While the vast majority of all human beings who have ever lived have felt attracted to persons of the other gender, there has been a small minority of individuals who have felt attracted to members of their own sex or to children or to animals or even to corpses. Those responses are probably accounted for by an incalculable number of possible variations that occur from before birth up to the moment when each individual becomes aware of such attraction.
Before children are born, conditions in their mother's bodies have an impact on their development. It has been noted, in research with rodents, that the male offspring of mothers who were under considerable stress during their pregnancies often do not exhibit typically male behaviors. Some researchers have extrapolated from that to suggest that human males whose mothers were stressed while they were pregnant are subjected to different chemicals in the womb, thereby accounting for certain anatomical differences after birth; that is, certain differing brain structures. Additionally, that variation has been cited as a possible cause of homosexuality in the human male.
It has been noted that pregnant women who smoke and/or drink alcoholic beverages and/or take narcotic drugs also significantly impact the development of their unborn babies. Fetal alcohol syndrome is but one of the negative ramifications of such behaviors during pregnancy and its consequences include physical disabilities as well as mental abberations such as a seeming absence of conscience.
When children are born, their nervous systems are not fully developed. There is a period of time during which nerve cells are lengthening and targeting in on other nerve cells. To promote that axonal targeting, babies have to be cuddled, fussed with and generally stimulated. The nervous systems of infants who are left isolated by cold and uncaring parents do not fully develop so it is to be expected that their behaviors will vary from the average.
As children are developing, they quickly reach the stages where they want to be held and where their curiosity becomes a real issue. If their prying into everything and crying out for affection motivate overstressed or violent parents to punish them intensely, the develpment of their nervous systems can actually be reversed.
Research has shown that children up to age of five commonly grope themselves, expose themselves and rub up against others. While little or none of that activity is intentionally sexual on a child's part, there is no great shortage of adults who respond sexually to such activities. If, when children are acting in that way, they are brutalized by a sexually aggressive adult, there is little doubt that that experience is likely to have a major impact on the child's emotional development. Then, of course, there is the possibility that a sexually aggressive adult might stimulate but not hurt the child. That, too, could have a significant impact on the young human's development.
The foregoing is just a brief summary of the countless things that can happen to cause variations in an individual's sexual behaviors. Thus it is that, while most people seek intimacy with members of the other sex, small minorities feel attracted to members of their own gender or to children or to animals or to corpses.
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