What is non-traditional orientation? Stars of unconventional orientation. Types of sexual orientation and its formation

Psychological and genetic abnormalities, according to experts, are the most basic and most important aspects in the predisposition to one or another sexual orientation. In modern society, the number of people who are quite loyal to representatives of sexual minorities is increasing, and this is a considerable merit of scientists.

As a result of numerous scientific experiments and studies, it has been proven that there are quite a few reasons for the origin of deviations in sexual orientation. The most common of these is a specific upbringing in the family. The mother's influence on her son is sometimes so great that feminist qualities predominate in the formation of mental health. Outwardly, a man, but inside such a boy, feminine qualities will prevail, hence the non-traditional orientation, that is, homosexuality, subsequently originates. In a family where there was no example of a father, the formation of masculine qualities and masculinity is sometimes practically reduced to nothing.

Of course, an important factor in the spread and open manifestation of same-sex love is public opinion. Gay propaganda, among certain segments of the population and in some countries, also serves as a source of spread for lesbian and gay movements. Indeed, in some circles, sometimes it is even fashionable to attribute oneself to one way or another way of life. Why exactly women prefer the love of another woman and consider themselves lesbians can also be explained by psychological disorders. Serious injuries received in childhood or adolescence have a very strong impact on the psyche of people. According to psychologists, they form the sexual deviations of a person to the greatest extent in the future.

People who have sexual feelings for members of the same sex are full citizens of their country. They, like everyone else, work, participate in the life of society, and are taxpayers. They have the same constitutional rights. Of course, for most people, it is very difficult to accept such unacceptable relationships for them, which are considered immoral and unnatural. However, showing cruelty and aggression towards them, they forget that they are breaking the law.

I suggest that the reader, even the most skeptical of gay people, put himself in the place of his parents. Parents whose children have serious deviations in sexual preferences. In fact, this is a very complex issue, which has been studied for decades by the most famous scientists. Multiple studies prove that during the period of the embryo's birth from the sixth to the eighth week, certain hormones are formed. They are the fundamental foundation for the future sexual orientation of a person. However, in this process, a failure may occur, which is a consequence of taking certain hormonal preparations of a woman or a violation of the endocrine system during pregnancy. In this regard, not only psychological deviations, but also a genetic predisposition can influence the formation of such a phenomenon.

Research in this area is ongoing, but these facts take place and should be taken into account. Perhaps in the near future, the progressive minds of mankind will find ways to change the phenomenon of same-sex love or bisexuality (attraction to both men and women) to heterosexual preferences. Perhaps our "developed and humane" society, for the most part, will be able to morally support representatives of sexual minorities. And help each person to cope with difficulties. Perhaps parents will stop abandoning their "abnormal" children, and help them survive emotional discomfort. It would probably be more important to try to eradicate the causes and factors that influence the formation of non-traditional sexual orientation than to pursue its representatives in every possible way.

Human sexuality is defined by five components. One of them is sexual orientation. This component defines the relatively constant sexual, emotional and romantic attraction of one individual to other individuals of a particular gender. A heterosexual is attracted to people of the opposite sex; homosexuals are attracted to people of the same sex. If we talk about what bi orientation is, then this is attraction to people of both sexes.

Today, there are several theories as to where people of a different orientation came from, but none of them has scientific confirmation. It is believed that it is born in the womb of the mother and is determined by chromosomes. But, of course, not only chromosomes play a role. Recently, non-traditional sexual orientation is more a tribute to fashion.

Modern sexology distinguishes three types of sexual orientation:

1. Heterosexual orientation - attraction to individuals of the opposite sex.
2. Homosexual orientation - attraction to individuals of the same sex.
3. Bisexual orientation - attraction to persons of both one's own and the opposite sex, and it will not necessarily happen at the same time and equally.

Sexual orientation and sexual behavior

It differs from orientation in that it means his actions, and not emotions and feelings. In the real, its true orientation may not appear. bi, for example? This is an attraction to people of both sexes, but at the same time a person has self-determined and lives as a heterosexual.

Human sexual orientation is a relatively new concept in modern sexology. Now this concept is considered as an integral characteristic of personality. It is worth noting that sexual deviations such as necrophilia, pedophilia or bestiality are not considered as types of sexual orientation. But nevertheless, before the concept of sexual orientation was introduced and such types of it as homo / bi and heterosexuality were identified, what is bi or homo orientation, sexologists considered from the point of view of deviations in the sexual orientation of the individual.

Homosexuality and bisexuality in men

Some homosexual men consider themselves bisexual and may be sexually active with both men and women. Scientists believe that in this case, such people have sexual relations with women without being attracted to them. That is, for example, it is more comfortable for them to share their life with women, and they get sexual satisfaction with men. It is also worth remembering the fact that society still condemns homosexuals, and boys who are attracted to individuals of the same sex have to hide their orientation.

Many homosexuals hide their experiences in their own subconscious and never socialize as gays. They marry and live the lifestyle of the heterosexual majority. The orientation of a man in this case does not correspond to his essence. Although there are cases when the “repressed” breaks through sooner or later and a man becomes gay after a long and outwardly prosperous family life.

Cases when active gay men suddenly become heterosexual also occur, but very rarely, and, as a rule, the reason for this is not sexuality, but a strong desire to have a child or marriage of convenience. That is, it is possible to give a definition of what bi orientation is - it is, in fact, unformed homosexuality. In this case, the person either denies his true orientation or tries to overcome his own Self.

Sexual orientation in modern sexology

Sexologists define sexual orientation as a combination of such components: sexual attraction, sexual self-identification and sexual behavior. Basically, all these components in a person coincide in vector, since orientation still depends on attraction, which is an innate property of the individual. But there is also a discrepancy between the individual components of orientation, since the environment in which a person is brought up influences behavior and self-identification to one degree or another. Probably and at bisexuals these components do not coincide.

Other components of sexuality

In addition to attraction, a person’s sexuality is influenced by genetics, hormones and other factors, his psychological belonging to a certain sex, which may not coincide with his biological sex. It also matters how the individual identifies himself. The role and behavior of a person in society plays a role, its conformity to stereotypes and attributing specific "purely masculine" or "purely feminine" behavior.

Man is a complex system, which is influenced by a combination of external and internal factors. Therefore, any of its characteristics must be considered taking into account all possible influences, both biological and social. An interesting object from this point of view is sexual orientation. What factors determine it and can it be influenced?

What is sexual orientation?

Sexual orientation is kind of easy. We know that it is determined depending on what gender we are attracted to. Accordingly, there are three types of sexual orientations: homosexuality (attraction to people of the same sex), heterosexuality (attraction to people of the opposite sex) and bisexuality (attraction to people of both sexes). But is everything so easy with the word "attraction"? How would you define it yourself?

Attraction must be considered in terms of its two aspects. It is emotional and physical. Then the question of determining sexual orientation becomes a little more complicated. If once in your life you have experienced the desire to have sex with a person of the same gender - does this mean that you are homosexual?

In an attempt to answer this question, the famous American biologist and sexologist Alfred Kinsey created a scale that you have probably heard of. It was used by the scientist in his monographs entitled Sexual Behavior of the Human Male (published in 1948) and Sexual Behavior of the Human Female (published in 1953). The Kinsey scale is divided into 7 items (0-6): options from exclusive heterosexuality to exclusive homosexuality. In the middle is bisexuality. A little later, the 8th option was included in this scale - asexuality, that is, the lack of sexual desire for anyone. Based on the descriptions of each option, you can try to estimate which number on the scale you are on. Let's say if you are a woman and you mostly had heterosexual contacts, but once in your life you had sex with a girl, then most likely you are a "one" on the Kinsey scale. What does this explain? Yes, in general, nothing. The nature of attraction is still unclear. Kinsey himself believed that sexuality can change during a person's life and his sexual behavior can be considered both as physical contact and as a mental phenomenon.

Employees of the Institute for Sex Research at Indiana University, 1953. Alfred Kinsey in the center

If we take the dictionary definition of the concept of "desire", then we will find that this is a desire that prompts a person to perform actions to satisfy any need. What is the need in this case?

The simplest answer that comes to mind is to satisfy the need to reproduce. But this contradicts our empirical findings: we all know that sexual intercourse is not always performed in the name of reproductive goals.

Sex can be a way to establish emotional intimacy and even position in the social hierarchy. If you catch any Freudian, he will tell you that attraction is an "irritation" for the psyche, by analogy with irritation from external influences and the subsequent reflex reaction. In addition, attraction is characterized by the fact that it comes from “within” the body and is a constant force, therefore it is impossible to get rid of its action by flight. So sex is a tool to get rid of an irritant.

Given the ambiguity of the causes of attraction, which excludes the primacy of the reproductive function, it is safe to say that all variants of sexuality are varieties of the norm. To investigate the factors influencing its formation, it is necessary to present it as a phenotypic trait of a person. In this discourse, one of the authors came up with a ponderous definition for sexual orientation. It sounds like this:

Sexual orientation is the resulting behavioral response to the analysis and subsequent synthesis by the human brain of all information coming from outside about the primary, secondary and tertiary sexual characteristics of people around.

The uniqueness of the sexual orientation of each person, according to the same author, is determined by the biological and gender characteristics of the state of his body and psyche at any given time.

Genetics

Biological causes are determined by genetics. The process of formation of sexual orientation depends on which chromosome is part of the human DNA and how these genes further affect the structure of organs.

A person has 22 paired chromosomes and two unpaired ones - X and Y, which are responsible for his gender. The combination of two X chromosomes determines the development of the embryo according to the female type, and the combination of the X chromosome with the Y makes the organism male. How is the "configuration" done? Around the second month of pregnancy, the endocrine glands, that is, organs capable of releasing hormones, begin to form in the fetus. Based on which genes the glands code for, they can secrete either male or female sex hormones. The reproductive organs in the embryo are initially represented by the basic gonads, which are by default female. By the third month of pregnancy, the hormones secreted by the glands begin to affect the structure of the genital organs. In particular, testosterone - a male hormone - turns the universal genital organs into male ones. For example, clitoral hypertrophy occurs, that is, it increases in size so much that it eventually becomes a penis. Later in pregnancy, around the fifth month, testosterone begins to affect the fetal brain as well.

The fact is that the phenotype depends on the allelic composition of the parent autosomal haplotypes, and if a child has mutant alleles, this can lead to the fact that his body with the XX chromosome begins to develop in a male pattern. Or, conversely, the XY organism acquires feminine phenotypic features. This phenomenon explains the existence of intersexes - people who cannot be unambiguously attributed to any gender. They can live and not suspect that something is wrong with them until they do, for example, a genetic analysis. Although “something is wrong” is also not quite appropriate to use here. After all, a person with an XY chromosome can look like a woman and even gender-identify in the same way, and not experience problems. At least until you try to conceive. Reproductive function here can be significantly affected.

A complex set of gene interactions leads to many intersex variants. Therefore, many of these people may be homosexual or bisexual. However, this does not mean that these variants of sexual orientation cannot manifest themselves in people with typical male or female phenotypes corresponding to the set of sex chromosomes. What, exactly, is the snag? Where is something hidden in the body that is responsible for our sexual orientation?

There are no specific genes that would tell the body “Here you will demonstrate homosexual behavior”. Studies have been conducted in which they tried to find something. One, for example, says that if you are gay, then there is a 7.3% chance that your maternal uncle is also gay. But these numbers and correlations are very small.

Biology

If we talk about differences in the structure of the brain in different sexes, then you need to understand that they are mainly concentrated in the hypothalamus. First of all, this is due to the fact that women constantly experience sharp jumps in hormonal levels in order to maintain a regular menstrual cycle. This naturally causes structural changes in the hypothalamus. In addition, there is evidence that this part of the brain controls human sexual behavior.

There is another interesting phenomenon discovered once by scientists. During pregnancy, the mental state and health of the mother greatly affects the development of the fetus. Due to the fact that the human body is dependent on environmental conditions and adapts to their changes, a woman's poor lifestyle causes irreversible consequences for the development of her child. If she finds herself in conditions where there is little food, cold, a lot of stress, this is a signal for her body that breeding now is actually not a good idea and it would be worth it to survive first. He throws all his efforts into ensuring the survival of the hostess. At the same time, the stress hormone cortisol, which is actively produced in an unfavorable environment, penetrates through the placenta into the child's body and begins to affect his sex glands. In a boy embryo, for example, this causes a decrease in testosterone production and, as a result, its further development in a feminine way.

This hypothesis is partly supported by the research of Dr. Doerner, during which he noticed that during various wars more gays were born than in peacetime. However, new data show that these were rather statistical fluctuations. Therefore, there is no exact confirmation of the hypothesis regarding people.

However, it is impossible to deny the influence of the environment on the rate of population growth. Homosexuality and asexuality may be evolutionary mechanisms that turn on when a group of animals finds itself in unfavorable conditions and it becomes illogical to multiply too much.

Yes, different kinds of sexual orientations are found not only in humans, but also in animals. In gray geese, domestic sheep, orangutans, in short, there are 450 more species. This is additional confirmation that sexual orientation is formed due to a complex of reasons that continuously affect the body, and not due to "propaganda".

society

In Russia, the pseudoscientific fact that allegedly homosexual behavior can be induced with the help of propaganda is legislated. To what extent is society really able to influence the sexual orientation of an individual?

As we have already considered, one single factor cannot seriously influence the formation of sexuality. He definitely contributes his part to the overall picture, but never becomes decisive. The opinion that upbringing and “propaganda” can make a homosexual out of a heterosexual was refuted by studies on identical twins. It must be understood that in such children the genetic material is completely identical, which means that the ratio of acquired and congenital traits can be checked on them. Studying, thus, homosexual and heterosexual twins, scientists found that if one of the brothers and sisters is gay, then the second with a probability of more than 50% will also be gay. Probably, congenital genetic features strongly influence this phenotypic trait.

The influence of society, behavioral patterns of close friends and acquaintances, some trends is expressed in the likelihood of single homosexual or heterosexual contacts. And, most likely, it works with gays. Under fear of condemnation and pressure from society, they try to enter into relationships with people of the opposite sex, while experiencing a craving for same-sex relationships. Heterosexuals, who are far from zero on the above Kinsey scale, may also try to have sex with people of the same sex, but, having not received pleasure, stop at a single experience.

Sexual orientation is a phenotypic trait that is formed under the influence of a complex set of various causes, both biological and social. It has not been fully studied, and science still has a lot to do in order to fully understand the mechanisms that regulate the process of its formation.

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The world is becoming more complex and multifaceted. Almost every day there are new words for things that we didn’t even know about before. For example, it turns out that the types of human sexuality are not limited to “hetero”, “gay” or “bi” options, there are many more of them. There are about a dozen different sex orientations in the world that reflect the intimate preferences of some modern people. Many of these orientations are very specific.

Asexuality

Asexuals are people who do not experience sexual attraction. At all. Asexuality is not the same as knowingly abstaining from sexual activity. Asexuals may have sex because of social prejudice or seeking to satisfy the desire of a partner, or to procreate. However, they do not experience any emotions. Asexuals may notice other people's physical attractiveness without feeling sexual attraction.

aromantic

Aromantics are in some ways the opposite of asexuals. While asexuals may love and experience romantic feelings without sexual desire, aromantics, on the contrary, do not feel any emotional connection with their partners. For them, sex is just a physiological process without any romance.

graysexuality

Graysexuals are people who are somewhere in between "regular" and asexual. They are more subject to the influence of mood: they may experience sexual attraction only in certain circumstances or to a certain type of personality. At the same time, graysexuals can be both hetero- and homosexual orientation.

Demisexuality

Demisexuals are people who do not experience sexual attraction until they form a strong emotional attachment to another person. Moreover, this attachment does not have to be romantic at all.

Demiromantic

A demiromantic, by analogy with a demisexual, is a person who is able to experience romantic feelings only after establishing a close emotional connection with another person.

Pansexuality

Pansexuals are people who can be attracted to absolutely all individuals, regardless of biological sex and their own gender identity. Unlike bisexuals, who are attracted to both men and women, pansexuals are completely "gender blind" in relation to their partner and to their own gender. They can be attracted to men, women, transgender people, intersex people (people who have not decided on their gender).

Polysexuality

Unlike pansexuals, who are completely indifferent to the gender of their partner, polysexuals are more selective. For example, a polysexual may not be able to be attracted to men but reciprocate with a transgender person.

Panromantic

Panromantics are people who are attracted to men, women, as well as intersex and transgender people, but only in a romantic way, without sexual overtones.

Litromantic

Lithromantics are people who are able to feel romantic love for someone, but do not want reciprocal feelings.

1Scoliosexuality

Scoliosexuals are people who are exclusively attracted to transgender people.

anti-sexuality

Antisexuals can and do experience sexual attraction, but are ideologically consciously opposed to sex.

Homosexual -
a fact of human life that has existed at all times along with the traditional orientation (which historical documents from different places and eras quite clearly prove).

Attraction to people of the opposite sex existed among people as if "by default", it was obvious that this is the dominant type of sexual attraction. However, it turned out that not everyone is able to experience attraction only to the opposite sex.

In different periods of history and in different cultures, different attitudes were formed towards those whose sexual orientation was non-traditional - from open persecution to the acceptance of such contacts as ritual practices, from disgust to the establishment of equality before the law.

On the one hand, these people really turned out to be and are in the minority, and the majority continues to be attracted to members of the opposite sex. On the other hand, this minority is quite stable. According to various estimates, it is 3-7% of the total number of people.

Naturally, statistics are difficult to collect from past historical eras, but researchers tend to believe that this percentage remains almost constant at all times.

Sexual orientation in nature did not imply complete unambiguity: in the environment of animals, non-traditional sexual behavior occurs in many species, from worms to mammals, and at about the same percentage as in humans. And therefore - it is difficult to say that non-traditional orientation is something "unnatural".

• So what is sexual orientation?
• Where does unconventional orientation come from?
• And what are the types of sexual orientation?

We will talk about this in the first part of the series on various forms of sexual preferences.

Sexual orientation: hypotheses about its origin

The modern scientific community has not developed a single hypothesis about how sexual orientation is formed. They searched everywhere - in the genes, studied various parts of the brain, hormonal factors, and, of course, the cultural, social context, early childhood experience and upbringing in general.

All this can be read in any modern encyclopedia. But there is something that most scientists unequivocally agree on: sexual orientation and sexuality in general is something that is formed at least from early childhood, and the deep foundations of human sexuality are laid even in the intrauterine environment.

If we look at the development of the fetus, it turns out that any person in the womb goes through the stage of hermaphroditism: the embryo has the rudiments of both male and female genital organs.

Under the influence of various biochemical factors (including hormones), the embryo eventually acquires the features of one or the other sex. However, this does not happen to everyone - there are those who, even at birth, do not have a completely definable anatomical sex. Existence hermaphrodites was known at all times - just look at some ancient Greek statues.

This phenomenon of intrauterine development allowed some researchers (in particular, Freud, Kinsey, Weiniger) to conclude that a person is basically bisexual, even if his anatomical sex at the time of birth is formed without deviations.

However, later, with the development of sexual consciousness, one of the vectors - attraction to the opposite sex or to one's own, a specific sexual orientation - begins to dominate, and bisexuality becomes latent, that is, hidden, not realized, remains in potential.

Too many things affect the formation of the fetus and the set of internal, not yet realized by the person himself, inclinations that he comes into this world with: the biochemistry of the mother's body, hereditary (genetic) factors, even the emotional background of the environment in which the pregnancy takes place, can affect shaping the child's future sexuality.

But we are not yet able to accurately trace the entire chain of formation of such a complex set of reactions as sexual orientation: after all, a baby cannot tell how he realizes himself, his gender, his awakening desires. Yes, and he realizes so far very little.

And much before gender and sexual orientation are generally recognized, the child begins to be influenced social factors: expectations of parents, norms of sexual behavior accepted in a given culture, ideas about the acceptability of manifestations of sexuality in a particular family.

By the time a person completes the period of sexual development and becomes, moreover, a full-fledged member of society (and the age of majority, 18 years old, is considered to be statistically the average age for the completion of sexual development), he, in fact, has already been formed, and his sexual orientation is also .

But not everything is so simple. Only if the sexual orientation is traditional, it does not raise questions. A teenager is supported in his awakening desires, or at least they do not attach any importance to this.

But in the case when a non-traditional orientation is manifested in one way or another or a teenager cannot decide to whom he feels more attraction, development occurs with a large component of neurotic factors - emerging questions to oneself, fears, anxiety, self-rejection or open protest.

This is due to the fact that in societies of different cultures non-traditional orientation is something negative, unacceptable, a pathology. And the child learns about it quite early, as a rule.

Despite a long history of attempts by scientists to prove that non-traditional orientation is a variant of the sexual norm, the philistine consciousness is afraid of such manifestations.

It can take a long time to delve into explanations of why non-traditional orientation was rejected by representatives of different cultures at different times. I will only say that something different from the majority, one way or another scares many, creates a feeling of insecurity, and then people think little about whether there is a reason for fear. It is easier for many to ban than to understand, and this is already a matter of limited intellectual resources.

In today's society, most parents think that if a child lives his life according to patterns that are understandable and familiar to parents, he will live it more safely.

And by the time of coming of age, such a teenager can no longer fully distinguish what is really true in his awakening sexuality, and what is the fruit of his own faith in “what is right”, formed under the great influence of the opinions of parents and society.

By the time a person begins to understand himself with this topic, he is already fully formed, but much in him has been forced out into the unconscious, and therefore the search for what his true sexual orientation is can continue already in adulthood.

But let's talk about what generally happens in this sense with a person.

Types of sexual orientation

The main types of sexual orientation:

However, the types of sexual orientation are not limited to this. Asexuality is also considered one of the varieties of sexual orientation, when a person, in principle, does not experience sexual desire or experiences it to a very weak degree.

What caused this and whether it is considered a variant of the norm is a topic for a separate article. However, people who self-identify as asexual insist that not being interested in sex is quite normal. At the same time, in all other spheres of life, these people can be fully realized, and in such cases, studies confirm the absence of any mental abnormalities and personality pathologies.

Types of sexual orientation can be more complex structure. For example, in my practice there were clients who were attracted not to the human anatomy itself, but to a greater extent to its psychological gender.

For example, a man was attracted to young people, both anatomical men and anatomical transgender women who were planning a sex change operation or who had partially made the transition.

What was important was not what anatomical features characterized this person, but the fact that psychologically it was a man - this was the most important thing in the emergence and development of attraction in my client.

This man considered himself homosexual, and in the case of contact with a woman who identified herself as a man and aspired to take an appropriate social role, who looked appropriate and was preparing for a sex change operation, he believed that anatomy simply "did not prevent" him from enjoying relationships and sexual contact.

I also remember a woman who identified herself as a heterosexual, while she had two episodes of relationships with masculine women in which she still felt like the same woman who was courted by a man. Psychology was also more important to her than anatomical features.

Or, for example, a man who considered himself bisexual, but clearly preferred either straight women or transgender men who looked like women wearing women's clothes, while not necessarily striving to change their sex.

All this, theoretically, can be attributed to bisexuality, however, types of sexual orientation include the term " pansexuality”, which emphasizes the attraction to people with a certain set of qualities, regardless of their anatomy.

Scholars continue to argue about terminology, but I have given these examples for only one purpose: to show that sexual orientation includes not only an anatomical factor. Like gender, it does not consist only of the configuration of the genital organs, but includes psychology, social role, and identification.

It is also worth mentioning the version of the sexual norm. In sexological practice, the following definition is accepted:

Sexual Norm- sexual actions of capable subjects who have reached sexual and social maturity, carried out by mutual agreement and do not imply damage to health and do not violate the boundaries of third parties.

Simply put, if these adults are responsible for their actions, are aware of them, do not commit violence, do not resort to sexual actions with a person who is not fully aware of himself (a child, a mentally ill person), do not involve in the process those who did not give their consent to participation, and do not inflict serious injury on each other - they are entitled to everything that they can do within this framework.

But in every society, there are additional restrictions, which, as a rule, stem from a variety of factors, mainly values, morals, and sometimes, as a result, legislative ones, which can limit the right of people to have sex the way they want.

It is not the task of this article to consider all types of sexual actions from the standpoint of "norm / pathology", but if we return to the topic of sexual orientation, then sexual contact between two adults of the same sex, carried out by mutual consent and without causing harm to health, is a variant of the sexual norm.

Unconventional Or Traditional?
Edges of Development and the Kinsey Scale

It would be simple and easy if the world were uniquely arranged. White or black, bad or good, up or down, right or left. "Pure" homosexuals and the same "pure" heterosexuals. But in reality, it is not possible to divide the world into such simple and understandable categories.

Zoologist and sexologist Alfred Kinsey, studying the sexual behavior of people and animals, came to the conclusion that "pure" unambiguity in this matter is rare. Look at this scale and you will understand everything yourself:

The most interesting thing is that it is also not possible to evaluate a person on a scale once and for life, because different age periods may have different manifestations.

For example, in adolescence, when sexuality is just awakening, it is easy enough to confuse situational manifestations of homosexuality with true homosexuality. In those periods of life, girls and boys exist in their own, mostly same-sex, companies or in pairs of friends.

Friendship at this age can be very important, it is really intimate during this period, and many of my clients have admitted to being attracted to, for example, a girlfriend or friend of the same sex.

Sometimes this even led to some kind of situational sexual contacts, curiosity about sexuality was strong, and it was still difficult and scary to decide on contacts with the opposite sex.

But then such impulses faded away, and with further maturation and with the emergence of wider access to the opposite sex, the development of communication skills, acquaintances and maintaining relationships, those “random adventures” began to be perceived as a game and even forgotten for a long time.

Often, when working with teenagers, I came across the fact that enthusiastic adoration, for example, of an older teacher was taken for love, and the teenager began to ask himself the question: am I gay?

But, as a rule, for the majority, such loves or even casual same-sex contacts do not carry any information about what the real sexual orientation of an adult will be in the future.

They serve a completely different purpose: to reveal to the teenager himself the power of his emotions, they allow him to show sexual curiosity, to explore himself, his reactions. Mature feelings and real strong desires usually come later.

It also happens exactly the opposite.
A person who in adolescence was "neither a dream nor a spirit" in relation to peers of his sex, lives an ordinary heterosexual life, suddenly begins to experience a strong attraction to his gender already in adulthood.

How is this possible?
As a rule, this is a consequence of a tough upbringing. If a child from an early age is actively instilled with horror of homosexuality, emphasized that non-traditional orientation is a shame, horror and nightmare, then even the latent manifestations of one's own bisexuality (which - remember! - is inherent in every nature) the child will try his best to suppress and force out.

As a result, his attraction will begin to form not in the way his nature requires, but in the way society requires. And it happens differently for girls and boys. For some time, under the influence of strong youthful hormones, it seems to boys that girls completely satisfy their desires.

In fact, the general promiscuity of male youthful inclinations affects, especially among those who have a strong sexual constitution. The instinct at the peak of sexuality demands an outlet so powerfully that it gives rise to the ability to be satisfied with almost any more or less suitable object.

And taking into account the fact that the girl is awarded the label “the right object” by everyone around, the general approval of this step of the young man fuels his ardor. And only when the topic of self-affirmation in society recedes into the background, the true sexual orientation of a person can manifest itself.

In my practice, there were male clients,
who managed to get married and even have children on the wave of self-affirmation. But later, when other factors, deeper ones, were needed for attraction, the attraction to the wife disappeared completely, and unconventional orientation declared itself unexpected, but passionate and irresistible love.

With women, it was more often a little different:
many of them entered into relationships with men, not at all guided by sexual impulses, if only by curiosity. For many, something else was important - spiritual friendship, security, support in a woman's desire to become a mother.

“I thought that sex was not the most important thing,” one of my clients said about that period of life, “we got along great, we had a baby. And only later I realized that I really want to have fun in bed, I sincerely wanted sex, but at the same time I realized that I really want this sex not with my husband and not even with a man in general ... "

There were also examples when a person is aware of his orientation, lives an ordinary married life, but at the same time suddenly feels an impulse to “try something new” with a partner of the same sex. In general, there are a lot of development options.

I cited all these examples only to show that sexual orientation itself is formed early, but manifests itself differently at different periods of life, with different intensities, and most importantly, it may not be realized until a certain time, especially if it is - homosexual.

Not too many people fall into the extreme points of the scale as soon as they become aware of their sexuality at all. And there is nothing wrong with that: human nature is plastic for a reason, it is a certain resource that is given to man by nature.

For what?
Well, at least in order to, in the absence of sexual partners of the opposite sex, be able to switch to partners of one's own at least for a while. Sex is a function that exists not only for procreation, and among animals there is unproductive (not leading to conception) sex.

Sex helps the species survive in general, because, among other things, it serves as a form of strengthening the union between people, a source of creativity, a way of self-expression. He has a lot of important functions besides procreation.

As one of the interesting examples:
some fish change sex during life. This is how nature controls the balance of females and males in a population. And in relation to people, some scientists tend to assume that non-traditional orientation is a way of regulating the population size.

At least before the advent of assisted reproductive technologies, these people were those who, in fact, refused active reproduction, while maintaining the ability to conceive, and could, if necessary, still take part in the reproduction process.

In the next part of the article, we will talk about
is it possible to change sexual orientation,
what things can hinder it,
and why it might even be needed.