Thanks for the compliment. You seem pretty well read, yourself, and have a clear and eloquent style that is a pleasure to read.

In any case, it seems reasonable to me that while we can monitor and control our behaviors, our orientation has been determined by forces beyond our control; e.g. inborn personality traits, coupled with our experiences in life.

This is important. I do not know what causes sexual orientation, but I do not think such knowledge should be a necessary prerequisite to legitimization. I spent some time writing about fetish, because I see pedophilia frequently illegitimized as "just a" "child fetish," and I think that assertion can only be de-fused by first recognizing that there actually are such things as child fetishes. Such things may be called pedoerotic fetishes, to distinguish them from the pedosexual orientation (either of which can be the basis for pedoerotic behavior). This is a matter that I think warrants further discussion.

Student