Sexual orientation

Sexual orientation refers to the sex or gender of people who are the focus of a person's amorous or erotic desires, fantasies, and spontaneous feelings, the gender(s) toward which one is primarily "oriented". The alternative terms sexual preference and sexual inclination have similar meanings. Clinicians and those who believe sexuality is fixed early in life tend to use the former term; those believing sexuality is fluid and reflects preference and choice tend towards the latter terms.

Causes and malleability of sexual orientation

Main articles: Environment, choice, and sexual orientation and Genetics and sexual orientation

Related Topics:
Environment, choice, and sexual orientation - Genetics and sexual orientation

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Considerable debate continues over what biological and/or psychological variables produce sexual orientation in humans, such as genes and the exposure of certain levels of hormones to fetuses. A much smaller dialog remains in progress on whether that orientation is discretionary, largely limited to a minority of Christians and many Muslims with its foundation rooted in theology and old scientific thinking. Freud and many others, particularly in psychoanalytic traditions, speculate that formative childhood experiences (a.k.a.. nurture) help produced sexual orientation.

Related Topics:
Genes - Hormones - Discretionary

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Most specialists follow the general conclusion of Alfred Kinsey regarding the sexual continuum, according to which a minority of humans are exclusively homosexual or heterosexual, and that the majority are bisexual, that is, that the norm is to experience a mixture homoerotic and heteroerotic feelings, each kind to a different degree. Interestingly, Kinsey himself—along with current "queer"activist groups—focus on the historicity and personal fluidity of sexual orientation. Kinsey's studies consistently showed sexual orientation as something that evolves in many directions over a person's lifetime.

Related Topics:
Heterosexual - Bisexual - Homoerotic - Heteroerotic - "queer"

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