Lez Keep It Real

To those of you who expected a religious or scientific debate on this matter, I hate to disappoint you. I’m not going to approach this subject from either a religious or scientific point of view. Instead I am going to discuss this sensitive topic and draw from the best possible resource at my disposal - my own personal experience.

I wasn’t going to write on this subject, I didn’t want to. But certain signs kept pointing me in its direction. First, there was the special on Sixty Minutes last week called, “Nature vs. Nuture.” Then I got into an intellectual conversation with another 451 blogger who offered her own insight based on personal experience. I knew then that I wanted to write about whether homosexuality was a choice, but I also knew that I didn’t want to base my article merely on statistical information, scientific jargon or religious doctrine.

What I wanted to do was look inward and decide whether or not I had made a conscious choice to be a lesbian.

This is what I found.

When I think of making a choice about something, I think about when I wake up in the morning and I choose a red sweater over a  brown one, I think about when I am out at a restaurant and I choose to eat fish instead of red meat, and I think about when I decided to go to college I chose a small school as opposed to a bigger one. These were all conscious decisions on my part. I remember these decisions and choices as clear as day.  But I can’t remember a time in my whole life that I chose to be gay.

What I do remember is always feeling different from other girls. There was something there, plaguing me as early as I can remember. It wasn’t something definitive, but it was something that constantly ate away at me, something that told me I wasn’t like other girls. Instead of dreaming of a fairytale wedding in which I was dressed in a flowing white gown, I’d dream of being decked out in a tuxedo watching my bride elegantly make her way down the aisle to stand next to me.

These dreams and fantasies never went away. In fact, they only grew stronger. I didn’t choose to have them, at least not consciously, but feel instead as if they chose me. What confuses me or complicates the situation rather, is that I did date men. All throughout high school and even through college. I even considered getting married and knew that my last serious boyfriend was planning on asking me to marry him once I graduated from college. This was before I had even kissed another girl, and figured that the feelings I was having would soon disappear. But they didn’t disappear. And then the “Accidental Kiss” happened and I was thus forced to face my feelings head on. What I discovered was that I couldn’t run from them. I chose to explore them. BUT, I didn’t choose to have them. There is a distinct difference.

What I found was that I felt more comfortable with women, that I enjoyed the intimacy more, and that I was more attracted both sexually and emotionally to them. If I saw an extremely handsome man walking down the street next to an incredibly beautiful woman, I would find myself noticing the woman and not paying much attention to the man. These, again, were not conscious decisions but instinctive reactions.

I was told once by a woman that she believes she chose to be with a man, that she could see herself being with a woman and that she could have been happy with a woman but she wanted the kind of life that she believed only a man could provide. I considered this and thought, could I see myself with a man? Could I be happy both sexually and emotionally? The answer for me is no, I could not. If I had consciously made the decision back in college to continue dating my boyfriend and to marry him after I graduated from college I know that I would have been miserable. I would have been constantly wondering about women, dreaming about being with them and yearning to explore my feelings. I would have felt as though something were missing from my life, sort of like bread without the butter. I would have caused heartache for me, for my “husband” and the family we would have had.  Sexually, I would have felt completely unsatisfied.

To make a conscious choice on something, you have to have two viable things to choose from. Therefore, I don’t believe that I chose to be with a woman over man because I never weighed one against the other. Knowing inside I couldn’t be with a man nor wanted to didn’t pose an option. There was nothing to “choose.” There was simply one thing and one thing only for me to consider: being with women.  To be with a woman or to be alone: that would have been a conscious choice. For me, the only “choice” I made was what kind of woman I wanted to be with.

I do believe that homosexuality is a choice in that we can “choose” whether or not to honor our feelings. But those feelings are innate and are as biological as how many fingers and toes we have. We can’t choose not to have them. Honoring them and having them are two very different things. You can have them and “choose” not to explore them. Many people do. But you can’t choose to not have them. They exist whether you like it or not. It would be the same thing for a straight person if they tried to be with someone of the same sex. It wouldn’t work for them. Their innate feelings exist for someone of the opposite sex. For them, it wasn’t a choice to have those feelings. And it’s the same for gay people.

The whole choice thing is quite complex. We choose things every day in our lives, from what to have for breakfast to whether or not to buy a flat screen television or save for a vacation to Europe. But there isn’t a choice in emotions or sexual attraction. I know that I didn’t choose to have these feelings or attractions. I only know that I have them. And the only apparent choice that arises for me concerning homosexuality is whether or not to honor those feelings.

To be or not to be? Well, that’s something we cannot control. To honor those feelings or to not honor them? - that is the question.

Comment Question: What’s your view on this subject?

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