D-Ostruh

Whoopsies. You just made sex a lifestyle choice. Sure, I did.

"The world did not start with your emotional life." Really? I think that emotions are all connected to ideas. They are controlled by our judgments. Our emotional faculty has to always act but we have a choice about how it acts or which way basically, because of our faculty of reason. You control whether you think or not, whether you identity reality or evade it and this determines the character of your emotions. I do not believe that emotions exist outside the province of reason, that is outside of the effects of our volitional actions of consciousness. I mean I don't think emotions are ever free of reason, which means cannot behave independently of what is going on in our minds in respect to what we can volitionally control about our minds. Our emotional faculty works in tandem with our rational-faculty, but the hierarchy is head above "heart". I just think I need to point out that I dont think the behavior of emotions is independent of the rational-faculty, so in other words, feelings are not instincts or mindless urges. They are always connected to ideas and ideas can be judged and chosen or rejected. They are always connected to judgment and don't behave freely of it, or freely of either our reason or irrationality. For instance, as a practice of introspection, you can focus on an emotion and discover why you are feeling it and so also discover if what it is you are consciously aware of on some level is something you are judging correctly or not, because you can discover what the reality is that you are conscious of that is the cause of the feeling and look at that reality to see if what you are thinking about it is correct or not. You know what I mean? I mean an emotion is connected to something about reality you are aware of and you are judging that reality in some way and that is what makes your feeling the way it is, so by inspecting the feeling, you can discover what it is you are conscious of and how you are judging it (you can decide too if you need to do something). Then once you understand it, your feeling might change if you've had to change your mind about how you were judging reality. So, I would never say that it is the other way, that however you feel, reality must be in conformity with it. The subject was if choice mattered in sexuality. My answer is yes, because choice matters in the intellect. Sexual-interests, largely existing for people in an undefined way, like an x-factor at the bottom of their minds, are controlled by what is volitional about the mind, by ideas about reality. What you want, sexually, is based on judgments, primary ones, which for most people are not identified in their minds, the judgments they’ve made maybe before they even knew the words that could name them, and they instead go by the feelings based on them, taking a primary emotional realm for granted as if it is seated in them as an immovable concrete, something untouchable. Sexuality is not an exception to any other emotion. The hierarchy is head above heart. That means sexual-desire is controlled by a judgment about existence and the self, the existence of existence and the existence of one's life. How these are primarily regarded decides "sexuality" and how they are primarily decided is a choice. I don't think sexuality is a mindless bodily "urge". I think "urges" have interests behind them and interests are content of a rational-faculty. I think it's philosophical, so conceptual not instinctual. The only "instinct" to it is the same basic overall feeling inherent to life of the desire to live. Sexuality is related to the answer of how to make one's life possible. It is controlled by our answers to survival. It is how we choose to channel that desire to live, or that is to say our basic choices do channel it. Those choices are philosophical, so volitional. I agree with the Ayn Rand quotes too and am very familiar with them myself. You hit the proverbial nail squarely on. Thanks. Ayn Rand is always unfailingly refreshing. Thank you for the compliment, I appreciate it and again bringing in the relevant Ayn Rand support too. "The moral choice is to choose what one knows one IS, forgoing inner conflict and 'mind-body split'. Yes. I concur. I would only add as emphasis that knowing what one is is also just a matter of basic objectivity, so a choice and it is not automatic because nothing of knowledge is, but is a matter of an act of volition to identify your identity as it is. Like, if you do try to identify what you are by referring to your feelings, then you will ultimately decide you are the other sex than you are because you are being principally irrational and evading the self-evident for your answer. Either that or you'll decide that your sexual-identity is not fixed, so as if you don't actually have a sexual-identity. You can, as Mr-Ms Jenner has so stellar-ly proven, believe you are the opposite sex, or even that someone else is the sex they are not. So, for instance, I think what explains "transgenderism" is the basic failure of mind-body integrity, the solution to which is simple even if it takes an intellectual effort. It is objective identification of the self's objective reality. It is basing one's self-concept not on some mysterious inner quality but on the self-evident fact of oneself, one's overt sexual-identity. The mysterious inner quality is also only the feeling of evading objective identity. I mean, that evaded outer identity is the "girl inside" or "boy" as the case may be. That overt, concrete reality is the only basis for a primary concept of oneself. Self-identification of self-evident sexual-identity is the only basis for one's inner self, intellectually. Transgenderism is one of the most severe examples of the problem of "placing your heart above your head", of the primacy of consciousness, of looking inward for the outer facts and then changing the facts to suit one's feeling or baseless concept of self. The individual's objective sexual-identity is the cocneptual basis for his or her sexual idenity in his or her mind. There is no other basis and it is not automatic, although it may seem to be, but is something that takes identificaiton too, so a choice, focus and effort, on principle. Objective self-identification can be a great challenge too, because of all the contradictions to reality we have to live with in the world when our individual rights exist in standing violation, so it is just the easier solution for some to choose to give up on identity than to defend it. So, to know what you are is based on identification too and identification is always a choice that can be evaded and also always takes effort. Knowing what you are is an act of reason. One does not just feel the right way automatically. The only basis to one's concept of one's sexual-identity is one's objective sexual-identity and to make that connection is an act of reason. It is an achievement, in other words, a "psychological" achievement, which I prefer to just call an epistemological one. I know I may have I just opened up a whole new "can of worms", but I may not be back for a while to respond because I have a lot of work to do.

Arguing that homosexuality is a choice is typically an argument made by someone who's arguing against homosexuality, as if it being a choice would settle the issue of if someone should be homosexual or not and that they should not, so as if it being a choice deprives someone of any excuse for their homosexuality. Arguing that it is not a choice is an argument made typically the other way, as if to prove it is not a choice settles the issue of its acceptability. It's most common for people to argue for homosexuality's acceptability on the basis of it not being a choice. Why it is this way on both sides is because of the presumption of heterosexuality and the presumption of an anti-homosexual morality. The choice-debate is shallow. However, that does not mean choice or biology doesn't matter. Nobody debates choice over heterosexuality, because heterosexuality is the world-standard of sexual-morality. It could be questioned, but most people believe that to question heterosexuality would be absurd. Why would you question if heterosexuality is a choice, unless the moral presumption about heterosexuality was that it was wrong? People ask that about homosexuality because of the presumption of homosexuality being immoral, so if it is not a choice, you're also not guilty. What you are missing is what the whole world is missing and that is the relevance of sexual-object choice to morality and what that connection is. You are missing it, as is the world at large because of the presumption of heterosexuality's objective stature as principally unquestionable. The reason why choice is whitewashed out of real consideration is because of what it would mean to associate sexuality with choice on principle. It would mean that heterosexuality is on principle itself open to debate and that it is questionable. How can choice be regarded seriously in sexual matters if people are not willing to question heterosexuality? Do you see what I mean? The whole issue of choice in sexuality is principally closed when heterosexuality itself is not regarded as open to question as a sexual value-system. You can't regard sexuality as controlled by choice if you won't consider questioning heterosexuality. How can choice be given a fair treatment in sexuality if a sexual value is held as if it's beyond question? How heterosexuality has always been treated, as being regarded as naturally default and admitting of no cause to question, is why free-will in sexuality is not treated in a principle manner. You can't. You can't just accept heterosexuality as a given and then give serious consideration to choice in sexuality at the same time. If heterosexuality is a sexuality that is not regarded as open to being possibly wrong itself, then choice cannot be regarded either as a principle factor in basic sexuality. See? Questioning heterosexuality is presuming a choice exists in respect to sexuality itself, because with heterosexuality is where sexuality is accepted without question. Without admitting the choices that exist do exist, which the unquestionableness of heterosexuality's naturalness and moral-goodness precludes the admission of, then also the meaning of choices can't be examined or admitted either. Accepting heterosexuality without question is what is dismissing choice from sexuality, so also the meaning of choices. Without choice, there is no morality and accepting a sexual-standard without question is accepting it as if it's not a choice. It is only because of accepting heterosexuality without question that choice itself is preempted as a factor to basic sexuality, because accepting it without question preempts choice, as if judgment, understanding and decision are not relevant in the basic character of one's sexuality. Only if the sexuality that is taken for granted is treated as subject to open-examination and question, can it be seen what choices there are and what they mean. Accepting sexuality at all for its direction as just a given, closes discussion and the issue of choices. They ask if homosexuality is a choice because they do not ask if heterosexuality is. What I mean is that if heterosexuality is accepted without question as right and homosexuality is a choice, then homosexuality must be wrong. Why? Because it is the rejection of what is taken on faith as right. If you are not going to question heterosexuality, then if homosexuality is a choice it must be the choice of rejecting what is unquestionably right. This is why the idea of homosexuality being a choice is also the idea of homosexuality as being wrong. I think it matters if you choose to "be gay" or if you're biologically that way, because, well, it matters what you believe. If you believe in the biological determinism of values, this belief is a serious philosophical principle to accept and look at life according to; and if you don't think choice really matters here, what does that mean? That you have no standards? There are a lot of problems with the idea that sexual-object choice doesn't matter, like for instance that if it does not matter which sex you choose, then how can you choose? Flip a coin? If you "prefer" one sex or the other, then what is the basis of the preference? If it's not a reason, then it's back to biology and determinism again. There has to be a basis to a preference, a "why?" for it and if you say it doesn't matter why, how do you know it doesn't matter if you don't know why? The idea of "preference" actually presumes a biologically-determined cause, because it does not answer the question of why the preference and leaves the inference as "biological". The "preference-biology" views are related. Of course, it does not matter to your right to a choice. You have the right to choose whatever you choose, as long as you are only choosing it for you. However, it matters to your own self-interest if your choice is right or not. You may say it doesn't matter as long as you're happy, but then that is not a very conscious existence, which again, is your right, but if however, you are interested in the best possible life, then you would want to know and not settle for "As long as I'm happy, so what?" That's your choice though. What is right and what you have the right to aren't the same. You may not care why your sexuality is the way it is, why you are the way you are, and you don't owe it to anyone to care either, but that doesn't mean it's a good decision. Rational men want to understand themselves and know why they feel what they feel and want what they want. You don't have to be interested, but that doesn't mean it's reasonable not to be. It is not a self-interested point of view to think that it doesn't matter why. It doesn't matter to your rights to it, because you have the right regardless of the "why", but if you are a person who upholds the principle of self-interest, then you are interested in the cause. Not caring about it is the anti-self morality. I mean really, it's not being interested in yourself, in your sexuality make-up, which means not being interested in yourself in one of the most personal ways. So, I think it matters why, but not because you have to justify it to anyone to have the right to your choice, but because it matters to yourself why. - Drew O.