“We know now that homosexuality is connected to genetics”
That’s certainly news to me. Would be great if true!
Several years ago reading one of Desmond Morris’s books I found his idea that homosexuality was a natural check on population growth intriguing, but also very limited. Aside from the fact that some gay and lesbian people do reproduce it hardly seems like there are enough to prevent the human population from increasing to unsustainable numbers.
Is it possible, though, that being gay, lesbian, bisexual, or even transgender is something that some people just are, and that there’s not a specific reason for it?
There’s some evidence that there’s a genetic component, and some evidence that there are gestational factors, and some evidence that there are cultural factors. “Born this way” is less a statement of biology than it is of self-perception. Which is not to disparage it at all – “born this way” is more-or-less how I perceive my own orientation. But thinking of orientation as essentially genetic is an over-simplification.
It’s an interesting scientific question, but I’ve always been a bit dubious about the born-this-way argument in activism. It’s a rare bigot who cares about what science says on the topic, even if it was as simple as “it’s genetic”. For decades, my attitude has been that in a supposedly free society, it shouldn’t fucking matter what gender(s) someone is sexually and/or romantically attracted to and why. At the very absolute least, it shouldn’t matter legally.
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Is it possible, though, that being gay, lesbian, bisexual, or even transgender is something that some people just are, and that there’s not a specific reason for it?
Part of the mission statement of Science is to explain why thing are the way they are. Your question is like asking “Is it possible that people need vitamin C without there being a reason they need it?”
Why not?
Hey, wow. If I have that ‘variant gene’ notion square…
This ‘male-loving gene’ and ‘female-loving gene’ idea means there’d be a category of folks with a variant gene reinforcing their attraction to the opposite sex, if I have this right.
That makes a lot of sense, IMO. I can identify with that.
The problem is you assume sexual desire is innate - or rather, that the bulk of human sexuality is inborn.
Some aspects of sexuality are certainly biological. The physical aspects of sex, for example, and our responses to various sensations and stimulations. The act itself we of course have an instinctual drive to perform, and certainly we can be susceptible to various influences like pheromones. And yes, can have genetic inclinations to these things.
But other, much more impactful aspects are cultural. Anything mental, anything relating to the rules and “ceremony” of sex is cultural. Moral strictures, exclusivity of partners, mating rituals and courtship, et cetera.
Certainly many cultures actively repressed homosexuality. At the same time, others encouraged it. The ancient Greeks practiced pederasty as a form of educational institution, as did other peoples all across the world in various time periods. Nineteenth century France is notorious for its lesbianism, a product of various burgeoning liberal movements including early Feminism.
In both such situations, it would be unthinkable to believe that every single person who engaged in homosexual acts was doing so because of genetic factors - no, they were swept up in the culture they belonged to. Greek men were expected to “graduate” from their homosexual relationships and go on to have heterosexual ones. French women in the right circles were expected to experiment with lesbianism purely out of vogue - it was the fashionable behavior of the “newly empowered and liberated” women of the day.
Biologically speaking, our bodies can’t really tell the difference between one orifice and another, or between one member and other, very well at all. We’re coded to enjoy certain stimuli, but we’re not coded to care where those stimuli come from. Consequently, what does it matter if sexual gratification comes from one source or another?
If we stripped away all the artificial, cultural limitations; if we erased all our preconceived notions of the “morality” of sleeping with one person or another; if we didn’t have our notions of “beauty” tangled up in arbitrary cultural mores, I suspect we’d all be roughly pansexual. What the hell do your genes care if you get off with a woman or a man? As long as the species continues to reproduce effectively, you can stick your bits anywhere you like, or stick anything in them. So long as the genetic materials get passed down, it doesn’t matter.
Certain factors of sexuality might be coded for. Some people might simply be attracted to one pheremone over another. But to say that our genetics code our exclusive sexual attraction to a single sex? That’s absurd. You might as well say cerain people are genetically attracted to tentacles, or to robots, or to horses.
It’s much more reasonable to believe that homosexuality and heterosexuality are both chiefly culturally determined. Why are “most people” heterosexual, instead of, say, bisexual? What factors can one point to as preventing people from having sex with both sides of the available pool?
Things like religion, or social hierarchy. The most populous and invasive religions on the planet all call homosexuality “an abomination”, so is it any wonder most of the world is heterosexual? Most extant civilizations derived from cultures with strict social hierarchies where inheritence of wealth and power was via children, so it is any wonder that most of the world practices sexual exclusivity and maintains strictly delineated nuclear, rather than communal, families?
Take away the cultural aspects and what is stopping any two people from sleeping together? Their biology? Hell no. Maybe your genes predispose yout to certain arousal triggers, but that hardly precludes you from having sex with those who lack those triggers.
Yea. Whenever someone asks “is X nature or nurture?,” the correct answer is always “no.”
For a long time physical scientists tended to believe/act as if most processes were linear, but that was because they had the mathematical tools to study linear phenomena (its only been fairly recently that non-linear phenomena have become tractable owing to advances in computation). Likewise the universe doesn’t flip a nature/nurture coin, despite the fact that we often do when we study things.
Damn it! The universe just refuses to conform to our ideals!
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Well put. I think it’s especially important with children, they need to get used to who they are in a more open-ended way without getting the idea that their identities are inherent and built in stone. One of my 4 year old son’s best friends is a girl, but I only found this out a couple of weeks after they met. She has short hair and wears similar clothes to boys, but plays with both genders. It was only when I referred to her as ‘he’ to her mom that I found out.
The great thing is, nobody cares. It’s not weird, she’s not special and everyone gets on with being a kid. If she grows up and wants to change her gender, there will presumably be less resistance. If she doesn’t and maybe adopts a more typically feminine style (or doesn’t, and still identifies as a woman), that’s ok too. Even finding out wasn’t odd; you just say “Oh, sorry. She…”.
It may or may not have any effect on where people ultimately identify along the gender and sexually spectrums, but showing kids that you don’t have to prove complete incompatibility with the standard model in order to be different would be nice.
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Nice typo 
Doh! Took me three read throughs of just the excerpt to see that!
BRAIN! Y U NO DETECT ERROR?
Science is all well and groovy, but I’m pretty much fine with, ‘There just are. Now fucking deal with it’.
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The phrasing “connected to genetics” seems to imply that it is not purely genetic, but that genetics is only part of the puzzle.
Which is exactly why I used that phrasing. If you read the article, you’ll see that there’s good evidence to believe that homosexuality has a genetic component and, probably, a fairly complicated one.
However, the evidence doesn’t suggest that’s the only thing at play. And there’s a TON that we still don’t know about this.
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Well, on the other hand, there’s plenty of reason to think that, sometimes/often, traits get passed down not because they’re adaptive but simply because they aren’t maladaptive. In other words, there isn’t a REASON. There’s just lack of a reason not to.
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