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Pearlie replied to the topic Is orientation immutable?? in the forum LesFan – Site Forum 7 years, 4 months ago
This last message was a near-duplicate of your previous message, but I want you to know that your insights are extremely valuable. It is obvious that your medical training has equipped you to more fully appreciate all the technical details of these issues, much better than I can.
My own impression, based on reading occasional learned journals, was that nothing has been proven about what causes minority sexual orientation. True, among sexual minorities there are some tendencies – in brain function, in blood chemistry, maybe in DNA – BUT it is not yet completely clear if these are causes or effects, or even solidly related. There hasn’t been enough study to find out if the same peculiarities aren’t also rampant among heteros, nor if these peculiarities are found in, say, children BEFORE they manifest minority sexual orientation, etc. These various characteristics may be mere dispositions that still require a trigger or something more to tip the person into gayness or fetishism or whatever would make her/him different from the majority. Because the evidence is so very gossamer I am inclined to believe that the cause may be truly microscopic, even molecular, and possibly requires a combination of microscopic influences at just the right time, which is why the outcome is minority and why even twins are not always the same orientation. Just my guess.
I am very grateful for your letters and I really encourage you to contribute something for public reading on this thread. I think many of us have considered changing our sexual lifestyle, not necessarily because we genuinely feel a calling, but because minority status (whatever it may be) is burdened with angst and we cast about for solutions and escapes from problems.