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News & ArtsThursday, March 22, 2012
Sex / Hetero / Science Are Straight People Born That Way?
Posted by Dan Savage on Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 10:00 AM
Alice Dreger, a regular "Savage Love" guest expert (oh, and a professor of clinical medical humanities and bioethics at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine, la de da), is writing for the the Atlantic now (a big step down from the escort-ad packed back pages of the Stranger, of course, but a girl's gotta eat), and today Alice attempts to answer one of the most difficult questions that confronts modern sex researchers and writers: Straight people? WTF?
Developmental studies by researchers like the University of Utah's Lisa Diamond suggest that women may demonstrate a fair bit of flexibility over the course of their lives in terms of their sexual attractions, relations, and identities, and laboratory studies by people like Chivers and Bailey seem to back up the hypothesis that females are, on average, less rigidly oriented when it comes to sex. At least when you measure their vaginal response, straight-identified women can be aroused by a wide variety of sexual stimuli.
Nevertheless, let's just say, for purposes of argument, that we're willing to accept the existence of some straight females and males as defined above, even if they are not always perfectly straight arrows in the lab. Were they born that way?
And while—spoiler alert!—the jury is still out on how the hell straight people get that way, Alice come down firmly on the side of marriage equality:
Personally, I think it makes sense to let straight-identified people marry, not because they were necessarily born that way, but because it seems silly, in this day and age, to get in the way of their desire to marry and/or to have sex with whatever consenting adults they wish. Given the challenges of attempting a lifetime partnership with a person who will be, on average, fundamentally sexually different from oneself, it seems the least we can do for straight people is to let them get married if they want.
1
Everyone is actually bi... At least that's what i'm going with. In ancient times (greece/rome) almost everyone had experiences with both genders, and people haven't changed, but society has. I'd guess alot of this gay/straight divide is socialization.
3
"Personally, I think it makes sense to let straight-identified people marry..."
There you go again, pushing your radical heterosexual agenda on the public.
There you go again, pushing your radical heterosexual agenda on the public.
4
@3 Hey, I just said we should let them marry. I didn't say we should let them register at Macy's or anything.
5
@1 What's wrong with the Kinsey scale? You could argue that no one is truly 100% a 0 or a 6, but that doesn't seem relevant in determining self-described orientations. Nor does saying "everyone is bi" seem terribly useful or based in reality when expressing human desires.
8
My fave quote so far (I'm still reading it) from Dreger's wry little article:
Indeed, one is inclined to wonder, if being straight is just natural, why does it require quite so much policing?
9
Is it funny because it's true?
Given the challenges of attempting a lifetime partnership with a person who will be, on average, fundamentally sexually different from oneself...
Is it funny because it's true?
11
Oh, what a fantastic, smart article. Three cheers for Alice Dreger for turning the tables on straight people!
12
Fun article but one misstep.
In the cultures that force boys to suck off men it claims "In other words, these early same-sex experiences don't seem to "turn" the boys gay". Don't those boys grow up to be men who desire to be sucked off by little boys? If not, why would the tradition continue?
So apparently in this instance, it is culture that turns the men into what I'd call a gay pedophile. So culture and environment can apparently play a role. Thanks for setting us "straight", lol.
In the cultures that force boys to suck off men it claims "In other words, these early same-sex experiences don't seem to "turn" the boys gay". Don't those boys grow up to be men who desire to be sucked off by little boys? If not, why would the tradition continue?
So apparently in this instance, it is culture that turns the men into what I'd call a gay pedophile. So culture and environment can apparently play a role. Thanks for setting us "straight", lol.
13
While I, like most of Dan's readers, couldn't care less who has sex with whom, I wonder if this provides ammunition to the "you can choose not to be gay!" crowd?
Personally, I buy that sexuality is on a spectrum and is largely innate. Still, I suppose that folks do get forced to pigeon-hole themselves (and most willingly do it) into one of a few sets of categories and probably alter their behavior as a result thereof. So is there some amount of choice?
Anyway, when I first started reading Dan way back when, when homophobia was more mainstream than it is today, one of his most convincing arguments for the lack of choice of homosexuality was the rather astute observation that straight people don't recall *choosing* to be straight. I certainly don't recall such an instance. I consider myself pretty much as far as you can go on the straight spectrum, but I wonder, under different social structure, could I be less straight? I suppose so? Maybe social pressures can move you a couple of inches one way or another across the spectrum?
Personally, I buy that sexuality is on a spectrum and is largely innate. Still, I suppose that folks do get forced to pigeon-hole themselves (and most willingly do it) into one of a few sets of categories and probably alter their behavior as a result thereof. So is there some amount of choice?
Anyway, when I first started reading Dan way back when, when homophobia was more mainstream than it is today, one of his most convincing arguments for the lack of choice of homosexuality was the rather astute observation that straight people don't recall *choosing* to be straight. I certainly don't recall such an instance. I consider myself pretty much as far as you can go on the straight spectrum, but I wonder, under different social structure, could I be less straight? I suppose so? Maybe social pressures can move you a couple of inches one way or another across the spectrum?
14
Here's my feeling about the hole in discussions of sexuality. To my mind, there are two classes of people in the world (this is a gross generalization; bear with me): people who are generally aroused by PEOPLE, and people who are generally aroused by ACTS. Discussions of sexuality almost always omit this huge dimension to sex.
People are always talking about how "fluid" female sexuality is, but I think that is a mischaracterization. Because men are visual creatures who are aroused by PEOPLE, and our sexual culture is dominated by male influence, we tend to think of all of sexuality as target-based: you are put into a category based on WHO arouses you, and what gender that person has.
But what if females are primarily aroused not by people but by ACTS? What if female sexuality is actually quite rigid, not along gender lines but along SEXUAL ACT lines? Here's a specific example: I'm kinky, and I've always been kinky. I'm not particularly attracted to targets (the bodies of men or women) - it's what they're doing with those bodies that arouses me. What if "women in general" are this way? Then "are people born bi/straight/gay?" is not the only question we should be asking.
Once more, the disclaimer: this comment is full of gross generalizations. I am aware there are many women in the world whose sexuality is target-based, and many men whose sexuality is act-based. But we need to be aware of this distinction and talk about it.
People are always talking about how "fluid" female sexuality is, but I think that is a mischaracterization. Because men are visual creatures who are aroused by PEOPLE, and our sexual culture is dominated by male influence, we tend to think of all of sexuality as target-based: you are put into a category based on WHO arouses you, and what gender that person has.
But what if females are primarily aroused not by people but by ACTS? What if female sexuality is actually quite rigid, not along gender lines but along SEXUAL ACT lines? Here's a specific example: I'm kinky, and I've always been kinky. I'm not particularly attracted to targets (the bodies of men or women) - it's what they're doing with those bodies that arouses me. What if "women in general" are this way? Then "are people born bi/straight/gay?" is not the only question we should be asking.
Once more, the disclaimer: this comment is full of gross generalizations. I am aware there are many women in the world whose sexuality is target-based, and many men whose sexuality is act-based. But we need to be aware of this distinction and talk about it.
15
@12, interesting point. One wonders how far culture can go in shaping such situations, and how normal or harmless they can be.
@14, I think you're partially talking about what Dan usually calls the distinction between sexual orientation and sexual preferences ('who you do' vs. 'what you do'). Given the number of men who are aroused by specific kinks, regardless of the person doing them (within limits), and given women's traditional propensity to 'fall in love' with a person and feel sexually unattracted to others for at least a while, you could make the exact opposite point: that men are aroused by ACTS while women are aroused by PEOPLE. Or than men are aroused by ACTIONS ('doing') while women are aroused by RELATIONS ('who are we?').
@14, I think you're partially talking about what Dan usually calls the distinction between sexual orientation and sexual preferences ('who you do' vs. 'what you do'). Given the number of men who are aroused by specific kinks, regardless of the person doing them (within limits), and given women's traditional propensity to 'fall in love' with a person and feel sexually unattracted to others for at least a while, you could make the exact opposite point: that men are aroused by ACTS while women are aroused by PEOPLE. Or than men are aroused by ACTIONS ('doing') while women are aroused by RELATIONS ('who are we?').
16
I always feel uneasy with the "are we born that way?" discussion when used in politics, because it concentrates on the least important aspect of the equation -- and this, because of a confusion between three different meanings of the word 'natural': 'natural-1' = 'from nature, innate, not artificial or culture-shaped'; 'natural-2' = 'frequent, normal, expectable, not frightening, not threatening, harmless, acceptable'; and 'natural-3' = 'good for you, good for your health'.
I think people want to prove that being gay or straight is 'natural-1' ('innate', 'from nature') in order to prove that it is 'natural-2' ('harmless, acceptable') or even 'natural-3' ('good for you', 'accept yourself as you are'), which is a non-sequitur, since there are many things produced in nature, imprinted in the genes of various organisms, that make them quite harmful (snake poison, infectious bacteria, etc.). Just because something is from nature, it doesn't follow that it is harmless or that we shouldn't try to change it. (And we can change innate things: we do it all the time with certain genetic defects, myopia, appendices, etc.)
To me, the argument for equality is simply that being gay is natural-2 ('not a threat, harmless'). It doesn't matter if it is also natural-1 ('innate') -- it's an interesting question, but it doesn't change the fact that it's natural-2. If being gay or straight is natural-1, this doesn't even ultimately make it 'unchangeable' (which is, I think, another reason why people want to make this claim: so that 'corrective therapy' solutions can be claimed to be doomed to failure): as I said above, other innate things like myopia can be corrected, so maybe sexual orientation also can be, with the right method. But this still doesn't change the fact that there is no reason to do that (other than religious beliefs), since being gay or straight is basically natural-2 ('harmless').
More...
I think people want to prove that being gay or straight is 'natural-1' ('innate', 'from nature') in order to prove that it is 'natural-2' ('harmless, acceptable') or even 'natural-3' ('good for you', 'accept yourself as you are'), which is a non-sequitur, since there are many things produced in nature, imprinted in the genes of various organisms, that make them quite harmful (snake poison, infectious bacteria, etc.). Just because something is from nature, it doesn't follow that it is harmless or that we shouldn't try to change it. (And we can change innate things: we do it all the time with certain genetic defects, myopia, appendices, etc.)
To me, the argument for equality is simply that being gay is natural-2 ('not a threat, harmless'). It doesn't matter if it is also natural-1 ('innate') -- it's an interesting question, but it doesn't change the fact that it's natural-2. If being gay or straight is natural-1, this doesn't even ultimately make it 'unchangeable' (which is, I think, another reason why people want to make this claim: so that 'corrective therapy' solutions can be claimed to be doomed to failure): as I said above, other innate things like myopia can be corrected, so maybe sexual orientation also can be, with the right method. But this still doesn't change the fact that there is no reason to do that (other than religious beliefs), since being gay or straight is basically natural-2 ('harmless').
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