Sexuality as choice vs sexuality as inborn: a false dichotomy?

I recently found this via Trinity's Livejournal. While i probably have somewhat more sympathy for the radical feminist position than Trinity does (or at least i find radical feminism's critiques of patriarchy and society in general powerful and persuasive enough to consider it a hugely important body of theory despite some of the things i'm not sure i can accept about it, and i tend to think it's a straw man to consider all radical feminism to be dependent on some of the more extreme premises inherent in this checklist), there are certain things that some people seem to regard as essential to radical feminism which i will instantly turn into your enemy if you try to defend them. Transphobia is one of them, condemnation of any kind of consensual sexual practices as somehow equatable to rape is another (which Trinity more than amply expresses my views on). One which i hadn't really encountered before (or at least not so explicitly) is this "all women are lesbians, and if they think they're not they need to be liberated from their false consciousness" thing...

OK, so, on a personal level, i really don't "get" why a woman (or a man, for that matter) would be sexually attracted to a man - but i don't doubt or question the reality that women, and men, are sexually attracted to men...

The responses to Yawning Lion's post point out how the "sexuality is malleable" argument is used as fuel for condemnation of people's sexuality and attempts to brainwash it out of people (which have a lot of parallels with the many nasty things that have been done to disabled people under the ideology of "behaviour modification"); however, it strikes me that the idea that sexuality is inborn has the potential to be used in oppressive ways, or to deny people's lived realities, as well...

The debate about whether sexuality is something people are born with, something socialised into people through external agencies beyond their control (ranging from intra-family abuse at the individual level to patriarchal cultural values at the "macro" level), or something that people freely choose, seems to be one that will never end - but, IMO, it's actually a distraction in terms of liberation...

One (disabled, lesbian) friend said to me that the reason she thought a higher proportion of disabled than non-disabled people were queer is because of the higher likelihood of sexual abuse happening to disabled children (either in family-home or institutional settings). The issue i had with this theory was that, if it was accepted as true, it could be used as fuel for arguments that queer sexualities are the "product" of abuse and therefore somehow pathological.

However it seems to me that the libertarian response to this, and the one which would be consistent with the social model of disability, and acceptance-of-diversity in general, should not be to deny vociferously that a person's sexuality could ever be influenced or "caused" by abuse, but to affirm its validity regardless of that fact.

Likewise (or conversely), a lot of people seem to have a lot invested in denying the possibility that someone could "choose" their sexuality, seemingly based on the idea that something freely chosen is somehow a less valid part of one's identity than something congenital and inalterable.

My response to that debate is: why can't it be all of the options? Why can't it be accepted that some people are born gay, some achieve gayness, and some have gayness thrust upon them? There are as many possible experiences of sexuality as there are people with sexualities; I don't see why it has to be either/or, when it might be option 1 in some cases, option 2 or 3 in others, and a bit of all of them in yet other cases...

There's an obvious parallel here with disability and impairment. Attitudes towards disability may vary between those with congenital impairments and those with acquired impairments, but neither group is any less "genuinely" impaired or disabled than the other. Why should it be any different with congenital or acquired sexualities? (I am going to post fairly soon on hierarchies of impairment...)

There is not necessarily a hard and fast distinction between aspects of a person which are "freely chosen", and those which are "socialised", due to biology or to any other external factor. One thing which is important on a personal level to me is trying to disentangle those "lacking" aspects of my own personality which are due to my impairment, and thus "inborn", from those which are the result of depression and/or PTSD from living in a society without understanding or acceptance of that impairment; however, i recognise that what is really important is not whether some hypothetical version of myself, with identical biology but raised in a "perfect", prejudice-free society, would have those negative traits or not, but whether or not it's feasible for me to change them. Even if I, or any other disabled/queer/whatever person, are who we are because of things that happened to us that "should not have" happened to us, we still deserve acceptance for who we are, not an obligation to change or "cure" ourselves (unless, of course, we want to change in that way).

Of course, that analogy doesn't really include the "freely chosen" bit: having tried and failed to be attracted to people of both sexes, i am forced to conclude that i cannot change my sexuality, and that i am exclusively attracted to women whether i like it or not. (Thus i probably shouldn't feel the guilt i sometimes do over being "inherently patriarchal" or "sexist" for such "discrimination"). However, i wouldn't ever try to deny someone's claim that ze did choose hir own sexuality. (I'd probably submit that such a person would have to have had the capability to fancy both genders to begin with, in order to have chosen one or the other, but i have no pronlem with different people having different capabilities in the realm of sexuality any more than in any other realm of human experience). Thus, while i might kind of envy someone who can choose hir sexuality, i believe that, consistent with libertarianism as a general social principle, they have the right to make that choice, and no one has the right to deny them that choice, regardless of whether or not everyone else has the ability to make that choice (I also need to write something about libertarianism and recognising different capabilities...) - a "chosen" sexuality is neither more or less valid IMO than an "unchosen" one.

It is up to us and us alone, whoever and whatever we are, to conclude both whether we are "broken", and whether we want or need to be "fixed". If a behaviour or a human difference harms no one, then no one has a right to condemn or attempt to alter it in anyone but hirself, and whether it is "chosen" or not is immaterial...

(this turned out a lot longer and ramblier than i intended it to... but at least i wrote it :) )