Custom «Sexual Orientation» Essay Paper Sample

Sexual orientation is a psychological drive towards a person of same, opposite, or both sexes, Hockenbury (2008). The factors that reveal it are: a person’s natural ability to respond to sexual arousal, being or not stimulated by another person of the opposite sex, commonly known as heterosexual orientation, or same sex, also referred to homosexual orientation, or both, indicating of bisexual orientation(Hockenbury, 2008).

According to Hockenbury (2008), the determinants for sexual orientation are as follows. He suggests that people choose homosexual as a result of change of lifestyle. This is in response to the fact that, a gay person makes a conscious decision to be a gay in his or her life at a definite point in time. On the same note, they believe that, in their life, these people have the potential to make a decision to change their minds and change their lifestyles to heterosexual. Various researches have cited the environment as the chief influence of individuals in their lives of sexual behavior. Others have argued that, the determinants are not clear at all, since the sexual behavior of individuals are instant and the cause is normally hard to detect. Lastly, mental health professionals argue that their research findings point to three determinants of sexual orientation. They include heterosexuality, homosexuality and bisexuality. They particularly point out that one can determine homosexuality at the early stages of life; at conception (Hockenbury, 2008).

The development of sexual orientation traces back to childhood tastes and preferences when subjected to peers of opposite sexes. There exists a belief that gender conforming children, who in this case like sex-typical involvements and friends, feel different from opposite-sex friends. This is particularly real, as they perceive them differently, strange and exotic. This is real; especially when they get involved in sex-typical activities with peers of the same sexes, they seem not to be enjoying such activities. These are gender conforming children, as they transform feelings into adoration and romantic desire and attractions (Hockenbury, 2008).