Marina Didenko: “People don’t choose their sexual orientation, they are born that way. Homosexuality: can it be changed? Orientation is not chosen

This article will be a separate item, since it is very important and touches on many issues that were discussed here from a professional journalistic point of view. Translation of the article - [To view the link].

“Answers to your questions about sexual orientation and homosexuality,” published on the website [To view link], the largest professional association of psychologists in the United States, which includes more than 150 thousand specialists.
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Answers to your questions about sexual orientation and homosexuality

* What is “sexual orientation”?
* What factors shape a person’s sexual orientation?
* Can a person choose their sexual orientation?
*Can sexual orientation be changed through treatment?
* Can sexual orientation be changed through so-called "conversion therapy"?
* Is homosexuality an intellectual or emotional disorder?
* Can gays, lesbians and bisexuals be good parents?
* What makes some gays, lesbians and bisexuals come out as gay?
* What can be done to overcome prejudice and end discrimination against gays, lesbians and bisexuals?
* Why is the level of knowledge about homosexuality important for society?
* Are all gay and bisexual men really infected with AIDS?

* What is “sexual orientation”?
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Sexual orientation is a stable emotional, romantic, sexual and loving attachment to another person. It should be distinguished from other components of a person's sexuality, such as biological sex, gender identity (the psychological sense of being a woman or a man), and social gender role (the degree of conformity to cultural norms that prescribe certain feminine or masculine behavior).
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Sexual orientation according to the object of affection varies from exclusive homosexuality to exclusive heterosexuality; between these “poles” is bisexuality, in which both homo- and heterosexual attachments are represented in different combinations. People of a homosexual orientation are sometimes called "gay" (both men and women) or "lesbian" (women only). [in Russian "gay" is used only in relation to men]
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Sexual orientation is different from sexual behavior: while orientation has to do with feelings and identity, behavior is an action that may or may not express these feelings. [just as sexual behavior may stem from reasons other than sexual orientation]
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* What factors shape a person’s sexual orientation?
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There are many theories that try to describe the reasons that shape a person’s sexual orientation; Most scientists today agree that sexual orientation is most likely the result of a complex interaction of psychological (personal life experiences), biological and socio-cultural factors. In most cases, sexual orientation is formed in the early years of life. Recent research also suggests that genetic and hormonal factors may play a role. In summary, it must be recognized that there are likely many factors that influence a person's sexual orientation, and the importance of different factors varies for different people.
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* Can a person choose their sexual orientation?
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No, he can not. A person cannot decide who to be: homosexual or heterosexual. Most people develop their sexual orientation at such an early age that no sexual activity precedes it. Although a person can choose whether or not to express their sexual orientation in action, they cannot consciously choose or change it at will.
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*Can sexual orientation be changed through treatment?
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No. Although most gay or bisexual people live successful, happy lives, there are still people who may seek to change their sexual orientation through treatment. Typically, such a desire arises in connection with rejection and pressure from family, society or religious community. In fact, homosexuality is not a disease, does not require any treatment and cannot be changed by any treatment.
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In most cases, when gays, lesbians or bisexuals seek help from psychologists, they do not at all want to change their sexual orientation; more often they seek advice in connection with the process of “coming out” [telling other people about their orientation], in connection with the need to live in conditions of rejection and hostility from others, and most often they are brought to a psychologist by exactly the same problems as heterosexually oriented people.
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* Can sexual orientation be changed through so-called "conversion therapy"?
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Some doctors who have used so-called "conversion therapy" report being able to change their clients' sexual orientation from homosexual to heterosexual. A careful study of such messages revealed, however, a number of facts discrediting such messages. For example, the sources of such messages almost always turn out to be organizations whose ideology condemns homosexuality. Such “scientific” reports, in addition, for some reason chronically suffer from poor documentation of the “treatment” process, while such documentation is standard required for all cases of intervention in the sphere of human psychological health.
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The American Psychological Association tries to closely monitor all attempts at such therapy. In 1997, the Association's Council of Representatives issued a resolution on the inadmissibility of any elements of homophobia in the process of psychological assistance, in which it also stated the right of clients to self-determination and the obligation of professional psychologists to respect this self-determination and to delimit their activities from the influence of the views of certain social groups. [please note: in the texts of English-speaking psychotherapists you will not find the word “patient” anywhere; it is considered unacceptable in relation to people who are healthy; instead of “patient” the neutral “client” is used]
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[for reference: theories of “conversion” (“restorative”) therapy treat homosexuality either as a developmental delay, or as a serious psychopathology, or as a combination of both, and use psychoanalytic and pharmacological psychiatric drugs for “treatment”]
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* Is homosexuality an intellectual or emotional disorder?
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No. Psychologists, psychiatrists and other mental health professionals agree that homosexuality is neither a disease nor an intellectual or emotional disorder. Over 35 years of objective, well-designed scientific research has proven that homosexuality is not associated with mental, emotional or social problems. The idea of ​​homosexuality as a disease arose during that initial period of research, when psychiatrists worked exclusively with people who had mental disorders: the discovery of homosexuality in some of them was mistakenly associated with these mental disorders. When later researchers included healthy (without mental illness) people in their field of view, the idea of ​​a connection between mental disorder and homosexuality showed its inadequacy.
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In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association recognized the importance of new, scientifically organized research and decided to remove homosexuality from the list of mental and emotional disorders. Two years later, the Psychological Association confirmed its agreement with the correctness of this decision. For more than 25 years, experts from both associations have worked to eliminate the stigma of mental illness that some people continue to associate with homosexuality.
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* Can gays, lesbians and bisexuals be good parents?
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Yes. Comparative studies of the development of children raised by homosexual and heterosexual parents have not revealed any differences in this development in children of both groups. Four important indicators were assessed: intellectual development, emotional well-being, ability to adapt to society, and popularity among peers. It is also important to understand that the sexual orientation of parents is not transmitted to children through “education” - neither based on example, nor purposeful.
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Another myth about homosexuality is the belief that homosexual people are more likely than heterosexual people to engage in sexual activity with children. These statements are not true.
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* What makes some gays, lesbians and bisexuals come out as gay?
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The reason is that discussing this aspect of their personality with other people is important for their psychological health. In fact, the process of self-identification (“coming out”) for gays, lesbians and bisexuals is inextricably linked to their assessment of their sexuality [which is also related to assessments of other people]: the more positive this assessment, the higher the indicators of self-esteem, psychological balance and health.
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* Why is the process of “coming out” painful and difficult for some gays, lesbians and bisexuals?
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This process is not difficult for all of them. But often homosexual or bisexual people, having realized their orientation, feel fear, “otherness” from most people, and a negative attitude of society towards this, from its point of view, “deviation from the norm.” It is especially difficult, in this sense, for children and adolescents who are aware of their unusual sexuality. Depending on their family and community, these children are likely to encounter prejudice and misinformation about homosexuality. Children and adolescents are especially vulnerable to the psychological pressure of social norms and prejudices. They are particularly worried about the possibility of being rejected by their family and peers, and they suffer especially greatly from the condemnation of religious groups that are significant to their family. Gay, lesbian and bisexual people have significant concerns about possible problems at work or school when their sexual orientation is revealed. Unfortunately, homosexual and bisexual people are at greater risk of physical violence than heterosexual people. Research conducted in California in the mid-1990s found that nearly 1/5 of all lesbians and more than 1/4 of all gay men surveyed had been victims of hate-based violence based on their sexual orientation. In another study of more than 500 gay adults, more than half of those surveyed reported experiencing various forms of similar violence, from name-calling to physical violence.
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* What can be done to overcome prejudice and end discrimination against gays, lesbians and bisexuals?
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Research has shown that those who are most tolerant of homosexual or bisexual people are those who have close personal acquaintance with one of these people. This proves the point of view of scientists, according to which hostility towards people with homosexual or bisexual orientation is not based on facts, but on prejudice and false stereotypes.
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For sexual minorities, protection is as important as for any minority in general. Some countries have strict laws against “hate crimes” against sexual minorities, and 10 American states have laws against discrimination based on sexual orientation.
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* Why is the level of knowledge about homosexuality important for society?
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Providing all people with reliable information about homosexuality can lead to a decrease in hatred towards people of this orientation. Accurate information about homosexuality is very important for young people who are just discovering and trying to understand their sexuality. Fears that access to information about homosexuality contributes to the “development of homosexuality” are unfounded and false.
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* Are all gay and bisexual men really infected with AIDS?
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No. This is a common myth. The risk of contracting HIV is associated with culture and sexual hygiene, and not with sexual orientation. Following safe sex rules and not taking drugs are equally important for gay, bi, and heterosexual people.
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The article in English is [To view link

The choice is to go to McDonald's or Burger King.

When a person grows up, huge changes occur to him, what nature has put into him. One such investment is an innate attraction to something. Already in childhood, by sub-signs and obvious signs, one can judge in which direction the child is developing - humanitarian or technical, into art or music, into dancing or soldiers. The same signs can be used to determine the orientation of a child before puberty. And these are not toys or the gait of a child (as they present to us in the Voronins), these are certain sets of psychological signs. In American psychology, and Western psychology in general, this topic is so developed and thought out that an analogue of the Luscher test was even developed to identify such signs for children.

But this is just a rudiment, which, if desired, can be extinguished for a while. By the beginning of puberty, a teenager, as a rule, is in a “limbo” state: by the age of 12-14, boys (by 11-13 girls) ask quite logical questions - what, how, where in the sexual world. And from these questions, sooner or later the teenager comes to relationships with the opposite sex. At this moment, the parents move away from the child, the child is embarrassed by everything and everyone, especially his beginning sex life. And naturally, he has no one to discuss his sexuality with, and he googles everything related to it. By the age of 15, homosexual, bisexual, pansexual, etc. teenagers already know that they are “different.” I also realized that I was gay at the age of 15, when I began to understand that I only enjoyed communicating with a girl as a friend, when I felt something different for guys. At that moment I was in such self-hatred, in such anger towards myself that I simply did not know whether I should live. VGTRK and Channel One especially helped me realize that I am a diviant, and that people like me belong in specialized clinics. But glory to psychology, which saved me from this horror of propaganda, and I didn’t do anything to myself, unlike the vast majority of my LGBT+ colleagues.

Orientation is first and foremost a person’s life. And throughout their life before coming out to themselves, everyone is faced with certain signals. A person cannot choose the structure of his body, his personality. And orientation is something between a person’s body and personality. Of course, if a child with an innate orientation towards homosexuality lives without knowing about it, or if he is impenetrably “protected” from all propaganda, etc. he will not reveal his orientation, since it will be extinguished and information about it will be scarce, but sooner or later a person will come to his orientation again, because a person cannot order himself not to love, cannot tell himself not to live.

All statistical studies have always shown that same-sex preferences are formed in the womb or in the first months of life. Despite this, at the everyday level you can very often hear the logic: if you let a boy play with dolls, if he has a stern mother, if his father takes a girl hunting, the child’s preferences will change for the worse, the most dangerous and black side. The same thing will happen if you allow gays to raise children, allow them to march with banners on the street and promote tolerance in the media.

This confrontation reflects a broader dispute. For science, a person is a complex system with its own internal logic of development. For, relatively speaking, a teacher, a person is rather a tabula rasa, a blank slate on which one can write both good and bad. about the fate of an American judge who is suspected of homosexuality, raises precisely this topic.

Leda Plekhanova: “There are numerous opinions that homosexuality can be acquired. There are also examples of people dramatically changing their orientation. Often as a tribute to fashion.”

Ruslan Muravyov about the danger of gay pride parades as a means of propaganda: “My children are impressionable. It's no big deal, don't you think? Otherwise, maybe you can give them the correct diagnosis. It's probably better not to let him go outside? Yes?"

A study of identical twins separated after birth shows that if one is gay, there is more than a 50% chance that the other will be gay. This indicates a very strong influence of genes: even with a clear inclination, a person under environmental pressure may never find his sexual identity (or not tell the researcher about it).

Another study found that the order of boys in a family and their number play an important role: each older brother increases the likelihood of the younger one becoming gay by 33%. Among first-born children there are few gays, among those who have one older brother there are a third more, etc. (However, for some reason, only right-handed older brothers influence.) Scientists believe that the reason is in the mother’s immune system, which With each pregnancy, she reacts more and more strongly to the presence of a boy in the womb.

Some anatomical traits that develop early in the embryo correlate well with sexuality. Thus, an excess of papillary patterns on the left index finger compared to the right is found twice as often in homosexuals as in straights - this feature is formed at the 17th week of embryonic development. The good thing about patterns on the fingers is that they do not affect sexuality - they are just markers: obviously, the features of the pattern are caused by some reasons (mother's hormones?), which also affect sexuality.

Lesbians have long been offended by the attention of researchers, especially since brain research has shown that the mechanism of sexual arousal is the same in lesbians and heterosexual men, as well as in women and homosexual men.

The top row is the left amygdala, the bottom row is the right. Shows activity during sexual arousal. The first sample on the left is a heterosexual man, the second is a heterosexual woman, then a gay and a lesbian

The picture shows a clear distinction between the activated areas of the brain. This is its anatomy, the basic structure formed during embryogenesis.

According to various studies, the proportion of people with pronounced homosexuality in different cultures ranges from 2% to 13%. Studying this demographic is difficult: people often hide their preferences from others, and many from themselves. Under successful circumstances, a person can throw off this oppression and “come out of the closet” - hence all the stories with an “unexpected” change in sexuality. For some, however, it looks like this: the person was lucky - his vice did not break out, but he found himself in a bad environment - and life went downhill.

But, in general, there is no need for me to talk about this: my story will not help resolve the dispute about how to deal with this vice. It doesn't matter at all that science proves that homosexuality is innate. Because those who are afraid of this phenomenon will see here only a recipe for struggle, for the salvation of their children and humanity. Here I come to another view that has always been present in culture along with the idea of ​​tabula rasa. According to Victorian morality, nature is evil, a set of chthonic forces that overcome man. But the human spirit is like a horseman capable of riding nature. Even if you are unlucky and the tabula is initially unclean, you can rewrite it.

If so, then science, having learned that homosexuality is an innate phenomenon, should help “heal” humanity from it. Two years ago, the Rev. Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said: “If the biological nature [of homosexuality] is established and a prenatal test and treatment are developed that can revert the orientation to heterosexuality, we will support it.” At the same time, the priest Joseph Fessio (British editor of the works of Pope Benedict XVI) stated: “Since from the point of view of the Church homosexuality is a disorder, a disease, the Church will welcome any attempts to eradicate the neurobiological factors that contribute to its occurrence.”

In our age, it costs nothing to reject an embryo based on genetic characteristics. And as soon as the genes and embryogenesis factors responsible for the formation of homosexuality become fully known, an important test will come for humanity. People (unless their attitude changes) will be able for the first time in history to stop the appearance in society of such figures as Alan Turing and Oscar Wilde, Andrei Kolmogorov and Annie Leibovitz, Harvey Milk and Stephen Fry.

I don't want my children to live in such a world.

Interestingly, with traditional orientation this question does not arise. The vast majority accepts it as something completely natural and does not even think of resisting the very fact that their sexual orientation is heterosexual.

But in case homosexuality arises even as a prospect, at least in the form of doubts about the direction of one’s attraction - a person faces many problems.

First of all, it is the fear of not being like everyone else, the fear of condemnation, rejection from relatives and friends, the fear of social isolation, persecution in society, the fear of not starting a family and not being able to raise children.

And it was precisely this request that adults came to me more than once: “ I don't want to be gay!», « how to change orientation"? If you are already aware of your homosexuality or expressed bisexuality - then this is unlikely.

If for some reason you were unable to contact a psychologist online, then leave your message (as soon as the first free consultant appears on the line, you will be contacted immediately at the specified e-mail), or at .

Non-traditional orientation is a fact of human life that has existed at all times along with traditional orientation, which is quite clearly proven by historical documents from different places and eras.

Attraction to people of the opposite sex existed among people as if “by default”; it was obvious that this was the dominant type of sexual attraction. However, it turned out that not everyone is capable of experiencing attraction only to the opposite sex.

In different periods of history and in different cultures, different attitudes towards those whose sexual orientation was non-traditional were formed - from open persecution to the acceptance of this kind of contact as ritual practices, from disgust to the affirmation of equality before the law.

On the one hand, these people really found themselves and find themselves in the minority, while the majority continues to experience attraction to members of the opposite sex. On the other hand, this minority is quite stable. According to various estimates, it amounts to 3-7% of the total number of people.

Naturally, statistics are difficult to collect from past historical eras, but researchers tend to believe that this percentage remains almost constant at all times.

Sexual orientation in nature was not completely unambiguous: among animals, non-traditional sexual behavior occurs in many species, from worms to mammals, and in approximately the same percentage as in humans. And therefore, it is difficult to say that non-traditional orientation is something “unnatural”.

Sexual orientation: hypotheses about its origin

The modern scientific community has not developed a single hypothesis about how sexual orientation is formed. They looked everywhere - in genes, studied various parts of the brain, hormonal factors, and, of course, the cultural, social context, early childhood experience and upbringing in general.

You can read about all this in any modern encyclopedia. But there is something on which most scientists clearly agree:

Sexual orientation and sexuality in general are something that is formed at least from early childhood, and the deep foundations of human sexuality are laid in the intrauterine environment.

If we look at the development of the fetus, it turns out that any person in the womb goes through the stage of hermaphroditism: the embryo has the rudiments of both male and female genital organs.

Under the influence of various biochemical factors, including hormones, the embryo eventually acquires the characteristics of one sex or the other. However, this does not happen to everyone - there are also those who, even at birth, do not have a completely definable anatomical sex. The existence of hermaphrodites has been known at all times - just look at some ancient Greek statues.

This phenomenon of intrauterine development allowed some researchers, in particular Freud, Kinsey, Weiniger, to conclude that a person is basically bisexual, even if his anatomical sex is formed without deviations at the time of birth.

However, later, with the development of sexual consciousness, one of the vectors - attraction to the opposite sex or to one’s own, a specific sexual orientation - begins to dominate, and bisexuality becomes latent, i.e. hidden, unconscious, remains in potential.

The formation of the fetus and the set of internal inclinations with which it will come into this world, not yet recognized by the person himself, are influenced by too many things: the biochemistry of the mother’s body, hereditary (genetic) factors, even the emotional background of the environment in which the pregnancy takes place can influence on the formation of the child’s future sexuality.

But we are not yet able to accurately trace the entire chain of formation of such a complex set of reactions as sexual orientation: after all, an infant cannot talk about how he is aware of himself, his gender, and his awakening desires. And he still realizes very little.

And much before gender and sexual orientation are generally recognized, the child begins to be influenced by social factors: the expectations of parents, norms of sexual behavior accepted in a given culture, ideas about the acceptability of manifestations of sexuality in a particular family.

By the time a person completes the period of sexual development and becomes, moreover, a full-fledged member of society, he, in fact, has already been formed and his sexual orientation too.

But it's not that simple. Only if sexual orientation is traditional, it does not raise questions. The teenager is supported in his awakening desires or, at a minimum, they do not attach importance to this.

But in the case when a non-traditional orientation manifests itself in one way or another, or a teenager cannot decide to whom he feels more attracted, development occurs with a large component of neurotic factors - emerging questions to oneself, fears, anxiety, self-rejection, or vice versa - open protest .

This is due to the fact that in societies of different cultures, non-traditional orientation is something negative, unacceptable, and pathological. And the child learns about this quite early, as a rule.

Despite the long history of attempts by scientists to prove that non-traditional orientation is a variant of the sexual norm, the philistine consciousness is afraid of such manifestations.

It would take a long time to delve into explanations of why non-traditional orientation was rejected by representatives of different cultures at different times.

I will only say that something different from the majority in one way or another frightens many, creates a feeling of insecurity, and then people think little about whether there are grounds for fear - for many it is easier to prohibit than to understand, and this is already a matter of limited intellectual resources.

In our modern society, most parents think that if a child lives his life according to patterns that are understandable and familiar to parents, he will live it more safely.

And by the time such a teenager comes of age, he can no longer fully distinguish what is truly true in his awakening sexuality, what is the fruit of his own faith in “what is right,” formed under the great influence of the opinions of parents and society, and what - protest behavior or defense mechanism.

By the time a person begins to understand this topic within himself, he is already fully formed, and his true core of desire has formed within him, but much of himself has been repressed into the unconscious, and therefore the search for what his true sexual orientation is can continue already in adulthood.

But let's talk about what generally happens to a person in this sense.

Types of sexual orientation

The main types of sexual orientation are heterosexual (attraction to people of the opposite sex), homosexual (attraction to people of the same sex) and bisexual (attraction to both sexes, but not necessarily to the same extent and at the same period of life).

In other words, a bisexual may experience attraction to women at one period of his life, and to men at another; it may be that the choice of a sexual object depends not so much on his gender as on human qualities, or it may be that in one period His life is fascinated by women and men equally.

However, the types of sexual orientation are not limited to this.

Asexuality is also considered one of the varieties of sexual orientation, when a person, in principle, does not experience sexual desire or experiences it to a very weak degree.

What causes this and whether this is considered a variant of the norm is a topic for a separate article, however, people themselves who identify themselves as asexuals can be fully realized in all other areas of life; research does not confirm the presence of any mental disorders or personality pathologies in most of them .

Types of sexual orientation may have a more complex structure. For example, I have had clients in my practice who were more focused on attraction not to a person's anatomy, but rather to their psychological gender.

For example, a man was attracted to young people, both anatomical men and anatomical transgender women, who were planning sex reassignment surgery or had partially transitioned.

What was important was not what anatomical features characterized this person, but that psychologically it was a man - this was the most important thing in the emergence and development of desire in my client.

This man considered himself homosexual, and in the case of contact with a woman who identified herself as a man and sought to take an appropriate social role, looked the part and was preparing for sex reassignment surgery, he believed that anatomy simply “did not prevent him” from receiving satisfaction from the relationship and sexual contact.

I also remember a woman who identified herself as heterosexual, and she had two episodes of relationships with masculine women in which she felt like the same woman being courted by a man. Psychology was also more important to her than anatomical features.

Or, for example, a man who considered himself bisexual, but clearly preferred either straight women or transsexual men who looked like women, wore women's clothes, and were not necessarily seeking to change their gender.

All this, theoretically, can be attributed to bisexuality, however, types of sexual orientation include the term "pansexuality", which emphasizes attraction to people with a certain set of qualities, regardless of their anatomy.

Scientists continue to argue about terminology, however, I gave these examples for only one purpose: to show that sexual orientation includes not only an anatomical factor. Just like gender does not consist only of the configuration of the genital organs, but also includes psychology, social role, and identification.

It is also worth mentioning the variant of the sexual norm. In sexological practice the following definition is accepted:

Sexual norm - sexual actions of capable subjects who have reached sexual and social maturity, carried out by mutual consent and not involving harm to health, and also not violating the boundaries of third parties.

Simply put, if these adults are responsible for their actions, are aware of them, do not commit violence, do not resort to sexual acts with a person who is not fully aware of themselves (a child, a mentally ill person), do not involve in the process those who did not give their consent to participation, and do not seriously injure each other - they have the right to everything that they can accomplish within these limits.

But in every society there are additional restrictions, which, as a rule, stem from many factors, mainly value-based, moral and sometimes, as a consequence, legislative, which can limit the right of people to have sex the way they want.

Considering all types of sexual actions from the perspective of “norm/pathology” is not the purpose of this article, but if we return to the topic of sexual orientation, then sexual contact between two adults of the same sex, carried out by mutual consent and without causing harm to health, is a variant of the sexual norm.

Gay or traditional? Developmental Facets and the Kinsey Scale

Zoologist and sexologist Alfred Kinsey, studying the sexual behavior of people and animals, came to the conclusion that “pure” unambiguity in this matter is rare. Look at this scale and you will understand everything yourself:

Kinsey confirmed his hypothesis with extensive statistical data, but another interesting fact emerged. Not only may a person not be a “pure” representative of his orientation, it is not possible to evaluate him on this scale once and for all, because different age periods may have different manifestations.

For example, in adolescence, when sexuality is just awakening, it is quite easy to confuse situational manifestations of homosexuality with true homosexuality. During those periods of life, girls and boys exist in their own, mostly same-sex, companies or pairs of friends.

Friendships at this age can be very important, they are truly intimate during this period, and many of my clients have admitted to feeling attracted to, for example, a girlfriend or boyfriend of the same sex.

Sometimes this even led to some kind of situational sexual contacts; curiosity about sexuality was strong, but it was still difficult and scary to decide on contacts with the opposite sex.

But then such impulses faded away, and with further growing up and with the emergence of wider access to the opposite sex, the development of communication and dating skills, and maintaining relationships, those “random adventures” began to be perceived as a game and were even forgotten for a long time.

Often, when working with teenagers, I was faced with the fact that enthusiastic adoration, for example, of an older teacher was mistaken for falling in love and the teenager began to ask himself the question: am I gay?

But, as a rule, for the majority, such loves do not carry any information about what the real sexual orientation of an adult will be in the future.

They serve a completely different purpose: to reveal to the teenager himself the power of his emotions, they allow him to show sexual curiosity, to study himself and his reactions. Mature feelings and real strong attractions come, as a rule, later.

It also happens exactly the opposite. A person who, in adolescence, was “unconscious” in relation to peers of the same sex, has matured, lives an ordinary heterosexual life, and suddenly, already in adulthood, begins to experience a strong attraction to the same sex.

How is this possible? As a rule, this is a consequence of harsh upbringing. If a child is actively instilled with horror of homosexuality from an early age, emphasizing that gayness is a shame and a nightmare, then the child will try with all his might to suppress and repress even latent manifestations of his own bisexuality (which - remember! - is inherent in everyone by nature).

As a result, his attraction will begin to form not as his nature requires, but as society requires. Moreover, this happens differently for girls and boys. For some time, boys, under the influence of strong youthful hormones, think that girls completely satisfy their desires.

In fact, it is the general indiscriminateness of male youthful desires that affects us, especially among those who have a strong sexual constitution.

At the moment of peak sexuality, instinct so powerfully demands an outlet that it gives rise to the ability to be satisfied with almost any more or less suitable object.

And taking into account the fact that the girl is awarded the label “the right object” by everyone around her, the general approval of this step of the young man fuels his ardor. And only when the topic of self-affirmation in society recedes into the background can a person’s true sexual orientation emerge.

In my practice, there have been male clients who, on a wave of self-affirmation, managed to get married and even have children. But later, when other, deeper factors were needed for attraction, the attraction to his wife disappeared completely, and unconventional orientation “suddenly” announced itself with an unexpected, but passionate and irresistible love.

What happened more often with women was somewhat different: many of them started relationships with men, not at all guided by sexual impulses, if only curiosity. For many, something else was important - spiritual friendship, security, support in a woman’s desire to become a mother.

“I thought that sex was not the most important thing,” one of my clients said about that period of life, “we got along great, we had a child. And only later did I realize that I really wanted to have fun in bed, I sincerely wanted sex, but at the same time I realized that I really wanted this sex not with my husband or even with a man in general...”

There have also been examples where a person realizes his orientation, develops a completely “ordinary” relationship, but at the same time suddenly experiences an impulse to “try something new” with a partner of the same sex. In general, there are a lot of development options.

I gave all these examples just to show: sexual orientation itself is formed early, but it manifests itself in different ways, at different periods of life, with different intensities, and most importantly, it may not be realized for a certain time, especially if it - homosexual.

Not many people fall on the extreme end of the scale as soon as they become aware of their sexuality at all. And there is nothing wrong with that: human nature is plastic for a reason, it is a certain resource that is given to man by nature.

For what? Well, at least so that in a situation where there are no sexual partners of the opposite sex, you can at least switch to your own partners for a while. Sex is a function that exists not only for procreation, and non-productive (not leading to conception) sex occurs among animals.

Sex helps the species survive in general because, among other things, it serves as a form of consolidation of the union between people, a source of creativity, a way of self-expression, etc. It has many important functions besides procreation.

As one interesting example, some fish change sex during life. This is how nature controls the balance of females and males in the population. And with regard to people, some scientists are inclined to assume that non-traditional orientation is a way of regulating population numbers.

At least before the advent of assisted reproductive technologies, these people were those who, in essence, refused to actively reproduce, while maintaining the ability to conceive, and could still take part in the reproductive process if necessary.

And in the next part of the article we will talk about whether it is possible to change sexual orientation, what things can interfere with this, and why this may be needed in general.