Gayness: Nature or Nurture?

[Phalynx]

I always worry when people call upon the Greeks and Romans to rationalise homosexuality as normal because most of what they engaged in now would be called paedophillia not homosexuality...

The truth of it is man through the ages has used anything warm and living (and ex living, or articiial) to meet his sexual needs. It's not that many years ago that homosexuality was considered deviant... but that deviance is in fact more akin to fetishism and like it or not we are all subject to a bit of fetishism, so it befits noone to get on their high horse.

I think people are being a littlte unfair on Dee. In her culture you can't get much further from good and right than homosexuality (in public in any case). If we're all relativists and we beleive that people largely define their own right and wrong she is entitled to hold that opinion and the fact that she is prepared to question it is to her credit. If only we could all question our preconceived ideas and prejudices openly the world would be an easy place.

So go Dee... nothing wrong with asking the question, and I'm sorry for your loss through what is an evil horrible death.

[Nixit]

One question, how many old gay couples do you know? As far as I know, they keep switching for the young ones. Some fancy the big hairy masculine guys and some fancy the thin weak boys. But what happens to the thin weak boy when he becomes a thin weak man? Who's gonna love him then?

Perhaps the problem lies in the secrecy and the fact that not many places allow gay couples to register their relationship. Therefor there's nothing solid to keep them together.

The only gay couple I know is old.

[Torkess_theCommie]

http://www.jrn.columbia.edu/studentwork ... 10/591.asp

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... 4RAV41.DTL

Well if penguins are gay...

[west]

http://www.jrn.columbia.edu/studentwork/cns/2002-06-10/591.asp

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... 4RAV41.DTL

Well if penguins are gay...

You know they're gay because they're always dressed so well.

[Torkess_theCommie]

lol west

[saztronic]

One question, how many old gay couples do you know? As far as I know, they keep switching for the young ones. Some fancy the big hairy masculine guys and some fancy the thin weak boys. But what happens to the thin weak boy when he becomes a thin weak man? Who's gonna love him then?

Perhaps the problem lies in the secrecy and the fact that not many places allow gay couples to register their relationship. Therefor there's nothing solid to keep them together.

I also know lots of older gay couples that have been together for decades. Most of them -- not all, but most -- laugh at the idea that they need to register their relationships in order for them to be valid. At the risk of sounding trite, what solid thing keeps them together so long? The most solid thing of all: love. What does a piece of paper with a state stamp on it have to do with passion?

As for fancies and such, as Phalynx says, we're all subject to certain desires. I wouldn't go so far as to say that we're all fetishists, but we all have proclivities and weaknesses. It isn't only homosexuals who go for younger, more vital bodies as they grow older. Heterosexuals tend to do the same. Who will love the wispy thin girl when she becomes a frail middle-aged woman? And in any case not all people of either orientation do that. Half of marriages end in divorce. The other half don't.

On the subject of hormones. I read just recently that a study had shown that the more boys in a family, the more likely that the youngest brother will be gay. Nobody knows why, really, but the working hypothesis is that the mother, through successive pregnancies, develops certain antibodies that inhibit the development of masculinity in brain chemistry. It could be some kind of natural defense mechanism to prevent violent competition in communities overpopulated by males, who knows. But it sure sounds more like nature than nurture to me. Dee, to follow your comment on Adam and Eve, who knows what happened to their youngest son? All those sodomites in Sodom and Gomorrah had to come from somewhere.

Finally, the Bonobos. Doesn't anyone know about the Bonobos? They make the penguins look like straitlaced prudes. See these links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonobo#Social_behavior

http://www.bonobo.org/whatisabonobo.html

That second one even has a power point presentation on Bonobo society and sexual behavior. Somebody has too much time on their hands.

[Torkess_theCommie]

One reason why there were probably less homosexuals back then was because the homosexuals were afraid to admit they were homosexual, since society saw homosexuality as a sin, taboo, bad thing, dirty... and I guess the media may have played a role in this too. So I guess, it wasn't less homosexuals, probably less who admitted to their homosexuality, so it seemed like there were less. Well anyways this doesn't answer Dees question, so I'll stop.

[west]

On the subject of hormones. I read just recently that a study had shown that the more boys in a family, the more likely that the youngest brother will be gay. Nobody knows why, really, but the working hypothesis is that the mother, through successive pregnancies, develops certain antibodies that inhibit the development of masculinity in brain chemistry.

*keeps an eye out for his 10-year-old brother, the youngest of five boys*

[the_antisocial_hermit]

On the subject of hormones. I read just recently that a study had shown that the more boys in a family, the more likely that the youngest brother will be gay. Nobody knows why, really, but the working hypothesis is that the mother, through successive pregnancies, develops certain antibodies that inhibit the development of masculinity in brain chemistry.

*keeps an eye out for his 10-year-old brother, the youngest of five boys*

Two of my uncles are.. the two youngest of 4 boys. I'd heard that before, somewhere.

[Torkess_theCommie]

On the subject of hormones. I read just recently that a study had shown that the more boys in a family, the more likely that the youngest brother will be gay. Nobody knows why, really, but the working hypothesis is that the mother, through successive pregnancies, develops certain antibodies that inhibit the development of masculinity in brain chemistry.

*keeps an eye out for his 10-year-old brother, the youngest of five boys*

*does the same for her little brother*

[Nixit]

On the subject of hormones. I read just recently that a study had shown that the more boys in a family, the more likely that the youngest brother will be gay. Nobody knows why, really, but the working hypothesis is that the mother, through successive pregnancies, develops certain antibodies that inhibit the development of masculinity in brain chemistry.

*keeps an eye out for his 10-year-old brother, the youngest of five boys*

*does the same for her little brother*

*and for his little brother as well*

[Phalynx]

On the subject of hormones. I read just recently that a study had shown that the more boys in a family, the more likely that the youngest brother will be gay. Nobody knows why, really, but the working hypothesis is that the mother, through successive pregnancies, develops certain antibodies that inhibit the development of masculinity in brain chemistry. It could be some kind of natural defense mechanism to prevent violent competition in communities overpopulated by males, who knows. But it sure sounds more like nature than nurture to me.

So no-one knows why, so we have to come up with a biological explanation!

The psychosocial and psychodynamic factors that could explain this seem a lot more straight forward. It also goes someway to disproving a genetic explanation as if it was genetic any brother would have an equal chance of homosexualty. There's no science like bad science!

[saztronic]

Oh, sure. It could easily be psychodynamics, that's why I said "No one knows why."

I'm especially treading on thin ice because I don't remember the exact details of the study now, but I think the chance of the youngest being homosexual actually doubled with each successive boy after the second or third. So if the chance was 1 in 10 for everyone, the sixth boy in the family would have a 4 in 10 chance.

The "antibody"hypothesis was that put forward by those who ran the study, but they were just as flummoxed as everyone else really -- they weren't claiming that was the answer, just putting it forward as a "possible." But the dramatic increase they saw with each successive boy suggested a biological cause rather than a social one.

It doesn't really impact genetic theory one way or another. If everyone has a 1 in 10 chance of being genetically hardwired for homosexuality, but certain conditions in the womb can affect which genes get triggered early on in pregnancy, it's still genetic -- just genes as influenced by external biological conditions at a particularly critical developmental moment.

I would just add that, although the article didn't say this, it does fit in with certain other aspects of pregnancy and gestation. It's known that mothers do develop antibodies during pregnancy against what their bodies perceive as foreign tissue -- namely, a whole other person. It's also known that procreation itself is kind of an endless evolutionary dance of body versus body. Women are continually strengthening their defenses against the invasion of foreign genetic material, while men are continually developing stronger biological mechanisms for overcoming those defenses. Trying to avoid getting too graphic, let's just say that there are certain things women produce that are virulently toxic to male genetic material, while in turn, there are things men produce in the medium that carries that material which in turn go some way toward neutralizing that toxicity. So in a sense, every attempt to conceive represents a battle in the ongoing, worldwide war genes fight against each other every day.

Does this make the "antibody" hypothesis about homosexuality described above the right one? No. But it does offer a kind of backdrop of understanding that shows why such a hypothesis might be true. Only good science -- further study and testing, verified by more studies and testing -- would tell us for sure.

[saztronic]

Here's a link to an article about the study, which speaks better for itself than I do for it:

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articl ... 414B7F4945

Here's the first paragraph:

"The number of biological older brothers a boy's mother has carried--whether they live with him in the same household or not--affects his chances of being gay. The findings, reported this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, by Anthony Bogaert of Brock University, lend credence to the theory that it's not the social or rearing factors that influence a man's sexual orientation, but rather prenatal mechanisms that begin in the womb. "

[Phalynx]

Here's a link to an article about the study, which speaks better for itself than I do for it:

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articl ... 414B7F4945

Here's the first paragraph:

"The number of biological older brothers a boy's mother has carried--whether they live with him in the same household or not--affects his chances of being gay. The findings, reported this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, by Anthony Bogaert of Brock University, lend credence to the theory that it's not the social or rearing factors that influence a man's sexual orientation, but rather prenatal mechanisms that begin in the womb. "

Well that makes all the difference doesn't it, I'm more prepared to accept a biological explanation... I wonder about twin studies.. I wonder but I am too lazy to look for them!