James Cantor, is the gay researcher at CAMH. I happen to like the quotes of his that I read online. Solid guy.

Yeah, I can see your point. Hmmm…

I don’t know first hand but I don’t feel like the work coming out of CAMH is advocacy research for either side.

I’ve read quotes from Anthony Bogaert online and he sounded like a serious guy. Correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t Bogaert gay? I don’t mean that disqualifies him at all. If I remember correctly his mind is pretty much open but he rejects a strong genetic explanation.

What Dr. Whitehead was saying, as best I can tell, is that gay men who were adopted would somehow make their decision to participate or not participate based on whether they had older brothers.

I think Dr. Whitehead believes that gay people participate in studies only if we think it will advance some social agenda. I suspect he believes that adopted gay men with older brothers saw this as a chance to prove biological etiology.

I think the doctor’s position displays a great ignorance about gay people – and indeed people in general. In order to believe his notion,

1. Gay men would have to have heard of the Fraternal Birth Order phenominon – by FAR, most haven’t

2. THe authors would have had to make it clear to potential participants that they were trying to prove the FBO – something I find extremely unlikely

3. Gay men would have to greatly care whether the FBO was true. They don’t. Most gay men are interested when they hear the headlines about some new “cause” or study, but they really don’t care enough to read about it. Most intuit that their orientation is natural to them and assume they “were born this way” and beyond that they neither know nor care if it’s hormones, genes, or Gerber strained peas.

I find each of the three above to be unlikely. To think that all three are true and thus the study is invalid seems to suggest to me that there is indeed faulty thinking, but not with the study or its participants.

Has this research been duplicated? And what does “more frequently” mean exactly?

As an aside, I have been reading some research which suggests that the erotic orientation of men becomes more channelized than for women; meaning that in brain scans, for instance, men show very specific reactions to their preferred object of sexual attraction, whereas, women more frequently demonstrate sexual arousal to images of both gender.

Is this true across cultures? We know that men in different cultures behave differently when it comes to their behavior with other men. I’m betting this is just a western phenomenon.

In the case of the present paper, it is very likely that volunteers were intrigued they were gay in spite of being adopted and knowing the nature of the study volunteered disproportionately—the more biological brothers they had…There is a serious doubt that the finding is valid.

Maybe I’m slow tonight but I can’t exactly figure out what that means. I understand selection bias such as what Bailey had in his early twin study. Gay adopted people volunteered more because they suspected they might have lots of older brothers? What is he getting at?

Sleepy time for me.

I mean that Dr. Whitehead’s comments on the POWER of the FBO are more or less correct.

I’m not refering to his commentary on the merits of the study itself. That I dunno anything about one way or the other.

The FBO (if it exists) is likely a tipping point, not a fundamental cause of SSA.

My 2 cents

As an aside, I have been reading some research which suggests that the erotic orientation of men becomes more channelized than for women; meaning that in brain scans, for instance, men show very specific reactions to their preferred object of sexual attraction, whereas, women more frequently demonstrate sexual arousal to images of both gender.

My life experience tells me that in general men focus like a laser on the things that excite/interest them. It’s a guy thing. 😎

http://www.exgaywatch.com/wp/2006/07/narth-responds/

At that time it seemed that his response was limited to attacking the results by suggesting that there was the possibility (however minute) of errors and because there could possibly have been errors then it should all be chucked out. I did not find that to be a compelling argument at the time.

As I recall, his most nonsensical assumption read as follows:

In the case of the present paper, it is very likely that volunteers were intrigued they were gay in spite of being adopted and knowing the nature of the study volunteered disproportionately—the more biological brothers they had…There is a serious doubt that the finding is valid.

I found the notion that the number of biological brothers of an adopted gay man somehow impacted his decision to volunteer in the study to be beyond absurd. I lost some respect for Dr. Whitehead from that statement.