Sexual orientation I believe is never taught or learned through experiences. Rather, it is innate. It will always be instinctive for us to lean towards the opposite sex. We are pre-programmed to know how it is to interact with the opposite and more importantly, how to have sex with them. We may be visual animals but we can also pick up what's called pheromones or sex attractants. This pheromones somehow influence our behavior toward the opposite sex such that we get "aroused" when we smell them. Pheromones are thought to exist in endocrine secretions like sweat but they may also exist in the urine. When the olfactory nerves pick up these pheromones, our body responds by increasing our hormonal levels though we may not be totally aware of it. When this happens, the phenomenon called "attraction" occurs and this is the beginning of our interaction with the opposite sex.

Yes, I think there is enough substantiation documented to indicate a physical component of far greater significance than you seem to be allowing for. We certainly are a highly visual species, but you cannot discount the sense of smell. There are pheromone influences on us that can't be denied.

I remember an incident in a supermarket some years ago that drove the point home to me. I was kneeling to read a label on a lower shelf at the time. I heard no footsteps passing behind me, but something else made me glance up to my left, looking for something but not really understanding what it was just yet. Two women were approaching from a short distance, but they were not my concern. After my very brief look to the left, I looked over my other shoulder and saw what it was that had "attracted" my attention. A young woman was walking away to my right. With my kneeling position, I was on a level with her pelvis, and I knew immediately when I saw her that it had been her scent that had attracted my attention as it wafted past my head.

This certainly was not just a case of my active imagination, or the purely chance correlation of her passing and my perception of involvement in it. I know this because of what the two women approaching from the left said. One asked the other if what she had just witnessed was what she thought it was. The other said, "I think so."

We may be creatures most dependent on our eyesight, but our sense of smell is very important in mating practices. Your boy emerging from the cave would have no trouble identifying the opposite sex, I assure you.

But the issue of sexual orientation is completely separate from this. I believe what we think of as sexual orientation is largely if not entirely learned rather than innate. The very concept of sexual orientation seems to be skewed toward a misconception, to me.

As a species, we are no different from any other in the need to procreate. We all do it. Well, most of us, anyway. But we also feel attractions and repulsions toward individuals, many if not most of which rarely lead to sexual encounters. Attractions are probably just as much a fact of life for our species as the need for procreation. And the two are not always linked.

Certainly, attraction is a key part of sexual pairing, but attractions come and attractions go--no puns intended. I believe the labeling of some of them as deviant is a mistake. From this mistake we have evolved an entire system of moral judgments concerning what is right and what is acceptable, none of which seems to matter one iota to any of the other many species in our world. The concept of sexual orientation is a product of the misconception that some attractions are inherently "bad" while others are not.

Those of us who more easily and readily buy into the learned moral dictum are less likely to acknowledge their own attractions to members of the same gender. The attractions (and repulsions) exist, and are probably mostly innate rather than learned. The recognition and acceptance of them is what is learned behavior. The resulting label of "sexual orientation" is a labeling of two separate characteristics, mistaking them as one.

I honestly don't believe that sexual orientation can be taught or even learned through life experiences. Studies show that children who are raised by gay or lesbian couples grow up to be heterosexual a very high perentage of the time.

Sexual orientation is something we are born with and cannot change. How many children are raised in a loving home with a mother and a father and still feel the desire for their own sex? They will risk judgement, ridicule and discrimination to be with the people they love and desire.

Sure, sometimes people experiement with the same sex for curiosity or thrills. However, if a person does not have an innate desire for a permanent relationship with someone of the same sex, it will not last long.

No one makes a conscious choice to be homosexual just as no one decides to be heterosexual.

To be heterosexual is natural and everyone is born with it. All other orientations are learned. It is created in mind with fantasies and imagination. Nobody is born gay or lesbian. It is a learned behavior. You will not see this behavior in animals. And man is an animal. As you think so shall you become.