Queer by Choice

I often catch some flak from other queers when I talk about the fact that I chose my sexuality. Or rather, I feel that my sexuality is under my control.

This is not an arbitrary political statement. Rather, I don't see that the idea of a biologically-determined sexual preference is possible or desirable. Rather, I think that the nature of desire is based on "sexual crystallization" - that time from about infanthood to early adulthood when one is learning about the world and about one's body and how the two relate.

I think that the mere existence of happily practicing bisexuals (despite how unpopular their existence is to both queers and heteros) is a demonstration that desire is more complicated than biological determinism can explain. Acquired taste is a good analogy. Like choosing which food you like or which God you want to worship, one is perfectly capable of choosing which genitals to play with. One obviously is not "born" hating brussels sprouts - most people are born pretty much wanting nothing but booby. In that sense, all 'preference' is equivalent to 'acquired taste'.

Humans have that discretion, and no matter what the root "cause" is (or turns out to be) - psychological, developmental, physiological, genetic; the ability of humans to exercise discretion in how they behave will not go away, and thus the pleas shouted over the hills by most of the left that "Gays didn't choose to be this way" seem pointless to me. One may not perceive that one "chose" any of ones affectations, but one still has control over them.

Do you ever notice that most leftists are totally alarmed at the usually right-wing assertion that such things as intelligence or criminal behavior are biologically driven, whilst at the same time insisting that homosexuality must not be considered a choice? The entire Gay lobby is fixated on convincing the world that "Gay" is a lifestyle, something greater than sex, more important than desire, and something the individual cannot control or change. This is done ostensibly under the pretense of preventing the legitimacy of such groups as Ex-Gay and other brainwash types. But all it does is put them in bed with the right-wing determinists who insist every day that blacks are predisposed to be criminals and that Europeans have a biological superiority to explain away their path to world dominance in the 18th-20th centuries.

The fact is, no human behaviors are entirely biologically determined. They may not be entirely volitional either, but humans have a unique capacity for reason and judgment, something that allows them the ability to avoid acting on instinct, and execute behaviors in which they WANT to engage, rather than dancing along mindlessly at the whim of their DNA.

Writing off sexual desire as biologically determined opens the door to future scientists who intend to seek a "cure" for queerness. After all, if the purpose of science is to improve the lot of man, then shouldn't it be charged with preventing the gay bashing, the dangerous sex, the discrimination in housing, relationship law, etc? Helping future children avoid the trappings of homosexuality would surely be seen as desirable to the majority of mothers-to-be, even the most liberal and gay-loving ones - they don't want to see their son go through what they see their gay friends go through. After all, even the most liberal polities on Earth have yet to eliminate discrimination culturally - they are merely capable of enforcing nondsicrimination legistlatively - a big difference. Eliminating discrimination can only be done by eliminating difference.

As is most likely to be discovered over time, most homosexuals probably share certain genealogical and neurological traits that can be controlled for through gene therapy and applied pharmaceuticals one day, but the fact remains that a (much smaller) minority of individuals will still exhibit queer desire in spite of all such efforts. Desire, by its nature, is volitional. This small remaining minority will be even more oppressed and incestuous than even the wretched populations of redneck rural queer bars, and their lives will be even more miserable than even the most queeny and bashed youth today. This is the fate to which we subject future queers by insisting that today's queers have no choice but to commit acts deemed foul by our enemies. Like President Bush's War on Terror, which uses Christian fundamentalism and paternalistic populism to rally patriotic support against Muslim fundamentalism and paternalistic populism, we are using the language of the enemy to defend our own behavior. Why?

It could be hundreds of years before therapies are available that would be capable of treating every permutation of human behavior. But such technology will appear, and women will want to use it to improve their childrens' chances of a safe, carefree, successful life. The question is, do you support a philosophy which embraces diversity as a volitional necessity of human society, or will you be a part of the new eugenics which seeks to eliminate suffering and the diversity that causes it?

Queers are, by choice, deviants. Have your parade because of that, not because of biological determinism.