by Lynette Alice

Created on: July 25, 2008   Last Updated: January 28, 2009

The concept that a person can treat another in such a manner as to change their sexual orientation is absurd. Sure people comment about it all the time in a joking manner, but it isn't really true. The attitudes of men make a lesbian no more than reading A Brief History of Time makes a person Stephen Hawking. There are reasons this myth lives on, but they are all ridiculous, so men take heart, it isn't you that turned her to lesbianism, she has always been one.

The last time anyone even broached this subject with me was when a friend was left by his girlfriend of maybe three months or so for a woman. As expected he droned on and on wondering how she could turn into a lesbian overnight, never mind one of the things that drew him to her was that she was an open bisexual whom he harbored those stereotypical fantasies about. Then surprisingly enough he asked me why I chose to be a lesbian, was it some man that burned me so bad I couldn't fathom being with another? I didn't mean to, and it wasn't the sensitive thing to do, but I laughed. I found it endlessly funny because I have never dated a man, not once, not even just to get a free dinner.

For the sake of trying to show him how ridiculous he was being I asked if the relationship with her was so bad he was going to turn to homosexuality. He looked at me horrified as if to say "I'd never!" I gently pointed out it is a two way street. A woman does not become a lesbian because of a mans attitude anymore than a heterosexual man becomes gay because of a woman's attitude. It's a pretty basic concept, gay people get it, why do straight people who are equally endowed with a brain fail to and even entertain such a notion?

The myth lives on so long and gains so much favor because it has for far too many years been a punchline in entertainment, at least that is one reason why. I can't begin to count how many times I've seen a movie or television program in which some reference is made to a woman dating a man that was so horrible or boring he actually turned a woman to lesbianism. When delivered properly on the screen it does make for a heck of a laugh, but people have to realize what happens television and the silver screen is entertainment, rarely is it truth. We entertain ourselves with this venue to forget our own reality, and this idea of driving a woman to the arms of another woman with a mans attitude is not reality.

Another way this myth survives is it is something women do say to each other, but again it is not said

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