Wait.... is the Neighborhood Stories thing causing sims to establish random romantic relationships while you're not playing them?? And you can't even turn this option off?? :s
Look, I'm neither straight nor gay, I am aro-ace, and so are several of my sims, so the thought of returning to their households only to find out the game has hooked them up with any rando sims at all would just be.. No. Bad. Stop. That's not in character. Get rid of that pink bar THIS INSTANT. You're not attracted to ANYONE.
I also have gay sims who should absolutely not be flirting with sims of the other gender. And I have sims who are bi, who I'm more lax about. Unless they already have a partner. Then it's still bad. No sims that I'm playing should be allowed to cheat on their partner while I'm not looking.
And if I had any sims I specifically thought of as straight, it would be weird if they started going for sims of the same gender too. I get it. If you have a specific identity in mind for your sim, it is always jarring when they randomly start acting completely out of character.
So yeah, we definitely need a way to lock in every played sim's orientation. I think this is one thing the LGBTQA+ community and the straight folks can agree on. Even my straight brother brought this up once.
Random townies and some premades can still have undetermined orientations, and that would be fine to me. Allows for more player stories. I also don't mind knowing what the townies get up to, that's just fun. But I do draw the line at my own personal sims who already have lore and their own stories going on.
