Is homosexuality genetic?

[BurnTheOliveTree]

There is a "Gay Gene", to horribly over-simplify it. Or rather, an "Attraction to men" gene and an "Attraction to women" gene. Normally, the alelle frequency in the genes produces heterosexuality, but often it doesn't, and you get anything from asexuality to bi/homosexuality.

-Alex

[NorthStarRepublicML]

There is a "Gay Gene", to horribly over-simplify it. Or rather, an "Attraction to men" gene and an "Attraction to women" gene. Normally, the alelle frequency in the genes produces heterosexuality, but often it doesn't, and you get anything from asexuality to bi/homosexuality.


Studies have shown that many animal species display homosexual behaviour and have homosexual 'groups'. This, I think, pretty much shows that it is genetic. It's not confined to humans only.

please cite your sources, i have heard these arguements before and as far as i am aware there is no gene or whatever that provides for sexual orientation ..... the idea that our sexuality is set at a genetic level is determinist at its best and bordering on social darwinism at its worst .....

ok for example ..... say i argued that there is a "capitalist gene", a gene or genetic code that inheriently made a person set on capitalist tendencies (pick your favorites) from birth and no amount of education or logic could change it ...

if we use the arguement that some of you are proceeding with we cannnot therefore blame the capitalists, its their nature, and you can't blame someone for acting according to their nature .....

you could go farther with genetic determinism ..... what about a gene that determines racism ... if racism is genetic then you can't blame people that carry that gene for being racists .....

you could go on and on ... but essentially determinism, especially genetic determinism is stupid ..... ever heard the expression that something is "more then the sum of its parts" ?

but go ahead post some sources ... i'll believe in a "gay gene" when i see it ....

[RevMARKSman]

if we use the arguement that some of you are proceeding with we cannnot therefore blame the capitalists, its their nature, and you can't blame someone for acting according to their nature .....

you could go farther with genetic determinism ..... what about a gene that determines racism ... if racism is genetic then you can't blame people that carry that gene for being racists .....


And yet we can still fight racist/capitalists because our material interests are opposed to their perceived material interests. Anti-racism is not about trying to "convert" racists (although, considering there is no "racist gene," that's probably part of it). It's about destroying them, preventing them from being a social influence. It has nothing to do with "blaming" or "personal responsibility for your beliefs"...it's about marginalizing the racists themselves so we can build the society we want.


Because their God's a homophobe.

Can you try to contribute to the thread in some way, you know, like explaining your position?

[BurnTheOliveTree]

please cite your sources, i have heard these arguements before and as far as i am aware there is no gene or whatever that provides for sexual orientation ..... the idea that our sexuality is set at a genetic level is determinist at its best and bordering on social darwinism at its worst .....

Bollocks. How the fuck is it even remotely social darwinism? As for determinism, look no further than those nasty fuckers at NARTH, who proudly show-boat their "ex-gays". You can override your genes, with a bit of a struggle. Depends on the strength of your gentic inclination, of course, sexuality is a continuum, not a set of categories.

My sources were mostly Religious Tolerance, Wikipedia and a BBC article. I'll find the exact links if you aren't convinced, but I can't say I'm raring to go and traipse through my history.


ok for example ..... say i argued that there is a "capitalist gene", a gene or genetic code that inheriently made a person set on capitalist tendencies (pick your favorites) from birth and no amount of education or logic could change it ...

Best start laying off the crack mate. Sexuality is an innate attribute of humans, political affiliation is not. Why do I need to explain this to you? Did you actually think, at all, before you said this? You will never get genetic coding that gives you specific thoughts, that is obvious. The whole analogy is pathetic.

Roughly 10 percent of the population is homosexual, and that figure stays pretty constant, transcending cultures, social acceptability, everything. It's also stayed at that figure for a long time. This screams that there's a genetic basis for sexuality.

I'll finish with a quote from Religious Tolerance:

The most common belief of human sexuality researchers is that homosexual orientation is caused by a pre-existent genetic makeup which is established at conception.

-Alex

[NorthStarRepublicML]

You can override your genes, with a bit of a struggle. Depends on the strength of your gentic inclination, of course, sexuality is a continuum, not a set of categories.

so you are saying that with some effort gay people can turn straight?


Why do I need to explain this to you?


because you made a claim and did not provide evidence ....


You will never get genetic coding that gives you specific thoughts, that is obvious.

capitalist tendencies such as inclination toward greed, toward expansionism, toward aggression, or whatever ar no more specific of thoughts as the thoughts of attraction to the opposite or same sex ....

the analogy is valid.

here are a couple of articles:

on genetic alcholism and anxiety: http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/news/20...alcoholism-gene (http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/news/20040526/researchers-identify-alcoholism-gene)

on genetic agression: http://www-tech.mit.edu/V113/N51/agression.51w.html

genetic criminal behavior: http://www.personalityresearch.org/papers/jones.html

here is an article from Winnepg Free Press that critiques genetic determinism (suggesting that it fuels eugenic thought in one instance): http://www3.sympatico.ca/ian.ritchie/Genes.Freedom.htm

this article is actually quite good and makes some interesting comparrisons between genetic determinism and the christian concept of "origional sin" .....



I'll find the exact links if you aren't convinced, but I can't say I'm raring to go and traipse through my history.

well ... i'm not convinced .... and if you are serious about convincing me or anyone else you do need to provide sources to back up your determinist claims, sorry if its a big inconvience for you but "put up or shut up"


Roughly 10 percent of the population is homosexual, and that figure stays pretty constant, transcending cultures, social acceptability, everything. It's also stayed at that figure for a long time. This screams that there's a genetic basis for sexuality.

you are the one "screaming" for "gay genes" not a dubious statistic, and besides it still doesn't prove there is a "gay gene", like i said i'll believe it when i see it ... oh maybe you should provide the data that shows this figure of 10% through history, or is that just another unverifiable claim?


Sexuality is an innate attribute of humans, political affiliation is not.

why? just because you say so ..... what if someone wants to argue that political affiliation is genetic? or racism?



Anti-racism is not about trying to "convert" racists

its not? so they are racists until death and there is no hope for them to change? that sounds pretty determenist to me .....

edit: might be best to split this discussion on genetic determinism from christians and homosexual

[RevMARKSman]

ts not? so they are racists until death and there is no hope for them to change? that sounds pretty determenist to me .....

Most of the time they are, they're usually indoctrinated from an early age...if after 40 years of public integration they're still racist, our job is to fight them, not try to "convince" them. They've passed from the arms of criticism to the criticism of arms. Which kind of defeats your argument about a "racist gene" anyway. Even if it's in their genes they're still racist assholes and stand in the way of our material interests.

[NorthStarRepublicML]

They've passed from the arms of criticism to the criticism of arms. Which kind of defeats your argument about a "racist gene" anyway.

well that is a diffrent issue, having ones genetic inclinations reinforced by their environment is not what i interpreted your last post to mean .....


Even if it's in their genes they're still racist assholes and stand in the way of our material interests.

so you are saying that sexual orientation is more determined at the genetic level and racists may have a racist gene but their racist tendencies are more effected by the environment?

do you believe the concept of richard dawkins selfish gene?

he states that organisms seek to maximize the evolutionary fitness of their genes even if this involves a sacrifice of their personal reproductive fitness. this is sort of a genetic way of arriving at the concept of ethnic nepotism .... which attempts to explain the tendency of humans to favor members of their own racial group by postulating that all animals evolve toward being more altruistic toward those of their ethnicity in order to propagate more copies of their common genes.

now .... (if you believed in these concepts) would this mean that racism is genetic?

you are right though ... material interests are what should concern us here, racism is racism, homosexuals are homosexuals, it really doesn't matter where they came from or why they are the way they are ... you have to deal with them one way or another

i launched into this topic merely to point out that genetic determinism is stupid, be it used in defense of a gay orientation or chronic alcholism ..... determinism is not socialist

[Jazzratt]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15, 2007 07:10 pm

You can override your genes, with a bit of a struggle. Depends on the strength of your gentic inclination, of course, sexuality is a continuum, not a set of categories.

so you are saying that with some effort gay people can turn straight?
Try to pay attention - he is saying that because sexuality is a continuum rather than simply three rigid categories (straight, gay, bi) it is possible for people who's homosexuality isn't as "strong" as others' to force themselves to ignore or suppress their homosexual inclinations. This is usually done at great psycological and emotional cost.


well ... i'm not convinced .... and if you are serious about convincing me or anyone else you do need to provide sources to back up your determinist claims, sorry if its a big inconvience for you but "put up or shut up"

I'm sorry but you're the one who needs to back up their argument more strongly - you are arguing against the general consensus.

Do you say things like "put up or shut up" in real life, out of interest?


why? just because you say so ..... what if someone wants to argue that political affiliation is genetic? or racism?

Well they could try to argue it, but they would be wrong.


its not? so they are racists until death and there is no hope for them to change? that sounds pretty determenist to me .....

No, but "converting" racists is pretty low on the list of priorities compared to defending those under threat from racist attack and of course beating the racist threat underground.


edit: might be best to split this discussion on genetic determinism from christians and homosexual

Done.

[Noah]

Try to pay attention - he is saying that because sexuality is a continuum rather than simply three rigid categories (straight, gay, bi) it is possible for people who's homosexuality isn't as "strong" as others' to force themselves to ignore or suppress their homosexual inclinations. This is usually done at great psycological and emotional cost.


Obviously, using anecdotes is a bad form of debate. However, when my dad was in the Iraqi army he knew a guy who was homosexual (he'd told my dad, they were good friends but it's taboo in Iraq) and he ended up just marrying a woman, he's still with her now. He just did it because of pressure from society - and fear. So, I don't think it's three rigid categories, my parents have told me stories of people who aren't heterosexual who just bit the bullet and get married to the opposite sex because they knew they'd probably be killed - it might be quiet wide spread throughout religious countries, people forcing themselves to be not homosexual.

[Libber]

As far as anyone can tell, human sexual response is normally distributed, with a few "obligative" (anthro Marvin Harris's term) hets on one end and homs on the other. Everyone else, by nature, is capable of responding to either sex, though typically with a preferential bias.

The evidence is in cross-cultural studies. Most people in single-sex environments (prison, army, etc) don't remain celibate unless forced to, and they go back to their preferred sex after they get back to a richer environment. Certain cultures incorporate homosexuality in their narrative, usually on an age-linked basis, and people routinely obey those prescriptions without angst.

[TC]

I think even without any proof it seems obvious that sexual orientation is either genetic or closely tied with genes (maybe indirectly, like genes for hormone production or something). It would be random beyond the point of sense for something that so obviously predisposes an organisms to reproduce its genes as sexual attraction not to be genetic in origin. If heterosexuality wasn't genetic, then pre-mass-media humans wouldn't end up having sex, as its hard to see how it could occur to them if they didn't have very impulsive, instinctual urges to do so (sure it feels good but with no instinctive sexual attraction it would make more sense for them to just masturbate, easier to get, easier to get off).

Additionally, sexual orientation is, among all human behavioral characteristics, probably the most closely corollary with gender, in that you can predict what gender someone will be attracted to based on their chromosomes with 96-98% accuracy. No other behavioral or psychological or mental trait comes close to that, so if almost anything is genetic it probably is.

[NorthStarRepublicML]

I'm sorry but you're the one who needs to back up their argument more strongly

try to pay attention .... i posted sources which none of the people that are arguing for genetic determinism did ... so like i said "put up or shut up"


you are arguing against the general consensus.

i would say that the concensus has yet to be established, especially because the evidence of "gay genes" is not verifiable, even if a gene was discovered that is associated with homosexuality ... thats all it would be an association, the methods in which genes affect behaviors is still a mystery ....


Do you say things like "put up or shut up" in real life, out of interest?

well i am both a night security guard as well as a grad student so yes ..... i have to put up with alot of bullshit from people who don't know what the hell they are talking about on a pretty regular basis ....



Well they could try to argue it, but they would be wrong.

prove it.



The evidence is in cross-cultural studies.


this would seem to suggest that sexual orientation is mallable to a large degree and not fixed by genetics


Obviously, using anecdotes is a bad form of debate.

i agree


I think even without any proof it seems obvious that sexual orientation is either genetic or closely tied with genes

(my emphasis)

HA! listen jerry, you need proof or at least sources and citations or else you are never going to win a debate or convince anyone .... the above quote is just about the most childish thing i've heard on rev left .... oh and it's not obvious


all i can really do is laugh at the prospect of someone trying to convince me of anything without providing some stats or evidence of their claims .....

here are a couple examples:

yeah its a great car, brand new, just look at it, it works fine .... it's obviously running fine .... even without taking it for a test drive you can see that its great .... pop the hood? theres no need to examine the engine it's obviously a good car.

God, oh yeah he's real .... its so obvious that he created the heaven and the earth in seven days and then made adam out of dust and eve out of adams rib .... evidence? no proof is required, i mean isn't it obvious? .... besides asking for evidence is just going against the general concensus

bottom line: evidence or proof or at least sources that support your claim or perhaps statistics are required for any half-way intelligent person to be convinced of something


If heterosexuality wasn't genetic, then pre-mass-media humans wouldn't end up having sex

heterosexuality has a genetic utility, to reproduce, this is inherient to all biological life that I know of .... unless i am mistaken homsexuality has no such utility ....



you can predict what gender someone will be attracted to based on their chromosomes with 96-98% accuracy.

Source? (you must have known that was coming)

[Y Chwyldro Comiwnyddol Cymraeg]

to be honest who gives a fuck if there is, if one wants to fuck a perso of the same sex go for it!!! :P

Do people go through peroids of feeling more atracted to one sex than another?

[Libber]

Originally posted by [email protected] 17, 2007 02:09 am


The evidence is in cross-cultural studies.

this would seem to suggest that sexual orientation is mallable to a large degree and not fixed by genetics

Not really, no. Sexual expression is malleable in the majority of people under the bell curve, the moreso the closer to the center they are, but any individual's orientation is probably fixed.

We know orientation doesn't appear to be heritable, because people with an obligative orientation have Kinsey-opposite kids.

We know it's probably fixed because the people who prefer celibacy in single-sex environments are the ones who never had any interest in same-sex experimentation in adolescence, either. They're just not attracted to members of the same sex, not even slightly, so they experience no arousal from the airborne pher o mones (I have to break up the word - for some reason the software doesn't like it) and therefore can get along without sex until they get out.

And we know that, although it's not heritable, it's probably determined by a combination of factors including genes and the timing and intensity of foetal hormone baths. The evidence comes from Bouchard's longitudinal twins study at Minnesota, in which he found that the sexuality of one monozygotic twin could be predicted from the sexuality of the other, even when the twins were brought up in different, unconnected families. Also, Whitam, Diamond, and Markam found, in a study of 61 twin pairs and 3 triplet trios that monozygotism allowed sexuality prediction but dizygotism didn't, leading them to conclude that sexuality has a genetic basis.

[Libber]

Originally posted by Y Chwildro Comiwnyddol [email protected] 17, 2007 12:37 pm
Do people go through peroids of feeling more atracted to one sex than another?
Anecdotal evidence suggests that yes, at least some people do.

[NorthStarRepublicML]

the sexuality of one monozygotic twin could be predicted from the sexuality of the other, even when the twins were brought up in different, unconnected families.

i did a bit of reading and found this article that critiques twin studies and specifically twin studies focusing on homosexual, from reading it was made fairly clear that these studies are extremely complicated and hotly debated .....

i could not find the specific study by Bouchard so if you still have the link i would like to see it ....

anyway, here is the article
(specific) http://www.tim-taylor.com/papers/twin_studies/analysis.html
(general) http://www.tim-taylor.com/papers/twin_studies/index.html

and i picked out a couple of quotes:


The greatest problem for studies of this type remains that of recruiting large numbers of non-institutionalised probands due to the social ostracism of homosexuals. This problem is gradually diminishing, as evidenced by Bailey and Pillard's 1991 study, but is still far from being negligible.


As for the theory behind twin studies, it has been shown that there are flaws in many people's understanding of the concept of heritability. For example, Bouchard et al. (1990) point out that heritability must increase as V(E), the variance affected by the environment, decreases. Hence, the heritability of a psychological trait reveals as much about the culture as it does about human nature.


They also found that, contrary to the predictions of a simple genetic hypothesis, the rate of homosexuality in nontwin brothers was lower than that of dizygotic cotwins, and roughly equal to that of adoptive brothers.


Things becomes even more complicated, however, when one considers that not all of an individual's genes are active at any point in his or her life. Gottesman (1974) states that "it cannot be over-emphasized that it is environmental factors through such extracellular metabolic intermediates as hormones, vitamins and toxins that determine which genes get switched on and how long they function . . . Since only a small portion of the genome (perhaps 5-20%) is activated at any one time, the effective genotype upon which environmental factors are acting is constantly changing."


All of the above represent formidable, if not insurmountable, problems for the experimental design of a twin study from which we can hope to obtain any meaningful, generalizable results. This has not, as we have seen, prevented a substantial number of researchers from conducting such studies. But even if we assume that these problems have been overcome, the interpretation of the results of twin studies, usually given in terms of concordance rates for monozygotic and dizygotic twins, is problematic.


Theoretical problems of twin studies have been considered, which cloud the distinction between genetic and environmental influences of a trait. Such problems mean that the results of twin studies can, at best, only be considered as suggestive of the relative importance of such influences.

[Libber]

I tried to respond, but the software seems to take against certain words and I don't have the patience to play games with it.

Suffice it to say that Taylor both overcomplicates a straightforward issue (heritability only means that if a parent had it you have a non-trivial chance of having it too) and is talking about twins raised together, not twins raised apart.

[NorthStarRepublicML]

aside from twin studies, what i found most interesting in reading on this topic was illustrated in the quote from Gottesman:


"it cannot be over-emphasized that it is environmental factors through such extracellular metabolic intermediates as hormones, vitamins and toxins that determine which genes get switched on and how long they function . . . Since only a small portion of the genome (perhaps 5-20%) is activated at any one time, the effective genotype upon which environmental factors are acting is constantly changing."

and the suggestion that Bouchard made when stating:


heritability must increase as V(E), the variance affected by the environment, decreases. Hence, the heritability of a psychological trait reveals as much about the culture as it does about human nature.


these quotes seem to suggest that environment has an effect at the genetic level, something which i had not considered previously.... this would mean that nature v. nurture are not mutually exclusive viewpoints .... disagree?

however none of this proves the existence of a "gay gene" .....

[Libber]

Originally posted by [email protected] 17, 2007 04:14 pm
heritability must increase as V(E), the variance affected by the environment, decreases. Hence, the heritability of a psychological trait reveals as much about the culture as it does about human nature.

Taylor doesn't seem to understand what he's reading (not that it was the clearest thing Bouchard ever wrote). An example: eye color is fully determined genetically. 100% No matter how punitive the society gets toward (e.g.) blue-eyed people, it's not going to make any difference to eye coloring. So the statement makes no sense at all in such a context.

But what does, e.g., "sexuality" (or "handedness", or anything else with an expressive component) mean? What "is" it? The standard religious definition says you "are" what you do, not what you might like to do. So in a society where they kill you if they don't like who you sleep with, only the obligatives are out of luck. Everyone else, unless they're crazy, is going to be 100% conformant!

But that doesn't mean the ones literally conforming for dear life enjoy the situation. So "are" they het, or is that just their expression, separated from their potential?

Most psychs, anthros, etc. say the latter. But Bouchard's comment (if it's an accurate quote) refers to the former: the assumption that expression and orientation are the same thing. So if the society is loose, then one's nature accounts for more of the expressive variance. It's a very strange quote, and I have strong doubts about its accuracy.

But you're right that there's no proof of a "gay gene", nor will there ever be. But that doesn't mean having a certain sexual potential is elective. What we'll eventually identify is a "sexuality gene/cluster" and a window during development when the hormonal bath has to be thus-and-so to produce a certain sexuality. But since quantum uncertainty all by itself guarantees that there will never not be variability, sexuality will continue to be normally distributed.

[NorthStarRepublicML]

ok, it would seem that we have reached a moot point in terms of the discussion ... so if i may .... let me redirect with a new question on the issue:

why would homosexual rights groups be invested in proving that homosexuality is genetic and why would leftists support a position of genetic determinism?

[Libber]

Originally posted by [email protected] 17, 2007 06:32 pm
ok, it would seem that we have reached a moot point in terms of the discussion ... so if i may .... let me redirect with a new question on the issue:

why would homosexual rights groups be invested in proving that homosexuality is genetic and why would leftists support a position of genetic determinism?
Do you have an agenda here?

Some people don't like being abused by nutcases (strange, but true). So they hope that if they can prove that sexuality is genetic then they're home and dry, or at least toweling off. It's a charming wee hope, and of course doomed because the nutcases are nutcases, and are never going to cease beating on their victims because then they'd be overwhelmed by their own anxieties.

Most scientists who care about science rather than ideology (which should be all of them, but isn't) are going to go for the genetic explanation because that's where the evidence points.

[NorthStarRepublicML]

Do you have an agenda here?

well ... yeah .... thats usually how debate happens .....

see my previous post in this thread:


i launched into this topic merely to point out that genetic determinism is stupid, be it used in defense of a gay orientation or chronic alcholism ..... determinism is not socialist

[Libber]

Originally posted by [email protected] 18, 2007 11:49 am

i launched into this topic merely to point out that genetic determinism is stupid, be it used in defense of a gay orientation or chronic alcholism ..... determinism is not socialist
Sorry for asking about your agenda - I just got suspicious for a moment. :)

Apropos your thesis: if determinism is excluded by your socialism, then your socialism is anti-scientific ;) Some things are known to be determined by genetics, even when shunted by mutation, and even when we're still far from knowing any of the details. There simply isn't any legitimate question about it.

[The Feral Underclass]

There are only theories about whether homosexuality is genetic or indeed anything else.

People who claim they know what homosexuality is, is a liar.

[NorthStarRepublicML]

if determinism is excluded by your socialism, then your socialism is anti-scientific

touche.....

i guess i should have said behavioral determinism .... or that peoples nature is fixed ... i don't believe personally, and i wouldn't think that others would either, that who you are and the decisions you make are not based upon reason and observations but on genetic programming which determines your sexuality, tolerance to alcohol. or any number of other character traits ....

also there is a racial aspect to determinism that i dislike ... for example, because i happen to be of African descent i am good at basketball, bad at crime, and the best dancer in the room ....

[Don't Change Your Name]

Originally posted by [email protected] 19, 2007 01:45 pm
also there is a racial aspect to determinism that i dislike ... for example, because i happen to be of African descent i am good at basketball, bad at crime, and the best dancer in the room ....
Just because what can be considered "determinism" can include nonsensical claims it doesn't mean that determinism as a whole is nonsense.

[NorthStarRepublicML]

Just because what can be considered "determinism" can include nonsensical claims it doesn't mean that determinism as a whole is nonsense.

agreed, as i pointed out in the previous post not all determinism is to be thrown out .... only determinism that does not account for free will ....

[luxemburg89]

I am somewhat surprised that a leftist would start this kind of thread. It is of no importance whether this gene exists or not, it's whether it is beneficial to know about this gene. The answer is no, this devalues love, it is so reductionist it makes me sick - what matter if someone loves another person (regardless of gender)? This gene implies that humans have feelings because we are biologically set up to - I hate that proposal, it makes love and hate basically worthless, science isn't always the answer.

So, the question about whether there is a gene aside, onto the nature of knowing about such a gene. All knowledge of this gene will act to do is suggest to homophobes that homosexuals and bisexuals are degenerate, and that the gene should be altered. It would be far better to ignore this gene and just let people love whomever they want, bringing it up is pointless - no good can come of it. I hope this 'gene' - if it exists - is forgotten about very quickly.

EDIT-


if determinism is excluded by your socialism, then your socialism is anti-scientific

No, it is simply not exclusively scientific. Science and all other subjects - such as art, literature etc - are all placed on the same level, none is above the other. That's the beaty of Socialism, all aspects of human work and knowledge are valued.

[The New Left]

Here's a cool little article on genetics and sexuality. It shows a theory that more feminine men have a greater chance of having similar characteristics.

http://nymag.com/news/features/33520/

[The New Left]

Ps. I have to agree with Lexemburg89. It really shouldn't matter if it genetic. However, if it was, and we could isolate the gene, would we stop?

(sorry if that seemed a little cold and blunt)

[Jazzratt]

Originally posted by The New [email protected] 19, 2007 10:48 pm
However, if it was, and we could isolate the gene, would we stop?

Why would we? I'm not really up for having a map of the human genome with a piece missing.

[Luís Henrique]

I doubt it is genetic, but, even if it is, it certainly is not related to just one pair of genes.

Luís Henrique

[chaingang3000]

their are genes that code for a higher probability for it, but it all comes down to the fact of whether the mothers body rejects the child and has an allergic reaction to certain hormones.

[counterblast]

Originally posted by The New [email protected] 19, 2007 10:44 pm
Here's a cool little article on genetics and sexuality. It shows a theory that more feminine men have a greater chance of having similar characteristics.

http://nymag.com/news/features/33520/

The same goes for the way we hear, the way we process spatial reasoning, and even the ring of our voices. One study, involving tape-recordings of gay and straight men, found that 75 percent of gay men sounded gay to a general audience. It’s unclear what the listeners responded to, whether there is a recognized gay “accent” or vocal quality. And there is no hint as to whether this idiosyncrasy is owed to biology or cultural influences—only that it’s unmistakable. What is there in Rufus Wainwright’s “uninhibited, yearning, ugly-duckling voice,” as the Los Angeles Times wrote a few weeks ago, that we recognize as uniquely gay? Does biology account for Rosie O’Donnell’s crisp trumpet and Charles Nelson Reilly’s gnyuck-gnyuck-gnyuck?

I would attribute that to cultural emulation, rather than biology.

It isn't uncommon for African-Americans to speak in ebonicized English; but I certainly wouldn't attribute that to genetics; nor lay claim that all members of this group talk this way.

The notion that all African-Americans, gays, and lesbians speak or act a certain way; has to do with a white heterosexual monopoly on mainstream-media. If you look at pop culture; you will see that diverse characterizations of African-Americans, and gay/lesbian persons are virtually non-existant. So of course the bulk of these people will act like the stereotypes from TV. Because what other form of representation are these people given, besides "Tyrell the hip urban friend" or "Carl the quirky gay neighbor"?

[MarxSchmarx]

All knowledge of this gene will act to do is suggest to homophobes that homosexuals and bisexuals are degenerate, and that the gene should be altered. It would be far better to ignore this gene and just let people love whomever they want, bringing it up is pointless - no good can come of it.

Basically most posters are right that it doesn't matter, morally speaking.

But I think it is important to know a genetic basis, for example, for young people confused about their sexuality. Knowledge is power, and I see nothing wrong with the self-knowledge and understanding these yunguns could gain from knowing that their attractions have a genetic basis. Keeping them deliberately ignorant of this fact is disingenuous.

[BurnTheOliveTree]

Genetic basis for homosexuality isn't a moral issue, it is a scientific one.

I am dispassionate on this - If genes did not affect sexuality, and it was all just a matter of environment and free will, that wouldn't bother me, it's not like there's any kind of practical consequence, other than perhaps a little fuel for the fire of homophobia and bigotry.

I'm only interested in a scientific sense, and the scientists say it's genetic, and I agree with them. Simple.

TC, I seem to remember you and TAT arguing against me previously on this issue. Did you change your mind?

-Alex