Before you all start flipping shit I have nothing against gays (I myself am a lesbian) but why do you think people have different sexual preferences? Most gays say "God made me this way" but...when you are an atheist you cant really go with that. Personally, I think we are all born pan-sexual (the ability to love anyone) but choose our preference due to our life experiences. I grew up in a christian family but my parents weren't extremely religious (well, until I said I was gay anyway -_-) They tried to teach me to love God and follow his path but we only went to church and prayed during Holidays. Growing up my father was a little abusive..he wasn't really bad but he would come home in bad moods and take it out on me and my sister. He would do things such as find things to yell at us for, spank and slap us over the littlest things (dislocated my jaw twice when I was 6 and 13) hit us with leather belts (I have 3 scars on my back from the times it was really bad) and other things like that.Growing up I was friends with the boys and the girls picked on me (opposite of the normal?) When I was 9 I had a female baby sitter who had raped me. There are alot of other things but they are personal so I would rather not share. I believe these and the other experiences in my life caused me to like females in a sexual way and not favor men. Not everyone has such extreme experiences though. I once had a girlfriend who grew up with extremely religious parents but told me she was bisexual because they taught her not to judge people and that everyone makes mistakes. Due to this experience she did not hold anything against gays and ended up enjoying dating the same sex. The little things in life affect us just as much as the big ones. If you grow up in and your parents are hard core gay haters chances are you will be to but maybe you meet a gay guy and realize there is nothing wrong it. Anyway I want to know what you gays think. Why are people gay, lesbian, bisexual etc.?

If one is an atheist I think that you can explain through science. I find those churches to be full of shit , jesus said to disregard everything from Leviticus . And even then it really only referred to temple prostitution, I often find people mistranslated, sometimes on purpose scriptures. Theres sites for gay christians that explain the scriptures, but Iam not going into that.

Simply put, we are just born this way. I can feel for you as I to am a victim of child abuse. and my father molested me. Do I think this "made me gay" no, because I had had attraction to boys since before I even met my father.

I feel sometimes however that these things can cause someone to "become gay" either think they are, or it helps them come out somehow, even if the person who had done it to them is a demented motherfucker.

I also feel that some people choose to be gay or lesbian because they have no luck with the opposite sex. I also feel some gay people can't admit their bi, because I have had lesbians say I am the one guy they would go straight for and "why can't all men be more like you"

I think it is not all men are bad, they just hung out with the wrong types of men

This is going to sound kind of fucked up and I apologize if it seems offensive, but I recently began to feel like homosexuality has become much more of a thing than it has in previous eras, most likely for a multitude of reasons, cultural, personal, etc.

However the thought occurred to me that perhaps there is a legitimate increase in people who develop homosexual preference that is related biologically / psychologically to our awareness of the growing population density? I realize this probably sounds awful, but it does seem the the universe has it's own answer for pretty much every problem... Just a thought. Feel free to hate me for it.

Well, I read something about a possible epigenetical source of all sexual preferences. Had something to do about the imprinting of certain pattern for the genetic code from parents to children and about rewriting this pattern (heterosexuality) or lack of rewriting (homosexuality). Can't find the article though.

Found it: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/668167
Long but very interesting.

If this thesis turned out to be true, it would allow us to explain all sexual orientations as something completely natural, e.g. bisexuality would occur as a consequence of partially rewritten epigenetic patterns inherited from the parent of the opposite sex.

well i believe that there is not right answer..
my story is just like your only the part about the dad being abusive. only i was molested by a guy when i was 6 and that sorta caused me to be afraid of guys.. and i am bisexual now and yeah ..i'm guessing that past experiences have to do with your sexual preferences

It really depends honestly. Whether it be from life experience, some funky hormone thing with birth, habits or upbringing of the parents; we can never know 100%. Who knows, there are even the people that act one way just in spite of someone else acting another way (I've met a few that claim to be only lesbians to piss off their dad...claim.) The inner workings of a mind is something strange that nobody can know except the person that the mind belongs to. You can guess with psych evals and whatnot; but it's just a guess. ;)

I agree with the idea we are born in a way where we don't have a sexual preference, our choices and life experiences make us what we end up as (sexually). However I don't really know, this is just what I think.