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By Peter Tatchell
The fixation of desire on one sex to the exclusion of the other is permanent and irreversible in most people. For a minority, however, the other side of desire can sometimes be awakened in mid-life...they can become either bisexual or switch completely from one orientation to another. It remains open to question whether Michael Portillo is one of these flexible gender benders. What we do know for certain is that the sociological surveys of Dr. Alfred Kinsey in the United States during the 1940s and 1950s uncovered substantive empirical evidence that heterosexuality and homosexuality are not watertight, irreconcilable sexual orientations. His research, with over 10,000 men and women, revealed that human sexuality is a continuum of desires and behaviours, ranging from exclusive heterosexuality to exclusive homosexuality. A significant proportion of the population is somewhere in the middle, sharing an amalgam of same-sex and opposite-sex feelings. InSexual Behaviour In The Human Male (1948), Kinsey recorded that 13 per cent of the men he surveyed were either mostly or exclusively homosexual for at least three years between the ages of 16 and 55. Twenty-five per cent had more than incidental gay reactions or experience, amounting to clear and continuing same-sex desires. Altogether, 37 per cent of the men Kinsey questioned had experienced sex with other males to the point of orgasm at least once, and half had experienced mental attraction or erotic arousal towards other men (sometimes transient and not physically expressed)..... Kinsey's statistics have been called into question by the results of more recent sexological investigations, such as The National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles in the UK. Published under the title Sexual Behaviour in Britain (1994), it found significantly lower levels of same-sex relations. Only 6.1 per cent of men and 3.4 per cent of women reported having had a homosexual experience during their lifetime. The methodology of this survey has, however, also been questioned. It was based on a random geographic sample of the population. Yet we know that homosexuals are not randomly distributed across the country. They tend to be concentrated in big cities, and in particular districts within those cities. Moreover, the interviews took place in people's homes. Closeted lesbians, gays and bisexuals are unlikely to admit same-sex behaviour to a stranger who knocks on their door, especially if they live with their families and fear exposure. A number of other sex research projects have produced statistics at variance with those of The National Survey:
These figures suggest that while Kinsey may have overestimated the incidence of same-sex relations, the research by The National Survey in Britain has almost certainly under-reported it..... If queerness is intrinsic to human sexuality, then it has the potential to be much more commonplace than it is currently. What prevents this is the social homophobia of peer pressure and contemporary morality. Although he did so rather ambiguously, Sigmund Freud tacitly acknowledged the cultural suppression homosexuality. His case study, Fragment Of An Analysis Of A Case Of Hysteria (1905), contrasts the denigration of homosexuals in western societies with their frequent acceptance by "different races and different epochs". In Three Essays On The Theory Of Sexuality (1905), he added that sexual repression was substantially the result of the "structures of morality and authority erected by society". The intimation is that the existing sexual order is mostly man-made and could therefore be modified by human will and effort. Cultural conditioning explanations for homosexuality and heterosexuality are supported by the research findings of the anthropologists Clellan Ford and Frank Beach. In Patterns of Sexual Behaviour (1965), they noted that certain forms of homosexuality were considered normal and acceptable in 49 (nearly two-thirds) of the 76 tribal societies surveyed from the 1920s to the 1950s. They also recorded details of some aboriginal cultures, such as the Keraki and Sambia of Papua New Guinea, where all young men entered into a homosexual relationship with an unmarried male warrior, sometimes lasting several years, as part of their rites of passage into manhood. Once completed, they ceased all homosexual contact and assumed sexual desires for women. If sexual orientation was biologically preprogrammed, these men would have never been able to switch to homosexuality and then to heterosexuality with such apparent ease. This led Ford and Beach to deduce that homosexuality is "the product of the fundamental mammalian heritage of general sexual responsiveness as modified under the impact of experience". In other words, the potential for erotic attraction to both sexes is fundamental to the human species, and is largely socially influenced. The evidence from these three research disciplines - sociology, psychology and anthropology - is that the incidence of heterosexuality and homosexuality is not fixed and universal, and that the two sexual orientations are not mutually exclusive. There is a good deal of movement and overlap. What's more, although sexuality may be partly affected by biological predispositions - such as genes, hormones and possibly brain structures - the decisive causal factors appear to be a combination of childhood experiences, social expectations, peer pressure and moral values. These are the key determinants that channel erotic impulses in certain directions and not others. An individual's sexual orientation is thus more culturally influenced than biologically given. This means that everyone is born with a bisexual potential. Because our sexual desire is not predestined to be hetero or homo, there is the possibility it could develop in either or both directions...... This picture of human sexuality is much more complex, diverse and blurred than the traditional simplistic binary image of hetero and homo, so loved by straight moralists and - more alarmingly - by most lesbians and gay men.
If sexual orientation has a culturally-influenced element of indeterminancy
and fluidity, then the present forms of homosexuality and heterosexuality
are unlikely to remain the same in perpetuity. As cultural attitudes change,
so will sexuality.
Once homophobia declines, we are bound to witness the emergence of a homosexuality that is quite different from the homosexuality we know today. With the strictures on queerness removed, and same-sex relationships normalized and accepted, it is very likely that more people will have gay sex but, paradoxically, less of them will identify as gay. This is because, in the absence of homophobia, the need to assert gayness becomes redundant. Gay identity is the product of anti-gay repression. When homosexuality is disparaged and victimized, it is quite understandable that gay people want to affirm their desire and lifestyle. However, if prejudice is vanquished, and if one sexuality is not privileged over another, defining oneself as gay (or straight) will cease to be necessary and have no social significance. The need to maintain sexual differences and boundaries disappears with the demise of straight supremacism. Homosexuality as a separate, exclusive, clearly demarcated orientation and identity will then begin to fade (as will its mirror opposite, heterosexuality). Instead, the vast majority of people will be open to the possibility of both opposite-sex and same-sex relations They won't feel the need to label themselves (or others) as gay or straight because, in a non-homophobic culture, no one will give a damn about other people's loves and lusts. Goodbye to gay? Yes! And a good thing too! |
MP Michael Portillo hopes to run the right-wing Tory Party, but faces questions about his homosexual encounters in the past 
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