I posted 2 weeks ago about this twin study but it is now making the media.
Here is the abstract of the article from Archives of Sexual Behavior:
There is still uncertainty about the relative importance of genes and environments on human sexual orientation. One reason is that previous studies employed selfselected, opportunistic, or small population-based samples. We used data from a truly population-based 2005–2006 survey of all adult twins (20–47 years) in Sweden to conduct the largest twin study of same-sex sexual behavior attempted so far. We performed biometric modeling with data on any and total number of lifetime same-sex sexual partners, respectively. The analyses were conducted separately by sex. Twin resemblance was moderate for the 3,826 studied monozygotic and dizygotic same-sex twin pairs. Biometric modeling revealed that, in men, genetic effects explained .34–.39 of the variance, the shared environment .00, and the individual specific environment .61–.66 of the variance. Corresponding estimates among women were .18–.19 for genetic factors, .16–.17 for shared environmental, and 64–.66 for unique environmental factors. Although wide confidence intervals suggest cautious interpretation, the results are consistent with moderate, primarily genetic, familial effects, and moderate to large effects of the nonshared environment (social and biological)
on same-sex sexual behavior.
Reactions are mixed but not really along any ideological grounds that I can see. For instance, from ScienceNOW:
J. Michael Bailey, a psychologist at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, who led earlier twin studies of sexual orientation, calls the new study “good, important, and one unlikely to be bettered in the near future.” But Jonathan Beckwith, a geneticist at Harvard Medical School in Boston, says that the new work fails to overcome a number of problems faced by previous twin studies. He notes that the final sample included only 12% of the males in the Swedish registry, leaving open the possibility of recruitment bias. And Beckwith says that the failure to control for family environment could inflate estimates of genetic influence.
Co-author Qazi Rahman, was quoted by the Washington Post:
“This study puts cold water on any concerns that we are looking for a single ‘gay gene’ or a single environmental variable which could be used to ‘select out’ homosexuality — the factors which influence sexual orientation are complex. And we are not simply talking about homosexuality here — heterosexual behavior is also influenced by a mixture of genetic and environmental factors,” study co-author Dr. Qazi Rahman, a leading scientist on human sexual orientation, said in a prepared statement.
I intend to devote at least one more post to this study as I agree with Michael Bailey that it is an important study. I think along with the other 2 population based studies (Bailey’s in 2000 and Kendler’s also in 2000), it provides a picture of modest genetic effects along with a major role for non-shared enviromental factors. Many roads lead to a similar result. Nothing in this study provides a clear picture of what those environmental factors are but a simple environmental explanation (e.g., poor parenting) or genetic source (single gene, or uniform action of several genes) is not supported here.
Rahman added in the Post article:
“Overall, genetics accounted for around 35 percent of the differences between men in homosexual behavior and other individual-specific environmental factors (that is, not societal attitudes, family or parenting which are shared be twins) accounted for around 64 percent. In other words, men become gay or straight because of different developmental pathways, not just one pathway,” Rahman said.
The July 1, 2008 thread entitled “Multiple Factors involved in Sexual Orientation, Pt. 2 had lots of interesting, thought-provoking observations from many of you.
I wonder if there will ever be a way to know what a toddler or a baby is thinking, what they are taking in? (Just read an article or two about that). People can talk about their earliest memories, but none can really remember being one or two, what they saw at that age, how they processed what they saw).
I understand that now may not be the time to discuss this, but maybe on another thread we can.
I have to admit, Michael, that your comment that at a very early age (I forget how young, but it WAS young) you put another boy’s penis in your mouth was on my mind as I thought about this. That still astounds me. You didn’t go for his big or little toe (or maybe you did, LOL) but his penis. I was left wondering what gave you , so young at that time, the interest, the urge to do that. (This is not at all a request for you to attempt to explain it since you already said you don’t know why you did it other than you put all kinds of things in your mouth and other than your earliest memories are those of loving the male body. For that matter, I recall eating mud!)
My mention of your comment is only by way of illustrating that the exploration of attraction and our childhood is something worth discussing. Seems that whenever people like the NARTHIANS try to link childhood and sexuality, they try to link it to something bad, something traumatic.
If there is a link (and I am not saying there is but it’s worth discussing) maybe the discussion should center on links to something perceived by the very young child as very attractive and pleasing.
This is my question to the study and those that say “nurture” plays a role in sexual orientation.I’m gay and have blue eyes. Did nurture dictate my eye color?
I know without a doubt that no part of my nurture promoted my attraction to men.
By no means do I suggest that I am better qualified according to my education, only by being myself . Thanks
I would love to see a summit sometime of those on the ex-gay side of things and those of us who are critical — to see if we could find some common ground. It would be a great conference, wouldn’t it?
This discussion has made me realize that the ‘in person California vacation rendezvous’ is an offer I must withdraw..
Eddy,
I’m not sure if I understand – have I done or said something that was inappropriate? Please let me know as I don’t want anything the matter between us. I would love to meet you. You and Michael can come over and I will make lunch or dinner if you want. If you just want to come, that is ok too.
Eddy, in all fairness, you went beyond just “wondering and considering”. You referred to it as the “big lie”. If you had just been wondering, why not just ask, “When was that?” I would have answered you honestly and openly
Your tone and wording strongly suggested that you believed I was trying to pull a fast one on you, EXODUS and the general public. I was not .You assumed that I was lying to you and to EXODUS about the “time line”, but I was not lying about any of that.
You jumped to the same sort of conclusion about who spearheaded the Survivor conference, suggesting that I was “spinning” the truth about that. I would have apologized to you for such an assumption, but if you don’t feel the need to, so be it.
Eddy: OK. That will have to do I guess. At least I am on record that Gary and I were not messing around before, during or after the EXODUS conference and that we left EXODUS and came out to our wives the same year we did — 1979.
We could have saved all this time and aggravation by talking or writing to each other when you first started implying that we were lying (over a year ago I think) but I know that for some reason, you preferred to hash out the personal details on the blog. Oh well.
Michael,
In my earlier post, I said I was giving you the last word. I’m not sure why it is that you’re waiting for me to re-engage in that conversation. Does ‘last word’ mean something different to you?
I’ve apologized on this site before; I’ve apologized to you before. If I felt I owed you an apology now, I would. Wondering and considering the possibility are NOT the same thing as presumptions. (LOL! If I presumed those answers, why would I need to ask any questions?) For the false conclusion that I did come to (re your role in the BXG conference), I did apologize.
Ann, Michael
This discussion has made me realize that the ‘in person California vacation rendezvous’ is an offer I must withdraw..
…and once again I’ll try to abandon this detour…
I am still waiting for some sort of apology from Eddy for his presumptions that (1) Gary and I had “a big secret” when he first met us, (2) that we were lying the entire time we were with EXODUS and (3) that I left EXODUS when “Gary came along” — as though Gary was the only or main reason I left. He was not. I left because I was still gay.
None of Eddy’s “jumps to conclusions” was correct. We had already known each other about four years before that happenened. During the previous four years, we got EXIT off the ground, hosted the first EXODUS conference and lived “ex-gay” lives, faithful to our wives and kids. Our daughters were born during this time, one week apart.
We quit EXODUS the same year we began our affair. I remember it well because it was the same night that “Alient” came out at the cinema near where we were giving our “ex-gay” testimony at a church conference in Indianapolis..: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078748/releaseinfo.
This was the same conference where we announced that we would no longer be giving “ex-gay” speeches — to the shock of those who had asked us to talk about how we had “changed”. The conference organizers had accidentally put us up in a room with one bed. We went to the movies that night. We told our wives soon after, but our divorces were not final until 1981.
Evan, you said: “One needs a critical level of gender ‘otherness’ perception in order for attractions to kick in.”
Not if you’re gay, you don’t. A perception of “gender otherness” has the opposite effect on me.
Evan
You can bet that any gene implicated in trouble for 1% to 2% of the population is a susceptability gene, not a disease gene. Disease genes are always rare (roughly 1 in 10,000 people) or group specific. Susceptability genes exist for a lot of reasons. One of the main reasons for these genes is immune function. A gene might offer protection from one thing but this protection makes us vulnerable to another.
Example:
Blood type is part of the human immune system. Each blood type is good at protecting us from certain pathogens while not so good at protecting us from others. It’s a trade off.
Example 2:
Hemochromatosis is a genetic “disorder” that’s not really a disorder at all. People with Hemochromatosis genes store extra iron for use during long winters or in places where Vitamin C is scarce. This is a huge advantage in cold climate, hunter gatherer societies. The problem is that in the modern environment neither iron nor Vitamin C are scarce. These people often store too much iron which can lead to increased health problems as they age. Fortunately the cure is simple. All these people have to do is donate blood and they’ll never have a problem.
Drowssap,
Yeah, evidence is growing for some immune contribution to brain disorders. Just today another piece of research made the news. I’m not usually interested in psychiatric stuff, but one thing caught my eye: scientists narrowed the search for bipolars and schizophrenia susceptiblity genes to a set of genes which are involved in “nervous system development, immune system development and response, and cell death.” I have heard this argument before about the role of cell death (apoptosis) in the development of various disorders, but the immune genetic contribution is something new.
Genes have complicated ways of working together in many parts of the body. For instance one of those susceptibility genes is expressed in the amygdala, the hippocampus, corpus callosum and other parts of the brain, plus the eye retina and kidneys. Could someone make an evolutionary argument for why 1-2% of a population are hit by these disorders? What purpose would having these serious disorders serve such a sizeable portion of the population or the entire population itself? This is not a rare disorder, so it doesn’t look like a genetic accident, because the number of genes involved is big. Maybe it’s the environment that is changing and susceptibilities are differently put to strain by modern stressors.
On the other hand, SSAs are probably not the product of a disorder in most cases, although there might be some cases in which this type of attractions could be created by some dysregulations. SSAs are one possibility of the brain to perceive conspecifics, but under some conditions specific to individuals, like greater vulnerability to anxiety, their effect might be amplified and might stifle whatever degree of OSAs is present in one individual. Lack of any degree of opposite-sex attractions – that is probably a sign of a dysregulation of some sort. But attractions probably don’t work that way: it’s more of a question of relative thresholds, and less of degrees. One needs a critical level of gender ‘otherness’ perception in order for attractions to kick in.
Eddy” “You’re the principal in both video offerings and nothing gives any hint of how this conference came to be. So, I took you to be a principal…actually THE principal.”
So, in your haste to discredit me, you jumped to conclusuions TWICE — (1) once about who planned the Survivor’s Conference and (2) again when you assumed that Gary and I were already “hiding a big secret” and cheating on our wives when you first met us — which we were not.
You really blew it, Eddy Jumped to conclusions. Assumed I wasn’t telling the whole truth — that I must be “spinning” something. You were WRONG! Instead of making assumptions, you could have simply asked.
The vid you are referring to http://www.main-board.com/yt.php?author=exgaysurvivordan was shot after a rally in Palm Springs in 2006, protesting the Love Won Out conference in nearby Indian Wells, not at the time of the Exgay Survivor Conference which was held in Irivine in 2007.
You are mixing up two different events. The Love Won Out protest was In September of 2006: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb5554/is_200608/ai_n21880102. I found out that EXODUS and NARTH had “teamed up” for that one, and were indeed holding the LWO conference “practically in my back yard” — I live about 45 minutes from Palm Springs. I went on my own and spoke as an individual.
You wrongly assumed that that Palm Springs protest vid (2006) was about the Irvine Survivor’s Conference (2007) http://www.beyondexgay.com/conference — and that was almost a year away. You messed up. You jumped to conclusions and assumed I must be lying about (or “spinning”) something. At least you apologized for that erroenous accusation
About the “time line” thing. Again, you jumped to conclusions and assumed Gary and I were messing around (“hiding a big secret”) and lying to everyone even as EXODUS was being formed. We were not. How about an apology for that, sport?
Evan
Speaking of an immune reponse that causes damage… Cytokine damage keeps popping up in all sorts of physical and mental health research.
One scientist just announced that he believes that managing the bodies immune response could lead to treatments for a myriad of disorders.
Could Arthritis Wonder Drugs Provide Clues For Other Diseases?
We’ve really got to let this serious detour die. I do want to clarify though that you and I (and Gary and I) didn’t meet until 1977. Once before in our very early posts I believe you had confused me with Ron Dennis; Ron did precede me by about a year but we were both short, fiery street evangelists. (Ron was close to the inner circle…you, Jim, Frank, Robbi; I was an unknown until after I joined Outpost in 1978. In total, you and I probably spoke for less than 15 minutes during our entire Exodus overlap. LOL! I probably spoke more with Gary as the chauffeur, now that I think about it.) I’m thinking it’s possible we spoke by phone while I worked at Outpost but, generally speaking, Robbi was the Exodus point of contact.
I did find the video by the way. I still don’t know how to link with the new laptop…going to hook up old keyboard this weekend. Anyway, go to YouTube and search “Beyond Ex-Gay”. (If you search “Michael Bussee”…about a dozen come up that all look similar.) Within the “Beyond Ex-Gay” search, there are two vids with similar names. “Two of Exodus Founders Come Out As Ex-Ex Gay” is the one with the statement that misled me. (the vid you want is by exgaysurvivordan…5:48 I believe.) And the statement is actually the closing statement of the video.
I coupled the statement with some conclusions I made from observations. There were really only two video statements from or about the conference. (unless that pack of a dozen with you in the same pose is all different). But, you’re featured in both. In the one, it’s just you. In the other, it’s 3 of you making your statements of apology. You’re the principal in both video offerings and nothing gives any hint of how this conference came to be. So, I took you to be a principal…actually THE principal. And the only statement in either video that gave any clue as to how this historic conference came to pass seemed to come in that closing statement. “I’ve been silent all of these years. But when I heard that Exodus and NARTH had hooked up and were having their thing just up the road…maybe an hour away…in my own backyard.y..I couldn’t stay silent any longer.” (The quote may not be exact but is pretty close.) LOL! I’m thinking of one of the promos for this year’s Twin Cities Pride. Michael, I think in the video there’s a period where there should have been a comma. After the last statement should have been “and that’s when I heard about the Beyond Ex-Gay Conference” or “and then I got this call from Beyond Ex-Gay”. But the way the video ended, it was easy to conclude that you were the inspiration for the conference. Evidently, it was a false conclusion. For that I apologize.
I won’t answer to the allegations about my motives for wanting to know certain things for two reasons: 1) I’ve already spoken to them all before. You obviously don’t believe me. 2) I believe that any further conversation on this needs to happen on that thread not this one. (I do note the ‘recent comments’ section so I’d likely pick up if conversation resumed there.) But, please, I’ve been the sites biggest nag about detours. I feel so guilty…there’s Evan and Drowssap just communicating away ON THE TOPIC…and I’m answering to questions and charges from a long ago unrelated thread. Not a good example at all.
So, I’ll give you the last word if you want it. Or meet you on the ‘timeline’ thread. (LOL. I don’t know how to find it. It’s not like “timelines” would have been the actual topic or anything.) 🙂
Evan
Yeah, you are right. Everything I see is genes and hormones. I think they look at these two things because they are so obvious and easy to measure.
It’s kind of like scientists discover the two most obvious factors that impact tree growth, sunlight and water. But they don’t know the 100s of other less obvious, specialized factors that are just as important.
Eventually a scientist takes this general knowledge about plant growth and tries to turn a tree into a fern by altering sunlight and water levels when it’s in a seed state. 😎
I think that’s where we were in SSA until recently. Scientists were trying to figure out how genes and hormones create SSA and they came up blank. Both are probably important but I doubt they are the specialized factor that is creating SSA.
Responding to Eddy:
“Many felt that he owed an apology to Exodus.” Why to EXODUS specifically? The Apology, if you read whole thing, was directed to anyone I may have hurt: http://www.beyondexgay.com/article/busseeapology My intention in leaving EXODUS was not to hurt EXODUS, but to live honestly.
“Was he already of a double-mind when I met him and trusted him as a leader?”. No. That came later. In 1974 (through about 1978), I was full of hope and faith — and believed God would change me. Gary had the same hope and faith. I can’t recall exactly when I started having doubts about teaching that people should and could become “ex-gay”, but it wasn’t all about my deepening feelings for Gary. (And by the way, I did not have a child at the time. My child was born in 1978. Only Gary had kids when you first met us.)
As for when I became “double-minded” — It wasn’t “when Gary showed up” as you suppose. And, I did not become “double minded” . I changed my mind. My faith in the whole message and process began to slip little by little. I began to change my mind when I noticed that no one in our ministry was becoming straight and that many were becoming despondent, depressed and self-destructive, It was a process of disillusionment, not a moment.
“Did he and Gary carry their big secret throughout that conference?” No. There was no “big secret” at the time of the conference!!! I had met Gary in 1975 and although I immediately liked him and was attracted to him, we did not become sexual with each other until 1979 — the same year we left EXODUS. Our divorces were not final until a couple of years later.
So in a way, yes, you were indeed asking when we first had sex — because you assumed we must have been “carrying some big secret” like an affair — , misleading you and other conference attendees back in September of 1976. We were not.
“Gary was my ride from my host home to the conference site. The apology isn’t a big deal but the other apology brought it back to the surface.” That car ride from Gary was in 1976, We got sexual and left in 1979, so you can relax. Your chauffeur was sexually pure at the time. You were not being deceived. We were both faithful to our wives when you met us. If you think I owe you some sort of apology for cheating on my wife three years after you first met me, I just don’t get it. I wasn’t married to YOU.
I have apologized to everyone I might have hurt during my time with EXIT and EXODUS — whether by my misguided teaching (that gays can and should become “ex-gay”) or by my behavior. EXODUS gets no apology for my leaving. It was the honest and right thing to do.
So all that being said, I agree with Ken when he said: “To me it appeared your persistence in defining the time-line of Michael and Gary’s relationship was to attack and discredit Michael. And that it failed because Michael had already been forgiven, by the short list of people (a list you are not on) he needed to forgive him, for cheating on his wife
If anything, I think that you, Eddy, owe me an apology for (1) assuming we were already cheating (for implying that we were lying and “carrying a big secret” when you first met us) and for (2) questioning my truthfulness about just who planned and presented the Survivor Conference.
As I have said, I wish I could take credit for it. Soulforce and Beyond Exgay did it all with no help from me. It simply needed to happen. Those harmed by EXODUS needed and found their “voice” and there was much healing in meeting other Survivors who had some postive, but mostly harmful EXODUS experiences.
Drowssap,
If you asked scientists about the causes of delinquency, they would say just about the same thing: hormones and genes. This sums up the state of knowledge on the subject of causation of a great deal of psychological outcomes. 😐
Jayhuck,
I don’t expect, actually, that research will find that something “went wrong” in the case of primarily SSA-ed people. I think it’s equally likely that same-sex attractions be one possibility of the human brain, just like so many others. However, lack of any opposite-sex attractions would be something unusual for a living being that needs this type of attractions to pass life on to new generations.
I don’t think there is any person or group that can seriously be in the business of extinguishing gayness. Supposing there is, this is out of anyone’s control. Gay people could freely have kids to pass their genes on. I think this is more a question of options than control. If it becomes an option, it becomes less controversial, a low-stake issue. Maybe that’s what gay people need, to lose center stage in order to be left alone.
That’s a paradoxical question, which reminds me the kind of dilemmas which Russian novelist Dostoevsky used to pose. He would say something like this: if you were given the choice, would you plunge into suffering head down and heels up and understand life in all its terrible depths (the genius), or would you live a happy and contented life without needing to know more than you need for practical purposes (the ordinary man)?
Since we live in a society built on the “pursuit of happiness” principle, I think most people would chose contentment over knowledge. But in every given social context you can find dissenters, people who are willing to give up comfort for uncertain benefits, like genius.
But I’m not sure that genius is the product of accident, otherwise great human achievements would be accidental outcomes of a flawed biology. That would be the real tragedy: to find out that our subjective agitation stems from a biological accident and is not connected to a higher principle. If so, then finding the roots of this accident is tantamount to solving the problem that made humans question it in the first place. Which would then make us wonder why, of all species, only we were able to question and solve the problem, although other species underwent similar biological accidents which never lead them to genius?
We’d go back to a higher principle…
Evan,
But as I said in a previous message we still don’t know whether something went wrong or not to produce a type of attractions that does not have reproductive potential.
First you would have to define what “went wrong” means, and that in and of itself will be tricky. If we should discover one day that a type of genius/high IQ developed through means we might consider “wrong” would we work to extinguish it? This is , IMO, what is at the heart of the discussion. I don’t care that scientists are studying sexuality – in terms of knowledge, I think it is a wonderful thing – it is what we DO with that knowledge that counts. Gay people are here to stay, and the more pressing concerns are in how we live with them and how we make sure they and their loved ones and families are treated with love and respect. We also have to make sure that they are treated equally under the law
Evan
Interesting results on that study.
Maybe an early life or in some cases prenatal immune response alters hormone flow in a specific part of the brain. So it’s still hormones, just not the normal range of prenatal hormones.
It seems to me that if SSA was the result of a high or low level of prenatal hormones
A) Pregnant women wouldn’t deliver that amount of hormones very often
B) It would be super easy to test and understand. A significant drop or increase in prenatal hormones would correlate with SSA. We would have probably figured out SSA in the 1950s.
Drowssap,
Immune events may become the next candidate for environmental influences. The hormonal hypothesis is not faring well right now.
Last December a team of Dutch and British researchers failed to find a significant correlation between levels of androgens in the womb and masculine vs feminine toy preference inside the same gender group.
Evan
Since immune system and brain function came up earlier…
Huntington’s Disease Linked To Overactive Immune Response In The Brain
Ken:
Impressions are impressions. Opinions not completely based on facts. I have lots of those and either try not to state them or to secure more facts to either support or negate them. You bring up a good point about the apology though. As I recall the conversation was around the time of that the Beyond Ex-Gay conference was a hot topic here. A major part of that conference was a meeting where Exodus could come, hear of all the hurts they caused (either personally or by association) and apologize. I did think it was ironic that Michael saw the deep need for this apology yet never seemed to consider that, due to his founder and leader position, many felt that he owed an apology to Exodus. I DID want to know how long he remained in active ministry after he had already decided to continue in his new relationship. Was he already of a double-mind when I met him and trusted him as a leader? Did he and Gary carry their big secret throughout that conference? Gary was my ride from my host home to the conference site. The apology isn’t a big deal but the other apology brought it back to the surface.
For the record, I’m still waiting for an apology from Bill Clinton. He seems to forget that among his other sins was coming on TV and outright lying to the American people…”I did not have sex with that woman, Miss Lewinski”. It sounds like he cleaned up the rest of what he did; he just didn’t see that lying to his constituents was also an offense. It’s an apology I’ll never hear but I would have liked to.
Eddy said in post 113125 :
My interest in the timeline went to trying to establish your frame of mind–your stress level–when Gary showed up in your life.
That is NOT the impression I got from the exchange you are referring to above. To me it appeared your persistence in defining the time-line of Michael and Gary’s relationship was to attack and discredit Michael. And that it failed because Michael had already been forgiven, by the short list of people (a list you are not on) he needed to forgive him, for cheating on his wife.
Michael: Here’s where that reading into things plays out. I never inquired into when you and Gary first had sex. Believe it or not it’s true. My interest in the timeline went to trying to establish your frame of mind–your stress level–when Gary showed up in your life. Relatively new Christian…already in leadership…relatively new at dealing with homosexuality yet a wife…and a child. I had had an experience with what I call “tailor made temptation” in my final months at bible school; the man I fell in love with was my ministry partner.
Anyway, each step in the the infamous timeline was actually another threshhold of stress or challenge and I wanted to know at what point Gary arrived in the picture and also when you two realized that this was the right path to follow. When or if you had sex prior to leaving your wives or the ministry, believe it or not, was not one of my concerns there. I was looking for that point when you changed your mind. From there, I would have likely pursued if you had had doubts or misgivings prior to that.
I realize that even those questions were intensely personal but you were holding your life (and others) up as proof against any ex-gay notions; at the time, it seemed fair to question the timeframe in your life when you switched sides.
(and if I’d told you I was asking because I wondered about the possibility of ‘tailor made temptation’, life stress or moving too fast too soon, that foreknowledge would more than likely have tainted your replies.)
Re the anti gay sentiment word list. I’m in complete agreement except
I do want to retain the use of ‘sinful’ , ‘broken’ and ‘ensnared’ in the rarest of circumstances.
Evan
Here is one of many of the links out there
Pollutants alter play: another way PCBs affect children
Evan
I heard about that one before and it’s even worse than that. Apparently PCB’s affect personality as well. Male children whose mothers were exposed to PCBs during pregnancy are markedly more feminine. Sorry, no link handy for that one but if you google it’s out there.
Talk about environmental effects on sex determination:
Environmental pollutant has sex-skewing effect.
Could different exposure thresholds account for within-gender variability in typicality? It would be a surprising finding to know that gender variability was less pronounced in past centuries and that the effect would be due to different environments shaping similar biological systems differently.
Eddy: Now who’s spinning? I was not “outraged” that my privacy was violated. What I have shared, here and elsewhere, I have shared willingly. I did get irriated when you kept pushing (on another thread) for details as to exactly when gary and I first had sex with each other. Maybe a private discussion would have been better? Maybe you would have gotten your answers more quickly?
This was during that time that you kept saying “There are problems with the timeline!” There are problems with the timeline! — implying that I was lying. I suggested we talk off line because I have a daughter, a family, and an ex-wife I still love and care about. I was willing to tell you privately (if you really felt you needed to know) but I did not want to go into it here.
No “outrage”, just a concern for their feelings. Mary has told me when she thinks I am getting too personal, and I have apologized when she let me know I had crossed the line. She has let me know that any questions about her ongoing sexual feelings or what she means when she uses certain words to describe herself are off limits. Once I got that clear message, I stopped asking for clarification.
And you are right, self-loathing gay kids probably would not sign on to this blog. If they did, they would read a variety of opinons, and that is good. When I was growing up, there was only ONE opinion, and that was that homosexuality was a psychiatric illness. Nowadays, kids have access to a number of different viewpoints and options — and that is a wonderful thing.
I was not suggesting that Throck’s blog (or any particular commenter) would push a kid over the edge. I am speaking more generally — of the still present and still strong anti-gay sentiment that is “out there” — in the real world where these kids live. Putting out words like sick, perverted, sinful, diseased, broken, etc. DOES have an impact on these confused, frightened and struggling kids — even if they never read it here. And no, I don’t have any studies to back that up.
I have been called Counseldude before but I think this is the first Psychdude. Seems like I should have been but I dont recall it.
1) I’ve been a participant in these debates and or discussions and involved as a counselor for a number of years a while back; I’ve learned that it’s not always best to reveal what you’re hoping to discover with a question. The leading will tarnish the results. (i.e. an individual may start reading ‘what you want to hear’ and deliver it rather than their actual experience; conversely an individual may see ‘where you’re going with this’ and provide a purposed detour or a pre-formed answer.). LOL. I can’t count the number of times that I asked either a new question or an old question with a twist and all I got was the canned answer to a question I didn’t really ask. Anyway, that’s part of why I do it. I am sorry that I offended you by it.
2) To the extent that we use our lives and experiences as an example or a point or to make a point, I believe they can and should be questioned. (I don’t recall much outrage at the disrespect for Mary’s privacy. Perhaps we ALL need to take a second look at personal boundary issues.)
3) Since you’ve stated them previously in each of your appeals, I already know why YOU think it’s a great idea to converse off the blog; I knew that when I said ‘no’ each time. Stating your reason in this new way did not change my answer.
4) I don’t get the validity of the impact of our words–in this discussion in Warren’s ‘little corner of the world’– on the anguished homosexual youth. I really don’t see them stumbling upon Warren’s site AND this particular topic in droves. (BTW: I was a self-destructive suicidal homosexual youth myself. I’d bus into the city and go to the huge State Library to research homosexuality. Anyway, I’m thinking that if a similar struggling youth did stumble on this site today, that they’d browse around…try to get a sense of the place. They’d see something they don’t see anywhere else…Christians with dramatically different beliefs trying to communicate…and this “Psych dude” playing some really cool music…the Golden Rule Pledge…SIT Therapy.) LOL. I’ve even directed new people to the sidebar options more than a few times. Let them catch the essence before getting caught up in the topic of the moment.
Michael,
Yes, you are right, understanding OSAs would be great too. But I think that by understanding SSAs scientists will understand how attractions in general work. Actually there is one general theory proposed by Helen Fisher for mammals which aims at explaining how attractions work to produce pair bonding and reproduction, including for humans. Another, more specific theory, is Daryl Bem’s Exotic Becomes Erotic which claims to explain one path by which both orientations can develop for both sexes. So interest for SSAs has been mixed with interest for OSAs too sometimes. Daryl Bem is gay and I think no one suspects him of anything for studying the origins of sexual orientation.
Michael Bussee
No thanks needed because in fact you are correct. We don’t know what causes SSA or OSA for that matter.
Maybe I need a disclaimer at the end of each of my posts. 😎
A) My personal BIAS is towards some sort of pathogenic explanation
B) Nobody truly knows why people have SSA
C) Regardless of the cause gay people should be treated with love and understanding just like everyone else
Come to think of it, actually the most studied people in the field of sexual orientation have been twins of both orientations! 🙂
Evan said : “Studying SSAs and generally studying how the brain systems work to produce sexual emotions can have many direct and indirect benefits.”
Wouldn’t it also be potentially beneficial to study OSAa and how their brain systems work? Why start with the assumption that something is wrong with gays and study only that? Besides which, gays seem to have no trouble reproducing. I have one daughter. She is producing children. The survival of the species seems safe.
Michael Bussee said
I object to objectifying gays and putting them under the microscope to determine what went wrong, as though they were some sort of mtutated amoeba — when nothing may have gone wrong at all. Something just may have gone differently.. Did something go wrong if one bird is blue and another is red?
Well, it depends, if the red bird cannot be attracted to another bird from the same species to produce offspring then biologists would probably be very curious what causes that. It is unusual in the natural realm, where reproduction is part of the evolutionary race. The bird which, for different reasons, cannot breed eventually disappears.
I guess scientists want to know what causes many sexual orientations to make sure they get all the possible knowledge on what can improve reproductive health and what can affect it. You only know that if you understand how attractions work. Studying SSAs and generally studying how the brain systems work to produce sexual emotions can have many direct and indirect benefits. But as I said in a previous message we still don’t know whether something went wrong or not to produce a type of attractions that does not have reproductive potential. The amygdala patterns sure are intriguing. I will write more on that as the subject comes up. There is a growing interest in the study of this small but very important brain region genderwise.
Drowssap: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you! — for saying that “it could be that being gay just means that something went differently, not necessarily wrong.” It took a lot of haranging, but that’s really all I wanted to hear,
Also thanks for the awareness that discussing gay kids as broken, diseased, parasitic, chewed up, inferior, damaged, etc. could push an already fragile. self-loathing gay kid over the edge — or could push a confused, violence-prone homophobic kid to try to “fix” the damaged gay kid with some well deserved bullying or violence.
Evan
Historically speaking I’m not going to argue with that. 😎
Today I get the feeling that they are starting to get on the right track.
A) It’s set in motion by something in the environment
B) Genes play a role
C) Gender specific instinctual switches!!!! 😎
I bet that C ends up a large part of the equation.
Evan
I would guess that preferential male homosexuality is a few times more common among men born in dense urban areas as opposed to rural.
Why it might be all over the world I have no idea. But it’s kind of tough to say that an Aztec warrior is gay for the same reason as a Viking. But I admit this is one reason why a pathogenic explanation doesn’t make obvious sense.
Michael Bussee
I agree with that. Adults can take care of themselves, but kids it’s a different story.
And of course you are exactly right. It could be that being gay just means that something went differently, not necessarily wrong.
Drowssap,
The age of first attractions, be they OSA or SSA, is different for many people. There are people who reported opposite-sex feelings from kindergarten age and others who reported same-sex feelings from the beginning of puberty. Some adults even reported same-sex feelings after the brain was activated by hormones during puberty. That should indeed point to some environmental factors that do not work stictly by the known hormonal mechanisms (prenatal organisation, puberty activation). Recently, the influence of the immune system on the brain has been getting more and more attention in scientific circles. It seems that immune reactions can affect neurons too, a fact that was previously believed impossible because of the blood-brain barrier. So it is possible.
But if you’re right, then scientists right now have zero knowledge on what influences sexual orientation. They are practically wasting their time and other people’s money. 🙂
How could a pathogen be equally widespread in the urban and rural areas, from China to South America long before people have been making cross-continental expeditions?
Evan
I guess what I’m saying is heck yeah I agree with you that SSA/OSA and all the secondary traits commonly associated with both have something to do with hormones. I just think it’s the hormones floating around in our heads after we are born, not necessarily before we are born.
Also, to all that have posted on this thread: It’s not the honest debate and scientific inquiry into the causes of human sexuality that bother me. I actually share this curiousity.
I object to objectifying gays and putting them under the microscope to determine what went wrong, as though they were some sort of mtutated amoeba — when nothing may have gone wrong at all. Something just may have gone differently.. Did something go wrong if one bird is blue and another is red?
You guys are very curious (as I am) about why some people are gay. I would also like to know what makes some people straight — although few on this blog or elsewhere seem to care about that.. Parenting? Abuse? Bad relationsship with men?
Do straight boys have feelings of inferiority towards women, a “feminity deficit” that is then “sexualized” causing them to want (in women) what they feel they lack in themselves? Could a virus be responsible for heterosexuality? Is it learned? Chosen? Acquired through practice? No one knows this any more than we know what “causes” gayness.
All I am asking for is some sensitivity as to how the discussion of the “cause” of gayness might effect a confused, homosexual young person who already has taken numerous hits to his self-esteem and who may already hate himself for being gay. I am not trying to “play the sympathy care” for me — but for them.
Imagine the effect on this young person when he hears his feelings portrayed as broken, sick or sinful. I was asking for some consideration and sensitivity for this young kid — and there are hundreds of thousands of them out there listening to what is said about them.
Mary: Let me clear something up. I do not have ” a global bitterness toward the Christian community.” It’s more specific than that. I would say that the vast majority of Christians are loving, charitable, compassionate and sincere. It’s not “gays against Christians”. It’s not Christians or the Christian community that bother me.
It’s a particular approach and school of thought that bothers me. An anti-gay prejudice, fear — even hatred — that many professed Christians and some churches stil have towards gays and lesbians. I myself am a member of the “Christian community” and so are the members of my Church and many churches I have visited.
I actually like most Christians. It’s the teachings (not the people) that make me hot under the collar. The anti-gay fear and philosophy, not the imdividual believers or their communities..
Evan
I think the small, wiring and physical differences found in gay men are a byproduct of whatever causes SSA. They are secondary side effects. Theoretically speaking if “straightness” was created by a specialized neurotransmitter and this hormone goes out of production at age 1 you would predict these sorts of slight, developmental differences.
Evan
I would say that because identical twin concordence is so low for SSA (about 20%) this indicates that whatever the factor is it’s happening sometime after birth most of the time. The womb environment is nearly identical for both twins and whether the environmental factor is a pathogen, hormone, or meteorite fragment both unborn twins would be similarly exposed to it in almost all cases.
I believe this could be an explanation for either more or less masculine behavior in boys. Bot for SSA I’m not sold on prenatal hormones being a common explanation. I was reading about gay sheep the other day and they COMPLETELY cut off masculinizing hormones and still found nothing. That doesn’t mean it’s not hormones but it makes hormones much less likely an explanation.
As for a pathogenic explanation:
It wouldn’t be that a germ has to go in and directly chew up some cells. It could just as easily be the bodies response to the microbe. It might just be a secondary side effect. When they figure out the switch for mate selection in animals we’ll be light years ahead in understanding what might be happening in humans.
Drowssap,
I get the point about how underestimated environmental factors might be. But returning to our subject here, sexual orientations or gender variance do not seem to have phenotypic characteristics restricted to the brain. It doesn’t look like something that was locally chewed up by some very specific pathogen. A great deal of these phenotypic variations are reflected on the soma too. So whatever is producing gender atypicality seems to have a constitutional effect on an individual and a normal distribution in the population. It’s reflected in body types, facial features, secondary sex characteristics and so on. Brain effects are a big part of the story, but the story is a bit larger than that, IMO. If a pathogen is producing that, then it must be active during the prenatal stage to produce so different results, like identical twins with different sexual orientations. But then, why wouldn’t both twins be affected by the same pathogen if they have 99.99% of the same DNA material?
General less or more gender typicality is more plausibly related to what actually creates sex differences in the first place: hormones. They act with different strengths at different stages, but they are the main stuff gender is made of. The rest is the work of genetics.
Here’s one telling example from research: The medial amygdala is sexually dimorphic – it’s bigger in males than in females – but it’s not fixed by prenatal hormones. Some experiments on animal models have shown that castrating males will shrink this region to female size, so it keeps its plasticity even at adult age and can be masculinised back by androgens. But how much male hormones this region can absorb to restore its male functionality depends on genes for androgen receptors. So even if the gonads are there and the hormonal exposure is working OK, some very important brain region may fail to become fully masculinised because some genes are turned off in that area. This must have some inherited contributions, because pedigree studies do show some patterns of inheritance of sexual orientations. What is more, the Swedish study we discussed here also indicated a twofold genetic contribution to sexual orientation in men compared to women, which fits the data we have on the prevalence of both orientations in the population. This ratio points, at least partly, to some sex-specific genetic mechanism that regulates hormones.
Ann
Well… the evidence suggests that SSA is probably due to some sort of outside, environmental input either very early in life or in the womb. Because twin concordence is so low my guess is early life. Genes appear to play some role but I’d guess that’s susceptability. A study was released this year that suggested that SSA was more common in men with a certain blood type. If that turns out to be true the “gay gene” has something to do with our immune system.
As for the environmental factor
About 1 in 30 men (maybe more) are preferentially gay for a lifetime. That’s SUPER common. You can safely predict that for every man that runs into “Factor X” and becomes gay 5 or 10 run into it and still become straight. In fact 1 in 30 is common enough that virtually EVERY man might run into “Factor X.” Whatever the ratios turn out to be, this factor is very common in human populations.
Evan
I can’t remember the name but there is a common, degenerative eye disorder (might be a type of glaucoma) that tends to hit old people. Virtually every person that gets this disorder carries a specific gene. The interesting part is that this gene is present in about a third of the entire population and most people won’t get the eye disorder. A lot of things work like that. A shared, common gene is required but most people won’t get the disorder. For some reason the gene creates a specific susceptability.
Regarding Autism no other mental disorder is more genetic. Twin concordence is about 50% and it tends to run in families. However most kids with Autism don’t appear to have messed up genes. For years almost 90% of all research dollars have gone towards genes but this hasn’t produced anything actionable. That’s all changing. Today the focus is swinging strongly towards environment.
Boston Globe: Researchers now believe that autism can be caused by genes in combination with environmental triggers. The question is, what are those triggers?
Side Note:
For decades scientists thought that ulcers were caused by stress, diet and heredity. Ulcers were very common, ran in families and lots of things seemed to trigger them. In the 80s they determined that ulcers were triggered by a common bacteria, H. Pylori. The lesson is that even if something appears genetic, if it’s common and has been around for thousands of years it probably isn’t.
One small correction: “not all exposed to similar environments that have the potential to trigger a disorder will develop that disorder, mostly the ones carrying the mutated genes.”
It is possible that some will not express the condition, because some of the predisposing genes could be turned off.
Drowssap,
The problem with any kind of condition like that is that it develops starting from many mutated genes. All the kids may be exposed to all sorts of environmental factors, including pathogens and stress, but not all exposed to similar environments that have the potential to trigger a disorder will develop that disorder, only the ones carrying the mutated genes. So, I’d say causality starts with genes and how those predispositions are like a trap for environmental influences of any sort.
It would be interesting to see how many carry those genes without expressing them because they were lucky enough to grow up in the right environment. This is especially the case with many X-linked recessive conditions: many women carry the genes without expressing them (they have backups or they get silenced) and a lot more men are exposed to greater health risks from the inherited female chromosome (for which they have no backups).
Emphasising the importance of postnatal environmental factors runs one major risk: phenocopies of the same condition created by random environmental factors without having any underlying genetic contribution. If we don’t have any factor that produces predictability, whether it’s genetic or environmental, we don’t have any explanation either.
Drowssap,
Do you feel this is the same with sexual identity and sexual orientation?