Science and technology have solved that problem. Willing lesbians and a sperm donor are all you need.

It has been show that two females can reproduce with a little lab work. That is if the females are mice. But taking the concept up the evolutionary ladder shouldn’t be too difficult.

I think why so many in the gay community laugh and mock the “become straight” movement is that we find it sad that people are so brainwashed by religion that they feel the need to try and become something they are not. “Praying yourself straight” is everyone’s right, of course (I’ll leave out the question of it’s effectiveness), but wouldn’t it be great if we lived in a society where we could just be ourselves, and not feel guilty about it??? This movement contradicts that noble goal.

f I’m not mistaken it’s not possible for two people of the same sex to reproduce

Science and technology have solved that problem. Willing lesbians and a sperm donor are all you need.

My point is that procreating offspring is a very powerful motivator.

“Parenting” and “procreating” aren’t the same thing, as you yourself acknowledge in your responses to Jon.

If I were personally bothered by my genes disappearing from the gene pool — which I’m not, ’cause what’s it to me if my genes aren’t around 200 years after I’m dead? — I could solve this by the simple expedient of sperm donation, which involves much less time, expense, and trouble than “change therapy.” (I’m HIV- and have the same IQ as Jayne Mansfield, so I’m willing to bet that some chicks would pay good cash for my semen even knowing that I’m homosexual and this trait might theoretically show up in the resulting offspring.)

P.S. For what it’s worth, I have some ethical problems with the idea of being a “sperm donor,” so I’ve never given this idea serious consideration and doubt I ever will. I’m just observing that as a practical matter, it’s simpler than “change therapy” for gays who really really want to pass their genes on.

Again, I’m not sure why his needs so much explanation. It’s like people turn their brains off when they come here.

If you think I’m quibbling and splitting hair by pointing out that gay people don’t have to enter the “heterosexual lifestyle” in order to become parents, then so be it. You don’t. I didn’t. I know many others who didn’t.

That said, I personally know a few ex-gay folks who did enter the “heterosexual lifestyle” and who became parents. They are all gay again and divorced and their kids are being split between homes.

I prefer my way of becoming a parent.

I don’t think there’s any question that environment and culture play significant roles in the overall formation of “sexual identity” — but I see “orientation” as being only one facet of “sexual identity.”

Throbert,

Can you go into a little more detail about this – I particularly think the part about orientation being only one facet of sexuality identity is very important/interesting.

Since that thread is now so long and getting stale, I thought I’d answer the question here — it’s no more off-topic here than there!

So, here goes. As I said, I think there are multiple facets to “sexuality” or “sexual identity”; starting with the most obvious ones:

Orientation — by this, I mean the basic question of “snails or oysters” (as it was phrased in the movie Spartacus), or as I prefer to put it, “Do you prefer tacos, or corndogs?” The terms heterosexual and homosexual describe the biological gender of the “lust objects” relative to the self: Are you turned on by the sex that’s the same as you, or the sex that’s opposite to you? However, you can also discuss orientation in “absolute” terms using words like androphilia (attraction to men) and gynephilia (attraction to women). Note that heterosexual males and homosexual females are both “gynephilic,” while homosexual males and heterosexual females are both “androphilic.”

Age preference is sort of analogous to “orientation” in that it deals with the question of “Who makes me horny?” It can be described with terms such as pedophilia (prepubescent children), hebephilia (young teens just past puberty), ephebophilia (older teens), teleiophilia (adults who are post-teenage but not “senior citizens”), and gerontophilia (“elderly” adults) being used to describe sexual attraction to different age ranges.

Gender identity has nothing to do with “Who makes me horny?”, but rather deals with the question “Which am I — male or female or both or neither?” Generally, people with penises see themselves as males/men and people with vaginas see themselves as females/women. But transgendered individuals may self-perceive as “a woman born with male genitals,” for example. And in the 19th century, some homosexual-rights advocates postulated that male homosexuals were a “third sex,” rather than “a type of man.”

Gender behavior has to do with whether a person’s overall mannerisms and affect outside the bedroom tends to be stereotypically “man-like”/”masculine” or “woman-like”/”feminine” — with “androgynous” or “indeterminate” also being options. Note that a man who is markedly feminine in his behavior may nonetheless have a very strong sense that he is a man, and may also be exclusively attracted to women.

Erotic role preference is a term that I would use when discussing whether a person gravitates towards “active” / “dominant” / “controller” / “alpha” roles when having sex with a partner, or instead prefers “passive” / “submissive” / “controlled” / “beta” roles. Note that In gay parlance, “active” and “passive” may be used to describe whether one prefers the insertive or receptive role in anal sex, while in S&M circles, “dominant” and “submissive” may describe who’s holding the whip, and who’s tied up — but I’m talking in more general terms about psychological roles. Some people have a very strong preference for being either “active” or “passive,” and find it weird to reverse the roles; while others are averse to being typecast, and feel much more comfortable to swap roles back and forth, or to be very egalitarian all the time and avoid the active/passive dichotomy altogether.

Sense of sex-destiny is a phrase I just made up (for lack of a better one) to describe how a person sees his own sexuality in relation to the rest of society: “Am I a participant in a hallowed tradition, or am I outcast from it, or am I actively rebelling against it and subverting it?” Or, “Was I put on this earth to be a devoted husband to one woman, or to be a chaste monk, or to share my magnificent self with as many ladies as possible?” Or, “Should I try to be a parent who gives life to the next generation, or is it better for me to be a doting uncle or aunt to other people’s children, or would I rather not involve myself at all as a team player in the procreative effort?”

There are possibly even other “facets,” but the above are some that came to mind for me when I was reading preston’s links about the Fa’afafine of Samoa (i.e., men who have sex with men, and are culturally perceived as a third sex, and who typically “act effeminate”, and who have apparently been encouraged by the traditional culture to bequeath their earnings to nieces and nephews).