What you describe is hardly the same thing. Sexual behavior is highly varied and is limited only by the imagination. One only has to explore documented fetishes and varied sexual behavior to understand this. Hermaphroditism is another thing altogether and I do see a flaw in your reasoning though I have great sympathy for such children and the adults they become. The idea that hormones be the guide for behavior is the casting off of the mantle of humanity. The desires of a person can be varied and sometimes even violent but while all men have desires all driven by the endocrine system interfaced intimately with the mind in such a way that it is hard to determine sometimes which comes first. That is not to say a child born with ambiguous genitalia does not faces real challenges and offer a unique situation.
A good link is below.
http://www.angelfire.com/ca2/BornHermaphrodite/
However confusing this with the plight of sexual activists would be an great injustice. Homosexuality in particular has a history of being defined as a mental disorder. Also the goals of sexual activists should not be confused or married with the tolerance of such individuals. Their desire to use the public schools, government, and popular culture to enforce sexual ambiguity and to promote an incorrect sexual behavior on the general populace places the egos and sexual desires of a minority over the psychological well being and the normal development of majority which even now faces threats at the mere question or debate of such issues.
Some have no choice about their physical malformations but everyone with a certain degree of intelligence has a choice about how they ultimately behave in relation to others whether it be sexually or not. Those that promote the idea that their individual sexual behavior is not within their realm of control are promoting a dangerous license of which we have already seen the result not just among Homosexuals but among heterosexuals with disease and single mothers and the furtherance of the idea that a child does not need both a mother and a father which has had a devastating result for the children involved.
Yes, you do make a good point, and I can see where you feel my reasoning is flawed. I too would feel that way, but I have had, by chance meeting, close friends at one time that were gay to the fullest extent of the word. I would sit with these men and ask them outright & quite bluntly, why they are the way they are? It sounded like I was talking to a bunch of women. To make a very long story short, they were detailed, emotional, cared about things women usually think about, etc. It was quite amazing. The one man, said that his estrogen levels wacked out every month and made him an emotional rollercoaster, much like a woman’s menstruation time.
I was taken back by the sincerity of emotion by these men, feeling as they do, and what their own doctors have found with regard to hormone levels. Instead of these men having trace amounts of estrogen, like men do, they had higher, fluctuating levels like those of women.
So, aside from the different studies being done, I have also based my opinion on hearing it right from people who are gay, and have had hormonal test results like these.
And yes, the hermaphrodite experience is something totally different, but you wouldn’t believe the amount of people out there that do not believe this is possible, and if it is, then the child, at birth, will have one or the other sexes removed and will be dictated to as to what gender they will become.
Its a good article, one that warrants a lot more research & discussion. I think if I ran into another group of gay individuals, I could hear something less physiologically associated, like a woman who might have been abused by a parent through her young life, might not be able to go into the arms of ANY man because of it, so therefore chooses love in more gentler arms, with another woman - then it reflects a psychological result, rather than a physiological one.
But it is ALSO, as you say, where a person can have the ability to contain themselves, and just because they have a sexual preference doesn’t mean they need to force it down the throats of the rest of us. I DO NOT believe in gay marriage...and I am sorry if I offend anyone by saying that. You make a very good point here in your last 2 paragraphs, especially when it comes to activism.
Anyway, I’m rambling again. Thank you for the post.