Essential Differences

Before converting to the LDS church, I used to never really pay attention to the differences in gender. I knew that men and women were different but it was never anything I really gave much importance to. It wasn't until reading The Family:A Proclamation to the World that I discovered how important the differences between men and women were. I truly believe that Heavenly Father created us this way because these different characteristics combined in a marriage are essential to raising children. In class we discussed how men are aggressive and women are emotional.

As we discussed about gender in class we talked about how the fact that women are more emotional probably helps them be more nurturing and the fact that men are more aggressive most likely helps them provide for their family. Obviously, there are certain things that a mother would be more likely to do than a father and things a father would be more likely to do than a mother and I think that the reason behind this is the differences between men and women.

After discussing the roles between men and women we jumped into discussing same-sex attraction. I know what you’re thinking, how do these two topics even relate? Well I had the same thought up until this week. After watching videos and reading up on some articles on same-sex attraction I was quite shocked about what I read. Personally, I used to really believe that people with same-sex attraction were really born that way, but after reading up on it and watching interviews of people who used to be attracted to the same sex, I would have to say that I don’t believe that anymore. Through watching these videos I was able to learn that a lot of people who identify as gay or lesbian have usually been sexually abused. Also, here is where the parental roles come in, Floyd Godfrey found that some reasons why people grow up thinking they are gay or lesbian is because they have father hunger, or mother confusion. This to me sounds like they didn’t have healthy relationships with either parent, which  to me just confirms even more the importance in the differences between men and women and the importance of the roles a mother and father play.
It’s when children don’t develop a strong healthy relationship with their parents that they start looking for that love and affection from the same gender as the parent that neglects them, or at least that is what I gathered from my reading. But, something that I found very interesting was that a lot of people who claim to be gay or lesbian only actually claimed to be after they had been sexually abused. This was really interesting to me because in most cases people say they have always know that they were gay since a young age. But, at that age how can you really know if you are if you haven’t been sexually involved with someone of the same gender.
In one of the readings I found it talked about how repeating certain behaviors could create differences in the brain, i’m obviously not an expert but perhaps when a child gets told repeatedly that he is gay, he starts to believe it. After all, there is no conclusive evidence that it is a biological thing.