Sexual attraction is not biologically predetermined more than it is learned by experience. Answer this for me. If a gay gene does in fact exist, in what way does it affect bisexuals? Is there a breakdown in the gene that supports an uncontrollable attraction to both sexes?
Perhaps there is a bisexual gene? Either way, if you accept that genes influence sexual attraction, and bisexuality is a form of sexual attraction, then you accept that genes influence bisexuality. Unless bisexuality is somehow different, the burden of proof is on you.
http://www.experienceproject.com/stories/Am-Gay/669841
There are tons of stories that are similar to this in the sense of becoming/transitioning to appreciate the same sex, thus
creating an attraction. Just like some people may be sexually aroused by receiving pain, and others may be sexually aroused by an unorthodox fetish. You learn this by experience. It's not instinctive, natural, or predetermined. Are nymphomaniacs genetically created? They can't revert to a practical state of mind, so based on your logic, it would be classified as being related to the properties of biology.
First off, people stories are not scientific evidence. For example, people go on many diets to treat cancer. You cannot conclude anything from this. By the way, your story does not support a choice in sexual attraction, What if Ravi was actually bi/homosexual but due to the stigma attached to such acts suppressed his feelings? This was actually quite common when homosexuality was outlawed and taboo. These examples are not enough evidence in the first instance, and cannot, with any power, support the view that bisexuality is a choice.
When people refer to a gay gene, they refer to a gene that affects sexuality, not causes it like an on or off switch. Most things have genetic and environmental factors. In the former we have no choice, in the latter, we don't have much of a choice either. This article makes appropriate criticisms, but it doesn't detract from the underlying fact that genes affect sexuality, and thus we can have genetic dispositions to be straight, gay, bi, etc. The fact that environmental factors have a bearing here doesn't necessarily mean a choice is involved, environmental factors include climate, the foods you eat, the people you associate with, etc etc. With reference to the story above, it seems to me that most people discover that they are not straight, Ravis penis became erect at the touch of a mans, and we can assume that this was unexpected for him. He discovered that he was sexually aroused by a man. The act of continuation is a choice, but his sexual feelings lets say, at least with what I have specifically referenced, don't seem to be his choosing.
There are studies supporting and opposing the existence of a gay gene. Let's think here for a second. By a religious and scientific stand point, it wouldn't make sense for there to be one. Our reason for existing is to procreate, and obviously two gay partners cannot do that. The only plausible assumption is to cancel out overpopulating, and even then it still doesn't make sense because that would make us the only animal to have a gay gene, hence making it unnatural.
You would think this; how does that gay gene survive if gay people cannot procreate! The answer might be found in one of the articles in the articles you linked.
"The key here is epi-marks, which control how genes are expressed, and they just might explain the evolutionary stumper of why, if homosexuality is hereditary, it hasn’t been eliminated from the gene pool.
As a press release explains in almost comprehensible terms, the study finds “sex-specific epi-marks, which normally do not pass between generations and are thus ‘erased,’ can lead to homosexuality when they escape erasure and are transmitted from father to daughter or mother to son.”
Being born with an abnormality is by far unnatural. It's a disease that is genetically passed down to the child. Unless you're trying to argue that diseases too are natural, it really doesn't prove anything."
Furthermore, gay people have had children. So, that's how there genes have passed on.
Not a study. On the assumption that peoples sexuality 'changed', the fact that sexuality can change does not mean that (a) the change was because of a choice, or (b) that there are no biological dispositions in the first instance.
In order to change from something, you must have been something in the first instance. In order to go from gay > straight, or straight > gay, etc. But what made you gay or straight in the first instance? Where you sexually neutral and then suddenly made a conscious choice to pursue women, or men, or both, or neither?
1. Not relevant here.
2. Sure, gender and sex is mixed, I still don't see a denial in biological dispositions, nor evidence for a conscious choice.
3. This kind if answers your question of how the 'gay gene' was passed down. Also, this talks about sexual acts not sexual dispositions. Like I said, sucking dick doesn't mean you like guys, though it is a nice indicator. Also
4. False analogy. The fact that some desires are a choice does not mean all are.
5. The fact that ones sexuality can change does not mean this change was a result of a conscious choice (more likely operant conditioning), nor that biological dispositions don't exist. People don't seem to realize that these arguments presuppose a pre-existing sexual orientation. In order to change ones sexual orientation you must have a sexual orientation to begin with. The question is what was the cause of this initial sexual orientaiton?
Before replying I suggest you read these links. It puts the biggest dent in the concept of being born gay.
I read all the links. I am not claiming that people are 'born gay', so much so as I am claiming that people are born with sexual dispositions, and that these dispositions have some genetic explanations. If you disagree with me, you are either saying that (a) people do not have sexual dispositions or (b) people do have sexual dispositions but there is no genetic basis for these dispositions. I am also not saying that peoples sexuality can't change, though I will say that this change may not be a result of a choice, and that change presupposes initial sexual orientation, which, as far as I know main focus of scientific research; what is the reason for this initial sexual orientation.
