Sexual Orientation Assumptions

Secular society bombards us with assumptions about morality and science that are untrue and unhealthy to adopt. Here are some popular assumptions, followed by an explanation of the truth.

​1. Assumption: By now it is obvious, and there is a great deal of scientific evidence and consensus to prove it, that all humans have a natural, stable and immutable sexual orientation, which is “given” to them through their biology and/or early experience.

Through clever, persistent and well-funded marketing campaigns, the gay movement has managed to plant this belief—called the Essentialist perspective on sexual orientation—in the collective unconscious of modern society, but it is simply not true. Normally, a logical society would normally require robust scientific consensus and support before it adopts such a new and radical human paradigm-shifting belief. The fact that it has so quickly and rigidly adopted this belief, without any credible scientific evidence, tells us more about our culture than about the issue itself.

For example, the most comprehensive study of its kind confirmed that there is no gay gene and no biological process that creates same-sex or opposite sex attractions. In 2016, a comprehensive review of all the available research conducted by a group of psychiatrists and epidemiologists at Johns Hopkins concluded: “The understanding of sexual orientation as an innate, biologically fixed property of human beings — the idea that people are “born that way” — is not supported by scientific evidence”.

Scholars have also identified the likelihood of systemic scientific bias in the “born this way” sexual-orientation research program. These scholars also elaborate on the belief in “natural sexual orientation” as logically flawed, while also contradicting several established psychological and biological scientific foundations.

​2. Assumption: Being a homosexual is not a choice.

It is true that many people report having powerful, immediate and involuntary arousal reactions to certain members of the same gender (as well as certain opposite gender types and even inanimate objects), well beyond the feeling of “basic attraction” or even sexual desire in intimate relationships. This extreme involuntary reaction called a “lust trigger”—which tends to get activated by strangers and not intimate partners, unless that partner can continue to be objectified—develops in childhood and adolescence as a helpful coping response to overwhelming distress. Hence their excitement and arousal around such a “stimulus” is not actively chosen but subconsciously “chosen”, as a way to survive and go on living normally.

Though the person never chooses to have this involuntary arousal reaction toward their specific “stimulus”–whether it is the same gender, the opposite gender or an object—they can always choose to seek help or not seek help if they feel confused or distressed about these reactions, such as if they develop an unhealthy preoccupation or addiction to pursuing arousal with such a person in their fantasies, in porn or in real life. A person can also choose whether or not to define themselves by these arousal reactions and to identify themselves by the gender(s) or object(s) involved in their involuntary arousal patterns, such as gay, straight, bisexual, pansexual, transgender etc. But these are choices people can make.

In Judaism and in the established behavioral sciences, emotional health is defined by agency and

the ability to understand and restrain one’s most powerful urges. The ability to diminish or change unwanted or exaggerated feelings and behaviors has always been a main goal of psychotherapy.

And in any other area of psychology, people are never wholly defined by any one of their traits.

​3. Assumption: People who identify as lesbian or gay must all have very strong histories  of same-sex attraction.

Perhaps there was a time when this might have been the case. Now, however, things are different.

First, with the popularity of the LGBTQ+ movement, many people seem to be identifying themselves with one of these letters, just because its fashionable and it helps them stand out in some way, irrespective of their relationship and sexual interests. I’ve also met men and women who believed that they were gay or lesbian simply because of a crush they had on a friend. The culture is leading people to consider same-sex feelings and behaviors as so unusual, that its presence must be a sign of being inherently different and “gay”.

Two, because the definition of being gay or being lesbian is so unspecific, it has increasingly cast a wider net, drawing in people who are not necessarily confused about their sexual or gender feelings, but who are emotionally deprived of their basic social needs such as feeling belonging, recognition, life-purpose and admiration, needs that the LBGTQ+ identity and community seem to be promise them.

These are the same reasons why young people tend to strongly latch onto other types of pro-social and anti-social identities, movements and communities. Only with LGBTQ+, once they latch onto this identity, it can become especially difficult to shake their attachment to it, even when it no longer serves their needs. Further, it is not uncommon for gay identified people and groups to be harshly critical, guilting and unforgiving when a fellow “gay member” considers “leaving the lifestyle” to pursue a heterosexual life and family.

I’ve also met several people who considered themselves gay or lesbian because they believed that finding an opposite-sex partner would disappoint, hurt or break the connection with their opposite-sex parent, a message that parents can subconsciously send their child. In such cases, when the child is not explicitly aware of this message, they can grow up subconsciously sabotaging their intimate relationship searches in all kinds of ways, including believing that they are inherently “gay” and incapable of heterosexual love.

4. Assumption: Men who are more sensitive, effeminate, poor at sports and interested in the arts probably have same sex desires and are probably “inherently gay” whether they know it or not, whether they admit or not.

Since the concept of “inborn sexual orientation” and “born gay or straight” has been refuted by all credible scientific studies, we can know that there is no inherent link between same-sex desires and a man who does not present himself as stereotypically masculine. In fact, this link between personality and sexual desire was in many ways created by the media and the LGBTQ founder’s explicit public relations strategy to present gay people in the media as effeminate, witty and likeable, as a way of distracting society from thinking about the unpopular sexual behaviors that gay-identified people are known to enjoy.

This assumption of “the effeminate gay man” is also inaccurate. For example, many people with same sex desires look just as masculine as anyone else. And many men with gender-atypical traits have no experience of same-sex desire.

Further, this assumption is harmful because it causes distress for those boys who see themselves—or who are seen by others—as not “masculine”, who are then liable to unnecessarily question their “inherent sexual identity”. In that sense, the gay movement works to manufacture an identity-crisis in people where they are led to unnecessarily question their identity and “who they at their core”. The second step of this strategy is to shower love and attention on those who “come out”, while shaming those “who are too cowardly” or “living in the closet” to come out.

In my experience, the two possible indirect links between a less stereotypically masculine male and the presence of same-sex attractions are as follows. (1) A boy who is bullied by his peers as being “gay” because he is not athletic or because he is shy or likes the arts etc., can literally take on a gay identity and homosexual behavior as a way of submitting to the abuse, especially if they have no other recourse to survive it. (2) Children and adolescents who struggle with low self-worth for any number of reasons (poor body image, lack of athleticism, social challenges, being persistently bullied etc.) are equipped with the natural capacity to use their imagination to attach to a male peer who seems to have those specific qualities, which they feel lacking in.

Such a person can automatically develop obsessions and sexual fantasies about being accepted,

loved and physically embraced by their “perfect” male peers as a way to feel better about themselves. This potent “sexual template” could then continuously be used as a kind of coping strategy “drug” to deal with ongoing life frustrations, even later in life when they develop more self-worth. Indeed, this explains many—but certainly not all—men’s same-sex fantasies involving chiseled and confident high-school looking types (called “twinks” in gay culture), which always traces back to their experiences of being insecure during this emotionally formative period of time.

A non-athletic, shy or somewhat effeminate acting boy who gets what they need from their

family and community to still feel good about themselves, will not need to use this coping

strategy.

The coping strategies of idealizing and then sexualizing another type of person is actually much more common than people realize. Many people do the same exact thing with the opposite sex. For example, they subconsciously idealize and sexualize opposite-sex personality traits, garments, body parts, hairstyles etc. as a way of coping with some kind of persistent distress that no one else helped them to manage earlier in their development. This specific opposite-sex “stimulus” then becomes a potent source of arousal, which can continue to tempt them throughout their life even later once their stress has passed.

Whether the same sex or the opposite sex, or even an inanimate object, this condition is called a “lust trigger”. And the only reason why someone would subconsciously “choose” a same-sex or opposite-sex person to idealize is entirely based on their individual circumstances, as in, whoever is available in their immediate orbit that they can latch onto in their fantasies in order to help them cope and make them feel better.