May 25, 2000

8:48 PM

queer by choice: "this web site exists in order to promote, condone, encourage and recruit individuals to explore their homosexuality. it is a site dedicated to thoughts and ideas not available in the mainstream of current thinking on homosexuality."
posted by palegirl (11 comments total)

This website hardly explains how ALL 3 kids in my family (me, my brother, and sister) are all queer. My friends often think that the 3 of us should be examined to find the gay gene. And with all of the gay siblings that I know, it's hard to discount some sort of biological theory. Of course, if one day, they invented a pill that could make gays straight, I would never take it. I'd CHOOSE to REMAIN gay -- my boyfriend would too. :)
posted by UWliberal at 9:34 PM on May 25, 2000

Ahem.

Like a queer Chick Tract, minus the pictures.
I think I'm going to hell (hopefully the South Park version, though at this rate I'm not getting my hopes up...)
posted by chicobangs at 10:07 PM on May 25, 2000

how about a different take on it (via salon)? How about "ex-gays"? I don't believe it, either:

http://www.salon.com/health/feature/2000/05/22/exgay/index.html
posted by cadence at 8:43 AM on May 26, 2000

aw shucks, sorry - way too in automation mode - here:

exgays

sorry about that.
posted by cadence at 8:44 AM on May 26, 2000

i really found the site (mentioned in the original post here) interesting, to say the least. i was, however, dismayed with one aspect of this site's purpose: recruiting. Bad, bad, bad.
posted by jaybarrow at 11:58 AM on May 26, 2000

Damn.. If I become an "ex-gay," do I have to return the free toaster and the membership card?
posted by UWliberal at 8:40 PM on May 26, 2000

You got a toaster?

All I got was an enema.

(And I'm not giving that back)
posted by alana at 9:36 PM on May 26, 2000

I don't know...I find the idea that it's all biological and there's no choice in the matter somewhat dismal. "All your behavior is plotted out by your DNA. Try and look surprised." I don't think anything is that simple. Sexual identity is forged by years of experience and sensations along a spectrum of possibile feelings one has, or at least that's how I experienced it with a man I fell in love with a few years back.

Ultimately, I really feel that I did choose to live the life I lead. Not because being gay is wrong or evil, but because while I intellectually can love a man, I don't feel the same way about them that I do about women. Which might be genetic, or it might be due to years of being told I'm supposed to feel that way, or it might even be a rational choice I made.

I'd like to see us get to a place where we didn't really worry about this.
posted by Ezrael at 10:16 PM on May 26, 2000

I read the essay on choosing, and I'm a little confused as to what is being argued: Do we choose to be queer, or are queer urges part of human nature and we choose to act upon them? What makes us queer, the urge or the act? The author quotes that "Webster defines the verb 'to choose' as 'to select freely after consideration.'" Then he goes on to say that "Many of these significant choices were made unconsciously and were based upon experience and information that we were unable or unwilling to verbalize." It feels that the essayist keeps jumping around in his stances and I don't know what exactly it is that he's trying to say.The rest of the site seems to promote making the choice to live the "homosexual lifestyle" if you're so inclined. That doesn't deal with the original genetic/choice/influence that determines where the inclination comes from the first place.
posted by jason at 9:23 PM on May 29, 2000