Is Sexual Orientation A Choice?

All the secular literature on this will say ‘no’.  But it is a somewhat defensive ‘no’ when we look behind it.  There are certainly parts of our sexual make up we don't choose.  But to say there is no choices we can or should make regarding the outworking of our sexual desires, is to make the situation far too simple.

Recently the celebrity Cynthia Nixon talked about her migration from heterosexual marriage to gay marriage.  She raged against those who said that because she ‘went gay’ that meant that she had been gay all along.  She found this offensive to her former male lovers and to her former self.  “Why can’t it be a choice?” She said.

She was instantly besieged by criticism from the homosexual lobby.  Why?  Because she had dared to question the sacred orthodoxy of “orientation”.  The orthodoxy simply states: sexual desires are hardwired, genetically, from birth and unchangeable and most definitely have NOTHING to do with choice.  To suggest they is any choice in the matter is to suggest they could be changed,  and this is the really offensive thing.  Because it would suggest that if there were a sexual ideal, that one could choose to conform to it.  This flies in the face of the highest value in our culture:  unrestricted sexual self expression.

She quickly was forced to clarify that in fact she DID have an orientation – bisexuality.  Ironically, this admission completely negated her earlier point.  Her point was about sexual freedom and choice.  She was claiming her right to have sex with anyone she felt attracted to.  By being forced to regurgitate the orthodoxy about orientation, she meekly confessed her earlier heresy and denied that people really do have choice in the area of sexual attraction.  Of course, she tried to retain her position as a person of “choice” by hiding behind her bi-sexuality.  She (a bi-sexual) could choose to have sex with anyone, man or woman. She can choose the gender of her lovers, but other poor souls less broadly wired, of course cannot.

But by labeling this bi-sexual lifestyle an ORIENTATION she meekly joined the ranks of all those completely predetermined by their sexual hard wiring who have no real choice in sexual behavior.  To expose how far she backtracked, one has only to imagine that if a tri-gendered race of aliens came to earth, she COULD NOT choose to have sex with them, because of course, she’s a bi-sexual, not a TRI-sexual.  The Nixon who made her first comment, would have proudly said she could have sex with the hypothetical aliens if she CHOSE.  The repentant Nixon denied she could ever take this freedom because we should only have sex with the people we are ORIENTED to have sex with.

Such a conversation, played out in the media, is leading some to question the very notion of hard and fast “orientation”.  A new phrase coined by some to describe the reality of complex human sexual attraction is “sexual fluidity”.  In a work entitled, Sexual Fluidity: Understanding Women’s Love and Desire, one researcher suggests that women are much more open to sex with people irrespective of their gender.  The research shows that sexual attraction is fluid, changing, depending on a host of factors and conditions, both internal and external and does not stay static throughout one’s life.

As with Nixon, this work threatens the “orientation” orthodoxy, so the book begins with a series of disclaimers to keep the high priests from shouting ‘heresy!’ in the Temple of Kinsey:

Does fluidity mean that all women are bisexual? No…Does fluidity mean that there is no such thing as sexual orientation? No… Does sexual fluidity mean that sexual orientation can be changed? No… Does fluidity mean that sexual orientation is a matter of choice? No... Does fluidity mean that sexual orientation is due to “nurture” instead of “nature”? No…’

Methinks thou doth protest too much!  The disclaimers of the author, Lisa Diamond, are, of course, her clear statement that she is still one of the true believers in orientation orthodoxy.  (That, or she just doesn’t want a ration of crap from the media like Nixon got).  Yet she should be lauded for doing such controversial work and seeking the true state of the evidence when it comes to sexual attraction, even if it risks, from her worldview perspective, “misunderstanding” and “misuse” of that evidence.  

I will prove her a prophet since here I am “misunderstanding” and “misusing” her research – her strenuous disclaimers notwithstanding.  Because what I care about more are her facts, rather than her interpretation of her own facts, based on her worldview which I do not share.

Nixon and Diamond show that while most research in this area is done in the name of proving the normalcy and innateness of homosexual feelings, it winds up backfiring, showing that the orientation dogma is too simple, at worst a myth, or at best a deeply misleading term.

This conclusion about sexual fluidity is deeply upsetting to the orientation dogma, but it may also be upsetting for heterosexuals with a biblical view of sexuality!  There are those who assert their own heterosexual orientation, as dogmatically as any homosexual would.  But if sexuality truly is fluid, the heterosexual should acknowledge that if conditions were different in their sexual development, this proud heterosexual may, in fact, NOT be one!  If that deflates the pride of their sexual “purity”, so be it.  But Diamond's work (and human history) confirms that ALL humans are fully capable of a wide, wide variety of sexual expression – they are not “locked in” – and thus social and moral conditions and choices are as key to how one’s very fluid sexuality is allowed to develop and express itself as is our innate ‘wiring’.

Christians can acknowledge that heterosexual monogamy is God’s ideal, and further that most are predisposed by natural design to lean in that direction.  But they should also acknowledge that no one’s natural sexuality is “pure”.  In nature, sex has proven to have patterns, yes, but also to be almost infinitely morphable.  Clearly sex has an indisputable natural function, and Christians might make an argument for heterosexual sex being preferred simply for that reason.  But our view of sex is higher than merely as means of reproduction – it is lodged finally in the character of God who made us in his image, male and female.

Yet a person is no more born with a perfect reflection of this Image in their sexuality than they are born with an unmarred reflection of this Image in any other aspect of their being.  Thus the journey of a Christian’s life in the area of their sexuality is a journey of conforming our raw, fluid sexual nature toward the Image of God, as is the case in every other area.  This stands opposed to the naïve Christian view that thinks most people have a “pure” sexuality hardwired and perfectly acceptable to God as is, while a few other “pervs” have a life long struggle in front of them.

No.  We ALL have a raw, natural, seething sexuality that is fully capable of going in a myriad of directions, and through modeling, beliefs, habits - finally choices, we as free moral agents, are the final determiners of what that direction will be.

This is not to deny that inside the Kinseyan spectrum of sexual attraction, that people do not naturally, by a myriad of conditions in their person, come to life with sexual preferences.  They do.  But, despite this fact (or the causes of those preferences), the most common definition of orientation as inbuilt, absolute, unchangeable wiring is obviously, demonstrably mythical.  Orientation dogma implies that a homosexual could never or should never physically complete the act of sex with someone of the opposite gender – or visa versa.  This is clearly false.  

Homo-sexually oriented men and women have had spouses, and babies and then turned their sexuality on their own gender years later – claiming they were “hard wired” homosexuals the whole time.  Be that as it may, these homosexuals were clearly capable of having full arousal, and successful, consensual, heterosexual copulation and relationship.  The opposite is also true, men and women have considered themselves only attracted to the same sex for years until some later period where they undergo a profound change in sexual proclivity.  This, despite the raging claims of the priests of orientation that “reparative therapy” never works.  And while we scoff at “pray the gay away” programs, pointing to the many homosexuals who have undertaken failed attempts to change their orientation, it only takes ONE successful convert to prove that the orientation orthodoxy is a myth.  Just one.  I personally know of several.

History and experience have shown that, left without moral parameters on this raw, fluid sex drive, the human animal is capable of having sex, not just with the same gender, but with almost ANYTHING – inanimate objects, small children or even animals.  Is bestiality an ‘orientation’?  Is pedophilia an orientation? (At least one tenured psychologist says yes; so does this Dutch psychologist and Criminologist). 

These comparisons are always shouted down, but the shouters seem to have little scientific interest in the subject of sexual attraction, and more interest in protecting a belief or an ideology.  If we define orientation as, “one's natural preference in sexual partners,” orientations are myriad and must include things like pedophilia.  To not so argue, is special pleading based on societal revulsion - which is the very thing the homosexual lobby says is passé!

So orientation orthodoxy reduces down to this: when the kind of sex I am predisposed to have is (currently) socially unacceptable, it’s a mental disorder and needs treatment to change, but when the desire becomes more socially acceptable, it’s hard wired, it cannot be changed and to try is the height of intolerance and ‘ignorance’.  How very arbitrary.  Does not phenomena like bestiality or pederasty or bisexuality, or polygamy or polyandry show that human sexuality is raw and fluid and capable of INFINITE permutations?  And don’t we reason in these situations that just because it CAN flow in almost any direction, doesn’t mean it SHOULD?  On what basis then, is the homosexual urge exempt from a belief that complex sexual urges can and at times should be changed/directed?  On the basis of dogma, not science.

Sexual preference might be a much better word to use, and orientation scrapped in light of real world experience.  People prefer to have sex with the same gender or opposite gender or prefer both genders (or children, or animals, or many partners or just one etc).  The reasons for these preferences are very complex and certainly include biological factors.  But even within a single lifetime, an individual may migrate or change preferences based on a host of factors.  It happens all the time - and every time it does, it explodes the orientation orthodoxy.

In fact, in the small sample size of my counseling work, all those currently self-identifying as homosexuals have experienced sexual abuse of some kind that deeply affected their sexual choices in later life.  Most also spent an earlier season of life before coming out of the closet having heterosexual sex.  This is easy to explain for the priests of orientation orthodoxy – these people were under societal pressure and came out of the closet to embrace their “true nature” only when released by therapy or societal approval.

Perhaps, but this passes over the fact that they were able, despite their “true nature,” to direct their sexuality by their own choice!  “But they lived a life of tortured inauthenticity!”, is the autoreply.  Yes, perhaps there was great pain as they wrestled with complex and unbidden sexual desires, but what are we saying when we describe every instance of denying a sexual urge as “torture”?  Isn’t self-control a key marker of all good social behavior and emotional maturity?  The question then comes back to what SHOULD or SHOULD NOT be denied?  Here, we are in the territory of morality, not sexuality (or science!).  The most honest science is telling us sexuality is a fluid mass of often competing desires built on complex causes.  Over this we ALL impose morality.  I admit, Christian sexual morality is stricter than secular morality these days, but let us not suppose that our morality is obsolete because it denies the science!

The orientation dogma will likely one day be exposed for what it was:  a useful tool of doctrinal conditioning to encourage a sexual orthodoxy designed to foster the acceptance of homosexuality on par with heterosexual monogamy.  Once this happens (and we’re almost there), there will be no more need to keep up the pretense that sexual attraction is some kind of sacrosanct, inbuilt, untouchable, unmovable predisposition that science discovered.  On that day we will simply have sex with whomever or whatever we want (Nixon’s first position), as an expression of total sexual liberation – the silly notion that we HAD to do it this way or that way, because “God/Nature made us this way” will be left in the dust.

While this dogma enjoyed preeminence, it was useful to crush dissent, shaming people for their ‘ignorance’ and ‘intolerance’ by imposing the authority of “science”. Someday, the science behind this argument will simply be left behind because everyone will see that whatever was important to know about the natural development of sexual urges, is basically secondary to the sexual choices I make with those raw urges.  

All men and women find some piece of their sexual desires to be something they do not find expedient and therefore they do not choose to act them out.  Is this hopeless repression?  Is this inauthentic religious coercion?  In some cases it has been, but not inherently so.  We all eschew sexual desires we find inexpedient, because they would bring negative side effects, or because we think them morally wrong.  And not just one-time desires either, but lasting, persistent dark desires we must consistently reject.  This is healthy!  The noble thing to do in such a case is not to allow ourselves to be told we are denying our “orientation” and are suffering from sexual repression.  No, the noble thing to do is to condition ourselves to bring our changeable sexual desires in line with our morals – through further choosing our psychological inputs, our spiritual inputs, and our relational inputs.

So, like Cynthia Nixon A, I’m inclined to dump orientation as a constricting, dogmatic formula that limits choice, limits freedom and liberty, and curtails our belief in the power of the human will to transcend materialistic processes.  At best, orientation science exposes the fact that people have different sexual preferences and these have complex causes some of which seem to come pre-wired.  We mostly already knew that.  But at worst, orientation science locks us into a sense of sexual destiny with our desires, whether we like them or not, whether we believe they are moral or not, or whether they are helpful or productive to our future and human flourishing, or not.

How Does Faith in Christ Affect Being Transgendered?

QUESTION:  I am a transgendered person (ftm) and am struggling with how this affects faith. Does the bible view being transgender the same way as it does being gay? Sorry if this doesn't make much sense.

RESPONSE:  Hi, and thanks for your brave inquiry into this difficult topic.  You make perfect sense.

First, I admit beforehand that any response you’ll read here will be inadequate as a final solution to the struggle you’re having.  So out of the gate, I want to remind you that while this kind of Q and A can begin (or move along) a dialogue with you and the Christian Faith, the dialogue will need human contact at some point.  This is best done in the Christian community, where we all allow our struggles to surface in respect-filled, and trusted relationships with fellow travelers on the Christian path.  Good Christian counsel cannot be undersold as a tool in helping to uncover all the issues involved in transgenderism, and how it relates to faith in Jesus personally.

Of course, you already know about the culture’s voice on this issue which has been loudly tone setting – especially in light of recent high profile cases of transgendered persons, Caitlyn Jenner being the most notable.  The clear and consistent message outside the church is that transgender is normal, natural, and amoral.  Further, the only solution to transgender given in the press and by most physicians is costly and invasive gender reassignment surgery.

You’re suspecting that the Church’s response to this issue biblically will be along similar lines as our response to the gay debate.  You're right in this way:  we believe in sexual design.  Christians believe the world is made by a Designer.  And while we believe there are things inside of nature that do not conform to God's design, at a fundamental level Scripture teaches us to look at creation and say, "it is good."

So when we look at sex, it is right there, in the creation narrative, "male and female" - a complimentary design, which is not only said to be "very good", not only a means to "fill the earth", it is also said to reflect the communal oneness within God himself (Gen 1:27)!  Our gender then, and the duality of it is intrinsically good and an unalterable part of God's design for sex.  Jesus would double down on all this too, when he affirmed and summarized this design as faithful, loving, permanent and heterosexual (Matt 19:4-9).

Now, for the non-Christian, one of the reasons a multiplicity of sexual options seems reasonable is that they do NOT believe in Design.  Neo-Darwinism is the lens through which we look at everything, including sex.  So if you are here through a series of biological and chemical accidents without forethought, planning or design, then sex can have no inherent meaning or prescription.  Thus, I'm bound only to follow my sexual feelings wherever they lead.

Well, Christians, having submitted to a Mind higher than our own, cannot go there.  So the question of your spiritual walk is of utmost importance, because devotion to Jesus changes how you look at Design. Jesus does not just save the human soul, he means to bring us back into God's good creation designs.  So the Christian brings their very life (including gender and sexuality) under his good leadership.

If that is true of you, then the design question has been forever settled - sex has an order to it, and a prescription.  Think about Legos.  You could use those however you wanted, you could throw them at people as a projectile, or try to eat them.  But just looking at them, you would know, this is made for building stuff.  People are given sex as a gift, and they can and do use it however they want, but you don't have to study sex very long to realize it was made for something specific.

Therefore, Christian opposition to forms of sexual expression other than faithful, heterosexual monogamy has nothing to do with hate or discomfort or lack of science training or phobias.  It has to do with design.

Now, the Christian transgendered person may have no real incompatibility with “faithful, heterosexual monogamy” as God's design – they may simply wish to live that good design for themselves by reassigning their gender.  In this case, transgenderism may appear very different than homosexuality.  Surgery may seem the answer to live out God’s good design!

Unfortunately, I think that reassigning gender is essentially an impossible wish physically, with broad and unsettling side effects, as I’ll explain below.  It seeks to fix something that isn't broken (the body) by calling something fine that's actually broken (the mind).  To put it in Paul's words, we should rather seek the transformation of our lives by the renewing of our minds, rather than being conformed to the world (Romans 12:1,2).

If you have transgendered feelings, realize that no one comes to Jesus without their mind needing to be renewed.  So your transgendered feelings do not put you in an altogether different position than the millions of people struggling with addictions, depressions, bipolar, or anxiety disorders.  I hope you’re not offended by the comparison with other mental illnesses.  Rather than offensive, I hope it's merely self evident:  a person with a man’s body and XY chromosomal structure will function best with a male persona IN that male body.  And to have a female persona in that male body is by definition a malfunction – a disorder.

So, is the fundamental problem in the mind (which can change), or in the body (which cannot fundamentally change)?  

But perhaps you dispute that the body cannot change.  Dr. Paul R. McHugh, the former psychiatrist-in-chief for John Hopkins Hospital and its current Distinguished Service Professor of Psychiatry, says that sex change is “biologically impossible.” Dr. McHugh, explains that transgender surgery is not the right solution for people who suffer a “disorder of ‘assumption’” – the notion that their maleness or femaleness is different than what nature assigned to them biologically.  Transgenderism is actually a mental illness that merits treatment, and thus people who promote sexual reassignment surgery are collaborating with and promoting a mental disorder.

He's collected studies that show the suicide rate among transgendered people who had reassignment surgery is 20 times higher than the suicide rate among non-transgender people!  Also, Dr McHugh cites studies from Vanderbilt University and London’s Portman Clinic of children who had expressed transgender feelings but for whom, over time, 70%-80% “spontaneously lost those feelings.”

The Christian view then, is that the promoters of gender reassignment as treatment for transgenderism are doing no favors either to the public or the transgendered by treating their gender confusion as a right in need of defending, rather than as a mental illness that deserves compassion, understanding, treatment and prevention.

Take for example people who are “dangerously thin” and who nevertheless look in the mirror and see a fat person.  Their mental assumption about themselves is not in line with their actual nature, and this constitutes a disorder, which we call anorexia.  Here we CAN fix the mind in many cases, and no one thinks it's a good idea to try to fix an anorexic's body to make them feel thinner.  It's probably only because sex is involved with transgendered feelings that we don’t automatically use the exact same reasoning.  (Unrestricted sexual liberty, after all, is the idol of our times.)

For those who have had sexual reassignment surgery, most said they were “satisfied” with the operation “but their subsequent psycho-social adjustments were no better than those who didn’t have the surgery.”  At Hopkins Hospital they just stopped doing sex-reassignment surgery, since producing a ‘satisfied’ but still troubled patient seemed an inadequate reason for surgically amputating normal organs.

With the transgendered, as with the homosexual, we have observed that if a person has a personal desire and deep commitment to bring their feelings in line with sexual Design, great mental change is possible.  No change is possible without this, so abandon all attempts at coercive change for a husband, wife or child.  But change is even more probable, we believe, with the power of God in operation in the fully surrendered Christian’s life.

However, as my ex-gay Christian friend recently told me, they must not pretend or cover up their struggle – that will surely lead to frustration and probably a falling away from a faith they deemed “didn’t work”.

So the end game for the Christian transgendered person is not about Jesus “working” for them – it’s not about being happy – it’s not about being heterosexually attracted – it’s not about having all the right feelings – it’s not about sanctioning the feelings I do have – it’s about holiness!  The Christian doesn’t tell Jesus how the journey will go, he accepts the privations involved in obedience and straps in for the adventure of where Jesus and his grace will take them.

And likely that journey in Christ will not mean never wrestling with gender confusion again, but will mean being whole in Jesus, by faith forgiven and completed in Him, struggles and all, fully accepted, adopted, adored, and walking forward in trusting obedience.

For a fascinating personal story on this, go here.

Does being Christian and gay require Celibacy?

Question:

I appreciate your teaching on homosexuality - walking a line I often can`t always articulate or even fully grasp in the Tug of War with Biblical Truth and modern culture. I still struggle with asking anyone to remain celibate. It`s a lot to ask. For now, I for one am just grateful to acquire more real people in my life who are lesbians and gay so the whole thing can be taken out of theory into Love in action.

Answer:

This is such a difficult discussion for many, myself included, as we all have gay friends, and gayness is front page news every day. This is doubly difficult when loved ones either struggle with same sex attraction or are deeply convinced this is a civil rights issue and being on the “wrong side of history” is the newest unforgivable sin.

If so, this is a “sin” we Christians will steadfastly continue to commit, simply because we surrender to a wisdom higher than our own. On my own, I’d go with the flow. I don’t care to make homosexuality illegal, and I don’t care to want to proscribe it as another form of sexual expression – if that’s what a person wants to do. But I’ve taken my cues from a better Mind, one that I believe invented sex, so the core of my commitment to believe homoerotic sex is inherently “disordered”, lies there. Him, I've learned to trust.

But note, the “lifelong celibacy” requirement for gays turning to Christ, is not quite the dire picture we imagine. We imagine it’s dire, only because we have bought the whole package of what “gayness” is from a confused and defensive gay culture. Namely this idea that orientation is some inviolable, sacrosanct biological wiring that has no bend, no flex, no morph-ability.

Look, all arguments about “born gay” aside, the truth is people who have certain sexual preferences can choose to have sex successfully in ways that don’t align with those preferences. Some people prefer masturbation to copulation, but choose to not self-sex because they come to believe it’s a violation of a higher design, that sex was designed to be interpersonal; an intimacy building activity between persons, not narcissism.

Likewise, some people have been in heterosexual marriages for years, had children, then come out of the closet, announced they were gay the whole time, and left marriage and children behind. Whatever is true about their orientation, their actual experience (repeated by millions of gays) is that they were perfectly capable of heterosexual sex. Was it what they preferred? I guess not, but they CAN engage in such sex as they did so in the past.

And so, for the sake of Christ, lawful sex is readily available for the person with same sex attraction as it is for anyone else. It’s only in our current climate of torturous adherence to self actualization and constant self fulfillment that we could think a person eschewing one kind of sex for another because they believe it better for them, for others and for society in the long run, even if they prefer it less, is a terrible, immoral act.

It used to be that rejecting sex that you preferred for “lawful sex” that honored God and blessed human society was considered noble. Not any more, I guess. All that to say, a Christian struggling with same sex attraction is not cursed to a life of celibacy, unless the only sex they would ever consider engaging in, is homoerotic. Then, yes, celibacy is the only way to honor God with their sexuality.

But as I said, they can choose to participate fully in God’s sexual design, even if they harbor other desires. And let us not forget the transforming power of the Holy Spirit and good Christian counsel that may affect the “strength or direction of sexual desires” - contrary to popular dogma.

By the way, EVERY Christian who wants to walk faithfully in Christ does some of this "rejecting of sexual preferences". No one is “oriented” to always do sex God’s way. No one. So the homosexual is not in a unique position. Sexual preferences (and that’s all an “orientation” is after all) are quite literally legion. God’s sexual design is singular.

Now, is it less a stretch to discipline an unlawful heterosexual desire into God’s design than a homosexual desire? Perhaps. But Jesus did predict that the path of the disciple would at times strain the bounds of what we think is humanly possible (Matthew 19:26) And let's face it: everyone finds some parts of God’s sexual design agreeable and other parts less so. Most playboys are perfectly happy with the "Hetero" aspect of Christian sexuality but have a huge internal, physical preference problem with the monogamous part, or the permanent part. Some homosexuals are agreeable to the monogamy part, but clearly struggle with the heterosexual part.

It's only because we bought the culture's packaging of this issue that we think the Christian position on sexuality uniquely targets or is uniquely onerous for gays. It does not and it is not.
By the way, I love your attitude to be relationship with people who are gay and to be Love in action. Way to go. May God show off both his grace and truth through you. People need Jesus, not because they are gay, but because they are sin-separated rebels – a condition which predates sexual outworking. When we see all people that way, gayness fades to the background and God’s mercy can take center stage.