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HollyS -> RE: Do You Think You Were "Born This Way" ? (12/28/2006 9:37:26 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: SusanofO
As far as sexual orientation, when I did my sociology project as an undergrad, I handed out questionnaires to almost 300 gay men, and it only had 3 questions on it, plus room for them to write comments. I went to a gay bar (one of my best friends at the time was a gay man), and handed them out over a period of about 5 weeks. The questions were:
1) Were you (in your opinion) born gay, or was it a concious choice of yours?
2) Are you happy being gay, or would you become straight if you could?
3) Do you think being gay has any moral component to it at all (no offense intended whatsoever).
Overhwhelmingly, the men thought they were born that way (98% of them). They also (about 72%) said they were happy, But - they qualified it as far as the attitude they felt society held toward them. "I am relatively happy - but sad I'll probably never have my own kids or family, get married" etc. Or, "I am happy, but my family isn't speaking to me because of my orientation", etc.
While this kind of study would make a good undergrad paper, we can't use the findings to make any kind of statement about homosexuality. Surveys were passed out to men in a gay bar, by a woman, with three simple queries and place for comments. It begs questions like "What kind of person frequents a gay bar" (someone already pretty secure in their sexuality?) or "What kind of answers are you likely to get from people in a bar setting" (quick, influenced by alcohol, lowered inhibitions?). Also, since the respondants lived in Nebraska and were chosen from only one bar, the population is very skewed. Any kind of conclusions can only be made about the people who hang out in that bar, in that town, in that time period.
Most respondants are basing their answers in this thread on how they "feel" now or "felt" as a child. While such answers certainly fit the OP (Do you think you were...), it's impossible to then generalize out to the nature vs. nurture argument based on any one person's "feelings." Even if every single person on CM said "Yes, I think I was born this way," it still wouldn't help towards answering the question of whether BDSM tendencies are innate or learned, because the group is both too small and already self-selected toward a degree of comfort with BDSM practices. Maybe only regular computer users who frequent message boards are "born this way..."
People are complicated. Like Tammyjo said, how can anyone seperate out their genetics from their life experiences in contemplating why they prefer what they do? And I think, more importantly, is it important to parse down our personalities or can we be comfortable in our own skin without knowing exactly how we got this way?
*edited: Susan, I hope you don't think I'm ripping on your study. I think those were great questions to raise and showed a lot of foresight -- not a lot of people were willing to even ask such things back in 1982. In this post all I want is to show why it's so hard to tease out individual personality factors as well as understand that "feeling" something personally makes it relevant only for that person, not a group as a whole.
~Holly
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