An old Facebook status on the Science of Homosexuality
I wrote this back in 2014. My Facebook is typically devoid of interaction just like Steem, because I guess my content is too interesting or whatever. 2014 was right on the cusp before social justice went into overdrive too, so some of my choice of words were, at that time, completely fine through my own eyes.
Unfortunately, I didn't bother with references or anything because... It's facebook. But I'd really like to dig into the studies I was referring to again. If anyone can find them, I'd appreciate it!
Here:
GAY studies have gathered some pretty interesting theories as to how/why homos exist. A lot of it is considered to be genetic but it's definitely not considered as simple as a 'gay' gene. In the same way you wouldn't have a 'tall' gene. It's likely to consist of a variety of different aspects, including habitual and social. For example, Boys who have older brothers are significantly more likely to turn out gay, and apparently for every extra boy child, this chance raises by about another third. This could either or both be due to some kind of social big brother effect, and/or a hormonal effect within the mother, in which various proteins or immune reactions are affected after a first-time male birth. Could be anything really.
The problem is that it doesn't make evolutionary sense. Even if it is beneficial in some way in a Darwinian viewpoint, if those who are gay do not breed, it stands to reason that the gay part of the tree would fade out with those who die without passing on their information. So it seems logical to assume it's NOT genetic, and it's just something else.
However, my favourite theory so far in terms of genetic possibility is roughly this (of which has quite a bit of evidence backing it up but by no means declared proof): Groups of genes called alleles have beneficial effects in reproduction. When passed down to a woman, effects on the woman, providing a positive sense of attraction towards men. The more of this one has, the more attracted they would become. But if this allele is passed on to a male born, it can create a same-sex preference, since it is passing on the same stuff to an opposite sex. If the success rate of this is great enough in the women, there is no reason for it to fade out of the genetic pool, whilst still occasionally passing down to men as the generations go by. Something that has a double purpose, basically. This happens a lot in nature which is why Intelligent Design is basically bulls**t.
The evidence to back this up comes from Italy, where they found female relatives of gays had more children than those related to straight men, implying that the allele is more present and affecting in the gay man's family.
The bottom line is, it really doesn't matter. But it's interesting, and it's science's job to figure out the things we don't know, no matter what those things might be.
(I veto any steemSTEM vote, for obvious reasons)
I note that H. sapiens is a hypersexual species, and like Bonobo, involve sex in literally every social interaction type. We see that various higher species also employ homosexuality in several social mechanisms. In dogs and cats, males establish dominance thereby, and this certainly occurs in H. sapiens as well.
Given the sociopolitical interplay siblings exhibit, my guess would be that this would largely explain the increasing incidence of homosexuality with increasing numbers of male siblings. The more older brothers vying for supremacy in a given household, the more likely homosexual assault is to be a tactic employed.
I don't doubt we'll eventually tag some gene(s) or other as the 'gay' gene, but I'll be extremely skeptical that will tell much of the story at all. The incidence of homosexuality is actually lower than I'd expect in H. sapiens, in view of the bitter struggles for social, political, and economic status males undergo, and the potential of bonds formed thereby to create more powerful military and social groups seeking dominance.
My assumption is that people are as bisexual as culture demands, and that procreative sex is not a primary driver of sexual interaction in our species. That being the case would provide strong contraindication of a particular mutation that increases the likelihood of homosexual orientation.
Were such a genetic failure bomb to have arisen in our DNA, it's negative impact on it's survivability would preclude it being passed on almost completely. What is observed is that social status largely drives homosexual behaviour, and that changes in social status change the behaviour. Increasing incidence of homosexual orientation in males lately indicates that society is more strongly supporting it, and the very concept of 'turning gay' or reforming and becoming heterosexual almost eliminate the possibility that homosexuality is caused by genetics.
Certainly individuals vary in their masculinity and femininity, but we differ in every trait similarly. While biological sex is undoubtedly nature, gender is a social construct.
Thanks!
I agree that a gay gene would not paint much of a picture, but I'd even go as far to say that it might be a bad idea. The problem is, if we find a simple answer, terrible humans (most of us) will immediately jump to a simple 'solution'. A gay gene? Well why can't we just turn it off and cure homosexuality? Like it needs to be cured or something. This is a pretty common thing even in the western world, with thriving businesses built on converting gays back into being straight. I think it's called the Church or something.
I tend to take issue with this often regurgitated statement because it is saying gender was constructed by society, which A) We can't possibly know that and B) It very likely is not a social construct. Aside from a fair amount of research showing that both biology and society are equally involved, 'construct' implies deliberate moves towards a concept, which I find very unlikely that our stone age counterparts would have sat down and discussed such a thing. More likely is that it just happened due to the nature of nature and language. I know this is semantics talking since not many people are literally using the term this way, but it's used so often I felt I should say something =)
I do agree, however, that we can see in other animals similar to us that we are just aggressively sexual as we see fit and in the past I suspect our sexualities were explored far more vividly and openly than we do since the churches came about and started restricting how we think and behave (while they continue to molest thousands and thousands of children). It's a curious thought as to what the percentage of openly gay or bisexual or others would exist if there was no 'social construct' or cultural oppression to speak of. But we'll never know!
Western civilization is not ubiquitous. Plentiful examples of other cultures remain extant, and more were studied in the recent past, before they succumbed. I haven't extensively surveyed them (or, at all) for information on this topic, but note little mention of homosexuality being more pronounced in various other societal milieu.
I do note that it's not only more pronounced in the West presently than elsewhere, it is being mentioned far more. It's being promoted vigorously. Our schools are ever more intensely indoctrinating children, and even sexually altering them before adulthood, even before puberty.
This is how it is being constructed presently.
Thanks!
I don't know if you can describe the Church as something external that came like an alien and oppressed people. Look at how quickly Islam swept the map compared to Christianity, even though all religions spread relatively fast. That's not oppression, I think. That's people adopting it readily and cheerfully. You probably can't blame them, seeing as the alternative to the monogamy religion enforced (at least when it came to one of the sexes) was out and out male competition where Genghis Khan fathered half of Asia and most men were sexless.
a bold subject indeed, alas it's the year of less talk more coding with life's dick up my ass (hahalol, life must be gay then) - i don't really consent to the use of "higher species" relating to sapients though ... (and i probably wont be reading the reply, i just happened to be looking for posts to stick to my remaining autovoters and this is always one of the first places i come a' lookin' ...
I also await posts from @mobbs with bated breath. Let's hope that more support of fact based posts results in more fact based posts.
Thanks!
Yeah this way by far not a fact-based post haha. I just haven't the time to be doing proper posts these days... I have a thousand tabs open collecting over the months...
Well, it wasn't data focused, but it wasn't BS either.
and I relate to having a thousand tabs open. I've crashed my box from it. Used up all the ram.
What if it is epigenetic?
There is more to inheritance and gene expression than just the sequence of the genes themselves.
I doubt I knew the word epigenetic in 2014 tbh
Well this was a question for 2019 mobbs, not 2014 mobbs. :)
Getting inspired to dig in for a new post...
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No, this was not acceptable in 2014. Using "homos" has not been acceptable for quite some time. I'm pretty sure one of my favourite movies from the late 90's actually uses it as a derogatory term. Referring to them as "gays" also wasn't really acceptable. You said 2014, not 1974.
But, yes, clearly there have to be benefits to any genetic variations that can possibly lead to someone becoming homosexual. I think it's likely more than what you pointed out back then. It may increase the survival rate of the entire family if there is a member that's homosexual, for whatever reason. Maybe it helped bring larger families together. Maybe being bisexual increased chances of survival and the same genes that contribute to that can possible increase the chances of homosexuality.
I doubt we'll know any time soon. We're just scratching the surface. But we'll probably have tons of people that claim to have cracked it in the next few years...and possibly even people trying to get rid of it from their genes...
Maybe it's not acceptable in the US but here we have freedom! And we have gay-homos.
I mean, it's acceptable in the sense that Eminem can rap with it and nobody bats an eye. If he used it now he'd have to make a public apology and go into hiding for a few years, or if not, its only a matter of time before he has to retroactively apologize for his earlier albums. I was being facetious anyway.
As for the rest, Yeah I'm under no pretense that there is ever going to be found a single, golden bullet answer to this and similar subjects. These things just aren't as black and white as we'd like. It'll likely be a mix bag of things.
I guess that the post did not get much comments on Facebook judging that it is not a picture of you standing in the bathroom of a five star hotel taking a picture of yourself in the front of a mirrow :)
It is still a very important subject which I guess the scientists are really working hard to come to a unanimous conclusive evidence as to why some prefare same sex relationship while others prefer the opposite. Until then, we just have to wait.
Yeah my facebook was never one for that. I always pruned my friends list down to sub-100, too which might explain it. I don't think I've ever gotten more than about 40 likes =)
That's pretty small circle of friends.
I think that environment definitely has something to do with this, too. Many learned sexual behaviors are found out there and some of them are explained psychologically as consequences of social events. For example, I think that some fetichisms could only develop if the fetish object has some contact with the person in some moment of their life and experiences. That said, you're right, maybe this doesn't matter. Neither does our obsessive interest in knowing where the universe came from. Nice post.
I think there's a difference between our desire to know the universe VS our desire to figure out what gays are. Homosexuality is a deeply personal thing to humans, as is any sexuality - being personal means its none of your business. the Universe is pretty open access by comparison. I'd also point out that our general desire to explore and discover is seemingly in our DNA, with thousands of years of recorded history of this inevitably leading to the Universe. Our obsession with sexuality hardly compared in this regard, and I'd wage it's pretty recent by comparison
!sneeze
You have been infected by the King of Disease!
Will you quarantine yourself?
Or will you spread the plague?
That, or anything that requires people to click the 'read more' button.
😄
I know ants aren't humans, and you know a lot about ants, but ... ants! (the non-breeding ones, specifically).
Also, people who maybe laid down their life for 2 brothers or 8 cousins.
I'm used to thinking of sexual attraction, including gayness, in terms of masculinization or feminization of the brain, so dunno how genes could play a role here (other than by influencing said -nization): do gay people have more gay offspring? (it's quite common for gays to marry and have kids)
You'd think that if the allele both makes people gay and makes females have more children, those would cancel each other out, since some of those extra children will be gays who won't bare children. If there's more extra (straight) children compared to gay children, natural selection would favor the ones that are straight; so basically what I'm trying to say is that the theory might lead to a vicious circle, or just push the question to the next generation instead of answering it.