What is sexual orientation?
Sexual orientation is about who you’re attracted to and want to have relationships with. Sexual orientations include gay, lesbian, straight, bisexual, and asexual.
What Determines Sexual Orientation?
Most scientists agree that sexual orientation (including homosexuality and bisexuality) is the result of a combination of environmental, emotional, hormonal, and biological factors. In other words, many things contribute to a person’s sexual orientation, and the factors may be different for different people.
Homosexuality and bisexuality aren’t caused by the way children were reared by their parents, or by something that happened to them when they were young. Also, being homosexual or bisexual does not mean the person is mentally ill or abnormal in any way. They may face burdens caused by other people’s prejudices or misunderstandings.
It’s not completely known why someone might be lesbian, gay, straight, or bisexual. But research shows that sexual orientation is likely caused partly by biological factors that start before birth.
People don’t decide who they’re attracted to, and therapy, treatment, or persuasion won’t change a person’s sexual orientation. You also can’t “turn” a person gay. For example, exposing a boy to toys traditionally made for girls, such as dolls, won’t cause him to be gay.
You probably started to become aware of who you’re attracted to at a very young age. This doesn’t mean that you had sexual feelings, just that you could identify people you found attractive or liked. Many people say that they knew they were lesbian, gay, or bisexual even before puberty.
Although sexual orientation is usually set early in life, it isn’t at all uncommon for your desires and attractions to shift throughout your life. This is called “fluidity.” Many people, including sex researchers and scientists, believe that sexual orientation is like a scale with entirely gay on one end and entirely straight on the other. Lots of people would be not on the far ends, but somewhere in the middle.
所以，如果是因為找刺激而聽任“fluidity”的擺布，而從事同性性行為，是該被責備的。但是，若他(她)的原來sexual orientation就是entirely gay on one end and entirely straight on the other，這種發展出來自珍愛、尊重、潔身自愛的同性戀，就有別於性行為取向的同性戀。
