Hispanics – each often treated as if they had deliberately chosen to be something horrible that deserved to be looked down on at best, and despised and exterminated at worst. While the latter 3 categories are pretty clearly NOT a choice, the questions about sexuality haven’t been clarified that well for many people, for a number of cultural and religious reasons we address later. Although we now recognize LGBTQ variations of sexuality I will use the term ‘gay’ to apply to all of them for simplicity.

Why did sexual issues get so hatefully targeted? Much of hatred for human beings actually derives from fear – and that may come from a lack of understanding, or a past history of problems and conflicts, or a fear of those problems which can arise from our own minds or have been passed down over generations. Many people want to refer to their religious texts as justification for hating ‘queers’. Interestingly there are only a few references actually to same sex interaction in the Bible and usually those are also accompanied by admonitions against bestiality and adultery and a few other things. There is only ONE commandment around sexuality and that is ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery’. What if we pursued adultery with the same hatred we use to pursue gays? Do you realize that both David and Solomon – exalted kings in the Bible – had hundreds of wives and hundreds of concubines? Doesn’t that constitute adultery? And David even had Bathsheba’s husband killed so he could have her. – Doesn’t that constitute murder – yet another commandment violation? How many of you recall the recent website that was a matching service for people who wanted to cheat on their spouses. While sexual variation extends to about 10% of populations – across species – people breaking the adultery commandment extends to a much higher percent of the population. Would we stone all of them to death, or massacre them, or whatever? Probably not, because it isn’t strange and scary and seems more ‘normal’ – and we aren’t afraid of unwanted sexual approach like we are when it is someone of the same sex.

What does determine what sex we are and what our sexual preferences are? Probably most people believe it is simple – if you have XX chromosomes you are a female and if you have XY chromosomes you are a male. However, in our creator’s universe of infinite diversity, it just isn’t that simple. Gender variation occurs across species, not just in humans. Let look at 2 examples of gender identity that will help clarify what is happening. First, let’s look at Hermaphrodites – inspired by a recent news story of a kitten taken to the vet to be ‘fixed’ only to be found to have both male and female sex organs. That same thing happens in humans and other mammals. They can be XX, or XY or even a mixture of XX and XY cell types – referred to as a chimera. Pretty amazing that things can happen in such a way that we can have male and female genes, and male and female genital tissue, and male and female organs – or parts of organs in a single person. How can anyone possibly consider that a choice? Another dramatic example of the extremes of variation is Testicular Feminization syndrome. In this case, a baby is born and appears to be a totally normal female – and does NOT get recognized as anything else, until the time comes that she should be having periods and/or making babies and nothing is happening in that area. That is when SHE gets evaluated by a physician and found to have a MALE chromosome pattern – XY – so SHE is a HE! How does this happen? If you physically remove the testes of a fetus (of ANY animal) at an early enough age they will develop into a female. Similarly if the testes is there, but it doesn’t respond to the male hormones, or doesn’t make the male hormones, a genetic male becomes an apparent female. These are some, but certainly not all, of the GENE variations that go into determining sexuality, but there are multiple other possible variations.

There are many other ways we can have variations in how we are made and how we function, and how our parents functioned and issues that occurred while in the womb that can all effect sexual determination. That molecule Cholesterol is a major player- yes, the chemical that doctors want us to monitor so carefully. Without it, we would have NO Sex hormones – it is the building block chemical for sex hormones and other necessary functions in our bodies. The big issues after genes, though, are both the production of hormones and the organs that these hormones target – primarily the sex organs. We all have both estrogen and testosterone of varying amounts and that is determined partly by our genes, partly by the end organs, and partly by the master hormones in the pituitary gland – and there are many factors that can affect the quantity and quality of both hormones and end organs. Once the hormone is there, it needs to act on the ‘end organs’ and there are many factors that can affect how these organs respond to hormones.

Hopefully you are beginning to get a picture of that fact that not just our sexuality, but everything about us is very complex. It is really miraculous that so many people are even born fairly normal. Variations in sexual expression are as normal as variations in height, skin color, and a wide array of other physical and functional qualities.

So what IS a CHOICE issue with sexuality? Do any of you remember being asked by anyone to CHOOSE whether you wanted same or opposite sex partners? Probably not, because you just knew what you preferred. Choice is what you do with and about it. It is a choice to engage in mutually desired sexual activity. It is also a choice to sexually mistreat someone – whether same sex, opposite sex, child or even infant (yes that happens), people who are alive or dead, and animals. It is also a choice to keep or break vows of faithfulness to one’s spouse. Choice is raping an unconscious woman behind a dumpster at college, and choice is his father believing that he shouldn’t be punished for ‘twenty minutes of action’ and choice is a judge saying he shouldn’t be punished harshly. Choice is looking down on women as things to be sexually exploited instead of treating them as equals. Hopefully you can see from the above examples, that how we are wired biologically is not a choice.

I have yet to have a gay patient or friend who would have chosen to be something that is so hated and reviled – and because of social ‘norms’ they often even hate themselves for how they are. Some of them even try to be ‘normal’ by marrying opposite sex partners, which almost always ends up in divorce because it just doesn’t feel right. Few of them are willing to come out like Bruce Jenner and make his dilemma an issue for public education. Some people DO find people of both sexes attractive, and some will do almost anything sexual with anybody or anything. To me the key issue here is whether there is an intent to harm and/or disregard the wishes of the other person. Masters and Johnson once commented that gays are condemned because they don’t use sex for ‘procreation’ and pointed out that for the average heterosexual probably less than .1% of their sexual time was spent thinking about making babies, and they didn’t think it made sense to punish gays for .1% of their sexual time either. When AIDS became so prevalent and gays were dying in large numbers (along with drug abusers, and adulterers who either were truly bisexual, or who just wanted sex with anything available) I was hopeful people would begin to realize all the things that gays have contributed to the world of creativity – almost as if these things were their ‘children’ being passed on to the world and often leaving an imprint of beauty for hundreds of years. I refer to people like Michelangelo, Leonardo daVinci, Oscar Wilde, Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, and many musicians, actors, writers, composers, florists , fashion designers, artists and other creative types who enrich our lives in so many ways. Would we throw them and their work away because they were gay?

They also contribute to Zero Population Growth, an increasingly urgent issue as our population has hit 7 Billion!!! It is easier for gay couples to adopt now, and there have been some stellar stories of how as parents they work to be sure the children are exposed to plenty of ‘normal’ people and have as normal a lifestyle as possible.

In summary, there is abundant evidence that sexual variation is just another example of our creators infinite diversity in what is created in the universe. Evidence shows that sexual identity is not a choice, but just like any other quality we are endowed with, we do have a choice of what we do with it and whether we choose to do good or harm. We choose whether we respect or diminish those who are different from ourselves – or even hate and punish others because they represent something that we have learned to hate or fear. Sometimes they even remind us of something we dislike in ourselves. Let us all start making more choices driven by love instead of fear and hatred. If we truly want to make this world ‘a better place’ then instead of thinking WE are God and should make the judgment of who lives and dies ‘because’our interpretation of religion or other information deems they are wrong or bad. If our creator didn’t want them here – they wouldn’t be here. If you don’t understand that, it means you don’t have the infinite wisdom that has created an infinite universe that has survived for billions of years without your help and judgment. Focus on loving this life and learning from everything in it and be glad you aren’t being judged as harshly as you may be judging others.