The Making Of Me By John Barrowman

If a person is gay, there are always a couple of questions that one might ask: Was he or she born this way, and why is he or she gay? Scientists have been trying to come up with solutions to answer these questions. Some people think that it could be genetic as in one is born that way and has no control over being gay. Others say that one has control over being gay, because they argue that being gay is a choice that one person acquires later in life. In John Barrowman’s “The Making of Me,” he goes out on an exploration to try to figure out what actually makes him gay. During this exploration, he comes across some things that could be the answers to his questions. Personally, my reaction to “The Making of Me” is understanding of that
people are naturally born as a homosexual. Even though I don’t understand how this is possible, I just can not understand why anyone would want to choose to be a homosexual. What triggers someone to be attracted to the same sex as he or she is beyond my understanding. I honestly do think that if it is not the way a person was born, that it has something to do with his or her childhood. John Barrowman went back to his childhood by asking his mother was she overbareing at times, and asking his father was he distant. Both of his parents denied the fact, but his father did dress him in a female bathing suit just for the fun of a pageant. I personally think that the way a child was dressed at times could be a factor in that child’s sexual preference. I also think that the toys that a child plays with can be an early sign on the type of sexuality that child would prefer. If a boy tends to like playing with toys typical of what a girl should play with, then I think that there is a bigger chance of him being homosexual when he gets older. The same thing goes for a girl, but I do understand that kids are going to like what they are going to like. Childhood does play a part in homosexuality. In “The Making of Me,” John Barrowman goes through a brain test to see if he actually is gay. They showed him a series of pictures of men and women to see which one that his brain would be more aroused by. The test showed that he was gay. This test leads me to think that when one person openly decides that he or she is gay, it is triggered in that person’s brain for life and there is nothing that one can do about it to change that person’s mind. There also was another study that said that a gay male’s length of his index finger and ring finger would be almost the same length which is typical for heterosexual females, could also be a factor in his homosexuality. This study was wrong for John Barrowman, because his ring finger was significantly longer than his index finger. The last study they came across showed that there was a thirty percent more chance of a male being gay with each older brother he had. John Barrowman believed that this study dealed with him greatly, because he had an older brother and his mother also had a miscarriage on a boy. I disagree with this study, because I have two older brothers and I never even thought about being homosexual. “The Making of Me” with John Barrowman does help him understand why he is gay, but I don’t think it answers the questions for many other people. Scholars and researchers have theories to explain why some individuals become homosexual by classifying them into three major types: biological, psychiatric, and sociological theories. I think John Barrowman falls strictly under the biological theory. On the Kinsey Hetersexual-Homosexual Continuum in our Deviant Behavior book, John Barrowman is definitely a six, exclusively homosexual.