Those who have read my page on the occult know enough about my background to know that my childhood was a little unusual -- my father was abusive, my parents divorced, and I grew up without positive male role models in an environment that was markedly anti-sex. My family included several people who had suffered sexual abuse and had turned to fundamentalist christianity for comfort, and so information (as opposed to dogma or propaganda) about sex, relationships, and the nature of love was seriously lacking. Rather than cursing my family for my lack of instruction in the ways of romance, I chose to view my situation as giving me a unique opportunity to seek to learn the truth and explore the mysteries of love and sex in a way that was relatively free from prejudices and preconceptions about how things should go, what is right or wrong, and so forth. In other words, I had a chance to seek the honest truth rather than simply following tradition. Of course, it's not that I was raised without preconceptions about sex and what counts as "right" and "wrong" forms of sexual conduct; rather, the notions I was taught were so extreme that I eventually rejected them all (out of a desire to remain sane) and decided to seek the truth for myself, to look at the facts rather than dogma and see where they lead. This present work is a summary of the results of this quest. Sexual Attraction Sexual attraction is, first and foremost, a form of perception. We look at a person and either feel sexual attraction or don't feel it. For all of us, there are some people who we perceive as sexually appealing or attractive and some we don't. Sexual Attraction is involuntary; we don't get to consciously decide whether we find a given person attractive or not. We can't decide "I want to be attracted to X" and make it so any more than we can look at a wall and decide which color we want to see regardless of what color the wall is. Of course, we can repaint the wall, and similarly there are things we can do over time to alter our perceptions of a particular person, but the fact remains that the immediate experience of being sexually attracted to a person is a form of perception that we cannot control. The fact that we cannot voluntarily decide whether we perceive someone as sexually attractive does not imply that sexual attractiveness is an objective quality or that some people are sexually attractive while others are just not. All perceptions depend on both the observer and the quality being observed, and sexual attractiveness, like aesthetic beauty, depends on the interaction of a vast number of different simpler perceptions in a way that is generally unpredictable. A feature that may look good on one person may not work as well for someone else; traits that may be forgivable in one person (i.e., the person in question is still appealing despite the undesirable trait) may ruin the attraction for another person. Indeed, what one person sees as a flaw may well be an asset in the eyes of another. Like any other form of perception, feelings of sexual attraction are devoid of moral content. They are neither right nor wrong but simply are perceptions. It is no more right or wrong to be attracted to person X than it is to look at a wall and see red or blue. Note that this simple observation has immediate consequences: is it wrong or sinful to feel sexual attraction to a member of your same sex? Not at all; it is neither right nor wrong, it's only a perception. There's nothing you can do to stop it. You don't have to act on it, of course, but that's another issue. Of course, you may lie to yourself and deny that you feel an attraction which is traditionally viewed as wrong or sinful, but that doesn't negate the fact of the perception. Many philosophers who have investigated the question of sexual attraction have concluded that no one is really hetero- or homo-sexual, but that we are all inherently bisexual. This would appear to contradict the fact that vastly more people consider themselves "straight" and even find it hard to imagine feeling sexual attraction to a member of their same gender, but it is important to note that feeling an attraction, i.e. having the perception of sexual attractiveness, is different from realizing that you are having the perception, which in turn is different from consciously admitting to yourself that you are having the perception, and this is farther still different from admitting it to others. Since it is only at the "admitting it to others" stage that we can investigate sexual attraction in anyone but ourselves, solid research in this area is hard to come by, and indeed claims such as "we are all fundamentally bisexual" may not even be empirically falsifiable, in which case any such statements are merely speculation. Nonetheless, what we can say for certain is that we are all physically capable of sexual activity with members of either gender. Further, the simple fact that someone has never met another member of his/her gender that he finds sexually attractive does not mean that no such person exists or can exist. Indeed, you may simply not have met the right person. It seems to me that many people who deny the possiblity of sexual attraction to member of some particular gender (theirs or, indeed, the opposite) do so beacuse of some particular ideology they hold dear. Our society encourages us to define ourselves as "straight" or "gay" because it's easier to deal with labels than individuals, and of course many forms of religion identify homosexuality as "sinful," resulting in a common refusal to admit even to oneself perceptions of sexual attraction to members of one's same gender. In accordance with the principles outlined in my introduction, I suggest that such self-deception is ultimately harmful, since it results in acting based on false information, and thus should be avoided. As with all things, we should be honest with ourselves about everything, including who we are and are not attracted to. Note that this does not necessarily entail acting on our feelings of sexual attraction; there are times when acting on a sexual attraction is appropriate and times when it is not. For example, if one is invloved in a monogamous relationship, then acting on sexual attraction outside of the relationship constitutes a violation of an agreement with a loved one, which can certainly have bad consequences. Similarly, there are certain types of sexual attraction which should never be acted on, such as sexaul attraction to children -- any sexual activity involving children stands a high risk of emotionally as well as physically damaging the child and should always be avoided. It is important to act from one's conscience, to be true to yourself. Thus if you personally believe (as many Christians do) that homosexuality is sinful, then by all means abstain from acting upon homosexual attraction; but it is important that you still recognize it when you feel it, since such perceptions are part of you. As stated above, only actions can carry moral weight, not perceptions.

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