How to find out if your kid is a pre-homosexual?

Is your child destined to become a homosexual? Perhaps! Researchers looking into the onset of sexuality in children have come up with a checklist (okay, that's a serious oversimplification) to determine if your wee one is a "pre-homosexual." And it's not just whether little Billy prefers to play with Barbies.

Scientific American points us to research from J. Michael Bailey, a psychologist from Northwestern University, and Canadian psychiatrist Kenneth Zucker:
So on the basis of some earlier, shakier research, along with a good dose of common sense, Bailey and Zucker hypothesized that homosexuals would show an inverted pattern of sex-typed childhood behaviors (little boys preferring girls as playmates and infatuated with their mothers’ make-up kits; little girls strangely enamoured by field hockey or professional wrestling…that sort of thing). Empirically, explain the authors, there are two ways to investigate the relation between sex-typed behaviors and later sexual orientation. The first of these is to use a prospective method, in which young children displaying sex-atypical patterns are followed longitudinally into adolescence and early adulthood, such that the individual’s sexual orientation can be assessed at reproductive maturity. Usually this is done by using something like the famous Kinsey Scale, which involves a semistructured clinical interview about sexual behavior and sexual fantasies to rate people on a scale of 0 (exclusively heterosexual) to 6 (exclusively homosexual). I’m a solid 6; I often say that I wanted to get out of a vagina at one point in my life, but ever since then I’ve never had the slightest interest in going back into one.

The research is actually somewhat old (1995) but has been expounded upon by further studies. Which are slightly uncomfortable to read!
Another caveat is that researchers in this area readily concede that there are probably multiple—and no doubt very complicated—developmental routes to adult homosexuality. Heritable, biological factors interact with environmental experiences to produce phenotypic outcomes, and this is no less true for sexual orientation than it is for any other within-population variable. Since the prospective and retrospective data discussed in the foregoing studies often reveal very early emerging traits in prehomosexuals, however, those children who show pronounced sex-atypical behaviors may have “more” of a genetic loading to their homosexuality, whereas gay adults who were sex-typical as children might trace their homosexuality more directly to particular childhood experiences. For example, in a rather stunning case of what I’ll call “say-it-isn’t-so science”—science that produces data that rebel against popular, politically correct, or emotionally appealing sentiments—controversial new findings published earlier this year in the Archives of Sexual Behavior hint intriguingly that men—but not women—who were sexually abused as children are significantly more likely than non-abused males to have had homosexual relationships as adults.

Part of me wants to think "Oh god, tell me that Richard Cohen isn't right." And the other part of me thinks, "If all these bigots really don't want their sons to turn out gay, they'll actually work harder to keep their kids safe from pedophiles. Like those in the Catholic Church."

Mixed Feeling

Have you ever wonder about your sexuality?

Having nothing to do for the holidays leaves me an idle person. I have been thinking much about my sexuality especially after quarrelling with mom.

I remember I first fall in love with a beautiful girl (CJ) in my school when I was in Primary Six. At that time, CJ was in the class next to mine. For the following six years, she was in the same class with me. CJ was the 'school flower' (Chinese saying to describe the most beautiful girl in school). Later, my feeling for her eventually vanishes. I still had some liking for a few girls when I was in Form 1, not until the time in Form 2 when I discovered actually I like guys. It has ever been so since then.

But somehow lately I feel guity for what I am. I doubt my sexuality. I do not know why. Perhaps when you are to free, you tend to think too much. That's the only reason I can come up with.

I still doubt. Even though I have not been asking myself that question since I knew about it when I was 14. That question never crosses my mind, not until last week.

I really feel insecure and worried. What would be my future?

Who knows? I doubt no one would have an answer for that quandary. Only God knows.

...

From a Psychologist's Point of View

Met a psychologist recently and the following is the excerpt from the talk:

"...The majority of people are heterosexual. So the heterosexuals think that they are the normal ones. So something that is out of the norm is abnormal. But, whatever it is, like i said, it is people's preference, what they like and what they don't like. I don't think so it's up to us, we cannot be judging other people. Let say your best friend and suddenly you found out that he is a gay, are you going to stop being his best friend simply because he is a gay? Are you going to discriminate him? Are you going to chuck him having been your best friend for how many years and then found out that he is actually a gay? Now, that's discrimination! It's just the same issue like Elizabeth Wong. Who are we to judge? It's people sexual preference. Everyone has their own rights. But, having said that, we must be careful with our sexual expression. Sexuality in our country is still very conservative. It's their right as long as they're not harming an individual or the society. ..."

I had a wonderful time listening to her thoughts. It was indeed an enlightening talk. Whether we are straight, gay, or bisexual, we are equal and do not deserve any kind of discrimination or prejudice. At the end of the day, what matters is that being who you really are. Love, regardless of sexuality, is not a crime.