Originally posted by Iacchus32
And yet there's a lot of peer pressure, a lot of uncertainty, and a great deal of fear (as you say), and some of us just aren't ready to deal with it -- in fact I'm not even sure why teens should even consider messing around with sex? -- in which case many of us will fall back on what we're most familiar with, relations with the same sex which, may ultimately develop into something homosexual.
But what you say seems to fly in the face of everything I've heard from gay individuals. Gay individuals, because the number of gays is a so much smaller portion of the populace, feel extremely alone and outcast, social pressures to conform are immense. This idea that the comfort of those of the same gender leads you to seek sex with them puts the cart before the horse - the desires come before the rational/prefrontal brain has a say. This is controlled at a very primative part of the brain - a part that evolved millions of years before social parts of the brain. In truth (at least for guys) we start discussing sex long before it becomes a possibility - so the desire to socially be with those of your own gender isn't a factor, that's when most social pressure begins to push a person toward the most common.
If social interaction is the cause, the culture would play a strong part. In human cultures, the percentages of homosexuals (not simply those who interact homosexually, but those attracted to the opposite sex) doesn't vary but an extremely small percent. The only corrolations with a change in this percent corrosponds to specific instances of high stress in the culture (specifically when the stress to the mother is in the late first trimester and early second trimester).
It seems that if your proposed cause were true, then populations where girls and boys grow up together and play together would show marked differences in the numbers of homosexuals who arise, compared to cultures where the boys and girls are kept quite seperate. These percentage disparities don't exist - from all I've read.
In answer to your wondering, teens start considering messing around with sex for the same reasons adults do - their bodies are guiding them in that direction, with hormones that trigger strong desires. The desires lead the psycology, in this case, not the other way around.
I also remember becoming extremely attracted to girls at the "onset" of puberty, and yet there was a tremendous amount of fear too -- "the fear of rejection." Both of which are very powerful emotions, one of which is going to rule over the other or, in the process it will tear you to pieces. This is essentially what happened to me as a youth, and it was also about the time that I began to notice homosexual tendencies in myself, which was equally unsettling. A person can only suffer going through "the guantlet" so many times before it begins to take its toll.
But did you become homosexual? I've talked to nobody who has had early heterosexual feelings, then became homosexual in orientation. What I have heard of and read about is the experimentation some guys do early on. This can be more easily explained by the strong desire to be sexually active, but with no opposite gender partner available.
Social pressures may force one into homosexual (or more likely heterosexual practices), against the directives of your hormones, but they don't alter which gender you find attractive. Of everything I've seen, social pressures are all in the direction forcing one to become heterosexual.
I've read several papers speaking to the possible genetic links and about the hard research done with rats (experiments inspired by the London Blitz data), which support prenatally environmental stess triggers with a possible genetic co-trigger. I've read nothing relating to social pressures.
Do you know of research to support your proposed cause?
