Can anyone tell me the difference between “sexual preference” and “sexual orientation”? If you were thinking they mean the same thing you would be wrong. “Sexual preference” implies that there is a choice in the matter. Whereas ‘sexual orientation’ implies that one was born this way.
Semantics matter.
By someone saying “sexual preference” instead of “sexual orientation” has played right into anti-gay advocates’ argument that sexual orientation is a choice. Worse, it could also lend credence to the idea spread by the Christian right and other suspicious organizations that gay people must simply exercise willpower in overcoming the “mastery of sin” that supposedly makes us “give in” to the “temptation” of gay sexuality.
I am as guilty as the next person because I have allowed my friends and allies to continue using the phrase “sexual preference” instead of “sexual orientation”, but that is going to stop because I will not allow anyone to legitimize the implication that sexual orientation is a choice.
To most people in the Christian right, they believe that one’s “sexual preference” is a beatable character flaw; as though a gay person elects to face a lifetime of discrimination because of some misguided, masochistic lust. Therefore it is a problem that can be solved, often by prayer and celibacy.
This same thinking leads anti-gay supporters to turn the fact of human sexuality into a question of morals. To them it’s our choice to be gay, and that choice is a wrong one. Why should the bigots change if we’re the ones who chose — preferred, even — to be “deviant” in the first place?
In fact, the concept of “sexual preference” is just as problematic to me as “gay lifestyle.” Both phrases reject the very idea of “sexual orientation”, instead reducing gayness to a set of learned behaviors and attitudes. What’s more, both phrases indirectly position heterosexuality as the moral standard for which we should all strive and from which we in the LGBT community “deviate” from.
When someone uses the term “sexual preference” or claim to support “the gay lifestyle” probably doesn’t mean to suggest that being gay is actually a choice. Nonetheless, our language reflects our beliefs. It is time we stop allowing the belief that gayness is a choice to pollute our vocabulary.
MJ
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ReplyDeleteThank you so much for posting this blog.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you and wish humanity would learn the difference between the two and use the correct terms when talking about sexual orientation, human sexuality, LGBTQ issues, etc. It's similar to when people speak of trans* people---and assume that all trans people want surgeries/hormones/etc (the word "trans" is an umbrella term to represent the vast spectrum of different trans identities, just as there is a vast "spectrum" of different and valid sexual orientations).
It truly makes an individual look very ignorant and uneducated when they use the words "sexual preference" as opposed to "sexual orientation" in the modern world. What is really disgusting and annoying is when people argue for the use of the word "preference" over "orientation" because they erroneously think that it validates bisexuals (I've seen this in so many annoying straw-man arguments made by heterosexuals who have no business in trying to "educate" me, an LGBT person who knows their shit in human sexuality, on what they erroneously think is 'human sexuality' facts. I think what they're doing is call 'hetero-splaining'---similar to how average white hetero males will try to deny feminism exists and try to 'man-splain' to real feminists and feminist females on feminism and feminist issues, when in fact, they know nothing about it and have no right to act like an authority on such subjects or topics). Um, sorry to enlighten those ill-informed purposely-bigoted people, but bisexuals are a sexual orientation just as homosexuality, heterosexuality, and probably pansexuality are sexual orientations and none of any of those are a choice. Sure, bisexuals have a diverse sexual orientation as opposed to us who fall in the strictly homosexuals or heterosexuals, but it's still a sexual orientation even if theirs is more "fluid" (I'm pretty sure when science becomes more advanced, we'll find the sexual orientation epi-genetic gene(s)/biology and it will show not only homosexuality and heterosexuality, but will validate bisexuality as well, even the "fluid" bisexuals and the whole spectrum of bisexuality).
What really pisses me off is when people of our fellow LGBTQ community think it's okay to use the word "preference" rather than "orientation". Maybe a Human Sexuality 101 class at a local college or university could help correct them? Sigh.
I am so sick of American's ignorance on just about every important topic in our modern times---especially when it comes to human sexuality and the facts, that it makes me want to move to Europe that much more.
I'm sick of people hiding behind the term "sexual orientation" to explain their deviant lifestyle. It's just a way to say "I was born this way it's not my fault God made me this way" So they can pursue their sins of the flesh. Disgusting!! Leviticus 20:13
ReplyDeleteIf a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.