Letting go of biases isn't always the hardest thing

Ampersand over at "Alas, a Blog" has a thought-provoking pair of posts about extreme obesity (and its resistance to the sorts of "willpower" intervention that most people presume lacking) and, more intriguingly, makes the argument that obesity and homosexuality may have in common their fundamentality to the person in question.

So in theory, every fat person and every queer person could choose "not to be." Just choose to eat as little as an anorexic, and exercise four hours every day, for your entire life. Just choose to repress your core sexual identity. Whatever it takes.

But in practice, some choices are so difficult that they can't reasonably be called choices at all.

It raises some interesting questions about what "choices" really are...

Part I
Part II