Freedomain Radio

reddeerrick:

Charlie:

  Can I choose that I'm attracted to them?  I don't think so, and never have been able to control it before.

Are you attracted to all women? 

No.  Why?

reddeerrick:

Then there is something special about the ones that attract you?

Yes.

Is it always a physical quality?

No, not always, though the physical ones will usually get my attention (and suspicion) quicker.
 

reddeerrick:

The physical qualities that attract you, would they usually be qualities associated with physical fitness, such as slenderness and muscle tone?

Slenderness is nice, but I haven't always dated women who were slender or "toned." 

OK, long story short. In my early twenties I became confused about my own sexuality. At the time, my best friend and most of my acquaintances were gay men. My confusion culminated in my having sex one night with a man. After that it was not difficult to decide which was preferable to me, and I chose to be hetero. At the same time, I decided that I would be less attracted to superficial beauty and more attracted to virtue, especially honesty, since this is something that the people I had been with til that point, lacked. I think that testing the alternatives and making conscious choices in this matter has worked out well for me, as I have married a very honest woman. In 17 years, I have not had the slightest problem with attractions to other people, I have remained attracted to her through physical changes because the attraction is primarily to her virtue. I do think that I have control over not only my behavior, but what attracts me, and all the evidence supports that.

Thanks, that certainly helps clarify things, most honest!

Can you tell us a little bit about how you were parented?

More specifically, how did your parents inhabit their gender roles? 

I'm going to have to keep my answers short and to the point. My mother was pretty much the barefoot and pregnant type. She had 9 kids of which I am 8th, never had a drivers license, Christian, etc. Dead now. I'm not sure how to describe my dad's gender role. He was "head of the household", I guess, but fairly amoral and nihilistic. Atheist. He was a snarling bear that we had to step around, but otherwise irrelevant.

I've been about about 90% defooed for the last 22 years, 100% since my mother's death 2 years ago. So I have a hard time remembering details of life with my parents.

Charlie:

reddeerrick:

The physical qualities that attract you, would they usually be qualities associated with physical fitness, such as slenderness and muscle tone?

Slenderness is nice, but I haven't always dated women who were slender or "toned." 

But as attractiveness goes, slender is better? 

reddeerrick:

But as attractiveness goes, slender is better?

I'm typically more physically attracted to slender than non-, but that doesn't necessarily mean much overall.

I'm kind of confused... where are we going?  

Just trying to figure out how much of attraction is biological for you. You're not attracted to all women, so it's not just the fact that they're female. You like fit, slender bodies like most guys nowadays, but a couple hundred years ago, pudgy girls were porn stars, so there must be some cultural influence there. You are attracted to some non-physical qualities, which must have something to do with your values. What else is there?...

Are you attracted by a woman's natural bodily smells? 

Are you attracted by a woman's natural bodily smells?

HAHA, some yes.  Others... not so much.  

Anyway, you get the point, I guess. There's a lot going on there for us humans, and it varies from person to person. For a rat, it's pretty much catch a whiff of female in heat and go hunting. If you fiddle with the chemicals that cause that response, then something else will happen. What does that have to do with us?

In a couple of podcasts, Stefan gives advice about dating, and says to go for virtue and not so much for the physical attractiveness. In fact, he says that the physically attractive are less likely to be virtuous. Is he telling you that you have to spend your life sleeping with somebody that is unattractive to you? I don't think so, but he can let me know if I'm wrong about that. I think he's advising us to adjust our desires so they're more in line with our values so as to maximize happiness.

So how come when we're talking about gays, it's all about base biological drives? 

Again, I'm not saying that gays have to turn straight, I just don't agree with the implication that it's impossible for a gay to be unhappy with his choice of behavior.

OK, I've found a way to clarify.

*A gay* is a person who takes part in gay behavior. To *be gay* is to have desires and values that align with a gay lifestyle.

We know a gay by his behavior. Without the behavior, it's just self-reporting. Someone may be *a gay* without actually *being gay*.

I do not dispute that some people *are gay*, but I do dispute that all *gays* *are gay*