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Normally developed people don’t need to “decide” their sexual orientation. It grows in them naturally until it is fully mature. And it is unerringly heterosexual.

I know the exact moment a biological switch clicked over, and that I was aware of my hetrosexual orientation, and I was suddenly and vividly aware of the mysterious attraction of the opposite sex - it was not something that "grew" in me gradually, it was a strong biological propensity that expressed itself dramatically and without previous evidence.

Some gays and lesbians I know report a similar experience of instantaneous and vivid experience of attraction to members of the same sex, and I've no reason to suspect that their experience was any less "authentic" than my own.

Your claim is just a tautology, by your definition anyone who makes the discovery that their desire is heterosexual is "normally developed", anyone who discovers the opposite is abnormal because you define normal are "unerringly heterosexual". But that's just your definition, and I doubt it would be remotely convincing to anyone who's made the discovery that they are "unerringly homosexual".

I think I follow your reasoning but I still have questions. Are you flatly rejecting the idea that individuals start out at a baseline of heterosexuality that deviates occasionally into homosexuality or are you merely rejecting the reasoning other people are using to arrive at that conclusion? Would you say that you believe homosexuality is objectively disordered?

I suggest you look up the definition of the word “normal”. By that definition — which I did not create, by the way — deviance is not normal. Homosexuality is deviant, by definition. Therefore, my “tautology” is implicit.

You, on the other hand, attempt to win the argument by redefining the terms, and including a pathology under the definition of “normal”.

If your friends had felt a sudden and dramatic orientation toward murder, would that mean their behavior was any less aberrational? Frankly, I doubt the “epiphany” school of sexual development, but even if I concede that point arguendo, the result is the same. However quickly one arrives at the notion of one’s sexuality, there is a correct (i.e. normal) result and an abnormal or deviant result. Heterosexuality is the norm. Homosexuality is the deviation.

M. Dodge Thomas: “Some gays and lesbians I know report a similar experience of instantaneous and vivid experience of attraction to members of the same sex, and I’ve no reason to suspect that their experience was any less “authentic” than my own.”

I’m sure pedophiles claim the same thing - that they are genetically predisposed to desire little kids. Yet almost anyone with common sense would see it as an unhealthy and dangerous lifestyle.