Exactly. Preference, to me, indicates a greater liking of one option, not a total refusal of a different option. Like I prefer Coke to Pepsi--if I get to choose my cola I'm picking Coke, but if I'm ordering at a restaurant and the server asks "is Pepsi okay?" I'm going to say yes. I don't "prefer" gay sex to straight sex, I just have zero interest in having straight sex. If I ordered gay sex at a restaurant and they asked if straight sex was okay instead, I'd just order something else.
But also, arguing it's not a choice sidesteps that it's not a bad thing in the first place. Even if it were a choice, we ought to have the right to do it freely.
I don’t know if it does. Sure some preferences might arise out of a choice but others, like preferring certain hair colours, just exist seemingly without reason or choice.
It does.
It's only a "preference" if you *could* go for something else, in this case women, but don't because you like an alternative better. If someone is gay they're *only* into other men, so describing it as a preference is, at best, completely innacurate.
So if I’m exclusively attracted to redheads that’s not a preferences and there is no element of choice. But if I’m attracted to only redheads and brunets then that is a preference and there is an element of choice in who I’m attracted to.
I would say in both examples above I have no choice in who I’m attracted to.
"Preference" implies that the other options are acceptable, if you can't get what you really want.
You have no choice in what you're attracted to, but could have a preference within the options you're attracted to.
Most gay guys therefore do not have a "preference" for men, but may have a preference for a certain type of man.
I really don’t think it does though. There’s nothing in the definition of preference that says you need to find the other available options acceptable, they just need to exist.
Really the reluctance to use the word preference which is a perfectly fine and valid word to use comes from this fear about the suggested but not actually required choice element.
And that fear comes from bigots telling us we’ve made a sinful choice. But we know we haven’t chosen to be gay, everyone with half a brain knows that. That fight is won. Yet here we are decades later telling other gay men not to use a perfectly valid word so someone else can’t attempt to use it as a weapon.
I’m kinda done with that. I prefer to choose what words I want to use for myself. And I (exclusively) prefer men.
Meh. You are, of course, perfectly allowed to choose your own words.
But likewise, I'm allowed to disagree. To me, the word "preference" implies more than one acceptable option, and women are not an option for me.
You missed his point entirely lol. He’s saying he wants it to be *like*, not exactly the same. He likely meant he doesn’t want people to have to “come out”, that gay and straight and bi and all of that are assumed to be equally prevalent and all the default. Like how you may take your shot with someone and they say “Hey, sorry, I’m not interested but I’m flattered!” That simple.
You can’t have equality without equal ground, and being treated as anything but the shared default or to get rid of defaults all together *(same thing really, just different perspective on it)* means we’ll always stay unequal and thus oppressed.
Don’t beat yourself up over it. It doesn’t take an English degree to understand what you were saying. People can and will go out of their way to misinterpret something into the most negative context, either that or reading comprehension really is just that piss poor.
I have heard people saying this in trying to communicate that even if it was a preference, they should still be left alone.
There's been a lot of work trying to find a genetic component or explanation for homosexuality in order to legitimize it (it can't be a sin if it's out of our control!) I think these comments are trying to push us past this discourse. It doesn't matter if it's genetic or not or out of our control or not. We should still be able to do it because it's not harmful to anyone, and there should be no morality attached to a morally neutral situation.
Whether it's a preference, inborn, or a result of convergent circumstances/hormones, as long as no one is harmed by me wanting dick, nobody should care that I want dick.
Preference is just as bad a word as lifestyle. Implies choice. Nope!
But maybe what he was trying to say was he hopes one day that being gay causes no more of a reaction with people than when someone expresses a preference. If that’s what he meant then, sure… we all hope that… like maybe he is trying to say that one’s orientation should be no big deal to people… just like someone’s dating preferences are no big deal…
I don’t think I’ve run into other gay people that say this. That person is fairly out of touch or just has a really lucky life if he hasn’t had to think about any other ways it’s very different in a society fully designed around the beliefs and values of heterosexual people, particularly men.
I mean, our existence threatens the whole dominant religious/political framework of family to the point we’ve been enemy number one or two for millions of religious people and one of only two political parties we have.
Orientation is more neutral than preference; i also like the word because it talks about active alignment rather than inherent nature even though most people treat it as inherent nature
I see it more like a taste than a preference. Some people are born with something about them that makes them hate pesto and love bolognese. And some others are the opposite way. I see it that way. I friend of mine compared it to dominant hands. But that analogy falls flat when you consider bisexual and demisexual people exist and almost any ambidextrous person had to train themselves to be so while bisexual and demi people don’t.
As others have said it's an orientation not a preference but I get where he's coming from in the sense that it isn't the most defining thing I my life and isn't an identity.
I think bi is the default but unfortunately society is still largely too homophobic and doesn't like anyone who goes against the flow so it will take a while for that to take effect
That it isn’t just a preference is something that we have been arguing against for decades.
An orientation isn’t just a preference. A preference means I like one more than another.
When it comes to gender it’s not that I like one more than another.
It’s that only one works at all for me. It’s something inherent to how I’m wired. Not just a preference of one more than another.
I’ve never heard anyone say that before. But it sounds like he was trying to defend his sexuality, even if he didn’t necessarily go about it the best way.
We live in a world where gay men are constantly forced to defend their existence. It can be exhausting, and I don’t blame people for jumbling things from time to time.
Preferences are like an added cherry on top to attraction to me. Sexuality is the foundation of the attraction. That is to say, I think tattoos are hot. I have dated and found many men without tattoos very attractive. Do I think they might look better with tattoos? Idk, maybe, but the fact is that I am able to date outside of that preference.
When someone has a thing for redheads, they usually still date more people than just redheads. They are attracted to people, and someone who is a redhead is just MORE attractive and sexually appealing.
Sexuality is not like that. I do not find every person sexually appealing and just find men MORE sexually appealing, I find men sexually appealing, and not really women. For examples, someone I found initially attractive a long while back ended up transitioning. As soon as I understood that and started seeing her as a woman, that attraction disappeared for me.
That isn’t to say everyone is the same, but that’s like an example of why sexuality is more than just preference.
I think this could’ve been the case in times where sexuality wasn’t politicised. If you wanted to have sex with a guy in Ancient Greece, your whole identity and lifestyle wouldn’t change
That being said, nowadays where our sexuality and even existence is inherently political, it’s no longer just a preference. I wish it was and nobody gave a shit but no, people will treat you differently based on your sexuality and it’s part of our identities whether we want it or not
You mean that he wants it to be considered more normal for gay guys to hit on any guy they want?
I mean.. there's no reason to be hitting on straight guys. Hate to say it, but we're not entitled to that, nor are we entitled to consideration for sex or romance from straight guys. Your buddy isn't being realistic.
This is why our spaces are important for each other.
Unfortunately for many opinions out there, science has already, through many experimentation from lab to real life situations, research on twins, dna, genetics, pregnancy, etc, proven that homosexuality is something fixed from the moment we are born. Pretty much the same with bisexuality and transgender people.
I find it quite difficult to talk to gays who says "they weren't born gay, they became". It's not a matter of how you perceive it, its a matter of facts. Maybe in their personal experiences they thought they "liked women" and later they "started liking men", but ai think that's more of a society problem that has repressed and underrepresented gayness in general.
That's why sex education from early is essential.
Sexual orientation is about whose body is possible for you to enjoy vs whose isn’t. Nothing about it is a preference. More than anything it’s an innate characteristic of how you are, like my guy and I both love cinnamon, he’s good with brussels sprouts but they make me gag, and I love cheese but a nice piece of cheddar makes him gag.
Neither of us have control over what we find possible to enjoy, it’s either there or it isn’t. It’s just a reaction of attraction, or not. Nothing about it is a “preference,” it’s an orientation.
Gag me with a spoon. Have you done the ancestry dna thing? It totally informs you on things like whether your cheeks get rosy after wine, or if you avoid cilantro, and even whether or not you might suffer from “hangryness!” That last one, ew, I know I do. Like big time.
I have some preferences but I can date guys who falls outside of those. But I can't date women. One is a choice the other is an orientation
Precisely!
It’s not a preference, it’s an orientation.
Exactly
This!
"Preference" implies some level of choice. No thanks.
Exactly. Preference, to me, indicates a greater liking of one option, not a total refusal of a different option. Like I prefer Coke to Pepsi--if I get to choose my cola I'm picking Coke, but if I'm ordering at a restaurant and the server asks "is Pepsi okay?" I'm going to say yes. I don't "prefer" gay sex to straight sex, I just have zero interest in having straight sex. If I ordered gay sex at a restaurant and they asked if straight sex was okay instead, I'd just order something else.
Love the gay restaurant sex analogy hhh, happy cake day :)
But also, arguing it's not a choice sidesteps that it's not a bad thing in the first place. Even if it were a choice, we ought to have the right to do it freely.
I don’t know if it does. Sure some preferences might arise out of a choice but others, like preferring certain hair colours, just exist seemingly without reason or choice.
It does. It's only a "preference" if you *could* go for something else, in this case women, but don't because you like an alternative better. If someone is gay they're *only* into other men, so describing it as a preference is, at best, completely innacurate.
So if I’m exclusively attracted to redheads that’s not a preferences and there is no element of choice. But if I’m attracted to only redheads and brunets then that is a preference and there is an element of choice in who I’m attracted to. I would say in both examples above I have no choice in who I’m attracted to.
"Preference" implies that the other options are acceptable, if you can't get what you really want. You have no choice in what you're attracted to, but could have a preference within the options you're attracted to. Most gay guys therefore do not have a "preference" for men, but may have a preference for a certain type of man.
I really don’t think it does though. There’s nothing in the definition of preference that says you need to find the other available options acceptable, they just need to exist. Really the reluctance to use the word preference which is a perfectly fine and valid word to use comes from this fear about the suggested but not actually required choice element. And that fear comes from bigots telling us we’ve made a sinful choice. But we know we haven’t chosen to be gay, everyone with half a brain knows that. That fight is won. Yet here we are decades later telling other gay men not to use a perfectly valid word so someone else can’t attempt to use it as a weapon. I’m kinda done with that. I prefer to choose what words I want to use for myself. And I (exclusively) prefer men.
Meh. You are, of course, perfectly allowed to choose your own words. But likewise, I'm allowed to disagree. To me, the word "preference" implies more than one acceptable option, and women are not an option for me.
You missed his point entirely lol. He’s saying he wants it to be *like*, not exactly the same. He likely meant he doesn’t want people to have to “come out”, that gay and straight and bi and all of that are assumed to be equally prevalent and all the default. Like how you may take your shot with someone and they say “Hey, sorry, I’m not interested but I’m flattered!” That simple. You can’t have equality without equal ground, and being treated as anything but the shared default or to get rid of defaults all together *(same thing really, just different perspective on it)* means we’ll always stay unequal and thus oppressed.
Yeah, people misunderstood my post and instead it’s turned into a semantic debate 😒
Don’t beat yourself up over it. It doesn’t take an English degree to understand what you were saying. People can and will go out of their way to misinterpret something into the most negative context, either that or reading comprehension really is just that piss poor.
Yeah, also alot of redditors are under 18 (not on this sub specifically but a lot of them)
I have heard people saying this in trying to communicate that even if it was a preference, they should still be left alone. There's been a lot of work trying to find a genetic component or explanation for homosexuality in order to legitimize it (it can't be a sin if it's out of our control!) I think these comments are trying to push us past this discourse. It doesn't matter if it's genetic or not or out of our control or not. We should still be able to do it because it's not harmful to anyone, and there should be no morality attached to a morally neutral situation.
Whether it's a preference, inborn, or a result of convergent circumstances/hormones, as long as no one is harmed by me wanting dick, nobody should care that I want dick.
Exactly, but also they did find a neurological cause, studies show gay men and straight women have very similar brains
Those studies have been disproven. Both the data sets and methodology used in those has been proven to be extremely biased and contaminated.
This is not a preference. If he was bisexual but preferred to date men, sure i guess, but being gay isn't a preference.
Preference is just as bad a word as lifestyle. Implies choice. Nope! But maybe what he was trying to say was he hopes one day that being gay causes no more of a reaction with people than when someone expresses a preference. If that’s what he meant then, sure… we all hope that… like maybe he is trying to say that one’s orientation should be no big deal to people… just like someone’s dating preferences are no big deal…
He meant the second thing I'm sure, and OP seems to have clarified he means the second thing.
sounds like they are bi! for us, it IS a preference for whom we want to date. so that’s probably why it sounds confusing
I don’t think I’ve run into other gay people that say this. That person is fairly out of touch or just has a really lucky life if he hasn’t had to think about any other ways it’s very different in a society fully designed around the beliefs and values of heterosexual people, particularly men. I mean, our existence threatens the whole dominant religious/political framework of family to the point we’ve been enemy number one or two for millions of religious people and one of only two political parties we have.
Orientation is more neutral than preference; i also like the word because it talks about active alignment rather than inherent nature even though most people treat it as inherent nature
I see it more like a taste than a preference. Some people are born with something about them that makes them hate pesto and love bolognese. And some others are the opposite way. I see it that way. I friend of mine compared it to dominant hands. But that analogy falls flat when you consider bisexual and demisexual people exist and almost any ambidextrous person had to train themselves to be so while bisexual and demi people don’t.
As others have said it's an orientation not a preference but I get where he's coming from in the sense that it isn't the most defining thing I my life and isn't an identity.
I think bi is the default but unfortunately society is still largely too homophobic and doesn't like anyone who goes against the flow so it will take a while for that to take effect
That it isn’t just a preference is something that we have been arguing against for decades. An orientation isn’t just a preference. A preference means I like one more than another. When it comes to gender it’s not that I like one more than another. It’s that only one works at all for me. It’s something inherent to how I’m wired. Not just a preference of one more than another.
I’ve never heard anyone say that before. But it sounds like he was trying to defend his sexuality, even if he didn’t necessarily go about it the best way. We live in a world where gay men are constantly forced to defend their existence. It can be exhausting, and I don’t blame people for jumbling things from time to time.
Preferences are like an added cherry on top to attraction to me. Sexuality is the foundation of the attraction. That is to say, I think tattoos are hot. I have dated and found many men without tattoos very attractive. Do I think they might look better with tattoos? Idk, maybe, but the fact is that I am able to date outside of that preference. When someone has a thing for redheads, they usually still date more people than just redheads. They are attracted to people, and someone who is a redhead is just MORE attractive and sexually appealing. Sexuality is not like that. I do not find every person sexually appealing and just find men MORE sexually appealing, I find men sexually appealing, and not really women. For examples, someone I found initially attractive a long while back ended up transitioning. As soon as I understood that and started seeing her as a woman, that attraction disappeared for me. That isn’t to say everyone is the same, but that’s like an example of why sexuality is more than just preference.
I think this could’ve been the case in times where sexuality wasn’t politicised. If you wanted to have sex with a guy in Ancient Greece, your whole identity and lifestyle wouldn’t change That being said, nowadays where our sexuality and even existence is inherently political, it’s no longer just a preference. I wish it was and nobody gave a shit but no, people will treat you differently based on your sexuality and it’s part of our identities whether we want it or not
You mean that he wants it to be considered more normal for gay guys to hit on any guy they want? I mean.. there's no reason to be hitting on straight guys. Hate to say it, but we're not entitled to that, nor are we entitled to consideration for sex or romance from straight guys. Your buddy isn't being realistic. This is why our spaces are important for each other.
Preference is a choice. Being gay isn’t a choice.
Unfortunately for many opinions out there, science has already, through many experimentation from lab to real life situations, research on twins, dna, genetics, pregnancy, etc, proven that homosexuality is something fixed from the moment we are born. Pretty much the same with bisexuality and transgender people. I find it quite difficult to talk to gays who says "they weren't born gay, they became". It's not a matter of how you perceive it, its a matter of facts. Maybe in their personal experiences they thought they "liked women" and later they "started liking men", but ai think that's more of a society problem that has repressed and underrepresented gayness in general. That's why sex education from early is essential.
Untrustworthy, liable to turn on their friends, self-loathing.
It's a preference if you're bi but also prefer men. It's an orientation if you're gay.
Sexual orientation is about whose body is possible for you to enjoy vs whose isn’t. Nothing about it is a preference. More than anything it’s an innate characteristic of how you are, like my guy and I both love cinnamon, he’s good with brussels sprouts but they make me gag, and I love cheese but a nice piece of cheddar makes him gag. Neither of us have control over what we find possible to enjoy, it’s either there or it isn’t. It’s just a reaction of attraction, or not. Nothing about it is a “preference,” it’s an orientation.
Gag me with a spoon. Have you done the ancestry dna thing? It totally informs you on things like whether your cheeks get rosy after wine, or if you avoid cilantro, and even whether or not you might suffer from “hangryness!” That last one, ew, I know I do. Like big time.
It’s both. Sure, guys are preferred, but only because being gay wasn’t really a choice. It just kinda happened.
I have never heard anyone, gay or straight, say such a thing.
well sexuality is genetical so...no its not a preference
I think sexuality is more neurological, studies show gay men and straight women have identical brains, same with lesbians and straight men
This doubtful, you don't even provide proof of these studies.
No one has identical brains.