Etiology Of Gayness, Born Gay?

[LeCharivari]

^Back when I was first coming out to close friends, teachers, and eventually my family, one thing I noticed was that even if the person I was coming out to didn't react well (which was really the exception rather than the rule), it still changed many things for them. One of the most homophobic friends I had did kind of drop me for a while; only for me later to hear from him signs that he had been doing his best to become more open-minded; we wound up discussing some of the more mainstream gay movies that had been released, etc., etc.

I think when people know that we are real and are people in their daily lives, it makes it much harder to keep a prejudice alive based on ignorance and demonization.

I agree. As a rule (with customers and new friends) I let them get to know me first, and that tiny piece of information that I'm not married because Thai law does not allow us to, comes at the appropriate time.

I'm not sure if I agree, disagree, or if I just take a totally different view on "being out" (I have never actually "come out" as I don't ever recall "being in").

For me, I can't think of an "appropriate time" to let slip that "tiny piece of information" - its all part of "getting to know you, getting to know all about you"* and for me my sexual orientation is just part of who and what I am. Most people I know couldn't care less, any more than they could care about my family tree, my old school tie, or the nicest car I have ever owned. These things either come out or they don't, and personally I don't see any necessity to wave the rainbow flag.

My being gay is as important or unimportant as other people want it to be - its just the way I am, and I would never think about bringing it up in conversation any more than I would think about "discussing some of the more mainstream gay movies" (the only "gay movies" I have ever seen are hardly "mainstream") with anyone. Neither would I think about deliberately avoiding bringing the subject up.

I don't see my being gay as being particularly worth mentioning - that way maybe others who know me (or get to know me) will see it the same way; that's my "political 'activist' " (or non-activist) contribution.

(*: hopefully the song's not banned!)

[Ijustwannateach]

^It's possible depending on age, country, family, friends, and region for a person never to have grown up with homophobia dictating 'closeted' behaviour, but most people who grew up in native-English-speaking countries who are over 30 today have experienced something of it, and therefore 'coming out' has been rather a big deal and a risk for those people- you apparently have little experience of this kind of oppression.

I believe that Endure has mentioned before here in the forum having been personally attacked by homophobes and having known people who were permanently injured because of their bravery in being open about their sexuality in the face of such public hostility.

So for a large group of people- to get things back to the topic- dealing with the effects or aftereffects of the closet/homophobia is another element in the picture of what their gayness means.

Thailand has relatively little active homophobia (in the sense of active hostility or disgust, not to mistake this for general acceptance by 100% of the public) and I am sometimes quite reluctant even to hint to Thais or other Asians what that has meant for many gay foreigners- I wouldn't want it to catch on as some foreign fad.

[LeCharivari]

There are no "statistics" or "studies" that show with any certainty at all that being gay is "genetic" - none of the studies that puts this forward as a theory has ever made any attempt to address the basic tenet of Darwinism that genes are inherited, so if there was a gay gene the numbers would decline with each generation, which clearly has not been happening.

To specifically address the point in the snippet, you noted that if there was a "gay" or "gayness" gene/s it would have died out many generations ago.

No, that is not what I said. What I said was that it would decline - just as , for example, the X-linked recessive gene for DMD declines as it is only passed down on the female side of the family. The decline is not a direct 50% (or more accurately 49.75%), but it is quantifiable which is why it is far from "absolutely, totally, irrelevant" and why it needs to be addressed if these studies are to be taken seriously and not just be pure speculation.

...... Also - permit me to be petty here - it's not "a basic tenet of Darwinism that genes are inherited". Darwin had never heard of genes. But I do get your point.

.....

Having gays in populations might have meant non-breeding individuals who could help provide for others in their families and societies without even making more mouths to feed.... meaning it's an advantage for populations to have gays. Also, it's very possible that having a gay child for some biological reason makes women more fertile... so they end up passing on even more of the genetic material (with more offspring).

Sorry, but although Darwin and Wallace were unaware of the formal science and terminology of genetics as the term wasn't coined until 40 years later, their joint paper of 1858 and Darwin's Origin of the Species of 1859 described this in detail as a key part of evolution and natural selection. Mendel never used the term either, as it wasn't popularized until used by Bateson in 1906, but that doesn't stop Mendel being recognised as the first person to make a scientific study of what went on to be called genetics. If you look at virtually any recognised studies of the "gay gene" you'll find that they invariably refer to the "Darwinian paradox", which is what I was referring to.

Anything is "possible", but to be probable it must be supported either by scientific fact or scientific study, or, as a poor second best, by being the most likely possibility.

The possibility that "having a gay child for some biological reason makes women more fertile" has been studied, with one study finding that mothers of gay men had an average of 2.7 children while those of exclusively straight children had an average of 2.3 children. The problem with the study was two-fold: firstly, it relied on mathematical modelling rather than statistics, and the statistics they did have were from a small self-selected group (under 200 gay and straight men) making the study of little scientific value except as a hypothesis, and secondly (and possibly more importantly as it applies to any such study) they ignored the very real possibility that the size of families influenced whether some children grew up to be gay (nurture over nature).

The idea that "it's an advantage for populations to have gays"...."who could help provide for others in their families and societies without even making more mouths to feed" is rather contrived as a method of having "providers" who wouldn't have children. A far simpler solution genetically, and one which would have been far more effective and less divisive, would have been to have a "sterile gene" passed to a proportion of males down the female line instead of any "gay gene".

The danger with any of these studies that come up with these possibilities is that the facts are often cherry-picked to support a conclusion that has already been made, rather than studying the facts to reach an objective conclusion. I am not saying that there is anything wrong with doing the research, or anything wrong with the hypothesis that it is "natural" (for whatever reason) for people to be gay - far from it. What I am saying is that anyone relying on this sort of "evidence" to make gays accepted legally or socially is dreaming.

[LeCharivari]

^It's possible depending on age, country, family, friends, and region for a person never to have grown up with homophobia dictating 'closeted' behaviour, but most people who grew up in native-English-speaking countries who are over 30 today have experienced something of it, and therefore 'coming out' has been rather a big deal and a risk for those people- you apparently have little experience of this kind of oppression. .....

As I have said before, on more than one occasion, I have no experience of homophobia directed either to myself or to anyone I know, nor have I ever seen it directed to anyone. I realise that that was probably very unusual, as I was born and raised in England over 50 years ago, went to school in England, and served in the British Army before retiring here 18 years ago, but that's simply the way it was. As I have also said before, I realise that I was lucky.

Having said that, a number of boys at school were clearly gay rather than "experimenting" but there was no discrimination against them by either the staff or other pupils that I was aware of (and some were close friends). In the Army homosexuality wasn't just not permitted (at the time) but it was a Court-Martial offence, but the subject was never raised even though I am sure that those around me couldn't have failed to draw the obvious conclusion - we all simply had more important things to get on with. When I told my Superintending Clerk to change my registered religion from Catholic to Buddhist, for example, he didn't bat an eyelid and no-one ever mentioned it to me. I have only ever been asked if I was gay since coming to Thailand: once by a Thai lady who wanted to marry and sleep with me (not necessarily in that order) and once by a Dutch lady who wanted to sleep with anyone (and did) and who wanted to know why I wasn't interested. In both cases they had the maturity to laugh and remain friends when I just raised an eyebrow and asked if they were blind.

I know many others have had a very different experience, but I am simply relating my own.

While discrimination and homophobia can be legislated away, the only way that it will ever actually go away is by people accepting other people because of their personal example. A prime example is the position of women in the British Armed Forces, where whatever may be directed in the name of "Equality and Diversity" (the branch covering gays, lesbians, religious and racial minorities, etc) what really counts is what people actually do. In the case of women, despite their being officially excluded from direct combat roles, that includes the three most dangerous jobs in the army: bomb disposal officers (ATOs), IED dog handlers and combat medics (CMTs, including RN medics with the Royal Marines).

As I've said before, ""The public" couldn't care less about "etiology" or "scientific opinion" .... What people care about is what they understand and what they can relate to, and that isn't gay genes or political activism, its PEOPLE. Less Fred Karger and more Mark Bingham."

[R7BKK]

Still a lot of significant inaccuracies in the genetics discussions here. I realize they might bore most of the people on this thread to tears so I'll try to be brief.

LeCharivari, I'm sure you're a very intelligent person, but you're clearly not a geneticist. (I'm not either, but evolution and, to a lesser extent, genetics are the two areas of biology I'm well informed enough about to talk pretty confidently on.)

To specifically address the point in the snippet, you noted that if there was a "gay" or "gayness" gene/s it would have died out many generations ago.

No, that is not what I said. What I said was that it would decline

Still, I'll just reitireate what FWIW said. "Not according to modern genetics." The frequency of gayness doesn't have to decline. There are many reasons. Some of them are already mentioned in the posts above. There are more.

Sorry, but although Darwin and Wallace were unaware of the formal science and terminology of genetics as the term wasn't coined until 40 years later, their joint paper of 1858 and Darwin's Origin of the Species of 1859 described this in detail as a key part of evolution and natural selection.

It's been a long time since I read On the Origin of Species, but I can tell you very clearly that this is not true. Darwin had no clue about the overall concept of genetics. That was the big missing puzzle piece. He had a basic understanding that like begets like (as did everyone else). It was obvious looking at animal breeding or even in human families. He had no clue how inheritance worked and spent the next few decades until his death grasping at straws and developing a really wacky elaborate theory that is laughable today. Well, it was laughable at the time too... he had no evidence and it was just weird. Mendel came very close - and about at the same time. He did discover the basic concept of genetics. But no one put Darwin's and Mendel's idea together until many decades later... during WWII. That was one of the biggest moments in modern science. It's called the 'modern evolutionary synthesis' and basically revolutionized biology and is why we can have conversations like this today.

If you look at virtually any recognised studies of the "gay gene" you'll find that they invariably refer to the "Darwinian paradox", which is what I was referring to.

Fair enough. That is why I said, "But I do get your point." The big picture is more important than the details of the history.

[R7BKK]

The possibility that "having a gay child for some biological reason makes women more fertile" has been studied, with one study finding that mothers of gay men had an average of 2.7 children while those of exclusively straight children had an average of 2.3 children.

I realize this has been studied. That's why I mentioned it. The examples I gave were ones I could think of off the top of my head and there have been multiple studies that came to the conclusion having a gay child might make women more fertile.

The problem with the study was two-fold: firstly, it relied on mathematical modelling rather than statistics, and the statistics they did have were from a small self-selected group (under 200 gay and straight men) making the study of little scientific value except as a hypothesis, and secondly (and possibly more importantly as it applies to any such study) they ignored the very real possibility that the size of families influenced whether some children grew up to be gay (nurture over nature).

I don't know the details of the studies -- just their basic conclusions -- but what you mention above is how population genetics is done. More or less. It's not "mathematical modelling rather than statistics". It's both. You use statistical data and plug it into different models to see which one is the right fit. The rest of your points though, I'm very much in agreement with. These kinds of studies on behaviour and other fuzzy areas (like intelligence) are notorious for being horribly flawed and twisted to fit different researchers' agendas. There's good reason to be leery of them.

The idea that "it's an advantage for populations to have gays"...."who could help provide for others in their families and societies without even making more mouths to feed" is rather contrived as a method of having "providers" who wouldn't have children. A far simpler solution genetically, and one which would have been far more effective and less divisive, would have been to have a "sterile gene" passed to a proportion of males down the female line instead of any "gay gene".

This isn't how evolution works. The "far simpler solution" above is based on a teleological view of evolution. Evolution isn't some grand design. The most famous metaphor for explaining it is Stephen Jay Gould's - evolution is a bush not a ladder. It's not working step by step towards a perfect ending. It's messy and branching, a lot of times in random ways. Mother Nature just throws things at a wall. Some of them stick - with or without evolutionary advantages - some of them don't.

The danger with any of these studies that come up with these possibilities is that the facts are often cherry-picked to support a conclusion that has already been made, rather than studying the facts to reach an objective conclusion. I am not saying that there is anything wrong with doing the research, or anything wrong with the hypothesis that it is "natural" (for whatever reason) for people to be gay - far from it. What I am saying is that anyone relying on this sort of "evidence" to make gays accepted legally or socially is dreaming.

Well, general scientific opinion based on the evidence we have now points to a probability that genetics plays a big role - we're born this way. You have no argument from me though that these kinds of studies are far from air tight. Sociobiology is one of the most flawed fields of science out there. It's good to have someone playing devil's advocate in this area - someone who doesn't have a malicious agenda like many of the naysayers (e.g. religious fundamentalists who campaign against fundamental human rights for gays on a notion of choice).

[LeCharivari]

LeCharivari, I'm sure you're a very intelligent person, but you're clearly not a geneticist. (I'm not either, but evolution and, to a lesser extent, genetics are the two areas of biology I'm well informed enough about to talk pretty confidently on.) .....

It's been a long time since I read On the Origin of Species, but I can tell you very clearly that this is not true. Darwin had no clue about the overall concept of genetics..... He had no clue how inheritance worked and spent the next few decades until his death grasping at straws and developing a really wacky elaborate theory that is laughable today. Well, it was laughable at the time too... he had no evidence and it was just weird. Mendel came very close - and about at the same time. He did discover the basic concept of genetics. But no one put Darwin's and Mendel's idea together until many decades later... during WWII.

I have never claimed to be either a geneticist or intelligent. Professor Richard Dawkins, FRS, FRSL, , however, author of The Selfish Gene and The God Delusion, is undeniably both and in his introduction to a recent edition of Darwin's The Descent of Man he writes that "In particular, it is hard to overstate the fact that Darwin's genetics were pre-Mendelian (Gregor Mendel, 1822-84, did not live to see himself revered as the father of genetics)." Your confidence in how well informed you are may be a little shaken once you have read his view!

I don't know the details of the studies -- just their basic conclusions -- but what you mention above is how population genetics is done. More or less. It's not "mathematical modelling rather than statistics". It's both.

You may not have noticed it so much in this thread, but I am afraid that one of my pet hates is people reading a third party's opinion or summary of what someone else has said or written and accepting that as an honest, unbiased version of the original - particularly when the original is easily available. What the original actually said and what someone else says it said are often two totally different things. If you click on the link I gave you can read the full original report and "details of the studies" where the authors make it very clear that this study (widely accepted as the most authoritative recent study) is very much based on "mathematical modelling rather than statistics" - not exclusively mathematical modelling, but primarily.

This isn't how evolution works.

Agreed - I was simply giving an alternative and equally plausible option.

Well, general scientific opinion based on the evidence we have now points to a probability that genetics plays a big role - we're born this way. You have no argument from me though that these kinds of studies are far from air tight. Sociobiology is one of the most flawed fields of science out there. It's good to have someone playing devil's advocate in this area - someone who doesn't have a malicious agenda like many of the naysayers (e.g. religious fundamentalists who campaign against fundamental human rights for gays on a notion of choice)

I agree 100% - I am quite sure "we're born this way" and that at least part of the reason is genetic.

My reasons for arguing against the "gay gene / evolution" hypothesis so strongly is not that I disagree with it per se, but that I disagree with using it as "facts" to "argue against ... our enemies" because I don't see it as being an argument that can actually achieve anything for two simple reasons:

First, it isn't "fact" - it is little more than a possibility and at best no more than a weak probability based on our current knowledge. It may become a stronger probability in the future and it may even become established as fact, but by that time I am confident that it will no longer be needed as an effective argument for "gay rights".

Secondly, even if it were established as fact by the scientific community tomorrow that wouldn't make any difference to "our enemies" - if they don't accept the scientific evidence that "Three thousand years is just a blip on the radar. Homo sapiens have been around for 200,000 years or so. Homos have been around for about 2.5 millions years. (I mean the genus Homo... but the other sense of the word is probably true too)" there is little possibility of their accepting this scientific evidence.

According to a relatively recent (2001-2004) Gallup poll 45% of Americans believe that "God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so" while only 37% believe that "human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process" and only 14% believe that "human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God had no part in this process". What is the point in trying to use any scientific argument under these circumstances?

I don't have a "malicious agenda" as has been implied before (not by you!) but I do think that using this argument to support "gay rights" is the wrong agenda because it won't work. What I think will work is our being accepted for who we are, as people who deserve equal rights. As sbk pointed out, the "black community" didn't need any such evidence to show that they deserved their human rights, and neither did the female community - surely the "gay community" can show that its members have earnt and deserve the same rights without having to resort to dragging up some unproven scientific hypothesis that few people understand and even less accept?

Edited July 22, 2011 by LeCharivari

[Ijustwannateach]

I have previously posted my 'ideal' about genes and homosexuality on this thread- which is the notion that the genetic component, such as it possibly might be, of the behaviour is complex, multi-allele and possibly merely fixing behaviours controlled by OTHER body systems or genes, all of which may be influenced by environmental factors. To that extent, it might be extremely indirect and hard to suss out, while still having a biologically deterministic component.

One might model this on looking for genetic components to other complex behaviours, such as the genetic tendency to be attracted to blue-eyed redheads, or the genetic tendency to be able to play the ukulele well. Some obvious questions arise based on local environment and genetics both- and even though the son of a famous ukulele player might himself be able to play well, could we find the 'gene' that allows for this? What if one grew up in Thailand- how many blue-eyed redheads would be around? Would the 'gene' die out? Would Thais be unable to be attracted to blue-eyed redheads?

Genetic complications are famously complicated and often non-intuitive. One of the more famous cases is the continued existence of sickle-cell anemia in some African-derived populations, which has been shown to be reinforced by its historical contribution to malarial resistance- in that case a gene which has a directly negative affect on the lives of 25% of those populations does not decline, antiintuitively, because of its other benefits.

Another case of indirectness and anti-intuitiveness is that in many colonial insects (honeybees, for instance) most of the population does not breed; however, their genetic closeness rewards them anyway for the service of the one dedicated breeder: the queen. And yet bees have been a successful species (until recently, what with bee mites and/or microwaves wiping them out) in which this reproductive pattern was maintained over gazillions of years with no signs of it being selected against or the genes maintaining it declining.

I mention this last one deliberately (as I do often in reference to discussions of gay genetics) because it is a direct and extreme example of genetically-reinforced populations in which most individuals do not breed.

[R7BKK]

I don't have a "malicious agenda" as has been implied before (not by you!) but I do think that using this argument to support "gay rights" is the wrong agenda because it won't work. What I think will work is our being accepted for who we are, as people who deserve equal rights. As sbk pointed out, the "black community" didn't need any such evidence to show that they deserved their human rights, and neither did the female community - surely the "gay community" can show that its members have earnt and deserve the same rights without having to resort to dragging up some unproven scientific hypothesis that few people understand and even less accept?

I agree that the humanistic factors are probably much more powerful. At least for changing hearts, if not minds. Science doesn't really pull on anyone's heartstrings.

By the way, I'm both a huge fan and huge critic of Richard Dawkins. Big fan of his politics/philosophy. Big fan of his science - because I think his ideas are brilliant, though not necessarily right. He does have strong critics, number one being the equally brilliant Stephen Jay Gould, who I mentioned in the previous post and tend to side with. I'm a huge detractor of Dawkins' bumbling when he wanders into the social sciences and starts talking about cultural evolution...with misguided, simplistic and dangerous ideas about how he can apply his biological concepts in genetics and evolution to culture.

Dawkins also happens to be one of the people who propagate the idea that gay men may have been reproducing historically, perhaps with easy access to women because their husbands/mates assume the gay guys aren't a sexual threat, which he colourfully calls the "sneaky fuc_ker theory".

Edited July 22, 2011 by R7BKK

[R7BKK]

Another case of indirectness and anti-intuitiveness is that in many colonial insects (honeybees, for instance) most of the population does not breed; however, their genetic closeness rewards them anyway for the service of the one dedicated breeder: the queen. And yet bees have been a successful species (until recently, what with bee mites and/or microwaves wiping them out) in which this reproductive pattern was maintained over gazillions of years with no signs of it being selected against or the genes maintaining it declining.

I mention this last one deliberately (as I do often in reference to discussions of gay genetics) because it is a direct and extreme example of genetically-reinforced populations in which most individuals do not breed.

Yes, great example. It's a really easy one for people to understand.

[Ijustwannateach]

Another case of indirectness and anti-intuitiveness is that in many colonial insects (honeybees, for instance) most of the population does not breed; however, their genetic closeness rewards them anyway for the service of the one dedicated breeder: the queen. And yet bees have been a successful species (until recently, what with bee mites and/or microwaves wiping them out) in which this reproductive pattern was maintained over gazillions of years with no signs of it being selected against or the genes maintaining it declining.

I mention this last one deliberately (as I do often in reference to discussions of gay genetics) because it is a direct and extreme example of genetically-reinforced populations in which most individuals do not breed.

Yes, great example. It's a really easy one for people to understand.

Thanks... I think it also illustrates the ease with which people can accept incredibly alien life patterns as long as they are couched in the familiar. One of the arguments which I frequently encounter from intolerant types who like to dress up their homophobia in intellectual argument is that 'homosexuality isn't natural' (a claim which made at face value earns warnings from me anywhere on the forum, by the by, at least if I see it- do feel free to call my attention to such incidents if they are up for long)- but when you start pointing out these extreme examples from nature, it kind of takes the wind out of the sail of such arguments (at which point things usually get more tiresomely religious in tone).

Nature does EVERYTHING that works, and tries a lot that doesn't work out too. There are parasites that eat fish tongues and sit in the place of the tongue to get a constant food supply. There are colonial mammals (mmmmmm, the naked mole-rats, gotta love 'em- don't read about them if you don't have a strong stomach). There are the well-known dust-mites that eventually make up high percentages of the mass of our pillows and mattresses eating our skin flakes, but there are also dust-mite *predators* that roam the pillows consuming them. The angler-fish (another bizarre beauty) females find a suitable mate- the males are much smaller- and after the first mating the male is partly subsumed into the female's body, where he begins to share her blood supply and therefore no longer needs to eat. And, there are colonial groups of thousands of slave-drones who serve an egg-laying monster several times their size, who is the only one of the group that gets to have any sex. Hermaphroditic worms... Colonial-polyp organisms called 'portuguese men o' war'....

And they want to tell me *homosexuality* is unnatural? Please.... the clincher is that homosexual activity is, well, rife among the bonobo chimps who are our closest living genetic links to other species... (not to mention among dozens if not hundreds of other species studied).

Since I know I'm preaching to the choir I'll just wind up the sermon now...

[LeCharivari]

By the way, I'm both a huge fan and huge critic of Richard Dawkins. Big fan of his politics/philosophy. Big fan of his science - because I think his ideas are brilliant, though not necessarily right. He does have strong critics, number one being the equally brilliant Stephen Jay Gould, .....

The "Darwin Wars" between Dawkins and Gould were used by the creationists for their own ends, often quoting Gould totally out of context to discredit Darwinism; their disagreements were also often exaggerated and Dawkins has actually recognised the validity of many of Gould's arguments such as punctuated equilibrium (some, unfortunately, only after his death in 2002).

One of Gould's "pet hates" was pseudoscience, which is how he would probably have described most of the arguments for and against homosexuality being genetically "natural" (including all the studies cited here) and he openly admitted that ”unconscious or dimly perceived finagling is probably endemic in science, since scientists are human beings rooted in cultural contexts, not automatons directed toward external truth”.

Personally I found Darwin very hard going when I read his papers a long time ago as they were so "of their time", but I find his travel journals far more readable and interesting . I was the Field Leader on Project Wallace (the RESL and LIPI expedition, 25 years ago), which made me interested in Alfred Wallace and although their views are very similar I find Wallace not only far more readable but I prefer his view of natural selection to Darwin's: Darwin puts far more emphasis on the "survival of the fittest" and competition between individuals, while Wallace puts the emphasis on environmental pressure forcing species to adapt.

[LeCharivari]

And they want to tell me *homosexuality* is unnatural? Please.... the clincher is that homosexual activity is, well, rife among the bonobo chimps who are our closest living genetic links to other species... (not to mention among dozens if not hundreds of other species studied).

You need to research your own "intellectual argument" rather more carefully, IJT, or some of these "intolerant types" could turn your own arguments against you (and the rest of us) very easily indeed.

The argument that what is "natural" for another species is also "natural" for humans is a very dangerous one, particularly if you make the mistake of picking one particular species - in this case the bonobo. If you are saying that what is "natural" for bonobos is also "natural" for us, then you are putting homosexuality on the same level as the bonobo's other "natural" traits, sexual and social - something that would make any reasonably well-informed homophobe's day.

First, sexual behaviour. Bonobos are rarely strictly homosexual - they are generally bi-sexual, indulging in sex with any bonobo who happens to be nearby for virtually any reason, almost regardless of age, sex, or family relationship. The only reported "taboo" is between mothers and their adult sons, although there is no problem over mothers with their immature sons (or daughters), fathers with sons or daughters (mature or immature), brothers with sisters (or brothers) and adults with any immature male or female or any other combination. There are no permanent relationships or pairings, and sex is often a communal activity.

Do you seriously want to argue that this "natural" sexual activity in bonobos is your justification for similar "natural" sexual activity in humans?

Second, social behaviour. Bonobos have been seen to practice cannibalism, including as a group activity. Again, are you advocating that what is "natural" for them makes it "natural" for us?

What is supposed to set us apart from other animals is not only our opposable thumbs (many other animals have similar digits, from monkeys and apes to bears, frogs and birds) or our ability to make and use tools (again, many other animals can) but our ability to know right from wrong, to set acceptable standards of behaviour. Most of us like to think that humans have moved on from the Lord of the Flies.

"Natural", even according to any full dictionary definition, doesn't just mean something which is "according to the laws or course of nature" but something which is "acceptable", "in accordance with behavioural or social norms" and "consisent with what is reasonable or expected".

If the "clincher" in your argument is that what's "natural" for the bonobos is "natural" for us then I hope you make it clear that that is your view, and that you are not speaking for the choir or anyone else.

[Nonja]

Okay, let's be as well hung for a sheep as a lamb. Regarding uterine environment, some evidence suggests (and I have run away from home and no longer have my references) that a woman's first child, regardless of gender, gets an extra shot of testosterone. I guess after that it's a sliding scale.

Thank you for an interesting post.

[sbk]

Um, frankly LC, I don't see your point at all. I disagree that people will actually study the sexuality of bonobos to use as an argument or that people in general would even pay attention.

It seems to me that if people can work their minds around the sexual practices that take place in the animal world they can work their minds around the ones that take place in the human.

[LeCharivari]

Maybe I misunderstod Ijt's post, sbk - I understood him to mean that the "clincher" to his argument that homosexuality was natural "is that homosexual activity is, well, rife among the bonobo chimps who are our closest living genetic links to other species... (not to mention among dozens if not hundreds of other species studied)."

Studies of the sexuality of bonobos (and other animals) have been used as an argument both for and against homosexuality being "natural" for humans by quite a number of people, and I took Ijt's post to mean that this was a "clincher" argument he himself had used.

The best article I am aware of which highlights the controversy over the argument was a 9 page article published in The New York Times last year, with the most recent article being published in The Telegraph today (24 July)

According to the National Geographic in an article published seven years ago "cases of animal homosexuality have been cited in successful court cases brought against states like Texas, where gay sex was, until recently, illegal" and they refer specifically to the bonobo (as do most of the arguments) and to Frans de Waal's book (Bonobo:the Forgotten Ape) concluding that "The fact that homosexuality does, after all, exist in the natural world is bound to be used against people who insist such behavior is unnatural."

The Stonewall Inn paid enough attention to the argument to re-publish a 700 page book ( Biological Exuberance ) on the subject, which is apparently not "a tub-thumping activist tract hitched to the need for acceptance of homosexuality among humans" but a "good read", although I have only read the reviews.

My point was that I don't think that homosexual behaviour in animals is a valid argument to justify human homosexuality, which is how some of the gay lobby have used it and how I thought Ijt was using it - although I do think it may well help us to understand human homosexuality and help some to accept it, as you say. Maybe the National Geographic put the argument against its use better than me:

"Yet scientists say we should be wary of referring to animals when considering what's acceptable in human society. For instance, infanticide, as practiced by lions and many other animals, isn't something people, gay or straight, generally approve of in humans. "

.

Edited July 24, 2011 by LeCharivari

[isanbirder]

I dropped out of this thread a while ago because I felt it was getting beyond me! I even had to look up etiology (a big word for a simple idea (finding out the reason for something)) despite being a former classical scholar. But when it came to bonobos, I couldn't keep quiet any more.

Like most of you, I believe gayness is something we are born with. I think of human sexuality as something like a bell-curve, with the gays at one end and the lesbians at the other. Bisexuals will be nearer the gay or lesbian end depending on whether the 'gayness' in them is nearer or further from 100%. But as a Christian, I think human beings have something which no other animals have, which I would call a soul; you may call it the x-factor if you like. This gives us the ability to do and to distinguish between good and evil, which animals do not have (I am not a Stephen Jay Gould or a Richard Dawkins, but I am a naturalist, and will defend that proposition if need be). Bonobos may be cannibalistic if that is in their nature, and sexually random if that is in their nature; it is not wrong for them, or right for that matter; it is simply their nature.

Therefore any comparison with what animals do is completely irrelevant.

Etiology means finding out why we are gay. Interesting, when that is what is being discussed, but of no importance to me whatsoever. As I've said on other threads, Here we are, we are gay, now let's get on to the next thing.

[Ijustwannateach]

I'm not going to answer LCV's post in detail because I believe it is disingenuously intended; however, I will confirm that I am not making the simple equation 'human = bonobo', nor would most well-meaning posters infer that- the argument that this is some kind of gateway logic to justifying incest, child abuse, bestiality, and/or cannibalism is more commonly found among conservative far-right wackos, and they are not my audience. My point was simply to state that arguments based on the tropes that 'homosexuality is not natural because it isn't found in nature' and/or 'homosexuality is not natural because it doesn't produce offspring' are laughably wrong. And these are very popular soundbite memes among the homophobic conservative nutjob masses.

To that extent, I think it is very important indeed that the public is more aware that homosexual behaviour DOES occur in other animal species, and that in fact a whole variety of sexualities exist whether in closely or distantly related species. To that extent, one can't say that the existence of more sexual variety in our own species is inherently 'against nature' because the notion that there is some 'standard' natural sexuality is itself a figment of ignorance.

[LeCharivari]

I dropped out of this thread a while ago because I felt it was getting beyond me! I even had to look up etiology (a big word for a simple idea (finding out the reason for something)) despite being a former classical scholar. But when it came to bonobos, I couldn't keep quiet any more.

Like most of you, I believe gayness is something we are born with. I think of human sexuality as something like a bell-curve, with the gays at one end and the lesbians at the other. Bisexuals will be nearer the gay or lesbian end depending on whether the 'gayness' in them is nearer or further from 100%. .....

.....Therefore any comparison with what animals do is completely irrelevant.

Etiology means finding out why we are gay. Interesting, when that is what is being discussed, but of no importance to me whatsoever. As I've said on other threads, Here we are, we are gay, now let's get on to the next thing.

The problem, for me, with the comparisons with what animals do is that its a case of "cherry-picking" the parts which suit and overlooking the parts which don't, and the worst offenders aren't the Christian right but the gay lobby and in some cases this has back-fired. In contrast to Biological Exuberance, which I referred to above, Joan Roughgarden's Evolution's Rainbow was lambasted by the critical reviews as her argument was very much that what was "natural" for animals was "natural" for us and it was her book which was largely responsible for highlighting this controversy relatively recently, not the homophobes.

(.... and although yet another of my many "pet hates" is anyone using "a big word for a simple idea" when it just confuses the issue your "bell-curve" is officially the KInsey Scale - as you probably already know!).

[FWIW]

There are no "statistics" or "studies" that show with any certainty at all that being gay is "genetic" - none of the studies that puts this forward as a theory has ever made any attempt to address the basic tenet of Darwinism that genes are inherited, so if there was a gay gene the numbers would decline with each generation, which clearly has not been happening.

To specifically address the point in the snippet, you noted that if there was a "gay" or "gayness" gene/s it would have died out many generations ago.

No, that is not what I said. What I said was that it would decline - just as , for example, the X-linked recessive gene for DMD declines as it is only passed down on the female side of the family. The decline is not a direct 50% (or more accurately 49.75%), but it is quantifiable which is why it is far from "absolutely, totally, irrelevant" and why it needs to be addressed if these studies are to be taken seriously and not just be pure speculation.

I think the choice of DMD as an example in this context is perhaps not the best. You might like to think of, say, Sickle cell anaemia where there is a clear deficit to homozgotes, but a clear benefit to heterozygotes. In this case the selective pressure exerted on the heterozygotes is what keeps it in the gene pool at high levels.

[isanbirder]

The problem, for me, with the comparisons with what animals do is that its a case of "cherry-picking" the parts which suit and overlooking the parts which don't, and the worst offenders aren't the Christian right but the gay lobby and in some cases this has back-fired. In contrast to Biological Exuberance, which I referred to above, Joan Roughgarden's Evolution's Rainbow was lambasted by the critical reviews as her argument was very much that what was "natural" for animals was "natural" for us and it was her book which was largely responsible for highlighting this controversy relatively recently, not the homophobes.

(.... and although yet another of my many "pet hates" is anyone using "a big word for a simple idea" when it just confuses the issue your "bell-curve" is officially the KInsey Scale - as you probably already know!).

Thank you, LeC; I should have remembered it was called the Kinsey Scale. I think the advantage of this model is that it includes all the intermediates, whereas most of what has been written on this thread suggests there is a great gulf fixed between gay and non-gay.

I've deleted my own post from your quote because you omitted the bit about human beings having something which makes them different from all other animals. Since the eagle dropped a tortoise on Aeschylus' bald head, thinking it was a rock, there have been numerous studies of and theories about animals being able to reason, bonobos, chimps, crows, vultures, dogs and even that rather short-sighted eagle. I don't find anything I have seen to be convincing; they are all wishful thinking and/or special pleading, in my opinion. Therefore, I repeat, there is no justification for the man/animal comparisons.

To an Englishman, the Christian right would suggest the Catholic Church, to which I belong. Right-wing it is (and I'm somewhere on the extreme left of it), but its objections to gayness, with which I disagree, are nothing like those of the lunatic fringe, whom I assume you mean by the Christian right.

[Ijustwannateach]

Once again, I would reiterate that despite various attempts to put words in my mouth, all I have said is that the fact that homosexuality exists in nature pulverizes the 'homosexuality isn't natural' argument. Humans, on occasion, have done everything else that some groups of animals do- including use tools, go to war, commit genocide (group murder), harm their children, and eat their dead. Language use is one of our few potential unique points, and even that has complications depending on what level of communication you want to call 'language' (the best 2nd runners up to humans seem unable to internalise and use complex or recursive grammar structures). One last holdout of human 'uniqueness', I feel, is imaginative narrative construction, or to put it less academically, storytelling.

I don't defend these activities in either humans or animals, but they are natural, i.e., they occur in nature. I don't know why we humans find it occasionally necessary to become so unreasonable that we slaughter each other in droves, but we and other animals do it (I would guess there is some deep-seated instinct related to overcrowding which is tied into our religious/political excuses). We have learned to try not to practice or encourage such activity, with only partial success, because it is harmful to individuals without their consent, abhorrent and theoretically- if we were reasonable enough- not necessary.

Separation of the moral wheat from the immoral chaff is not a matter of nature, it is a matter of values. The value that tends to predominate today as a reliable test of the morality of a human act is whether or not human individuals affected by the act have the ability and right to consent or not- if they don't, and they are harmed, we view this as morally despicable and undesirable- some more enlightened types are also extending this protection from human activity to animals. That is what separates incest, murder, rape (by the way, in case anyone out there wasn't aware- some species of whales even rape), and other technically 'natural' (i.e., occurring in nature) activities morally from homosexuality.

Which is, of course, the kind of thing MOST of us have to keep pointing out to the homophobes who want to equate our behaviour with bestiality, rape, incest, necrophilia, etc. It's strange to find an allegedly gay poster here who says the presence of homosexuality in the animal world lends power to a MORAL equation of those harming, nonconsensual activities with homosexuality. Interesting, indeed.

[isanbirder]

This is getting rather off the point of the thread, but I have yet to see convincing evidence that any animals can rationalise. The war, genocide, etc that you mention among animals is in all cases a purely instinctive reaction to over-population/shortage of natural food supplies. They do not decide to make war etc.

The separation of the moral from the immoral changes from society to society, but no animals are either moral or immoral; the categorisation just doesn't apply to them.

I simply don't understand what you are getting at in your last paragraph.

[LeCharivari]

....I simply don't understand what you are getting at in your last paragraph.

IB, that makes two of us.

If the "allegedly gay" poster was me (aren't we all "allegedly gay"? I don't recall anyone here proving their sexual preference .....) then my post has been misunderstood or misrepresented: I never spoke about "the presence of homosexuality in the animal world", nor did I say that it had a "moral equation" with anything - what I said, which was re-iterated by the National Geographic, was that attempting to justify (or oppose) homosexuality by humans on the grounds that homosexual behaviour was "natural" in the animal world was unjustifiable unless you accepted all other traits in the same species as "natural", which we should "be wary of" for obvious reasons.

Homosexual activity by animals is an interesting area of study (my favourite author since I started reading is still Gerald Durrell) but it has no direct relevance to homosexuality in man. The arguments by the Christian lunatic fringe (I was brought up a Catholic, IB, so any inference that I meant the Catholics was my mistake for which I apologise) and by the occasionally equally lunatic gay rights fringe are nothing more than clutching at straws at every level.

Firsty, there is NO evidence that there is any "presence of homosexuality in the animal world" - what there is evidence of in somewhere between 450 and 1,500 species is homosexual activity and homosexual behaviour. After the many posts on the subject here I shouldn't have to explain that this is not nit-picking over words, nor should there be any need here to spell out the differences between homosexuality and what is essentially MSM (conducted, in the case of the animals, for a number of reasons of which sexual gratification is only one). I know of no species that has any identifiable individual homosexual element, as humans do*, which makes this particular argument a very poor one in support of homosexuality being "natural" for man.

Equally, just because there is no evidence of similar homosexuality in animals this does not mean that it is "unnatural" in man - man is unique among the animals for many things, not only including our ability to moralise but our ability to make technological advances which no other species has paralleled. If you label homosexuality as "un-natural" for man on the basis that there are no parallels in other species, as the Christian lunatic fringe have done, then our technological progress at its most basic such as the use of fire, the wheel, irrigation and cultivation are also "un-natural" and we should all be living in pre-stone age conditions.

The entire argument is totally flawed, on all sides.

I agree with you on all counts, IB, except that I am not convinced entirely one way or the other about whether or not some animals can "rationalise" or "moralise" as we see it - I just don't think we know enough about it yet, and as some animals have learnt to communicate at a basic level with us in our language but we have yet to learn how to communicate with them in their languages I don't think we are in any position to make that judgement (just as we have no real idea whether they indulge in "storytelling" or not, or whether they "use complex or recursive grammar structures" - maybe they can communicate better than us without it and they don't need to!).

These arguments, at least to me, seem not only totally contrived but irrelevant. Objective scientific opinion is pretty well unanimous that human homosexuality is the result of a combination of nature (either created or genetic) and nurture (both pre and post-natal and envirnmental). I have occasionally been asked "Why are you gay?", which I haven't taken offence at and which I have replied to by simply saying that "Its the way I was made", which I think covers all the bases and which has always been accepted**.

*: even the story of the "gay penguins" of Central Park Zoo has turned out to be exaggerated by their co-incidentally gay keeper, and Silo has now joined-up with a female ( Scrappy ) after being previously rejected by the zoo's females and turning to Roy for company, leaving Roy all alone

**: except on one occasion when it aroused the repeated cry of "blasphemer!!" which amused most others present.

[LeCharivari]

(edited) .....

The value that tends to predominate today as a reliable test of the morality of a human act is whether or not human individuals affected by the act have the ability and right to consent or not- if they don't, and they are harmed, we view this as morally despicable and undesirable .....

If that is a reliable test of our morality and what separates us from the remainder of the animal kingdom I would suggest that it falls short - as we do. As IB said, animals attack other groups of animals of the same species as "a purely instinctive reaction to over-population/shortage of natural food supplies". We do so repeatedly, as we have done for millenia, out of greed or for "ideological" grounds (basically just because we dislike another tribe or herd).

If that is a reliable test of whether we can justifiably cherry-pick one characteristic from the animal kingdom and say "that's 'natural' and acceptable because its morally OK" but another is 'natural' but not acceptable because its "morally despicable and undesirable" and individuals may not consent or be harmed then you are on very shaky ground. That happens everday when innocent civilians and children are killed and tortured in the name of what is morally acceptable to one tribe or another for their own ends.

The analogy with what is "natural" for us and what happens in the animal kingdom is simply misplaced.

[Ijustwannateach]

This is getting rather off the point of the thread, but I have yet to see convincing evidence that any animals can rationalise. The war, genocide, etc that you mention among animals is in all cases a purely instinctive reaction to over-population/shortage of natural food supplies. They do not decide to make war etc.

The separation of the moral from the immoral changes from society to society, but no animals are either moral or immoral; the categorisation just doesn't apply to them.

I simply don't understand what you are getting at in your last paragraph.

I am trying, obliquely, to say that humans are just animals, too. We have a rather unique intellectual specialisation for this planet, but we haven't invented any new animal behaviours except for a very few that involve some of our most developed social and mental faculties. Animals (such as whales, humans, dogs, and rats) do things that we can recognise in common- including, for example, eat, fight, take care of young, attack, kill, and sleep. Far from saying that animals rationalise, I am saying that the good/bad/moral/immoral question doesn't occur (I would suppose) to any of those animals except for us humans. Dogs don't wonder if they are being 'bad' by killing their prey. Rats probably don't congratulate themselves for their responsibility when they take care of their young. It is only *humans* that do those things.

My point is that, homosexuality exists in nature. Scads of mammals and other animals, even possibly some invertebrates, have been witnessed committing what could be called 'homosexual' acts. I think this is pretty much the 'clincher' regarding arguments about nature. Though many scientists covered up or ignored much of this evidence for a long time, it *is* out there. (Farmers have long had a kind of euphemistic nickname for homosexual horses: 'reluctant breeders'). When an ignorant human soul comes up to me as claims that 'homosexuality isn't natural' either because of arguments that such sexualities don't occur (in other animals) or that they don't produce offspring (cf. the bees), this is the kind of evidence I think it is important to talk about.

LCV seems to be arguing at some length that making the case this way is 'cherry-picking'- i.e., that if we say homosexuality is 'ok' because it is in animals we have to say that things like murder, baby-eating, etc. are ok because they are in animals, too. even though they are less appealing behaviours.

My last paragraph addresses this concern by pointing out that homosexuality is not made 'ok' because it is in animals and nature, any more than murder or rape is 'ok' just because it is in animals (including humans, cats, birds, and rabbits). It is made 'ok' by a decision about morality by humans, because we are the only species that has begun to examine our behaviour in that light. What makes homosexuality, building houses, getting married, and taking care of families 'ok' is the same thing as what makes murder, rape, bestiality, and child abuse 'definitely bad': a human moral decision. The simplest criterion usually used here is whether all the involved parties are apparently unharmed and consenting, though there are of course endless historical controversies over just HOW to justify and apply moral decisions, and the bigger discussion on that really is out of range of this topic.

In other words, LCV shouldn't be worried that people will think that if we say homosexuality is ok it means that murder is ok, too, just because they are both found in animals and in nature; because the undisputable fact of both horrible and wonderful things being in nature has never been the sole justification for whether it is ok or not in human society.

Homosexuality is natural because it is found in nature: QED. What makes it ok morally is that it passes muster on most other forms of moral tests that are widely accepted by non-religious ethical systems.

P.S. This also probably means that most animals, even those who perform homosexual acts, can't actually be 'gay' in the same sense as humans, if you define being gay as a self-conscious identity choice; because most animals don't have self-conceptions at that level of complexity. And this is actually quite pertinent to the topic, because if you are asking what the etiology of 'gayness' is, it is important to be specific about exactly what 'gayness' means.

[LeCharivari]

In other words, LCV shouldn't be worried that people will think that if we say homosexuality is ok it means that murder is ok, too, just because they are both found in animals and in nature; because the undisputable fact of both horrible and wonderful things being in nature has never been the sole justification for whether it is ok or not in human society.

Ijt, I am not worried in the slightest "that people will think that " because, as sbk succinctly put it: "I disagree that people will actually study the sexuality of bonobos to use as an argument or that people in general would even pay attention."

Its an invalid argument on both sides which neither justifies nor condemns human homosexuality in any way, making it meaningless.

This also probably means that most animals, even those who perform homosexual acts, can't actually be 'gay' in the same sense as humans, if you define being gay as a self-conscious identity choice; because most animals don't have self-conceptions at that level of complexity. And this is actually quite pertinent to the topic, because if you are asking what the etiology of 'gayness' is, it is important to be specific about exactly what 'gayness' means.

Agreed 100%, Ijt. That was exactly the point I was making when I pointed out the differences between homosexual activity/homosexual behaviour/MSM and homosexuality. It is pertinent and it is important to be specific.

I have always thought that "gayness" meant homosexuality, in the same way that "gay" meant homosexual - they are synonymous according to every reference I am aware of, making their use a matter of personal preference and taste, not meaning.

I am, consequently, confused as to how you can conclude that animals "can't actually be gay" but that "Homosexuality is natural because it is found in nature: QED". The two statements appear to directly contradict each other*.

* : not gay = not homosexual = no homosexuality.

(PS. In the unlikely event that anyone is "interested" in my own "alleged gayness" I will bring a copy of my Civil Partnership Certificate with me to St Nikolaus Church on 11 November. I won't bite.)

[Ijustwannateach]

There is actually a consequential objection in the above, so take this as added to my previous post:

The idea of 'gayness' is not necessarily the same, colloquially or historically, as 'homosexuality'. I associate gayness more with the formation of a psychosocial identity. Homosexuality is more the dry, medicalised description of facts on the ground (e.g., male animal does XYZ with other male animal). If you prefer other vocabulary to make these distinctions (gay vs. MSM, homosexual vs. MSM), go for it.

I agree that the plasticity of these words can make discussions confusing, so thanks for the opportunity to clarify.

[endure]

(PS. In the unlikely event that anyone is "interested" in my own "alleged gayness" I will bring a copy of my Civil Partnership Certificate with me to St Nikolaus Church on 11 November. I won't bite.)

An idea of where it is would be good

[endure]

(PS. In the unlikely event that anyone is "interested" in my own "alleged gayness" I will bring a copy of my Civil Partnership Certificate with me to St Nikolaus Church on 11 November. I won't bite.)

An idea of where it is would be good

S'alright - I've figured it out.