Now I recognise that a comment that I made was part of what provided an impetus for this thread. I feel I should explain that my thoughts on sexuality are a bit more complex but in that thread I felt talking about sexuality as innate was the easiest way to explain that what I thought RaspberrySwirl was suggesting was false equivalence.
The reason it is a false equivalence is because society is heteronormative and has a strong bias towards heterosexuality. One thing that gets talked about a LOT in queer female circles is the notion of compulsory heterosexuality. People are socialised to assume they will be straight, and women in particular will run rings around themselves trying to find explanations for why they feel and act different to their straight female friends and will settle on any possibility other than them potentially being gay. I had experience of this myself - I went through a phase of thinking I was asexual a full two years before realising I was gay.
It has been suggested that this is particularly common is women is misogyny and the way that women are socialised to define themselves vis-a-vis their relationships with men and their “role” as mothers as others have mentioned.
I think a lot of later-in-life gays are victims of compulsory heterosexuality. Of course there are was criminality and then mass discrimination, but heteronormativity was also even worse in the past than now and LGBT visibility was close to non-existent. It’s definitely true that the more visibility and information there is available, the more people are able to understand who they are.
Actually the debate was about people who don't identify as gay who have gay sex. Bit too nuanced for him.
I think this is totally possible for a few reasons.
1. I think that it is possible to experience different attractions to how you identify. If you are a woman who is overwhelmingly attracted to women and only very occasionally attracted to men, you may prefer to identify as a lesbian because of how people misunderstand bisexuality as being 50/50.
2. There is also the factor of lifestyle. Living as a gay man has the potential to change a lot more about your life than merely who you shag. I think some men who experience attraction to men do not want to buy into the gay lifestyle.
3. Like Chlammy said, there can be a distinction between being romantic and sexual attraction and how this can sometimes vary. Some people have had sex with someone of the same gender but can’t imagine developing romantic feelings or being in a relationship with someone of the same gender.