So, the question of these times...

Were you born this way, or rather did you learn to be this way?

Were you born with a preordained attraction (whether be physical or mental or emotional) to the same/opposite sex, or over time, were you influenced from outside factors such as your family, society, friends, religion (or lack there of) or any environmental factors that ultimately changed/created your attraction to the gender of your liking?

Just a question that popped into my head today after I had read my college psychology book, and was reading up on the psychobiological approach to things.

Now, I know (obviously) that hetero/homosexuality is not a mental disorder (much as it was believed that homosexuality was a long time ago) and I'm not stating this all to make it seem that attraction can be figured out solely through the mental process, because, shit, it can't! XD Emotion and attraction are two very difficult things in the psychological world to explain! But anyway, that's a different topic.

What I'm actually asking here is, which do you think is the reason you are this way? But if you can, my fellow watchers and friends, don't just state which, say why you think that. Is it because of a certain thing in particular? I.e. were you conditioned to believe that we are born the way we are/ to believe that we grow up the way we are?

Later today, I'll post my thoughts in a seperate journal on what I think and why. =)

Thanks to all who participate in advance!! :D I'm really just curious about the mentality of everyone out there on this subject. Call it the psychologist in me!

Also, any lashing out at other people's answers will get your comment deleted. Everyone has a right to their own oppinion and belief system! No one is going to be judged in here!

Thanks,
Dorky

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Added:	12 years, 2 months ago 22 Jan 2012 17:43 CET

8 Comments on this Journal

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Bluewag

12 years, 2 months ago

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I'm born the way I am. I wasn't raised to be particularly analytical. Not that my parents taught me to be blindly accepting of things I was told by others, but I have a thirst for knowledge about a broad variety of topics.

A lot of people's results on personality tests tend to fluctuate around quite a lot. Over the past 8 or so years, I've been required as course work to take several, the most common of which is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator test. I always score strongly in analytical and critical thinking categories and somewhat poorly in emotional and social interaction categories. I don't think you can really raise a child to be something they intrinsically are not.

The most interesting thing about my particular makeup that is not reflected in any personality test I've ever taken is that I have a pretty strong ability to see other people's viewpoints very clearly. To me, understanding what motivates someone to say or feel a certain way is more important than just listening to what they say or watching how they behave. If you can actually understand someone's inner workings, you can actually form a stronger bond with them. That deep friendship thing DOES show up on the personality tests, but never actually explains why.

DorkyWolf

12 years, 2 months ago

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@ Bluewag

Oh personality tests :P Freud said our personality is set by age 4! Yet, these tests change everytime we take them? Very odd. Though, like you said, you do well on certain parts and less on others, which does hint that Freud was correct, and you do have a certain personality set in you. Personally, Im Type A-B personality. Both of each aspect at the same time! But, thats not to say outside factors can't influence me either.

I love the topic of Nature vs Nuture always for the fact that in each person you can contradict EVERYTHING with the opposite! ie, "im a hyper person because i just always am!" Well, couldnt that also be due to your environment? "but I live in a quiet house" Thus you are hyper for balance. Or the person's house is a busy one, so they are hyper. you can always go from nature to nuture and back to nature! It's fucking crazy! XD

Charliemon

12 years, 2 months ago

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Edited 12 years, 2 months ago by Owner

your born with the ability to feel and think and in time those expand to feelings and understandings of how things make you feel and how they work and our unconscious puts stuff we felt and experiences together to make who we are today

DorkyWolf

12 years, 2 months ago

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@ Charliemon

Very good answer there. But at the same time, generalized. Not to take away from it's brilliance, because yes, it is true we grow to learn how things affect us and why they do, but not one person is right, even for themselves. Someone says this feels like love thus it is love, but what if that "love" is something abusive? Is that person right or are they mentally conditioned to think so? Or even, is it a defensive technique for coping? Everything is off of perception. How we percieve things is not the reality. I say one thing is green, someone says the same is red. Who's the colorblind one? Neither. We are both right and we are both wrong.

Arguably from your stand point, the way we percieve the world is because we are born with the sense that takes it in. But don't senses change in time too? Doesn't something that once tasted so good change to being the most hated food for you. In time, taste dulls, sight fades, sounds distance themselves, touches feel ever so slight when they used to feel so unmistakably there and scents of beauty become foul. Time changes and so can our feelings. Are you always going to love that favorite shirt? (arguably not a person, so much different).

Inescence, you and I are both correct and incorrect right now! Schrodinger's cat much? (poor kitty)

Thanks for the response :D

Shokuji

12 years, 2 months ago

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I believe it's a little of both. Some of it genetic, some of it how you're raised. =) I think that most people are bisexual to begin with (some being honestly 100% homo/hetero, but a rather small percentage) and then through the gauntlet of parenting, schooling, peer pressure, religious pressure, society, culture, etc, the outcome is altered. If there were no 'pressures' either way, I think for the most part the worst it would get is people could be with anyone, but would enjoy one sex over the other. Certainly seems better than all the hate & violence going around. c.c

DorkyWolf

12 years, 2 months ago

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@ Shokuji

^ this times over 9000! It come's down to both nature and nuture.