Interviews with Joseph Nicolosi

Here is a three part interview with Joseph Nicolosi, who discusses his views of homosexuality and his approach to therapy.
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
I don’t agree with the basic theory but I wanted to provide the links for those of us who study the various approaches. When I study an approach, I like to have the current information, and these appear to be very recent.
Let’s have an open forum on this…

111 thoughts on “Interviews with Joseph Nicolosi”

  1. Evan – THanks chiming in again.
    There is something similar with depression and abusive relationships as well. The thing is that here we have a genetic pathway and in the case of depression can identify the naughty allele. With SSA, we have no such pathway. The reparatives simply assert it in keeping with their development scheme in the face of contrary anecdotes. Now could there be some kind of sensitive child issues and any kind of fathering would be likely to trigger something genetic? I suppose. However, one would need to isolate what was different about the genes that create the vulneability. We are a ways from that.
    Nicolosi suffers because he wants to put everyone in one box no matter how much damage you do to the box or the contents.

  2. @Warren Throckmorton
    I remembered… Been browsing through some links in a folder and I came upon the evidence I lacked back then.
    You wrote:

    Evan said – “So it can be a mutual distancing of unintentional nature. This type of familially transmitted genetic-based dynamics is already documented for some behaviours.”
    Can you name the behaviors you are referring to?

    Yeah
    http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/070302111100.htm
    Not a behaviour per se, but common genetic stuff making both parents and children predisposed to the same thing.The difference is in how they adapted. A parent’s wrong or maladapted behaviour is felt by the developing kid who is impacted by his parent’s maladaptation. The lame father -lame kid hypothesis in all its glory.
    There you go, doctor, it’s documented. 😀

  3. You can skip everything down to the line….

    Evan wrote… They didn’t approach sexual orientation, they focused on clarifying what creates gender-specific behaviours

    Yeah, I more less said that. I was commenting on the idea that their research was in tune with my own thinking. Nothing you can say will dispell my thinking in that matter.

    Evan wrote… And what they discovered puts the hormonal dogma to rest, at least in mice (but it’s bound to be confirmed in other mammals). It’s not hormones that cement gender sense, because both genders could have circuitry for both sexes, it’s a switch which turns on only one part of the network and keeps the other one reserved.

    No… what they said was, “new advances in molecular and genetic strategies demonstrate that gonadal hormones are not the sole factor responsible for the emergence of sex-specific brain function.” You seem to want them to say something they did not. It doesn’t mean these hormones have absolutely no play in the meaning.

    Evan wrote… There’s a whole class of pro-male, pro-female, anti-male and anti-female genes which work in complicated ways to determine gender or a particular variation of gender. It’s plausible that homosexuality has to do with gender recognition, because gay men’s brains respond to certain stimuli like straight women’s brains and they also have some structural similarities. The documented sex atypicality of most gay people also points in this direction, that gender sense has to do with sexual orientation.

    Yeah to the first, totally with you, except it may not be all there is. Not so sure about the second (gender recognition or whatever) being the entirety of the “bio-genetic” arguement about why some men are homosexual.

    Evan wrote… You say it must be instincts biologically programmed to feel one way, but I don’t see how biology would program a brain to use organs which have developed as adaptations for reproduction to be used in a non-reproductive way.

    Huh? You make no sense. One, I was speaking about humans in general not homosexuals in the specific. Two, you just said above that gender recognition might be a part of why men are gay, their brains being more like a woman. Thus they would have a woman’s instinct, would they not? The why it happens is gene-expression, not a gene, but an expression of genes which in men should be methylated, “turned off,” which are not.

    Evan wrote… It doesn’t look like instinct, we are just using the concept from animals which are 100% instinctual and which have a limited range of behaviours, like mounting, thrusting or lordosis.

    Which is to say, why is it always about gonadal sex with so many of you people. I’ve never said anything about human sexual contact being necessarily instinctual. If it’s the brain that is different, then the brain in the sex organ, gonads are just sensory extensions of the brain….. geesh.

    Evan wrote… Why do humans need almost 20 years to grow up emotionally? Did we go through a special and harsh selection in the past for neotenous phenotypes which develop a lot slower than any other primates, learn more and live longer, given the proper environment? Could this come at a cost in the variability of gender determination, because longer development of the emotional brain depends a lot more on environment than in other species? My answer was one conjecture among others. We’ll see what the genetic studies come up with.

    It is my understanding that adolescence began about 750,000 years back probably within our ancestor Homo heidelbergensis and was also present in our brother species H. neanderthalensis. That is based in tooth growth and the rate of enamal where, I think. Why? Adolescence is important for learning, humans have a lot to teach. Why you think we have to teach people to know what gender they are is beyond me. Have you read Glenn Weisfeld’s book on the subject? I don’t know what he has to say.

    Evan wrote… Genes work with environment, therefore whatever practices work with the environment are likely to have a word in development.

    Our brain gets in the way of that though.

    Evan wrote… Then why didn’t dolphins, elephants or chimpanzees build empires, go to the moon and discover electricity? What about marriage or masochism, are they instinctually programmed or cultural/developmental? We can’t fully explain humans using other animals’ behaviour, something is always missing

    Ehhh….. red herrings stink. I was commenting upon social structures in animal (and human) societies and comparing them. You aren’t….

    Evan wrote… They might have basic animal substrates, just as Daryl Bem asserted about the development of sexual orientation starting from differences in aggressiveness and activity levels, but they need a lot of human conditioning to reach a certain outcome. Remember that ancient Greece men who practiced same-sex behaviour did not engage in anal intercourse, but in intercrural intercourse, so the behaviour was not instinctual like lordosis in mice.

    *sigh* dang terms, what’s wrong with frotting. Greeks weren’t necessarily homosexual, it was institutionallized pederasty. They considered anal intercourse demeaning for the receiver. On the other hand I consider it to be dang exciting. So…. what does that get us?
    _____________________________________________________________________

    Evan wrote… I think this debate comes down to a few questions. Do humans have programmed instincts? Do genes dictate sexual orientation?

    Yes, we do have instincts. I’m like Dr T, I don’t quite know what sexual orientation – I prefer gender orientation – is. I think there is a complex of items in the brain which are controlled by our genes which may add up to gender orientation.

    Evan wrote… I think many would agree that it would be odd in natural terms if genes would program someone to be exclusively homosexual. It would be a biological contradiction.

    I totally agree. There is no gene for a same-gender orientation. It’s the same genes that produce an opposite gender orientation in women which create a same-gender orientation in men.

    Evan wrote… Could domestication, enclosed environments and agricultural factors lead to hormonal or genetic changes which would create homosexuality? Coincidentally, we only have historical sources to document homosexual behaviours among humans since people have been living in cities, in enclosed and clustered environments and mainly in agricultural civilisations. Could stress and certain environmental factors lead to organic changes that produce homosexuality?

    Pure bull. Homosexuality only shows up in more urbane human cultures because the concentration of peoples allows those with homosexual orienations to find each other. Otherwise human taboos keep homosexuality at bay in less populated areas. It’s the whole thing about the habiru (Hebrews) being disgusted with cities that the Canaanites inhabited. It’s why the Bible spoke out against cities and kings for so long.

    Evan wrote… After the psychodynamic fashion failed to explain human homosexuality, so seems to fail molecular biology after a few decades of research. The answer may be more in the environment, if we look at the latest Swedish study.

    Who is that environment working upon? And what is that environment? The womb? Is it working on the mother or the individual?
    Again I say eh….

  4. David Lynn,
    I think this debate comes down to a few questions. Do humans have programmed instincts? Do genes dictate sexual orientation? I think many would agree that it would be odd in natural terms if genes would program someone to be exclusively homosexual. It would be a biological contradiction. That’s why they study rams, because it might be the product of something specific to some mammals or to their environment. What if non-domesticated sheep in the evolutionary past did not produce any same-sex oriented rams? Could domestication, enclosed environments and agricultural factors lead to hormonal or genetic changes which would create homosexuality? Coincidentally, we only have historical sources to document homosexual behaviours among humans since people have been living in cities, in enclosed and clustered environments and mainly in agricultural civilisations. Could stress and certain environmental factors lead to organic changes that produce homosexuality? There are many questions that science proved unable to answer. After the psychodynamic fashion failed to explain human homosexuality, so seems to fail molecular biology after a few decades of research. The answer may be more in the environment, if we look at the latest Swedish study.

  5. David Lynn,

    So, the idea that gay men are attuned to the smell of men rather than women would not be derivative of the instinctual sense? More likely to then be an environmental change in the brain? Or did we gay men “dig up” the lost sense? Or…..? They seem to be in agreement with what I would propose…..

    Savic used a very high concentration of “putative pheromones” in that study to determine that. You couldn’t find that in an ordinary environment. It shows something, but no one knows exactly what right now. It could be a conditioned preference. Or it could be a variation in perception as a result of different amygdala functioning. There is one study which showed that anxiety changes olfactory perception. Savic also reported this year that gay men’s amygdala has connections similar to women’s and greater regional cerebral blood flow in the same area than straight men.
    But what Dulac proved about the gender-switching role of the vomeronasal organ cannot be translated in any way to humans or primates. Therefore, I don’t see how it could be made an argument about human pheromones and sexual orientation or gender recognition.

    I think Dulac & Kimchi would agree that there may thus be multivariant biological pathways to homosexuality, primarily gene expression or hormonal causes, and anything which might “institute” those causes, such as environmental factors causing the proper stress which is a part of the older brother hypothesis.

    They didn’t approach sexual orientation, they focused on clarifying what creates gender-specific behaviours. And what they discovered puts the hormonal dogma to rest, at least in mice (but it’s bound to be confirmed in other mammals). It’s not hormones that cement gender sense, because both genders could have circuitry for both sexes, it’s a switch which turns on only one part of the network and keeps the other one reserved. Of course, the brain still needs to go through hormonisation to have what to switch on or off (that’s why those early experiments with hormonal manipulation showed that hormones can mess with sex behaviours, which made researchers erroneously conclude hormones have the final word), but it’s not hormones which decide gender in the species we discussed. In the last years, more researchers have been going back to genetics to understand sex determination. They no longer believe that female foetuses are the default template and there is just one gene for testosterone which masculinises the brain. There’s a whole class of pro-male, pro-female, anti-male and anti-female genes which work in complicated ways to determine gender or a particular variation of gender. It’s plausible that homosexuality has to do with gender recognition, because gay men’s brains respond to certain stimuli like straight women’s brains and they also have some structural similarities. The documented sex atypicality of most gay people also points in this direction, that gender sense has to do with sexual orientation. You say it must be instincts biologically programmed to feel one way, but I don’t see how biology would program a brain to use organs which have developed as adaptations for reproduction to be used in a non-reproductive way. It doesn’t look like instinct, we are just using the concept from animals which are 100% instinctual and which have a limited range of behaviours, like mounting, thrusting or lordosis. Why do humans need almost 20 years to grow up emotionally? Did we go through a special and harsh selection in the past for neotenous phenotypes which develop a lot slower than any other primates, learn more and live longer, given the proper environment? Could this come at a cost in the variability of gender determination, because longer development of the emotional brain depends a lot more on environment than in other species? My answer was one conjecture among others. We’ll see what the genetic studies come up with.

    Just because we have certain cultural practices which emphasize gender doesn’t mean we rely upon them.

    Genes work with environment, therefore whatever practices work with the environment are likely to have a word in development.

    Man suddenly woke up one day from an instinctual stupor and realized he wasn’t being manly or womanly enough? Were we rampantly bisexual like the bonobo?

    Maybe they noticed that boys who grew up with girls didn’t pursue them as much when they became adults.

    If so much of our social structure derives from extra-somatic learning then we must necessarily also say the same for elephants, dolphins, wolves, baboons, chimps, and apes among other social animals.

    Conversely, could our cultural practices be the product of genes and hormones? Then why didn’t dolphins, elephants or chimpanzees build empires, go to the moon and discover electricity? What about marriage or masochism, are they instinctually programmed or cultural/developmental? We can’t fully explain humans using other animals’ behaviour, something is always missing.

    And feral children don’t seem to tell us much. They are mentally ill due to their deprevation, not necessarily working solely on instinct. Just doesn’t fit.

    What mental illness do they have? Some children in the town of Chernobyl in Ukraine, where the nuclear plant exploded, were left without parents in early age. They gone missing and continued to live in the ghost town together with dogs, eating the same things as them and learning the same behaviour. They were normal kids before their parents died according to their relatives’ accounts, but they did not develop like the other children during a critical period. Later, when some of them were retrieved, they did show difficulty in adapting to the new environment, especially in learning language. They didn’t have symptoms of mental illness, otherwise they were treated for that. Instead they were placed in their relatives’ families in order to adapt to human behaviours under professional supervision. Psychologists did have some success in conditioning them to learn human behaviours, like using a spoon to eat or playing with other children, but these kids still didn’t know how to channelise aggressiveness in a human way, they defaulted on animal display of aggression. Unfortunately, these cases were not studied seriously, so one cannot use this as empirical proof, but there are some documentaries and they do indicate that the early formative period in children is critical for appropriation of human behaviours, that these behaviours are not instinctual. They might have basic animal substrates, just as Daryl Bem asserted about the development of sexual orientation starting from differences in aggressiveness and activity levels, but they need a lot of human conditioning to reach a certain outcome. Remember that ancient Greece men who practiced same-sex behaviour did not engage in anal intercourse, but in intercrural intercourse, so the behaviour was not instinctual like lordosis in mice.

  6. Evan wrote….It’s the old problem of the missing link. What we have is this picture: a number of smaller mammal species which still have the old olphactory system used to tell genders apart, and a number of higher mammals which lost that system and largely rely on the visual system.

    Hmm… if you were to look at lemurs, I wonder what sense they have. The “missing link” idea is not the best way of putting it.
    So, the idea that gay men are attuned to the smell of men rather than women would not be derivative of the instinctual sense? More likely to then be an environmental change in the brain? Or did we gay men “dig up” the lost sense? Or…..? They seem to be in agreement with what I would propose…..

    So far, the central prevailing dogma of brain sexual differentiation has proposed that gonadal sex-hormones secreted early in life organize hard-wired sex-specific neural circuits that mediate sex-specific behaviors. However, new advances in molecular and genetic strategies demonstrate that gonadal hormones are not the sole factor responsible for the emergence of sex-specific brain function. Instead, sex chromosome genes, as well as constitutive chemosensory information, seem to have a profound influence on the organization of male- and female- specific social and sexual displays.

    I think Dulac & Kimchi would agree that there may thus be multivariant biological pathways to homosexuality, primarily gene expression or hormonal causes, and anything which might “institute” those causes, such as environmental factors causing the proper stress which is a part of the older brother hypothesis.
    But they are talking about gender, and they are not speaking about sociological factors in which “humans may rely on cultural practices of gender segregation to compensate for the lack of fixed gender sense and sexual instinct .” You are implying that, and that does not come from their work. They say there are in higher mammals instincts based in either genetic factors, based in the X &/or Y chromosome, and/or hormonal effects. Just because we have certain cultural practices which emphasize gender doesn’t mean we rely upon them. They may just be a restatement of what is instinctually internalized to an outward conscious level. Man simply restating the obvious. Which we seem to do quite often.
    But which are we talking about, homosexuality or problems with gender identity? Or are they one in the same? Bailey at Northwestern seems to think they are. I tend to think it is representative of a continuum, but then I’m sorta stuck in the middle myself. Still there is the rare transexual who is only then to become homosexual once a gender change is effected. I dunno, I guess I had (yet have?) a mild case of GID, if minor cross-dressing and “gender-inappropriate” play in my youth is symptomatic. It just wasn’t all that overwhelming. But then I also wanted to be a cowboy.

    If they became aware of a strong necessity to segregate genders in order to compensate for a less pre-programmed gender sense and sexual instinct, they did it because mixing genders during early formative period might have lead to less exclusive sexualities. It was probably about boosting gender sense, not confirming it. It wouldn’t have been necessary to reinforce a predetermined instinct unless it was actually not fully predetermined.

    See this makes no sense to me. Man suddenly woke up one day from an instinctual stupor and realized he wasn’t being manly or womanly enough? Were we rampantly bisexual like the bonobo? I don’t think it works that way. We simply restate consciously what we subconsciously understand, instinctually. That is one reason why gay people get stuck in the closet. We know the difference between our subconscious needs and desires and those our conscious mind (and our family and friends) tells us we should have.
    If so much of our social structure derives from extra-somatic learning then we must necessarily also say the same for elephants, dolphins, wolves, baboons, chimps, and apes among other social animals. As humans we are now just realizing that the feelings we attribute to these animals, especially when they are segregated from others of their kind, are real, not anthropomorphisms. Is all of that behavioral need learned? Are psychological disorders due to withdrawal from others of their kind because of a learned sense or instinct?
    And feral children don’t seem to tell us much. They are mentally ill due to their deprevation, not necessarily working solely on instinct. Just doesn’t fit.
    I’m thought out… and “ph” or “f” doesn’t mean much difference to me…. ;~)
    . . .

  7. Lynn David,
    The term “olphactory” shoud read as “olfactory”. It’s a misspell – I don’t use the term so much.

  8. Ken wrote:

    I don’t follow what you are talking about when you say people had not been considered individuals. Perhaps you can provide some specific examples of what you are talking about and how it pertains to the discussion.

    Until the 18th century, the meaning we ascribe today to the word “individual” in the sense of “person” was absent. “Individual” meant “indivisible” and it was mainly used in relation to objects. But this was not just a semantic change that took place in a certain language at a certain point in time, because there had been no other word before to describe this new social reality of a person who was a self-determined agent of his interests. This was a European concept and social reality nurtured during a long period of time, which can be said to have started in cultural conscience as early as the Renaissance (the creative role of the individual, the self-realising role of human potentials, etc) and was given an economic status first in England, after the ideas of Adam Smith and Jeremy Bentham gained influence. I must point that there were very fine historical and social dynamics which lead to this development of the idea and social reality of individuality.
    A very important and parallel role was played by religious tolerance, which was the product of political and religious clashes in Europe, leading to the development of mixed religious communities. The idea of individual salvation, which is of Christian origin, was very influential in contributing both to the concept of individual and then later the secular concept of individual rights. These ideas and social realities were not by any means universal at that time, but their proponents started having universalist claims especially after the French Revolution.
    I can give a documented example I remember from one historical source I read some years ago to support the idea that in past societies there were no individuals in the modern sense. The Code of Hammurabi, one of the oldest known ancient law codes, ascribes very clear roles for fathers, daughters, sons and wives. They were not by any means individuals. Their actions had to be sanctioned by paternal decisions or by masters’ decisions. They had very precise procedures for marriage, property transmission, sexual conduct, apprenticeship, which did not allow much space for personal preferences. Only in some extreme cases, for instance, a girl gained the right to marry whom she wanted because she had been wronged by the man her father decided to marry her with.

    Past centuries have seen different hierarchies of wishes, in which sex was not just one’s own business to be pursued as one saw fit.

    I don’t buy this argument at all. It certainly wasn’t true in ancient rome or greece. So again, perhaps you can be a little more specific as to what you are talking about.

    Ancient Rome or Greece are quoted as examples of freedom and tolerance, but they were far from that. Not all men were free and surely not any woman. Freedom was related to status. In Ancient Athens only weapon carriers had political rights, for instance. So it was not as simple as being born there and doing whatever your guts dictated you to do. There were rules and practices and certain behaviours were the object of scorn. In Ancient Rome, the man who was penetrated in a homosexual act was considered less of a man and more like a woman. It was a great shame to have people know that you have been sexually dominated by another man. There is one documented anecdote about Caesar which said that he may have played a passive role with another noble man; he strongly and angrily denied the whole story, which shows that it was a very serious matter of one’s status to be considered that way.

    What I said was that past attitudes towards gays may have been less likely to drive away gay uncles, which is why studying modern gay uncles would not work.

    OK, but how does the inclusive fitness argument fare if for a long period of time, during which gays have been “driven away” by social rejection, they did not support their relatives? I mean, it doesn’t make sense to say that they played a role and then they stopped plaing that role. When did this happen?

    Rahman said, in his own study, that the study may not apply to ancient hunter/gatherer societies. And neither Bailey nor Rahman claimed that gays in the societies they studied were treated better than in the times when such an evolutionary effect would have had the most impact.

    Even the authors of those studies don’t consider them enough to disprove the theory.

    Bailey said in his book, The Man Who Would Be Queen:

    When we surveyed gay men and their attitudes toward family members, there was no hint that they were any more interested than straight men in childcare or investing in their nieces and nephews. Of course, one can always say that it might have been different a long time aho, but this is the kind of objection that makes evolutionary theory immune from scientific testing. Furthermore, if the conditions that kept gay genes in the pool are no longer true, then those genes should vanish. (p. 117)

  9. Lynn David wrote:

    Ok…. but if your gender sense/switch was lost, what took over in terms of instinct for other non-conscious mammals before leading to man?

    It’s the old problem of the missing link. What we have is this picture: a number of smaller mammal species which still have the old olphactory system used to tell genders apart, and a number of higher mammals which lost that system and largely rely on the visual system. This is also reflected in the organisation of their sensory modalities in the brain. In the first case there is empirical data which proves the role that the olphactory system plays in the maintenance and functioning of gender behaviours and sex discrimination of conspecifics (you can check this paper published by Catherine Dulac from the Harvard Medical School and see the arguments for this position). In the second case, we only know that, for instance, higher primates have lost the pheromonal system and that they rely on the visual system to recognise genders. We also know that humans and other primates have a greater variety of sexual behaviours, which points to the absence of a gender switch in the brain or connected to the brain. We have a greater gender variety than other mammals – a continuum – not binary states like they have. Probably, after the gender switch was lost higher primates defaulted on gender determination by genetic-hormonal effects. This may account for the greater complexity of intra-species relations modulated by aggression and sex: the necessity to adapt by using more elaborate interactions between members of the same species.
    Another argument in support of the thesis that humans may rely on cultural practices of gender segregation to compensate for the lack of fixed gender sense and sexual instinct is the fact that we are the only species which have this developmental stage called adolescence. Humans need a longer time to nurture a child before he/she becomes an adult. This is reflected in a protracted period of brain development, which is also reflected in the development of sexual feelings. Most children with Gender Identity Disorder grow out of it until they reach adulthood. If their gender sense was programmed to feel discordant with their body, then it would have remained so until adulthood. But feelings evolve, including gender feelings, this is what experience shows, at least for children.

    And why should some Native American tribes have had ceremonies to identify their “two-spirit” persons (usually men) at a rather early age. And then once having identified a “two-spirit” male, ascribe to them a female role? I think that goes against one’s instinctual ideas on gender

    I don’t deny that atypical individuals existed in ancient times. There is an even more prominent example, that of Elagabalus. But what we disagree on is the prevalence of the phenomenon. Since we don’t know what creates gender atypicality and if it’s genetically transmitted or not, it’s speculation built on speculation to say how many existed and whether their existence was purely biological. The strongest correlation right now for male homosexuality which hints at one biological vehicle is the older brother effect. This one does not necessarily require a specialised genetic component to create the trait.
    But the existence of the “two-spirited” men doesn’t run counter the idea of less biologically predetermined human instincts. The situation you described is simply about looking for gender variance in relative terms at a certain point in time in a given community. A typical boy today might have been gender variant 20000 years ago.

    Otherwise, conscious gender differentiation in human societies is just as likely to be a reaction to a strong instinctual response (derivative of hormones?), perhaps even against any non-normative gender roles (as is in the Bible, for instance).

    I think it’s a mixed situation. Usually ceremonies, education and other socially normative practices are established by adults. If they became aware of a strong necessity to segregate genders in order to compensate for a less pre-programmed gender sense and sexual instinct, they did it because mixing genders during early formative period might have lead to less exclusive sexualities. It was probably about boosting gender sense, not confirming it. It wouldn’t have been necessary to reinforce a predetermined instinct unless it was actually not fully predetermined. I quoted here the extreme case of feral children. These children were deprived of human contact and interaction during early development. As a result they learned to recognise the species they grew up with as their conspecifics and failed to adapt to a human environment much later. This is another indication that the human brain is not innately hardwired for social recognition, more specifically, for the recognition of genders in a certain way.

  10. Evan said in post 123747:
    I already said that people had not been considered individuals until a number a centuries ago and that had a lot to do with one’s freedom to pursue one’s sexual interests.
    I don’t follow what you are talking about when you say people had not been considered individuals. Perhaps you can provide some specific examples of what you are talking about and how it pertains to the discussion.
    Past centuries have seen different hierarchies of wishes, in which sex was not just one’s own business to be pursued as one saw fit.
    I don’t buy this argument at all. It certainly wasn’t true in ancient rome or greece. So again, perhaps you can be a little more specific as to what you are talking about.

    it is known that there is a biological component to sexuality. However, nothing in th theory requires “the same animal strength in each epoch.”

    It’s not stated explicitly, but it’s implied that if some theorists argue for the existence of gays created by genetic effects operating at an evolutionary level, then they must assume those people were exclusively same-sex oriented and had biological reasons to be so.
    While many (maybe most) evolutionary theorists look at genetics, as I specifically pointed out in my original post, the theory relies on heritability not simply genetics.
    Further, nothing in your response addresses my statement that the theory does not require the “same animal strength in each epoch” as you claimed.
    You mean gays were treated wonderfully before modern times and then everything suddenly changed and drove them away? You see, you cannot prove that, which makes the argument useless.
    I don’t have to prove it, I never said anything about “treated wonderfully” or “sudden change.” Those are straw-men you added. What I said was that past attitudes towards gays may have been less likely to drive away gay uncles, which is why studying modern gay uncles would not work. Perhaps you need to brush up on your history of gays in other (non-christian) societies, I’d suggest examining attitudes towards gays in ancient rome and greece, native american tribes, and India (pre-british colonization).
    But what Bailey and Rahman proved is that in two countries in which homosexuality is treated a lot better than it’s treated in other less developed countries or than it was treated in the past in the same countries,the richer gay uncle investment in his relatives hypothesis doesn’t hold any water.
    Rahman said, in his own study, that the study may not apply to ancient hunter/gatherer societies. And neither Bailey nor Rahman claimed that gays in the societies they studied were treated better than in the times when such an evolutionary effect would have had the most impact.
    This scraps the whole argument.
    No those studies do not. And all you have done is provide straw-men to the arguments I made as to why those studies don’t disprove the theory. You are reading those studies a conclusive proof because you want to, not because they are. Even the authors of those studies don’t consider them enough to disprove the theory.

  11. Okay Evan…. but:

    That idea is a conjecture, as I said, but gender segregation is a constant in most human societies. Even primeval tribes ascribe different gender roles and separate boys from girls in order to initiate them in typical pursuits, including sexual ones. Why would they do that if not because gender appropriation is not left to chance, ie to less biologically defined instincts than in other species?

    Ok…. but if your gender sense/switch was lost, what took over in terms of instinct for other non-conscious mammals before leading to man?
    And why should some Native American tribes have had ceremonies to identify their “two-spirit” persons (usually men) at a rather early age. And then once having identified a “two-spirit” male, ascribe to them a female role? I think that goes against one’s instinctual ideas on gender
    Otherwise, conscious gender differentiation in human societies is just as likely to be a reaction to a strong instinctual response (derivative of hormones?), perhaps even against any non-normative gender roles (as is in the Bible, for instance).

  12. Lynn David,
    I argued:

    If gender identity no longer guarantees reproductive sexual orientation in humans because the gender-switching organ was not phylogenetically preserved in higher primates, then it must be that human sexuality is less programmed by fixed instincts. This lends credibility to Bem’s idea on the effects of gender segregation on the promotion of heterosexuality for reproductive purposes in human communities.

    You replied:

    All the higher primates? Monkeys, apes, and humans? Or do you only allude to man and perhaps his closest relative, chimps, or perhaps more correctly, the bisexual bonobo. Well, prove it. But I don’t think you’re at all right. It all sounds like the old religious idea of putting ourselves above and separate from all animal life on earth.

    I made that deduction based on the fact that wildtype mice and many other mammal species show no same-sex behaviour, because their sexuality is programmed by their gender sense. They have a gender switch which impinges on the brain to help discriminate sexes correctly in order to reproduce. That is not the case in other mammal species, like monkeys, which show a lot more variation in their sexual behaviour. They are also known to have lost that anatomical structure, the vomeronasal organ, which plays a sex discriminating role and which also represses gender behaviours which are discordant with one’s gonadal and genetic sex. My conjecture was that this greater variation in sexual behaviour was due to having lost a gender switch which only allowed two binary gender and sexual states: male and female. Therefore, many primates should be found to have a greater variety in brain structures which support gender-typical behaviours. Nothing in this conjecture relates to anthropocentric ideas. Evolution could have shaped this development, but it’s not necessarily an improvement, just a particular adaptation. There are species of flies which have preserved some degree of same-sex behaviour and others which lost the behaviour along the way completely. So species can share some traits and then evolve separately along different paths.

    Nor do I think that Bem’s theory has a leg to stand upon. Yes, I’ve read the paper. As I said before, when did a homosexual ram begin to move the exotic into the erotic.

    Bem did borrow some ideas from behavioural mechanisms which were found in other species (like imprinting in birds). However, he never claimed his EBE principle explained the sexual orientation of rams or any other mammalian species except humans.

    When along the line did we lose it instinctually and thus need to systemize it as a part of our conscious mind. Had to happen comcommitently and that is just ridiculous if you must insist on it happening to all (most all?) “higher primates” when the conscious mind was not in effect until man came along, perhaps in Homo erectus, or maybe later, much later, as late as 55,000 years ago even some 130,000-150,000 years after our species, Homo sapiens, is identified as beginning.

    That idea is a conjecture, as I said, but gender segregation is a constant in most human societies. Even primeval tribes ascribe different gender roles and separate boys from girls in order to initiate them in typical pursuits, including sexual ones. Why would they do that if not because gender appropriation is not left to chance, ie to less biologically defined instincts than in other species?

    I was pointing out that individual homosexuality has likely always occurred in man. It is the society as a whole which has shaped homosexuality to its uses or completely repressed it. Society for the most part has been a perverter of homosexuality.

    This is at stake when evolutionary arguments are considered. No one knows if this is actually true or we just extend our present logic to past situations. People in the past partook in a certain cultural setting, whether or not they were personally motivated to do so. We use our individualistic mindset to judge those conditions as having been oppressive, but it was a wholly different logic behind that setting, which was not as based on the importance of one’s private life as we see it today. No one was being asked what they really wanted, because it was not a real issue having one’s desires fulfilled or one’s well-being recognised. The social forces were equally powerful in many aspects on most people, according to their rank.

    your idea that….

    One’s sexuality was not based on pleasure, most likely. We separated reproductive sexuality from hedonistic sexuality very recently.

    Is purely a socio-religious construct. There is only sexuality in man, societies have falsely given modifiers to sexuality in order to demonize certain sexual pursuits, one of which was homosexuality among its individual members. Thus did western society (and others) demonize any attempt by homosexuals to group together calling such developments a ‘lifestyle’ subculture which was only about sex. Continues until this very day.

    I only described that conception, I did not defend it. It was a sociological argument. You are right, what created that particular setting was a “socio-religious construct” but that reality was in place at a different point in time.

  13. Ken,
    I argued:

    Sexuality did not play in the past the role that it plays today.

    You replied:

    Interesting statement considering in the previous post you were commenting on how difficult it was to obtain information about ancient times.

    When I mentioned that difficulty I was referring to homosexual behaviours. Since the mainstream sexual practice has always been that between opposite sexes, the odds were greater that historical sources documented this kind of behaviour a lot more than any other sexual behaviour.
    I don’t know how you took my assertion that sexuality did not play the same role in the past as today. I already said that people had not been considered individuals until a number a centuries ago and that had a lot to do with one’s freedom to pursue one’s sexual interests. Past centuries have seen different hierarchies of wishes, in which sex was not just one’s own business to be pursued as one saw fit. As all these cultural and social pressures have been lifted (they are now called past oppression, but they could be called something else in the next centuries), the animal and most basic layers of one’s being have come to the surface, being recognised as an integral part of one’s well-being; they became priorities to people for whom religious affiliation or values can be a matter of choice just as food preference. This type of people rightfully argue that you cannot choose your animal feelings, including your sexual ones. They are right, again, but they use ideas and concepts of a cultural origin, which were forged during those times when “oppression” was the rule, which was a product of that particular culture.
    I argued:

    It’s a common mistake in these evolutionary arguments to suppose that human sexuality is biological, therefore it manifested itself with the same animal strength in each epoch.

    You replied:

    it is known that there is a biological component to sexuality. However, nothing in th theory requires “the same animal strength in each epoch.”

    It’s not stated explicitly, but it’s implied that if some theorists argue for the existence of gays created by genetic effects operating at an evolutionary level, then they must assume those people were exclusively same-sex oriented and had biological reasons to be so. This type of theories ignores any other historical factors that could have created different ways to ascribe and interpret emotions, because they are afraid to let cultural and constructivist arguments sneak back into the debate. Many evolutionary theorists lack historical conscience: they simply assume that people’s behaviours are biological and that their feelings and behaviours manifested themselves equally strong at any point in time. This cannot be proven, only implied by present facts, much like many other evolutionary arguments.
    You argued:

    one possibility is modern attitudes towards gays may have driven away those uncles, another is both countries the studies were done in already have extensive welfare systems which mitigate the need for a rich uncle to insure survivability of offspring.

    You mean gays were treated wonderfully before modern times and then everything suddenly changed and drove them away? You see, you cannot prove that, which makes the argument useless. But what Bailey and Rahman proved is that in two countries in which homosexuality is treated a lot better than it’s treated in other less developed countries or than it was treated in the past in the same countries, the richer gay uncle investment in his relatives hypothesis doesn’t hold any water. And welfare systems can provide a lot less resources than richer gay uncles could. This scraps the whole argument.
    You argued:

    Again the theory (at least one version of it) doesn’t require the rich uncles to “invest” in their nieces and nephews, only to be a resource to help them survive in times of hardship.

    What if some centuries were more boring and uneventful than others, ie having no times of hardship? Did gay genes lose their fitness in the pool? This was the argument for the inclusive fitness, that they somehow contributed and sustained other relatives’ welfare. What if during some extended periods of time that kind of help was simply unnecessary? Where was the inclusive fitness then?

  14. Eddy,
    How true! When I was a young woman, I stayed with my grandmother who had lost her mind. Several mini strokes – I suspect because she knew what she wanted but had difficulty finding the words. Anyhow, all the other kids had tried living with her but problems would arise (she would meander at night.)
    My decision was to put her to bed with her boots on, a coat, and her little hat on the nightstand. Every night I would hear her begin to rattle around the kitchen, then walk down the hallway, unlock the front door – it was a six pin lockwood so it really made a loud click – and the ever so gentle she opened and then shut the door. That was my que to get up go out on the front porch and watch her walk down the street and turn the corner. The police would pick her up and drive her aorund the block and drop her back off at home. She was always in good spirits, and this seemed to satisfy whatever need she had and she would go back to bed.
    But my siblings tried to lock her in the house and chaos erupted. The police (after the first couple of times) came to know me and my grandmother and we were all very fortunate to have eachother. I was her last hope for staying in her home. People are odd – all of us. It just takes knowing someone who struggles a little more than the rest of us to understand.
    Sorry that was off topic too. But my grandmother has been on my mind lately.

  15. Drowssap:
    I appreciate your observations re the homeless people. I had the unusual experience of actually knowing two of my cities ‘anonymous homeless’ people. One was an uncle–who wasn’t actually homeless but who would wander the streets at the oddest hours. He didn’t quite qualify for a psych unit but would have periodic episodes that were an embarrassment to the family. He was a familiar fixture wandering the streets, sitting in the parks, talking to himself. I’ll never forget the time I was hanging out with some teenage buddies and they were about to ‘goof on’ this eccentric old man. I shushed them and said “let me take care of this’. I jumped up and approached the man–who always walked with his eyes cast towards the ground. I got right in front of him, causing him to look up. “Eddard” he exclaimed! It was a nickname he’d given me when I was a just a kid. I don’t think my friends ever forgot the lesson they learned that day.
    The other was my best friend’s mother! She would have a psychotic break and disappear from home for weeks at a time. It got to where she was gone more than she was home. I’d see her with her ‘bags of stuff’ and call out to her…hoping she’d recognize me…hoping she’d be reminded that she had a family. They didn’t have the heart to commit her to an institution but they couldn’t lock her up at home either. My friend didn’t even reveal the situation to me until I first began telling him of the places I’d seen her…and about my uncle’s situation. (My uncle was childless, never married. My friend’s mom had a husband and three sons…all mentally and emotionally healthy.)
    I’m glad for the experience though because it made me realize at an early age that homeless people came from homes…from families. Even with my relative, I didn’t know the background…only that it wasn’t drugs and alcohol. Likewise with my friend’s mother.
    (And my apologies…I realize that I’m responding to a comment rather than to the topic itself…something tells me the topic isn’t ‘homelessness and schizophrenia’.)

  16. By the way since we are on the subject of Schizophrenia…
    If you live in a city of any size you’ve seen people wandering around alone with mental illness.
    When I grew up my parents and peers and sadly myself thought of them as lazy bums. The sad truth is that except for a few that got that way through drugs, the rest are innocent victims of infections or other environmental factors that damaged their brains. They can’t help it. The vast majority of these people don’t even have bad genes. If they had kids their offspring would be as normal as you and I.
    It’s sobering to realize that if our pregnant mom’s had been sick or abused we might have turned out just like any anonymous homeless person.

  17. Ann
    Funny you should ask about the effects of stress on the mind. A story about a new study is on sciencedaily right now. And in case you were wondering, yes stress can damage the mind, particularly in babies.
    I think I’ve reached my spam limit and I can’t post links anymore.
    so…
    Google: “Acute Maternal Stress During Pregnancy Linked To Development Of Schizophrenia”

    Pregnant women who endure the psychological stress of being in a war zone are more likely to give birth to a child who develops schizophrenia.

    And one from a few months ago
    Google: “Severe Stressful Events Early In Pregnancy May Be Associated With Schizophrenia Among Offspring”

    “Severe life events during pregnancy are consistently associated with an elevated risk of low birth weight and prematurity.”
    “The risk of schizophrenia and related disorders was approximately 67 percent greater among the offspring of women who were exposed to the death of a relative during the first trimester. However, death of a relative up to six months before or any other time during pregnancy was not related to risk for schizophrenia in the child, nor was exposure to serious illness in a relative.”

  18. I have heard both men and women say that they use and need sex at times to relieve stress and tension – I understand it somewhat but it seems more like an aggressive act than a loving or pleasurable act. I prefer the latter 🙂
    Evan, thanks for the earlier response – need to read it again and will respond with questions and/or comments.

  19. I once read some stuff about how captive animals display more same-sex behaviour than the ones in the wild. Some researchers argued that captivity increases stress and the lack of available other-sex partners can push animals to homosexual acts in order to discharge stress. This might explain situational homosexual behaviour in prisons, where it could be a stress reliever. Looks like social animals were not made for or adapted to captivity. Maybe that’s why there are homosexual rams, but no homosexual mice.

  20. Ann

    Do you think this could be part of what triggers the turn off or diminshing of heterosexuality that ultimately makes one more vulnerable to other environmental conditions that add to it?

    IMHO straight sexual orientation in men (women too but they appear more complicated) is created by some type of specialized neurotransmitter. Anything that increases the odds of that neurotransmitter being turned off, or perhaps never turned on would do the trick. Could early life stress contribute to that, or perhaps maternal stress? I’d guess yes.

  21. Ann,
    As always, your questions are good ones. I think stress affects men and women differently. To my mind, as far as I can imagine, female sexuality relies on a kind of vulnerability to the bigger and more impressive guy in the species, which is typically the male. Women are also more vulnerable to stress. THese things go together somehow. Maybe it’s because females have less aggression programmed in the brain which makes them look for the more aggressive-looking guy who can give them security, physical appreciation and status. Lesbian women, as far as studies can tell, show male brain patterns and score higher on aggressiveness than their heterosexual sisters. So lesbians are not impressed by the more aggressive gender. But on the other hand, female sexuality is less categorical than male sexuality, at least as far as arousal patterns indicate. So it might come easier for some women to switch back and forth their sexual response to guys and gals, due to something specific to female sexuality: physical receptiveness and greater body sensuality. Stress doesn’t seem to affect the direction of women’s sexuality as much as mens’. Traumatic events could, but that’s a different issue.
    Male and female homosexuality must be caused by different types of factors or a different mixture of the same factors. Gay men are less aggressive and more affected by the type of disorders which are characteristic of women. It looks like the brain parts which play a big role in aggressiveness, activity and reproduction are depressed by something, resulting in greater vulnerability. Some could be genetically influenced (not proven yet, but soon to come), others of hormonal cause (it won’t be proven very soon), while the rest could be the result of environmental stamps (trauma, rejection, isolation, sexual sensation seeking or other unknown or random factors, like medication). How could this work? As I said, women have a greater response to stress, greater body sensitivity and need more intimacy to warm up to sexual feelings. What gay men and straight women have in common, IMO, is they both have a sexuality of the body, which is more focused on the receptive kind of sensuality. Straight men are far from that — they have a sexuality of the penis, mainly, a penetrative and possessive kind of sensuality. Not much focus for straight men on any other part of the body, on average, and 99% never internal stuff. Gay men seem to be looking – according to one study on ads for partners – for masculine types (which probably impress the female-typical brain structures much in the way they impress female brains) and for partners with an active role. Why would gay men be so different in their sexuality from straight men? I think the link between their vulnerability to stress and their focus on receptive physical sensuality is significant. No straight men would normally be interested in this type of sexuality which includes anal sex (maybe a few sensation-seeking guys).
    One brain study found that gay and straight men differed in their brain activation mostly in one area, called the amygdala (which is the hub of fear and anxiety and plays a role in the stress response). Gay men reacted more strongly in that area. In animal studies, greater amygdala activation was linked with greater anal sensitivity. This finding still waits confirmation from one study on humans that is being conducted right now on the effects of stress on anal sensitivity. It might explain gay men’s preference for receptive sex and it might confirm the stress contribution hypothesis.
    Another aspect on which I won’t elaborate much has to do with the physical feelings of shame and physical narcissism (somatic). I think that early rejection, trauma or permament stress might have deflected one’s physical interest to one’s body, causing gay men’s physical sensitivity to be enhanced – or it could be due to biological factors. It’s just an hypothesis, but if proven right it could explain lots of things.
    So my answer is: Yes, I think that stress can mess with heterosexuality to some degree, but it may have very different influences at different ages on one’s development and it may affect someone according to their predispositions and coping capacity. I suspect that stress is one of the environmental factors which could contribute to changing the direction of sexual feelings in men, in combination with other factors, like trauma and peer isolation. It might have a disruptive effect on the proper development of the brain parts which are responsible with aggression and activity. In some homosexual men, this vulnerability could be more inborn than acquired, and might have resulted from a combination of other factors: long-term evolutionary ones (genetic selection for less aggressiveness) and some short-term environmental factors typical for our modern world (like anything that would mess with hormonal levels in the womb, including stress, medication, immune rejection or some other fluke).
    More and more kids are sedentary, live in a stressful environment and are less outdoorsy. They live in an environment in which porn images are pop culture, which might desensitise them to strong visual stimuli. The media make both boys and girls more anxious about their physical looks — more stress and concern for them to fit the expected looks. I don’t think this will shift their sexual feelings significantly, but looking at the growing rate of sexual problems generated by stress in adults today it does affect reproductive health. I hope we’ll be smart enough to change our environment before we see more parents unable to have kids the usual and pleasant way.

  22. Among other things it lowers your immune system
    Drowssap,
    Thanks for the links – very interesting. I know stress lowers the immune system and temperment plays a big part in this as to how we respond to stress – some take it very seriously while others tend to let things go easier. Do you think this could be part of what triggers the turn off or diminshing of heterosexuality that ultimately makes one more vulnerable to other environmental conditions that add to it? I’m not sure of the specific scientific terms but you and Evan have used them before in describing this.

  23. Evan

    Ya know, many gays quote ancient Athens and Rome as centres of civilisation which integrated male homosexuality. What did they have in common? Major increase in urbanisation.

    It could have something to do with the fact that the human mind isn’t necessarily evolved for the modern world. I should note that most pathogens increase in urban areas. The more humans, the more disease. Schiz is like 3 times more common in cities than rural areas.

  24. Mary

    Schizophrenia has been shown to have an infection trigger – taxoplasmosis.

    Yep, and it’s worse than that. The common flu virus is now implicated in 20% of all cases of Schizophrenia. The interesting part is that it’s not the flu virus that causes the disorder, it’s the bodies immune response to the virus. Scientists knew to look at flu virus because people with Schiz tend to be born in certain times of the year. But anything that triggered that type of immune response would potentially cause the disorder.
    Maternal Flu Linked To Schizophrenia, Autism In Child
    As in all things, genes play a role in susceptability.

  25. Evan,
    I don’t know all the scientific terms, however, do you think stress could be the trigger that turns off or diminish heterosexuality, leaving children and young adults vulnerable to more environmental factors?

  26. Drowssap,
    Ya know, many gays quote ancient Athens and Rome as centres of civilisation which integrated male homosexuality. What did they have in common? Major increase in urbanisation. People were less physical/aggressive, were cooped up in urban areas and relied more on commerce to get the goods they needed. Sounds a bit modern, huh? I bet they were more stressed/sensitive in those great cities. That must have taken a toll on predispositions in many ways (big random environmental factor…). Stress leads to a greater number of psychotic disorders, like schizophrenia. Homosexuality is not a disorder, but it might be part of a continuum of psychological vulnerability which may lead to mental illness.

  27. Evan

    How about neoteny on the evolutionary level and stressful bigger communities more recently.

    Actually a theory like that has precedent, makes sense and is testable. 99%+ of all human evolution took place while we lived in small, hunter gatherer communities. If scientists discovered that tiny human communities tended to have little or no preferential male homosexuality that would be a good find.
    The Precedent
    Hemochromatosis is a genetic disorder that causes people to store too much iron and can lead to all sorts of late-life health problems. It’s very common in white people. But the truth is that Hemochromatosis isn’t a genetic disorder at all. In ancient civilizations when diets were low in vitamin C and iron it was a beneficial mutation. People with a hemochromatosis gene had the upper hand over those that didn’t, particularly in cold, northern climates. They could work all winter without suffering anemia and other health problems. Today we eat plenty of meat, get plenty of Vitamin C and lots of our food is iron fortified. For some people our bountiful, modern diet poses health problems.

  28. Evan
    Thanks for the link!
    I like and respect Dr. Whitehead. I have no problem with his goal to provide a way to switch on OSA and switch of SSA for those interested.
    But…. GAAAH!!!
    Until Whitehead and Narth embrace the wave of science that suggests orientation is partly to completely biological they won’t be able to help most people achieve the change they want.

  29. Drowssap,
    How about neoteny on the evolutionary level and stressful bigger communities more recently. 8)

  30. Jayhuck said:
    I don’t any self-respecting scientist that truly believes sexual orientation is inborn – in the sense that it is genetically hard-wired without the environment playing a part in its development.
    Michael Bailey bet his career on homosexuality being biological. Qazi Rahman, another serious researcher from the University of London recently said, “As far as I’m concerned, there is no argument anymore–if you are gay, you are born gay.”
    I think you’d see more research done if gay people were treated equally.
    Many researchers are more keen to study homosexual orientation to contribute to gays’ greater acceptance in society. After the Savic brain study was published Sandra Witelson said that it will erode some moral judgments against homosexuals and counter arguments that homosexuality is a lifestyle choice.

  31. Drowssap,
    You were curious about Narth’s position on the latest brain study. Just as I expected before having read this comment by Dr. Whitehead, brain differences are considered to be the result of learning.

  32. Hi Warren. Glad to see you are still standing for the truth. Wanted to say hi and also I have my own blog now.

  33. Lynn David – Evan – Ken – Warren
    You guys might disagree about the specifics but your positions are not in complete disagreement.
    Lynn David and Ken position
    Sexual orientation is more or less fixed for most people.
    Homosexuality is the result of a natural combination of genes, hormones and possibly some life experience.
    Evan and Warren position
    Sexual orientation might be fixed in some and fluid in others.
    Homosexuality is the result of a mundane combination of genes, socialization, experience and possibly even some hormones.
    There is not exactly a Grand Canyon between those two hypothesis.
    — just trying to bring people together 😎

  34. Evan,
    This is another line that research does not pursue, because the climate is still too ideological to assume that sexual orientation is not inborn.
    I don’t any self-respecting scientist that truly believes sexual orientation is inborn – in the sense that it is genetically hard-wired without the environment playing a part in its development. The question IS, and has always been, how MUCH of a part does the environment (in all its incarnations) play in this?
    I think you’d see more research done if gay people were treated equally. You can’t ever march into a climate waving your Preserve-Free-Research flag when the research involves a disenfranchised minority that is frequently discriminated against – one that is still struggling for equal rights – it won’t happen.
    My advice – work on securing the freedom of gay people first, then make with your research wishes – otherwise you are fighting a losing battle.

  35. Lynn
    As I said before, when did a homosexual ram begin to move the exotic into the erotic.
    LOL! 🙂 Bem;s is one theory out of MANY, and I don’t know many people who take it seriously except those people for whom the theory already fits some preconceived ideology. 🙂

  36. Correction. in my post 121393:
    The line:
    1st, the 2 studies you cited don’t generally show that gay uncles invest in relatives’ off-spring more than straight ones.
    should read:
    1st, the 2 studies you cited don’t generally show that gay uncles invest in relatives’ off-spring less than straight ones.

  37. Evan wrote…

    If gender identity no longer guarantees reproductive sexual orientation in humans because the gender-switching organ was not phylogenetically preserved in higher primates, then it must be that human sexuality is less programmed by fixed instincts. This lends credibility to Bem’s idea on the effects of gender segregation on the promotion of heterosexuality for reproductive purposes in human communities.

    All the higher primates? Monkeys, apes, and humans? Or do you only allude to man and perhaps his closest relative, chimps, or perhaps more correctly, the bisexual bonobo. Well, prove it. But I don’t think you’re at all right. It all sounds like the old religious idea of putting ourselves above and separate from all animal life on earth.
    Nor do I think that Bem’s theory has a leg to stand upon. Yes, I’ve read the paper. As I said before, when did a homosexual ram begin to move the exotic into the erotic. Was it when it eschewed head-butting with the young rams in favor of prancing in the buttercups with its sisters? Bem’s idea is nothing more than a last dying gasp of psychology to maintain its stranglehold on the roots of homosexuality. That’s not to say that psychology cannot aid persons in that regard or find some minor other cause of some persons’ homosexuality.

    No other species does that in such a systematic manner. Humans might have remarkably needed cultural practices to give shape to less strict instincts. So it’s actually cultural practices that might have preserved the reproductive potential in human sexuality and not instinctual programming. To respond to your argument, returning to primeval practices might actually do away with those reproductively successful strategies.

    Aaaahhhh…. nope. When along the line did we lose it instinctually and thus need to systemize it as a part of our conscious mind. Had to happen comcommitently and that is just ridiculous if you must insist on it happening to all (most all?) “higher primates” when the conscious mind was not in effect until man came along, perhaps in Homo erectus, or maybe later, much later, as late as 55,000 years ago even some 130,000-150,000 years after our species, Homo sapiens, is identified as beginning.

    Sexual identity is not a transhistorical reality.

    And I never said it was. You’re imputing ideas upon me which I did not express, if only to simply try to “head my arguments off at the pass.” In the meantime, you completely missed what my arguments were. Nice job.
    Here’s one point though, when I said, “homosexual peoples were overruled as societies became more organized beyond the tribal level,” I was saying the exact same thing you were saying about ancient agrisocieties. I was not speaking about any individual or group and their identification as homosexual. It is eminently obvious to any student of history that homosexual identity did come to be identifiable until the 3% or so grew along with the population as a whole for any societey. In modern times that was London about 1700.

    But human history is not mathematics, where one term can be equated with another. The terms are never equal and interchangeable. Who does that lacks historical conscience. When and where was gay identity shaped? — that is the answer to why so many symptomatically abuse history to make a case for the legitimation of modern sexualities, as if that must be found in the past in order to be legitimate.

    And I wasn’t doing that. I was pointing out that individual homosexuality has likely always occurred in man. It is the society as a whole which has shaped homosexuality to its uses or completely repressed it. Society for the most part has been a perverter of homosexuality. For instance, your idea that….

    One’s sexuality was not based on pleasure, most likely. We separated reproductive sexuality from hedonistic sexuality very recently.

    Is purely a socio-religious construct. There is only sexuality in man, societies have falsely given modifiers to sexuality in order to demonize certain sexual pursuits, one of which was homosexuality among its individual members. Thus did western society (and others) demonize any attempt by homosexuals to group together calling such developments a ‘lifestyle’ subculture which was only about sex. Continues until this very day.

  38. Lynn David said in post:
    but there is emperical evidence in the way tribal societies in the Americas often accepted and integrated their homosexual members (often called two-spirit peoples) into their groups. One could simply surmise that this often happened in many a tribal society which could ill afford to “throw away” a person simple because they might not fit into the norm. But that doesn’t exactly fit th gay uncle stuff.
    Actually this does fit the gay uncle concept I’ve been describing, however, instead of family being the unit, the scale is tribal. The idea is that gays contribute to the survivability of offspring (within the family or tribe) even if not their own. Although, in the tribal case it would be more of sharing the wealth (or helping generate greater tribal wealth) than just being a resource in times of hardship.

  39. Evan said in post
    Sexuality did not play in the past the role that it plays today.
    Interesting statement considering in the previous post you were commenting on how difficult it was to obtain information about ancient times.
    It’s a common mistake in these evolutionary arguments to suppose that human sexuality is biological, therefore it manifested itself with the same animal strength in each epoch.
    it is known that there is a biological component to sexuality. However, nothing in th theory requires “the same animal strength in each epoch.”
    Why don’t modern-day gay uncles invest in their relatives’ offspring more than straight ones when it’s easier for them to do that today?
    1st, the 2 studies you cited don’t generally show that gay uncles invest in relatives’ off-spring more than straight ones. As for why the specific populations they studied didn’t, I already addressed that, one possibility is modern attitudes towards gays may have driven away those uncles, another is both countries the studies were done in already have extensive welfare systems which mitigate the need for a rich uncle to insure survivability of offspring.
    The argument that today we have welfare systems is too weak, considering that the investment that you might make in your relatives’ offspring if you are rich is remotely different from managing to survive by state aid
    Again the theory (at least one version of it) doesn’t require the rich uncles to “invest” in their nieces and nephews, only to be a resource to help them survive in times of hardship.

  40. ken wrote….

    that’s why it is just a theory.

    No, that is why it would be known as a hypothesis. Theories, such as the theory of gravity or the modern synthesis of the theory of evolution, have evidentiary facts backing them up.

  41. Evan asked in post a href=”#comment-121345″>121345:
    How can anthropologists ascertain that gay men in the past contributed to their relatives’ welfare, as the evolutionary perspective you mentioned argues, since there is no empirical proof of that?
    that’s why it is just a theory.

  42. Lynn David,

    I sure hope human sexuality is biologically controlled. Sure starts out with gender and that has plenty of biologic control Why shouldn’t sexuality be a built in biological control (via an evolutionary path). Else humanity might never have survived.

    I wrote in a few messages on this blog about how losing a gender switch, discovered in at least one mammal right now, might have impacted the formation of sexual feelings in humans (check comments 110070 and 110075 in this topic). If gender identity no longer guarantees reproductive sexual orientation in humans because the gender-switching organ was not phylogenetically preserved in higher primates, then it must be that human sexuality is less programmed by fixed instincts. This lends credibility to Bem’s idea on the effects of gender segregation on the promotion of heterosexuality for reproductive purposes in human communities (You can find the theory by running a search on “Exotic Becomes Erotic”. If I post another link this message gets filtered). No other species does that in such a systematic manner. Humans might have remarkably needed cultural practices to give shape to less strict instincts. So it’s actually cultural practices that might have preserved the reproductive potential in human sexuality and not instinctual programming. To respond to your argument, returning to primeval practices might actually do away with those reproductively successful strategies. Having genetic and other biological underpinnings to influence early behaviour and set a child on a path to a certain variety of sexuality is not the same as claiming that human sexuality is biologically determined. Researchers can still find correlates, but no determining factor for sexual orientation, no point lever to pull in the womb or outside the womb to get a certain sexual orientation. No switch, no predetermined path to a certain sexuality, but lots of predispositions. I also thought about another possible perspective in which sexual orientation might be changeable, during some windows of opportunity, only in one direction but not the other one. So, sexual orientation might not be fixed, but neither bidirectionally reversible (it could be different in different genders). This is another line that research does not pursue, because the climate is still too ideological to assume that sexual orientation is not inborn. The correct assumption is always the other one.

    Or are you saying that man unlike his non-self conscious ancestor species thought about sexuality and dismissed it? Even so, why should conscious mind trump biological controls?

    In ancient agricultural civilisations religious beliefs were focused on fertility and the corporate renewal of the world by divine procreation. Humans participated in that both by reproducing and by planting the earth. An argument for same-sex behaviour and correspodent recognised identity during that time is just mental play without any proof. On the contrary, in the spirit of that age, sex between men would have probably been considered a waste and desecration of god-given means. Not much room for free expression of “biological” sexual variety. One’s sexuality was not based on pleasure, most likely. We separated reproductive sexuality from hedonistic sexuality very recently.
    Sexual identity is not a transhistorical reality. You get the right to your sexuality when you become an individual, which you were not in certain societies. Actually it took some time until people split into individuals, acquired rights and started defining themselves by differences which they later claimed to be separate and requiring acceptance. This is a completely modern development. There is no “gayness” or “straightness” in any other age. We have reconstructed politically defined identities by using modern means and abstractions to filter past messages according to present interests. But human history is not mathematics, where one term can be equated with another. The terms are never equal and interchangeable. Who does that lacks historical conscience. When and where was gay identity shaped? — that is the answer to why so many symptomatically abuse history to make a case for the legitimation of modern sexualities, as if that must be found in the past in order to be legitimate. The same argument can be made about usefulness, expressed today using the fashionable term of “evolutionary fitness.”

  43. Lynn David,

    I sure hope human sexuality is biologically controlled. Sure starts out with gender and that has plenty of biologic control Why shouldn’t sexuality be a built in biological control (via an evolutionary path). Else humanity might never have survived.

    I wrote in a few messages on this blog about how losing a gender switch, discovered in at least one mammal right now, might have impacted the formation of sexual feelings in humans (message 1 and message 2). If gender identity no longer guarantees reproductive sexual orientation in humans because the gender-switching organ was not phylogenetically preserved in higher primates, then it must be that human sexuality is less programmed by fixed instincts. This lends credibility to Bem’s idea on the effects of gender segregation on the promotion of heterosexuality for reproductive purposes in human communities (You can find the theory by running a search on “Exotic Becomes Erotic”. If I post another link this message gets filtered). No other species does that in such a systematic manner. Humans might remarkably need cultural practices to give shape to less strict instincts. So it’s actually cultural practices that might have preserved the reproductive potential in human sexuality and not instinctual programming. To respond to your argument, returning to primeval practices might actually do away with those reproductively successful strategies. Having genetic and other biological underpinnings to influence early behaviour and set a child on a path to a certain variety of sexuality is not the same as claiming that human sexuality is biologically determined. Researchers can still find correlates, but no determining factor for sexual orientation, no point lever to pull in the womb or outside the womb to get a certain sexual orientation. No switch, no predetermined path to a certain sexuality, but lots of predispositions. I also thought about another possible perspective in which sexual orientation might be changeable, during some windows of opportunity, only in one direction but not the other one. So, sexual orientation might not be fixed, but neither bidirectionally reversible. This is another line that research does not pursue, because the climate is still too ideological to assume that sexual orientation is no inborn. The correct assumption is always the other one.

    Or are you saying that man unlike his non-self conscious ancestor species thought about sexuality and dismissed it? Even so, why should conscious mind trump biological controls?

    In ancient agricultural civilisations religious beliefs were focused on fertility and the corporate renewal of the world by divine procreation. Humans participated in that both by reproducing and by planting the earth. An argument for same-sex behaviour and correspodent recognised identity during that time is just mental play without any proof. On the contrary, in the spirit of that age, sex between men would have probably been considered a waste and desecration of god-given means. Not much room for free expression of “biological” sexual variety. One’s sexuality was not based on pleasure, most likely. We separated one from another very recently.
    Sexual identity is not a transhistorical reality. You get the right to your sexuality when you become an individual, which you were not in certain societies. Actually it took some time until people split into individuals, acquired rights and started defining themselves by differences which they later claimed to be separate and requiring acceptance. This is a completely modern development. There is no “gayness” or “straightness” in any other age. We have reconstructed politically defined identities by using modern means and abstractions to filter past messages according to present interests. But human history is not mathematics, where one term can be equated with another. The terms are never equal and interchangeable. Who does that lacks historical conscience. When and where was gay identity shaped? — that is the answer to why so many symptomatically abuse history to make a case for the legitimation of modern sexualities, as if that must be found in the past in order to be legitimate. The same argument about usefulness, expressed today using the fashionable term of “evolutionary fitness.”

  44. Evan wrote….

    How can anthropologists ascertain that gay men in the past contributed to their relatives’ welfare, as the evolutionary perspective you mentioned argues, since there is no empirical proof of that?

    I’m not arguing for the “gay uncle” hypothesis, I rather think it to be bunk, but there is emperical evidence in the way tribal societies in the Americas often accepted and integrated their homosexual members (often called two-spirit peoples) into their groups. One could simply surmise that this often happened in many a tribal society which could ill afford to “throw away” a person simple because they might not fit into the norm. But that doesn’t exactly fit th gay uncle stuff.

    Sexuality did not play in the past the role that it plays today. It’s a common mistake in these evolutionary arguments to suppose that human sexuality is biological, therefore it manifested itself with the same animal strength in each epoch.

    I sure hope human sexuality is biologically controlled. Sure starts out with gender and that has plenty of biologic control Why shouldn’t sexuality be a built in biological control (via an evolutionary path). Else humanity might never have survived.
    Or are you saying that man unlike his non-self conscious ancestor species thought about sexuality and dismissed it? Even so, why should conscious mind trump biological controls? Would not the conscious mind simply restate what the subconscious instinctual responses are? Is that not from whence our social mores sprang?
    And also on that note it was the majority that ruled, ie. homosexual peoples were overruled as societies became more organized beyond the tribal level in which all persons were needed for survival and none were deemed to be “throw-aways.” Marginalization came next, the Canaanite kadesh perhaps being a good example. Then came the “throw-away” cultures of more modern times. We’re only now getting back to our more tribal roots, so to speak, and allowing marriage between gays and lesbians.

  45. Ken,
    Sexuality did not play in the past the role that it plays today. It’s a common mistake in these evolutionary arguments to suppose that human sexuality is biological, therefore it manifested itself with the same animal strength in each epoch. Try talking about “gay” uncles during the Paleolithic era and come up with some evidence. Why don’t modern-day gay uncles invest in their relatives’ offspring more than straight ones when it’s easier for them to do that today? The argument that today we have welfare systems is too weak, considering that the investment that you might make in your relatives’ offspring if you are rich is remotely different from managing to survive by state aid. Do you think that it’s possible that there were so few androphilic uncles in the past who were not heterosexually paired that there wouldn’t be any need to superimpose our modern categories of sexuality on past practices?

  46. Ken,
    How can anthropologists ascertain that gay men in the past contributed to their relatives’ welfare, as the evolutionary perspective you mentioned argues, since there is no empirical proof of that?

  47. Warren said in #120728: Can you name the behaviors you are referring to?

    I wrote:

    There can be a few genetically based familial dynamics by which a father is less dominant and also less involved in interacting with the son, because he is more emotionally inhibited, sometimes very much like the son. So it can be a mutual distancing of unintentional nature. This type of familially transmitted genetic-based dynamics is already documented for some behaviours. Another case would be when the son is less gender conforming and the father does not perceive him to represent him.

    Let me clarify my idea. There is no known family interaction style which is genetically determined and inherited, although that type of interaction may result from genetically influenced inheritable traits. THe second sentence from my argument is too bold and you noticed that. Having similar predispositions can lead to similar maladaptations, but family interaction styles and any behaviours arising thereof are not genetically predetermined according to present genetic studies.
    PTSD is known to have familial and inheritable support. But also, PTSD non-genetic transmission was reported to exist in the form of familial transmission of traumatic memory. This disorder might qualify for the model I mentioned in my argument. However, I haven’t seen any study yet which links the genetic influences with the familial non-genetic factors.
    Coping styles have been considered to be determined by environment, especially familial environment. A team of researchers have found strong genetic influences on coping styles in a German twins study.
    (continued in the next message)

  48. Warren said in #120728: Can you name the behaviors you are referring to?

    I wrote:

    There can be a few genetically based familial dynamics by which a father is less dominant and also less involved in interacting with the son, because he is more emotionally inhibited, sometimes very much like the son. So it can be a mutual distancing of unintentional nature. This type of familially transmitted genetic-based dynamics is already documented for some behaviours. Another case would be when the son is less gender conforming and the father does not perceive him to represent him.

    Let me clarify my idea. There is no known family interaction style which is genetically determined and inherited, although that type of interaction may result from genetically influenced inheritable traits. THe second sentence from my argument is too bold and you noticed that. Having similar predispositions can lead to similar maladaptations, but family interaction styles and any behaviours arising thereof are not genetically predetermined according to present genetic studies.
    PTSD is known to have familial and inheritable support. But also, PTSD non-genetic transmission was reported to exist in the form of familial transmission of traumatic memory. This disorder might qualify for the model I mentioned in my argument. However, I haven’t seen any study yet which links the genetic influences with the familial non-genetic factors.
    Coping styles have been considered to be determined by environment, especially familial environment. A team of researchers have found strong genetic influences on coping styles in a German twins study. –
    Suicidal behaviour has been found to be highly familial and heritable too.
    Smoking is familially inheritable in men, but it does not qualify as having a necessary interactional dimension in its transmission: members of the family might be predisposed to smoke but their decision/impulse to smoke might be triggered by peers and much less by family.
    Another researcher proposed a newer and interesting perspective on how intergenerational transfer of experience can be inherited epigenetically. Could homosexuality work in a similar manner, taking into account that this perspective does not need a high DNA contribution to a trait? It’s worth to consider. One researcher from UCLA working on a genetic study on male homosexuality takes this approach (high-resolution scanning of choice sites, looking for differences in methylation patterns present in twins discordant for sexual orientation) which is different from that adopted by the Northwestern team (looking for linkage by low-resolution scans on a whole-genome basis – similar to Hamer’s method in his initial study but the sample is bigger). Results from these studies will clarify what genetic component is there for male homosexuality and how it’s expressed and will rekindle the debate on whether post-natal interaction can be decisive for a child’s future sexual orientation. Scientists will be able to discern a lot better how much parenting style can stifle or encourage a child’s developing same-gender attractions. Right now, Nicolosi can get away with his statements because there is no proof that what he claims is impossible in any subset, although non-existence of proof does not make his lack of any empirical evidence more impressive.

  49. Ken
    Here is an even better example.
    Infertility in women has been around as long as their have been wombs. There are probably more young, infertile women in your town than gay men. And yet, 20 year old women are not commonly infertile due to the genes they inherit from their parents. In young people a lot of infertility (maybe most) is due to common STDs.

  50. Ken

    Since homosexuality has not died out, evolutionary theory suggests it must, overall, have desirable features (that outweigh any undesirable features)

    You are making a substantial, logical error. Blindness has been around for as long as there have been eyes. However children are not commonly blind due to the genes they inherit from their parents.

  51. Evan said in post 120711 :
    Scientists tested that hypothesis in this very modern setting.
    Except the hypothesis doesn’t necessarily apply to a modern setting. Lets make sure we are talking about the same thing.
    Homosexuality has been observed in humans for thousands of years and likely occurred in pre-historic times as well. It has also been observed in other species. Evolutionary theory predicts that desirable traits will be passed on and undesirable traits will not (note to Drowssap, I said traits not genes and I suggest you learn the difference before you try to claim I’m supporting a “gay gene theory” ). The undesirable traits would eventually become suppressed or die out entirely. Since homosexuality has not died out, evolutionary theory suggests it must, overall, have desirable features (that outweigh any undesirable features)
    However, evolutionary theory suggests that desirable traits should coincide with higher reproduction or higher survivability rates of offspring. Since homosexuality produces lower reproductive rates, evolutionary theorists focus on the survivability aspect. Further, they examining desirability on a familial or community level rather than an individual level. Thus was developed the kin selection theory (or the “rich gay uncle” theory).
    This theory hypothesizes that since homosexuals do not devote time and energy to reproduction and child rearing, they can devote that time and energy to developing more resources or wealth (in terms of more spears, better skill with spears or at foraging, greater food stores etc). Further it hypothesizes that families (tribes, communities etc) with a “rich gay uncle” may have a higher survivability rate for their children because they have him as an additional resource. Not necessarily on a continuous ongoing basis. Perhaps just as a resource during times of hardship, ex. when a parent is injured or sick and unable to provide enough food or shelter for the children etc.
    To emphasize, this is just a theory and not the only one regarding evolution and homosexuality. Nor am I claiming it has been proven, only that the 2 papers you cited do not disprove it. They are flawed in that they don’t address how the uncles respond in times of hardship for the families, or the relative wealth (in terms of disposable income or free time) of the gay and straight uncles. They were done in a time when society (and families) had been ostracizing gays for years and where there are welfare systems in place to help families during times of hardship.

  52. Lynn David

    My point is a man may have the fertility gene and not be gay, or influenced by that gene.

    I think if a trait is created by natural, healthy processes dependent on genes AND it’s beneficial to one sex, but in some way detrimental to the other it’s sexually antagonistic. The rate of expression isn’t a factor in antagonism. All that matters is that it’s natural to the species and that it’s ying and yang.
    BTW, if the extra fertility hypothesis were true it explains why generations of straight men have tried to get gay men to marry and have families. They want to keep the population of lusty women up. 😎

  53. Drowssap wrote…

    Isn’t what you just described a complicated version of sexual antagonism? Whatever the genetic mechanism, girls get extra fertility, men become gay and natural selection finds a balancing point between these two traits.

    Like I said I may not understand it all. Except sexually-antagonistic genes must be operative in both men and women and they aren’t if they are normally on the X-chromosome. Unless they have no counterpart and are expressed…. ehh, then why aren’t all men gay? My point is a man may have the fertility gene and not be gay, or influenced by that gene. Doesn’t that make my idea different? Head hurts….

    Dean Hamer calls the women in the extra fertility hypothesis “super straight” so I propose a new name for this theory. It should be called the Hot, Female Vixen hypothesis. Without the fitness drag of gay men the “hot female vixen” gene would spread until it became fixed worldwide. All women would be like this if it wasn’t for gay men having fewer kids! DANGIT!

    You shoulda seen my mother and aunts, and the distaff side of my family, I guess those women were hot…. ;~)
    . . .

  54. Lynn David

    Ok… She’s almost there with me. It has no need of anything to do with sexually antagonistic genes. Because the gene which increases fertility in women is not necessarily being expressed in regular old, plain-vanilla, straight men. Because it is on the X-chromosome which is not being expressed in such men. That same gene possibly is being expressed in gay men, but isn’t the cause of homosexuality, other genes, not normally expressed in men, are the cause of that homosexuality.

    My head is spinning on that one. 😎
    According to Camperio-Ciani scientists haven’t discovered any sexually antagonistic traits in humans yet.
    Isn’t what you just described a complicated version of sexual antagonism? Whatever the genetic mechanism, girls get extra fertility, men become gay and natural selection finds a balancing point between these two traits.
    Dean Hamer calls the women in the extra fertility hypothesis “super straight” so I propose a new name for this theory. It should be called the Hot, Female Vixen hypothesis. Without the fitness drag of gay men the “hot female vixen” gene would spread until it became fixed worldwide. All women would be like this if it wasn’t for gay men having fewer kids! DANGIT!

  55. Evan said – “So it can be a mutual distancing of unintentional nature. This type of familially transmitted genetic-based dynamics is already documented for some behaviours.”
    Can you name the behaviors you are referring to?

  56. Drowssap wrote…..

    But the problem is that the collected scientific evidence points away from a “gay” gene.

    You have a short memory for our talks here and what seems to be a poor understanding of what I said. Gene expression is not the same as having a specific gene. I agree… THERE IS NO GAY GENE.
    There may or may not be a gene for female fertility. There may or may not need be a gene which effects a skew towards a particular X-chromosome. But somehow that genetic predisposition associated with fertility would result in gene expression of female genes from the X in male children which results in homosexuality. That in no way adds up to a simple gay gene.

    Most importantly twin study after twin study finds very low concordence for SSA. The latest twin study from Sweden found that environment was the number one factor by a wide margin.

    Gene expression need not occur in every certain organism with that genetic predisposition. Thus a lower concordance is most certain. Also Twins need not be an example of gene expression, but possibly some other form. Perhaps some sort of in utero chemical “sibling conflict” or a severe form of birth order causes.
    Evan wrote….

    I think the effort to explain the persistence of homosexuality in human populations is misguided by the assumption that homosexuality was somehow selected for some direct advantage bestowed on siblings, contributing to greater fertility in the population and not in each individual.

    Well, the study conducted by that Italian group indicated that the women relatives of gay men were more fertile. It is in the female siblings that is the main, read if you will “normal,” effect of the gene or genetic predisposition. Homosexuality in males would be simply be a once in a while and not a necessary “side-effect” – formed not by that gene or genetic predisposition (for female fertility) should it exist, but by gene expression of other genes.

    It might be the other way around. Homosexuality could be a by-product of another type of selection that operated for both sexes. My bet is on neoteny by means of antagonistic pleiotropy.

    Why, cause we’re all so cute? I know a number of 6 foot plus bears on motorbikes who I can send over to your place to discuss that possibility. Which is to say it just doesn’t meet with my idea of logic.
    Evan wrote….

    I don’t buy the greater fertility hypothesis. What about the older brother effect. How could some gay men come from families which had more boys or only boys but still be part of a “stronger X” gene make-up? How come they are gay although the stronger X seems to have done a pretty lousy job at producing more females in their family?

    Why would there need to be only one way to homosexuality? I, at this time, “buy” the women’s fertility (more women births) and the older brother effect – aka birth order causes (and one or two other possibilities). Birth order as a pathway to male homosexuality is thought to be derived of an effect in which mothers attempt to “reject” successive male fetuses. Miscarriages of male fetus have been shown to be more numerous (of a higher probability compared to female births) after a male child is born. This is supposed to come down to mostly hormones.
    So here is one idea concerning birth order. The hormonal effect produced by the mother which results in higher percentage of miscarriages of successive male fetuses may lead to the same gene expression of an X-chromosome, not necessarily a “strong X,” an X-chromosome which resists methylation) in a fetus that one sees in the fertility/unmethylated X-chromosome scenario.
    But then there is a second idea concerning birth order. The hormonal effect produced by the mother simply blocks that normal hormonal sequence in the brain which results in the masculinization in those structures associated with orientation.
    Evan wrote…..

    In the seventies it was fashionable for women to be thin and the feminine was masculinized in many ways. Flat chested, slim hips, short hair, less body fat, (which by the way prevents the opportunity for a female to become pregnant) etc…

    Yeah, that really went a long way to screwing with my mind…..

    Ok… She’s almost there with me. It has no need of anything to do with sexually antagonistic genes. Because the gene which increases fertility in women is not necessarily being expressed in regular old, plain-vanilla, straight men. Because it is on the X-chromosome which is not being expressed in such men. That same gene possibly is being expressed in gay men, but isn’t the cause of homosexuality, other genes, not normally expressed in men, are the cause of that homosexuality.

  57. ken
    There are a lot of different versions of the gay gene theory floating around. The gay uncle theory has got to be the worst. I’m tellin’ you, forget that one. I don’t agree with the extra fertility hypothesis but AT LEAST there is some evidence in it’s favor. The gay uncle theory is pure craziness.

  58. Evan

    Not being in the right mood or being angry can mess with attractions, for instance. So it’s not a reflex. It may not work with the same attractive person each time.

    Women are only fertile during a short period of their lives. So you would expect any attraction instinct would take that into account. And an attraction to women instinct wouldn’t act in a vaccuum. We have 100 other survival instincts competing with each other for our conscious mind’s attention. So any of those mechanisms could easily suppress an attraction to women instinct.
    Even if attraction to young, fertile, buxom women is an instinct it wouldn’t mean we’re robots. We have a conscious mind full of a lifetime of experiences in control of our choices.

  59. Ken,
    Scientists tested that hypothesis in this very modern setting. If it doesn’t work now, when gays are not constrained to marry and have better jobs and gains than they probably had one century ago, how could this effect work during times when they were coerced into marriage? You mentioned “gays” in ancient societies as if they had a self-concept, behaviour and were recognised as such. For all we know, we can only ascertain this today. The largest chunk of male homosexuality might be created by an unknown environmental factor which messes up with maternities, for instance, that was not present 3000 years ago. The rest of homosexuals might be genetically generated at a very small rate, like smaller than 1%. Would there be any need for such investment at such a small rate? Were they sufficiently well-off to be able to have enough surplus to invest in relatives? Why would they do that and not invest in their lovers?
    Bring some evidence to counter modern facts. I referred to modern empirical studies and they invalidated the effect in present societies assuming that it would have been carried on until now, when living standards are a lot higher than in ancient settings. If the effect was strong, then it woud be stronger today. But there’s no effect.

    While those studies might be useful in making inferences about the generosity of gays vs. straights, in modern, Western civilizations, they do not address the effects gay relatives had on the family thousands of years ago.

    Gayness is modern Western. We assume, based on some written sources that there must have been a number of men who had exclusive sexual fantasies or intercourse with other men. Were they casual MSM, gays or gender variants, like Elagabalus? It’s hard to say. Only today we have separate gay identity and scientific study of sexual orientation. They go together somehow.

  60. Drowssap,
    For the big majority of people attractions are oriented towards one gender. But people are not attracted to each individual for their genderness. They are first of all attracted to sexual difference and then to some specific features. But sexual difference may not be the strongest factor. It’s the primary factor which makes the brain identify the conspecific as “not one of my team so it might be interesting to study” 8). But in itself, preferred gender does not trigger physiological reactions, sexual ones (because we saw that the presence of females can boost T levels in hetero men regardless of a woman’s attractiveness, but it was related to gender status). Attractions are layered products; they are not as simple as pushing a button. Not being in the right mood or being angry can mess with attractions, for instance. So it’s not a reflex. It may not work with the same attractive person each time.
    I said that we don’t have inborn sexual feelings, IMO. In mice, it looks like sexual orientation = gender identity. You have the gender switched right, you identify the conspecific right and get their cues for mating if appropriate to your gender. No variations of sexual behaviours in the wild inside the same gender category for them.
    In humans, as I said earlier, evolution has selected for neotenous traits. Protracted brain development is part of this process. Our brains take more than 20 years to reach adulthood. There’s something unique about why it takes so long to develop a human (maybe because he/she doesn’t have programmed instincts?). Children play with toys, they have object preference, they develop specific skills for later tasks by play choices, they prefer playmates and reject others, they develop a sense of gender identity and body image (!), they slowly build maps of their world which include other people’s bodies and how they interact and the emotional tensions generated by that. Not much programming there, beside some factors which influence these choices, but they must be exercised to be developed.
    Remember the feral children? After growing up outside human contact and sometimes close to animals, they fail to identify humans as one of their own. It’s an extreme case which shows that the human brain can be imprinted at a very early age by the lack of human contact and/or presence of other animals. If instincts were inborn and fixed, then they couldn’t be tampered with. Other studies in mice show that staying close to members of their species makes them notice their same-gender conspecifics less (beside the programmed instincts like aggression). It’s probably valid for other species too. Staying close most of your life to your gender peers makes you notice them less than if you grow up apart from them. So it looks like the brain forms some gender maps including your body and uses them to say: ‘nothing out of ordinary here, look on the other side.’ Probably this effect is strongest in humans, who have the least programmed instincts and depend a lot on the early formative period.

  61. Evan said in post 120664 :
    THe gay uncle familial investment hypothesis is no longer studied by mainstream researchers. It was invalidated two times.
    Those studies did not invalidate the hypothesis. They didn’t even properly address it.
    While those studies might be useful in making inferences about the generosity of gays vs. straights, in modern, Western civilizations, they do not address the effects gay relatives had on the family thousands of years ago. Rahman even notes this problem in his conclusions (p. 466):

    Cross-cultural studies are important as one possible criticism could be that data from modern, Western societies are less relevant than data from cultures more representative of ancestral environments, such as hunter-gatherer populations. Perhaps the “value” of having homosexual family members only applies in such societies.

    Even Bailey noted in his paper (from the abstract):

    Furthermore, homosexual men were somewhat more estranged from family members, especially from fathers and oldest siblings.

    I suspect this estrangement Bailey notes is the result of more modern (i.e. in the last hundred years or so) attitudes about gays. And is an indication that studying modern families is not a good way to examine homosexuality from an evolutionary standpoint.
    And neither study addressed how having a gay family member would effect the family during times of economic hardship. I don’t think whether or not a gay uncle spends as much a straight uncle on x-mas presents is the best indicator of whether a gay uncle will help keep the nieces and nephews from starving if the parents are out of work and can’t provide enough food for them.

  62. Evan

    I don’t believe in the existence of inborn sexual feelings in humans.

    Wouldn’t you guess that inborn/preprogrammed sexual feelings are the norm for every creature on Earth? Why not humans?

  63. Evan

    If we are honest, actually people are not attracted to gender in general (like mice are) but to some particular individuals inside a gender category.

    That’s not how it feels for me. For whatever reason, many years before I knew what sex was I knew that young women were attractive/exciting to look at. I think we have a search template and whenever we find a match bells go off. I’m not saying the conscious mind doesn’t play a part as well but attraction kicks into gear almost instantaneously. Sexual attraction works as fast as a reflex test when doctors bump your knee and your leg moves forward.

  64. Drowssap,
    I don’t believe in the existence of inborn sexual feelings in humans. Gender identity is separate from sexual identity, but I think they are linked somehow. Those flies and mice have no sexual orientation, because they are other-sex oriented by default. What scientists did was to trick their brains into believing they are of the other sex so they failed to discriminate sexes correctly. In flies that can be done by genetic manipulation, because their sexuality is genetically programmed. In mice, until recently, it was believed that the neurohormonal blahblah was the rule. It turned out it wasn’t. It was genetics, again. But mice in the wild don’t have sexual orientation, don’t have variable attractiveness criteria and don’t grow up in gender segregated societies. If we are honest, actually people are not attracted to gender in general (like mice are) but to some particular individuals inside a gender category. This strongly points to exotic effects (and to other evolutionarily conditioned ways of perceiving ideal types), maybe built on some animal layers which account for category specificity. Discovering the genetic and other biological substrates for gender identity will be very interesting for sexual orientation too — this is the only common factor I can see for mice and humans.

  65. To address this topic on parenting and gender appropriation issues inasmuch as they have a bearing on a son’s or daughter’s future sexual orientation. There can be a few genetically based familial dynamics by which a father is less dominant and also less involved in interacting with the son, because he is more emotionally inhibited, sometimes very much like the son. So it can be a mutual distancing of unintentional nature. This type of familially transmitted genetic-based dynamics is already documented for some behaviours. Another case would be when the son is less gender conforming and the father does not perceive him to represent him. Since fathers have been generally less involved in child rearing, it’s the best excuse that many fathers could produce for themselves not to get involved in their son’s development. But let’s consider an extreme case. If gay fathers, who may be presumed to be less typical in gender terms, don’t have a significant influence on their son’s sexual orientation*, how could heterosexual ones have such a decisive influence? One could argue that if the father antagonizes the son he never breaks free of the mother-son attachment bond. However, many fathers have hostile relations with their sons, especially in broken homes, but that does not lead to a son’s dependence on his mother, unless he already has some predispositions not to feel the drive to become autonomous. Those predispositions, if identified, cannot be caused by paternal lack of involvement.
    * For this conclusion, see Bailey J Michael, Bobrow David, Wolfe Marilyn, Mikach Sarah, Sexual Orientation of Adult Sons of Gay Fathers, Dev Psychol, Volume 31(1).January 1995.124–129.

  66. I wish Narth would issue a position on this stuff. This is the future.
    … actually let me rephrase that.
    I wish ANYONE would issue a position on this stuff. I don’t see anybody on any side of the debate burning up the blogosphere regarding the latest gender science.
    Same old Gay Gene vs. Socialization debate going on everywhere.

  67. Evan

    The more interesting part in this story is whether the other principle, beside the gender switching organ, was kept – if humans, like mice, have reserved circuitry for both sex behaviour.

    I don’t think we’re exactly like mice or flies (which also have the same “both gender” phenomenon). But I bet we have both sets of male/female gender circuitry. One turned on the other off. This system probably operates on specialized neurotransmitters, but who knows. This new concept provides an instant, general explanation of heterosexuality, homosexuality and transgenderism.
    Flies get ‘mind-control sex swap’
    In Fruit Flies, Homosexuality Is Biological But Not Hard-wired, Study Shows
    I wish Narth would issue a position on this stuff. This is the future.

  68. I’m sorry, Warren, the topic has drifted from your original questions. I hope it’s at least interesting. 🙂

  69. Drowssap,

    Ever since you posted that “When Minnie Turns Mickey” link I’ve been sold on the concept of instincts. I would guess that the slight brain structure differences between gay and straight men are secondary.

    That story is a real watershed for the study of gender behaviours …in mice. But however truly captivating it is, because it blows away decades of research spent on the neurohormonal hypothesis in animal studies, no one knows right now how it could apply to humans. Monkeys have some brain characteristics which cannot be found in other mammals. Furthermore, humans have developed some adaptations in the visual system which are unique to our species. It is possible that we may not have gender switches. Take the Exotic Becomes Erotic theory. Even if the theory fails to explain all cases, it’s a good foundation to start on. It is clear that to some extent the exoticisation principle does apply to humans, who have a particularly longer period of brain development. There’s no such thing in mice. Also, female mice have a period during which they are “in heat” and produce some pheromones to signal readiness to reproduce, which are perceived by the gender-switching olphactory organ in mice, the vomeronasal organ. Human females do not have either of these. So instincts in humans are not as clear-cut and programmed as those in mice. It seems that many human characteristics are either programmed to be very variable or very malleable. It’s still not very very clear if humans do have instincts like mice have. Mice are not so choosy as humans, they just respond to some pheromone cues in a programmed way. The more interesting part in this story is whether the other principle, beside the gender switching organ, was kept – if humans, like mice, have reserved circuitry for both sex behaviour. The existence of autogynephiliac men seems to indicate this possibility.

  70. Evan
    I’m glad you had the links to those two studies on kin selection. But it’s even worse than that. Gay uncles would have to treat their neices and nephews BETTER than their own parents do in order for a gay gene to survive. For every child a parents raises to adulthood and gay uncle would need to raise two to adulthood just to stay even.

  71. Mary wrote:
    In agrarian societies what is attractive is strength and longevity, muscular development (good birthing stock – wider hips) for gaining financial strength. As we move through time, industrailized societies found other physical attributes more attractive – such as ability to sustain health in cramped living quarters, ability to control and curb birthrate, etc….
    That does not interfere with the neoteny hypothesis. Women’s bodies have gone through many transformations, but in the long period of time, these changes have evolved inside a bigger trend. During times of poverty, plump women were considered real knockouts. During times of plenty, including modern times, skinny women took center stage. But vellus hair, waist-to-hip ratio, facial symmetry, hourglass shape have been a mainstay of female attractiveness across cultures in time and space.
    Neoteny is a bigger trend than small adjustments in fashion and temporary perceptions created by the mere exposure effect. For instance, the neoteny theory states that humans in general tend to maintain features characteristic of juveniles well into adulthood. This explains many facts like: humans are the only species who have adolescence, extended period of brain formation, longer disposition to continuous learning, increasing time window of reproductive fitness, etc. The physical attractiveness dimension is part of this bigger trend. I argued that neoteny brought some very important advantages to the human race, but was probably accompanied by some other maladaptive traits, of which homosexuality might be one of them.

  72. Mary,
    Courtship practices vary a lot in space and time, but usually the male has the initiative. This is less so for shy men. But usually, and I think there are biological factors for that, the male feels the impulse to pursue the woman. It’s less typical that women pursue men and that this would lead to men actually being in the position to choose whether they accept or not a female’s proposition. I never met that. In my country there is one region where traditionally girls have more initiative in pursuing boys, but it’s limited practice.

  73. Ken,
    THe gay uncle familial investment hypothesis is no longer studied by mainstream researchers. It was invalidated two times.

  74. Ken,
    It’s the Bobrow and Bailey 2001 study. It’s called Is Male Homosexuality Maintained Via Kin Selection?
    I can’t find Rahman’s study. Here’s an interview where he mentions his results. Quote:

    Michael Bailey conducted a study in 2001 to find out if gay uncles treat their nephews and nieces any better than straight uncles treat theirs. They did not. Thinking that Bailey did not control for the income level of the uncles surveyed—richer uncles tend to be more generous—Qazi Rahman, a professor of psychobiology at the University of East London, tried to replicate the study in England. In addition to looking at how they spent their money, Rahman tried to see if gay men had some kind of extra psychological generosity by asking questions like, “Assuming you had a million pounds, would you buy gifts for your family?” Again, Rahman found no difference between straight and gay men. He admits that looking at “presents and stuff” might seem a crude measure for an adaptation that was selected for thousands of years ago, but he sees no other way that such an impulse would manifest itself today.

  75. Lynn David
    One more thing that I wasn’t even aware of. The scientist who is trying to mathematically prove the extra fertility hypothesis says that no sexually antagonistic trait has ever been found in humans. That doesn’t mean there aren’t 100, but so far nobody has found even one.

    “Sexually antagonistic selection is an old idea by Richard Dawkins, but this has never been proven in humans,” Camperio-Ciani told LiveScience.

    Why Gays Don’t Go Extinct

  76. Evan,
    That is A LOT of speculation.
    Maybe cultures are fluid, Changing through out time. In agrarian societies what is attractive is strength and longevity, muscular development (good birthing stock – wider hips) for gaining financial strength. As we move through time, industrailized societies found other physical attributes more attractive – such as ability to sustain health in cramped living quarters, ability to control and curb birthrate, etc….
    In the seventies it was fashionable for women to be thin and the feminine was masculinized in many ways. Flat chested, slim hips, short hair, less body fat, (which by the way prevents the opportunity for a female to become pregnant) etc… Now in this time, we have birth control that is 99% effective, over sexualized generation – J Lo plastic surgery for buttocks, Breast Implants that provide no value, pectoral implants, labiaplasty or vaginal cosmetic surgery, penis enhancements, viagra and one of the lowest birth rates among those that are partaking of all this body modification. See stats on birth rates in the United States.
    I’m just pointing out that there are other perspectives.

  77. Evan,
    ….it’s not evolutionarily necessary, because men have pursued women more than the other way around. …..
    Um, you might want to take another look at that. Women have prusued men however using different methods – my guess is that men have done most of the documentation of mating methods and have been duped by their females counterparts into beleiving they actually did the choosing and chasing??? LOL!!!!!

  78. Evan

    The greater investment in family offspring by gay men was studied by Bailey and Rahman who found they were not more generous than straights even if they were richer.

    I have to wonder why anyone would guess that sexual orientation was in any way related to a strong desire to raise someone else’s kids. The two are completely seperate and unrelated traits. No wonder this concept is bust.

  79. Evan said in post 120600:
    The greater investment in family offspring by gay men was studied by Bailey and Rahman who found they were not more generous than straights even if they were richer.
    Can you provide a citation for this research? I haven’t been able to find it.

  80. Evan

    This time, natural evolutionary selection might actually return in an uncontrolled way to select out gay genes because the cultural setting allows gay men to pursue sexuality without having any of the ancient constraints.

    I don’t believe in the gay gene but I think you’re right in a specific and general sense. Whatever the reason a gay gene might theoretically exist it wouldn’t last long in the modern environment. Mate choice has completely opened up, gay people are allowed to be gay and family size has plummeted. The mating game has changed forever and whatever fine ballance kept the gay gene (and probably other genes) alive is long gone.

  81. Evan

    In women, most studies show that arousal is less specific, ie they respond to sexual activity in general, but only a tiny fraction identify as exclusively gay. I think female sexuality is different, probably because of how their bodies are projected in the brain.

    Yeah, women have a totally different set of evolutionary forces that shaped their brains. How they work is a total mystery to me. I believe that women are straight but they have this weird ability to shift attraction depending on circumstance. I think it has something to do with creating an environment to raise children. If their mate dies they can pair up with another widowed female to raise the kids.

  82. Evan

    How to explain this mismatch between the continuous distribution of brain sizes but specific sexual response? It demands an explanation. Can some gay men on the side actually be able to be aroused by some women and some straight men by some men?

    Ever since you posted that “When Minnie Turns Mickey” link I’ve been sold on the concept of instincts. I would guess that the slight brain structure differences between gay and straight men are secondary.

  83. Lynn David
    You’re right. In social groups not every male gets to have kids, in fact most don’t. I’ve read that in early hunter/gatherer societies approximately 80% of the women had children while only 20% of the men had children.
    But the problem is that the collected scientific evidence points away from a “gay” gene.
    Dean Hamer says there is no pattern of inheritance

    The pedigree failed to produce what we originally hoped to find: simple Mendelian inheritance. In fact, we never found a single family in which homosexuality was distributed in the obvious pattern that Mendel observed in his pea plants.

    Simon Levay (sorry can’t find the original quote) says that every version of the gay gene theory proposed so far lacks credibility.
    Most importantly twin study after twin study finds very low concordence for SSA. The latest twin study from Sweden found that environment was the number one factor by a wide margin.

    Overall, the environment shared by twins (including familial and societal attitudes) explained 0-17% of the choice of sexual partner, genetic factors 18-39% and the unique environment 61-66%. The individual’s unique environment includes, for example, circumstances during pregnancy and childbirth, physical and psychological trauma (e.g., accidents, violence, and disease), peer groups, and sexual experiences.

    Theory doesn’t trump collected evidence. Homosexuality is largely environmental and personally I don’t buy socialization as a common explanation.
    Side Note:
    Michael Bailey recently said that another large twin study was due out soon.

  84. Lynn David
    Scientists have been looking for a Schizophrenia gene for like 20 years.
    Over 1000 genetic studies conducted (That’s gotta be nearly a billion dollars)
    3,608 potential disease genes discovered (Yeah! we found it…. again)
    In the final analysis only 24 were statistically significant and all (or nearly all) were extremely rare mutations. DOH!
    Gene-Hunters Find Hope and Hurdles in Schizophrenia Studies
    If a trait reduces fertility natural selection konks it in the head every time. It certainly did in the case of Schizophrenia.

  85. Drowssap,
    I don’t buy the greater fertility hypothesis. What about the older brother effect. How could some gay men come from families which had more boys or only boys but still be part of a “stronger X” gene make-up? How come they are gay although the stronger X seems to have done a pretty lousy job at producing more females in their family? More boys in the family, no greater female fertility effect for gays with older brothers. Also, the study this hypothesis is based on was done on a very small sample: Camperio-Ciani’s study surveyed 98 gay men and 100 straight men and found that the mothers of gay men had an average of 2.7 children, while the mothers of straight men averaged 2.3. Sanders and the Northwestern team will address this problem too in their genetic linkage study which must show up anytime soon so we’ll see if it gets confirmed or not in a bigger sample.
    The greater investment in family offspring by gay men was studied by Bailey and Rahman who found they were not more generous than straights even if they were richer.
    I think the effort to explain the persistence of homosexuality in human populations is misguided by the assumption that homosexuality was somehow selected for some direct advantage bestowed on siblings, contributing to greater fertility in the population and not in each individual. It might be the other way around. Homosexuality could be a by-product of another type of selection that operated for both sexes. My bet is on neoteny by means of antagonistic pleiotropy.
    An example: a Russian biologist bred wild foxes, selecting for tame behaviour. After 40 generations the foxes were more docile but had other physical traits which the scientist did not select for, like shorter tails and floppy ears. In a similar thought experiment, we could imagine how a selection for neoteny in humans might produce more good looking females and more juvenile-looking males who are less aggressive and more anxious. That makes women more desirable without actually making them more fertile or more strongly attracted to men — it’s not evolutionarily necessary, because men have pursued women more than the other way around. On the contrary, it makes them more appealing to other males, increasing their chances of having children. This kind of selection does not necessarily need to operate only on individuals in a directly causal way, ie in the same family, it could work indirectly too, in a cross-family effect: more females might be selected for paedomorphic traits in order to become even more attractive because more men might be affected by the same effect in other families, ie being less aggressive, more anxious and more paedomorphic looking. Neoteny might be an evolutionary by-product of humans’ tendency to live in less dangerous environments and more social settings which demanded less aggressiveness and more cooperation. Paedomorphic traits might accompany the selection of less aggressive traits which created a trend towards more pacific and more clustered societies. When ancient decision makers became aware of a marginal decrease in reproduction because of this trend, they might have come up with cultural fixes, which bypassed evolutionary forces by means of arranged marriages. Since women, for the greatest part of human history, have not been given the choice of their mates, any arragement set by males either naturally, ie more dominant males getting the best-looking females by imposing themselves, or culturally, by family arrangements, managed to keep the effect at bay.
    Now, if any such effect is true or a combination of them, then the coming of the open society and of civil rights which gave women equal standing among all members of society might reverse this trend. This time, natural evolutionary selection might actually return in an uncontrolled way to select out gay genes because the cultural setting allows gay men to pursue sexuality without having any of the ancient constraints. Admittedly, some gay men might still have children either by artificial or natural means, but on the whole, I think it would be the beginning of a gradual reduction of the presence of gay genes in the pool. But then culture can be understood to have operated in the past much like technology begins to operate now. It might mean that individuals might come up with individual strategies, based on technological means, from some point onwards.

  86. Drowssap,
    That’s the problem: studies of brain areas or of hemispheres show distributions of sizes, not binary states like either gay or straight brains. This is what LeVay found, this is what Witelson found and this is what Savic found. However, when it came to measuring sexual response in the lab (penis response), most men had specific response, ie it was stronger either for women or for men. How to explain this mismatch between the continuous distribution of brain sizes but specific sexual response? It demands an explanation. Can some gay men on the side actually be able to be aroused by some women and some straight men by some men?
    Also, the brainscanning study you mentioned showed that gay men had a greater response to their preferred stimuli (men) than straight men to theirs (women) and that they were more indifferent to non-preferred stimuli (women) than straights to theirs (men). So gay men appear to be more indifferent to women and more fearful to/aroused by men than straights are to men and women. Possible explanation? It might be that attractions are one thing and how they get processed into arousal it’s really another thing and this latter part is definitely more specific in men, whereas brain sizes and activity can vary more widely.
    In women, most studies show that arousal is less specific, ie they respond to sexual activity in general, but only a tiny fraction identify as exclusively gay. I think female sexuality is different, probably because of how their bodies are projected in the brain. The fact that women are also more prone to stress must be related to why they are attracted to men. Women need more security and that’s probably why evolution programmed their brains to look for men. Maybe that’s what happened to gay men: their brains defaulted to a state in which they handle stress in a feminine way, which makes them more vulnerable to men and indifferent to women.

  87. Drowssap wrote:

    But even without any evidence I would guess that would be true. For men there is absolutely no individual, evolutionary benefit to being gay. Theoretically speaking I don’t know why any guy should be gay… except a few percent are in every generation. Which is why it’s a pretty darned interesting topic.

    Oy vey!! I wish you would get off the individual kick when it comes to evolution. Men are not that important! If you have a tribe started when a man takes over a group of women, then the Y-chromosome is the same for all descendants. So what diversity does a man make in passing on his Y?
    Think of it this way, there are many males of herd animals which do not breed and it does not produce a problem, why? Because all the females are serviced anyway by a smaller number of males. Males of a species are at times less important than females. Mammalian eggs, or rather any one egg is more important than any one sperm. Eggs are produced sparingly and sperm in copious amounts. Thus females are more important to a breeding population than males.
    Note: breeding population. Genetics and evolution are operative on a breeding population. Individual fitness may be important in additive ways in a breeding population; however fitness for those males who breed can accomodate that loss in fitness by those males which do not breed – ie. sperm is cheap. This is not necessarily true in females. Lose a womb, lose precious eggs and a population has lost its avenue towards diversity – fertility.
    So… as I have said time and time again…. if you have a genetic predisposition based upon a “strong” (skewed towards/unmethylated) X-chromosome that produces a propensity for more children to be born and perhaps more female children (vital wombs/eggs) over male children (cheap sperm), then you are increasing a population’s avenue to diversity, you’ve increased fertility. If now this same unmethylated X-chromosome is the cause of 5% of the males having a homosexual orientation (via gene expression) then there need be no lessening of overall population fitness as all females still get bred. If the homosexual male should breed, that male still passes on the “strong” X-chromosome to any daughter, thus his own fitness is expressed in the increased fertility of his daughter.
    As to Exotic Become Erotic (EBE)…. why should there then be homosexually oriented animals? Are we going to anthropomorphise what young sheep might go through? Did the budding homosexual sheep not like to butt heads with his male peers? Did he instead prefer to prance in the buttercups with his sisters? Now how does a sheep go about eroticizing all that?
    Goodnight….. Zzzzzz

  88. Warren or anybody who understands EBE
    Ever since you mentioned “Erotic Becomes Exotic” I’ve been thinking about it. I completely understand and agree with the concept as it applies to straights and inbreeding.
    But gay men? Why would the brain evolve a mechanism that (for any reason including EBE) commonly defaults to lifelong homosexuality? During humanities 250,000 year history being gay has come in handy for spreading DNA precisely zero times. Why would the brain pop out a trait that always reduces or even eliminates fertility in every conceivable environment?
    For an EBE trait to survive there would have to be a beneficial flipside. Men who grew up around lots of other boys would need to produce extra children that survived to adulthood as compared to men who grew up around a typical mix of boys and girls. Something has to make up for the fertility drag of gay men. It doesn’t matter if gay men have 99 children for every 100 that straights have. Even a 1% drag is enough to quickly doom the mechanism without a corresponding benefit.

  89. Evan

    When science finds that out about the complexity of attractions in different individuals, by that time labels will have fallen out of favour with most people.

    For women I dunno what’s going on. But for men I think we’re pretty much straight or gay with not many guys too far inbetween. At least that’s what I’ve always personally felt. Bailey’s brain scan came out and found that out of 100 guys something like 99 were decisively either straight or gay and that sort of backed my assumption up.
    But even without any evidence I would guess that would be true. For men there is absolutely no individual, evolutionary benefit to being gay. Theoretically speaking I don’t know why any guy should be gay… except a few percent are in every generation. Which is why it’s a pretty darned interesting topic.

  90. Drowssap said:

    Why NARTH doesn’t reform it’s platform on the cause of SSA I have no idea. These guys are a lot smarter than us. They must see the handwriting on the wall.

    I was gonna write that. 8) I’ve checked their board and they do have some people with serious academic background. I’m sure they know where the train is headed to and they are aware of the pressure that is on them to start producing some hard facts before they completely run out of business.
    But I don’t think they will cave in. They already allowed for predispositions, as Nicolosi mentioned, so I think they will continue to argue that sexual feelings, especially SSAs, are not inborn but somehow deflected from a usual path. You can’t argue with that much, unless you build an attractometer to measure attractions at each age in children who’ll be found to have all the genetic and biological markers for future homosexuality. But that still won’t prove that “homosexuality” is a clean-cut biological reality, as long as a sizeable portion of gays would be found to have some degree of secondary heterosexual potential (how many gays had kids?). When science finds that out about the complexity of attractions in different individuals, by that time labels will have fallen out of favour with most people. No one will win this “war”, if anyone imagines that. Some ideologies will lose, most probably.

  91. ken
    To me at least Nicolosi comes off as a guy who means well.
    But I think he’s just hanging around waiting to be proven wrong. When he says,

    “they have not come up with a conclusive, biological or genetic foundation. There is suggestive evidence but there’s nothing conclusive at this point.”

    It almost sounds like he believes they’ll find a biological explanation soon enough. Why NARTH doesn’t reform it’s platform on the cause of SSA I have no idea. These guys are a lot smarter than us. They must see the handwriting on the wall.

  92. So far I’ve only seen the 1st two clips. However, they are telling enough. Some key points I noticed.
    1) the comment he made about how gay men he’s worked with remember (emphasis mine) having a bad relationships with their fathers. Memories of early childhood can be very skewed and misrepresent the facts, especially when being recounted to a therapist who is clearly biased towards finding such bad relationships.
    2) He makes misleading claims that current research supports his theories (most of the stuff I’ve read disproves them.) He misrepresents the Spitzer study. Spitzer studied 200 people who claimed to have changed orientation, Spitzer didn’t conclude that they had changed orientation in all cases. The most significant thing Spitzer said was that change might be possible in some cases but more study is needed.
    3) He is drawing his conclusions about gays (in general) from people who are in therapy . Evelyn Hooker showed the problems with that 40 years ago.

  93. Mary
    I think I know what you are talking about. I mean without getting too specific “things” do sort of come and go but I wonder how much has really changed if we had a looooooong view of things. Maybe a certain sex act is taboo for 500 years but then something changes and suddenly it seems really tame.
    But even when “it” was taboo it existed to some degree, maybe even great degree. And when it became UNtaboo everyone still didn’t do “it.” All that changes are the percentage of people involved.
    As for really crazy things like beastiality I’m guessing that somebody would need to have some type of serious brain damage (literally) to be into that.

  94. Drowssap,
    Have you ever noticed how sexual practices change over time?
    I was not talking about finding partners for marriage and reproduction.

  95. Dave G

    We are “Hardwired to Connect” and we all need to love and be loved for who we are.

    I don’t know if a hardwired to connect instinct is a good explanation for SSA.
    In a lot of ways gay men seem more attuned to women than straight men are.

  96. Mary

    Aaaaannnnnd, has anyone ever noticed that sex practices have changed over time in our own culutre???

    Sexual practices have evolved over time, although I wonder if the change is as much as we might guess. Sexual attractions I’m not so sure. Nearly all men (straight, gay and inbetween) of all cultures are attracted to young, healthy, virile partners.
    Women have a different set of evolutionary pressures on their shoulders so I think it works differently. But even among women I would guess that, all others things being equal they would chose young, healthy, virile partners.
    I don’t know what else that could be besides instinctive programming. Nobody agrees on everything and on this one thing 99% of the population is in complete agreement.

  97. Dave G wrote: Human sexuality is surely instinctive, but aberrant sexual behavior (including ‘feelings’ and ‘attractions’) is not. Experience and free will are involved in the gravitation toward SSA, MSM and WSW. So are perceived expectations of peers and significant persons during development.

    So back in the ’60s when I was a shy 10 to 13 years of age in a smallish Hoosier town and had only heard the most virulent talk against homosexuality and was battling against what I felt as puberty’s hot grip ever tightening upon me, my non-experience and my will which was affected by virulent homophobic hate yet gravitated me to an SSA? Or maybe it was the beating or two?

    We can re-fabricate “who we are” if it means obtaining the love we so desperately seek when our basic familial roots have been severed or damaged.

    Perhaps, but my familial roots were in no way damaged when I came out to a friend at the age of 14, I enjoyed a great relationship with my father and mother for that matter.

    Sexual intercourse is a very emotional experience. Thus our brain imprints the memory of that initial experience (or intense fantasy) and it is thereafter associated with any normally experienced physiological sexual desire.

    So why didn’t my first sexual experience with a woman keep me in that camp? Goodness knows I tried to fantisize about women, always bothered me too (at the time) that I had to end with men.

    Yes, there are a number of factors involved in SSA, but they are experience-based, not biological-based.

    How many more cases of gay men like myself and lesbians whose stories cannot in the slightest be due to experience or even psychological factors do you have to hear before you understand how wrong you are?
    Dr T has in the past supplied cases and surely has some newer ones now that track factually in evidence against the “nurture/reparative” ideas.

  98. We’ve been discussing here the work of scientists with an h-index of over 20. The Swedish twins study set the level of parental influence to 0. Nicolosi has to produce some facts to be taken seriously. Case studies don’t cost that much, whatever technology they use.

  99. I doubt that the blind comparison and sexuality are the same link. How many blind from birth homosexuals are there? And it doesn’t take sight to know that it feels good to win. And we will show it in our faces – yep – we all know that feeling – cross culturally, cross sightedness, cross sexuality. The feeling of triumph is not learned.
    If we are to compare those things – then beastility is acceptable sexuality and biologically based- since – it doesn’t matter how you are stimulated – it will feel the same. There must be an emotion attached to sexuality (in most cases) and that is culturally learned – since sex practices varies among cultures and societies. Otherwise we would all be doing the same thing. Aaaaannnnnd, has anyone ever noticed that sex practices have changed over time in our own culutre???

  100. Drowssap:

    Human sexuality like all animal sexuality is rooted in instinctive programming. Our conscious minds regulate it, but the instinct is the core.

    Human sexuality is surely instinctive, but aberrant sexual behavior (including ‘feelings’ and ‘attractions’) is not. Experience and free will are involved in the gravitation toward SSA, MSM and WSW. So are perceived expectations of peers and significant persons during development.
    We are “Hardwired to Connect” and we all need to love and be loved for who we are. We can re-fabricate “who we are” if it means obtaining the love we so desperately seek when our basic familial roots have been severed or damaged.
    Sexual intercourse is a very emotional experience. Thus our brain imprints the memory of that initial experience (or intense fantasy) and it is thereafter associated with any normally experienced physiological sexual desire.
    Yes, there are a number of factors involved in SSA, but they are experience-based, not biological-based.

  101. I guess if I had one question for Dr. Nicolosi it would be this.
    What evolutionary pressure would make male, human sexuality so fragile? According to Nicolosi without a proper father/son relationship (or other relationships) the male mind automatically defaults to lifelong SSA.

  102. Opening quote from Dr. Joseph Nicolosi

    There are a lot of attempts to show that homosexuality is biologically predetermined, they’re looking for a gay gene or biological predetermination. But the fact is they have not come up with a conclusive, biological or genetic foundation. There is suggestive evidence but there’s nothing conclusive at this point.

    I believe Dr. Nicolosi is swimming against the tide of science. Human sexuality like all animal sexuality is rooted in instinctive programming. Our conscious minds regulate it, but the instinct is the core.
    Site Note:
    Another seemingly complex behavior in humans and primates comes down to simple, instinctive programming.
    Study: Winners’, losers’ behavior instinctive
    Ann
    You’ll like the above link because it mentions that blind atheletes act just like sighted atheletes when they win or lose. Like sexuality it’s something we just know.

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