vauge said:
Obviously that did indeed play a factor, but only after they were conditioned to such and conditioned themselfs to believe that.
How would an adolescent teenager "condition" themsevles or be conditioned to become gay? That one always made me a bit confused.
I know I was raised in a fairly concervative (fairly is an understatement) town, with only heterosexual role models, heterosexual parents, heterosexual friends. My parents had no friends who were openly homosexual, to my knowledge. No one in my family had ever been openly homosexual, again, to my knowledge.
It was a common stigma that homosexuals were either evil, bad, sick or just plain creepy and always something to stay away from...when on rare occassion it was ever brought up.
All girls were expected to grow up, marry, have babies...etc.
All boys were expected to grow up, marry, have a steady job which would provide for a family.
Yet the entire time I was growing up I had this nagging knowledge that I was different. I knew I didn't fit into this utopian ideal of the midwestern suburbs. I was attracted to girls. I had no interest in boys, never dated in high school. I was terrified someone would notice me maybe taking too long a glance at my teammate in the locker room or daydreaming at the wrong time.
So after high school I did date a guy or two. I did it to fit in, to attempt to seem "normal."
Later I actually married a man, thinking that somehow by doing so would magically transform my attraction to women and "cure" my awareness of my homosexual tendencies. I even thought that if I had a baby that all that would be behind me. That by being a mother and a wife I would become that ideal in which I was raised.
If anything I was
conditioned to be straight.
But guess what?
I wasn't and no amount of lying or pretending was ever going to change that. No matter how much I wanted it. I was miserable, my marriage failed and I was nearly suicidal.
I had to force myself to come to terms with the harsh reality that I was infact and undeniably gay.
I knew that until I could accept myself for who I am/was that I would never be happy, that I would only be raising a child to learn to hate himself and to lie.
I was never conditioned to become or be gay. It was a long, hard, painful journey to self acceptance.
I just don't buy the BS of anyone being "conditioned" (ie brainwashed) into being gay. Trust me, it's not something any parent would knowingly condition their child to be.
Still to this day, even though attitudes are slowly changing, parents would NEVER knowingly "condition" their child to be social outcasts. Parents who actully love their child unconditionally only want their children to be happy, to be loved, to be compassionate, to have friends and lifelong relationships. Not lives of pain, self-hate, brutal beatings by bigots and religious zealots.
Acceptance is tough and many parents learn to accept and even support their children when those children realize they are gay. When those children find their voice and announce this to the one's who raised them, no matter how accepting the family really is, it's still a scary thing to do.
I just can't imagine parents who would "condition" their child to "become" gay. It's not something someone chooses. But learning to either accept or deny this reality...that's the choice.