Is homosexuality genetic?

[WhatRoughBeast]

Having just spent 7 years living in the Muslim world (Afghanistan) let me reassure everyone that homosexuality there is alive and thriving. And based on anecdotal evidence, I would suggest with similar percentiles of the populace. Of course, the Afghans aren't going to self-identify on any poll. They're just going to keep on.... well you know the sorts of things that go on.

As many as San Francisco? (Brighton?) If you say so, although the circles we westerners might move in could give the wrong impression perhaps.

LT, you need to read more. Specifically, http://www.scribd.com/doc/39111225/Pashtun-Sexuality

And I quote, "A culturally-contrived homosexuality (significantly not termed as such by its practitioners) appears to affect a far greater population base then some researchers would argue is attributable to natural inclination."

Also, "Homosexuality is strictly prohibited in Islam, but cultural interpretations of Islamic teaching prevalent in Pashtun areas of southern Afghanistan tacitly condone it in comparison to heterosexual relationships in several contexts."

And, finally, "Interestingly, the same medics treated an outbreak of gonorrhea among the local national interpreters on their camp. Approximately 12 of the nearly 20 young male interpreters present in the camp had contracted the disease, and most had done so anally. This is a merely anecdotal observation and far too small of a sample size to make any generalizations regarding the actual prevalence of homosexual activity region-wide. However, given the difficulty in procuring such data, it may serve as some indicator."

 

[Dessi]

Doesn't she know you were born male? ROFL or is your internet persona a mere fictional stimulant?

A transwoman (mtf) who is attracted to men is heterosexual. They are not gay men, have nothing in common with them, almost always feel out of place in their community. TG women attracted to women typically have different interests than heterosexual men, they usually fit in well with lesbian communities. Here's some perspective.

Sounds to me like you learned something new today: tg people refer to their sexual orientation in relation to their gender-identity.

 

[Pup]

A transwoman (mtf) who is attracted to men is heterosexual. They are not gay men, have nothing in common with them, almost always feel out of place in their community. TG women attracted to women typically have different interests than heterosexual men, they usually fit in well with lesbian communities.

That always seemed obvious to me, if one thinks of gender as separate from sexual attraction, so it surprises me when people don't get it.

It's a point I brought up in post #38, which still puzzles me when people talk about gay men having "female" brain structure. There must be some finer distinction, because that by itself is an obviously inadequate explanation. As I said in that post:

if one thinks there's not a significant difference between the two [a man who's gay and a M-to-F transwoman], ask him if he'd like his penis removed. I suspect there would be a fairly distinct difference in the answer, between people who are gay or transgender

 

[Marduk]

Take a look at BBC' episode on John Barrowman in the series "The Making of me". There are some interesting stuff about this (allthough I'm not sure about the measuring of fingers thing ).
.

Using the finger length test I have just discovered that I am a homosexual
this will be news to my long term partner and my girlfriend I can tell you
perhaps I have been overcompensating

 

[epepke]

I did not know that, never having studied behaviorism enough to be familiar with its jargon.

I always thought a person's sexual preference meant, did they prefer to have sex with men or with women, not did they prefer to be heterosexual or homosexual. So I never connected it with any implication that being gay was a choice. Huh. Learned something new.

This is probably why I posted it. I studied psychology around 1979, and so I was familiar with the lingo before it became popular. The people who popularized it were, in my estimation, trying to make the terms neutral and avoid the stereotypes. It didn't work, and it just ticked people off, but one can say that about most terms.

Because it didn't work, I suggested the term "orientation" about 1985. I don't know if anybody listened to me, but other people find it a good term.

 

[Alan]

I heard years ago that "sexual orientation" seems to be a more popular combination of words about pro-gay people and "sexual preference" is more popular among anti-gay people, but I'm not sure if that's true.

Using the finger length test I have just discovered that I am a homosexual
this will be news to my long term partner and my girlfriend I can tell you
perhaps I have been overcompensating

The binary nature of it is a weakness. Also, I saw just now that I have a heterosexual hand structure.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/695142.stm
But this article says that homosexual men with no older brothers have a heterosexual finger length ratio, which is part of the idea that I hadn't heard before. I don't have any brothers.

 

[Minoosh]

"Not your choice, you were born that way" is true in any case

Is it possible that homosexuality is slightly more a matter of choice for women than for men?

A woman I once knew said "I wish I was more gay" - she liked the idea of women fulfilling each others' needs as an antidote to the sort of patriarchy where being male counts for everything and women are property.

If you were bi and had horrible experience with abusive men is it possible you would choose women as the safer sex?

 

[Alan]

You are attracted to who you are attracted to, but experiences can change who you are attracted to. Fluidity is a real thing. I suppose that it's like single-sex attracted people have fluidity too, but within that one sex. Bisexual people just have that one extra axis that the fluidity can be seen in.

Saying "I wish I was more gay" definitely seems like a political statement in the way you said it. If she could change her orientation, it would be "I decided to be more gay", rather than wishing it could happen.

A lot of studies do have the conclusion that women are more "fluid" than men, but I'm not sure how much of that is about social forces like taboos that play a part in how open men are. Honesty is a big issue in this type of sexological research.

 

[Arcade22]

Is being sexually attracted towards cars genetic? Walls? Horses?

No one?

 

[Bad Lieutenant]

You're the one who originally introduced it as evidence for your viewpoint, so you apparently thought it was good enough to quote a few posts ago. I'm just asking you to explain why you thought it was evidence.

I guess I quoted it in order to illustrate the bias of wikipedia.

 

[bruto]

I guess I quoted it in order to illustrate the bias of wikipedia.

And just accidentally forgot to mention it until someone called you on it? If that's an honest answer you need to polish up your communicating skills a bit, because it's pretty hard to understand a point that's not made.

 

[L.Y.S.]

I think our society forces roles upon people which forces them to take static positions. Most mammals, apes (including humans) are naturally bisexual. That is to say, there is no natural inclination towards homosexuality or heterosexuality. Society makes these conventions which in turn forces people into certain positions. Science is now observing a plethora of bisexuality amongst many animals including other apes (bonobos), cetaceans (mostly dolphins), and especially amongst elephants. It is clear that social behavior does influence sexuality to a certain extent. For elephant males it is much more convenient to have sex with one another than to have with a scared unready female. And for bonobos who have raging sex drives, it is a social adaptation to have sex with each other in order to resolve disputes.


It is clear and quite falsifiable to say that society has not part in choosing the sexual identity of its members. It is very clear that if there is none of the opposite gender in the environment where the same gender roams it is much more likely that the same gender will have sex with one another. Prison is a great example of what happens when the opposite gender is void. If there is a lack of a gender it will taken care of by supplicating more submissive members of the same gender to play the void roles.


Sexuality is not some unshakeable stable thing society makes it. It often fluctuates throughout life. The idea that your sexuality cannot change is false and is in it of itself not natural. The natural sexuality for all humans from birth is bisexuality. Through training and teaching most humans have at least on the surface chosen heterosexuality.

 

[Alan]

No one?

I don't know much about paraphilias, but certain aspects of sexuality are dependent a lot on environment (just the specifics, not broad brushstrokes). I don't know if that applies to your examples, but it's clear that sexuality is multifactorial and a person should be able to be attracted to people or things for reasons other than what is inborn. These aren't paraphilias but I suppose it's like breasts being sexualised in societies where they are covered or various weights being more desired in different cultures.

But I don't know much about research into paraphilias at all, so the above might not apply.

 

[Bad Lieutenant]

And just accidentally forgot to mention it until someone called you on it? If that's an honest answer you need to polish up your communicating skills a bit, because it's pretty hard to understand a point that's not made.

That's a hollow point.

 

[Bad Lieutenant]

And just accidentally forgot to mention it until someone called you on it? If that's an honest answer you need to polish up your communicating skills a bit, because it's pretty hard to understand a point that's not made.

Ukranian? Or spit and polish.

 

[Bad Lieutenant]

Sounds to me like you learned something new today

Good luck with that.

 

[Bad Lieutenant]

I don't know much about paraphilias, but certain aspects of sexuality are dependent a lot on environment (just the specifics, not broad brushstrokes).

I prefer the term "polysexuality/polysexualism" - it seems less encrypted IMO : /

 

[Ferguson]

I prefer the term "polysexuality/polysexualism" - it seems less encrypted IMO : /

But the terms aren't related. Polysexuality is attraction to multiple genders, paraphilia is attractions to objects, situations, etc., right?

 

[calcmandan]

Isn't that true for most things, though, that apparently have a genetic component, from schizophrenia to diabetes? It's not strictly and obviously inheritable, like brown eyes or blue eyes, with a well-known recessive and dominant gene so you can predict the exact odds of eye-color and explain why, but there's still some kind of genetic component not fully understood.

For example, here's a basic layman's article on the genetics of diabetes:
http://www.diabetes.org/diabetes-basics/genetics-of-diabetes.html



Sounds pretty familiar. One just needs to take out the word "diabetes" and replace it with "the gay."

I was reacting to an earlier comment stating that homosexual gene would eventually die out because the insinuation is that gay people will sometimes marry and have children, thus passing the gene to the next generation.

I didn't agree with the comment I responded to.

And yes, I agree with you.


-- Sent from my HP TouchPad using Communities

 

[ponderingturtle]

I remember reading a study showing that there is at most a 50% concordance for monozygotic twins and homosexuality. Given their sensory and cognitive architecture (ie: the way they process, interpret and store information) as well as many aspects of their environment would usually be pretty well identicle I take that to mean that homosexuality is resoundingly not genetic.

Paraphrased quote from president Ahmadinejad "We just don't have homosexuality in Iran".

I bet there's some homosexuality in Iran, but nowhere near as much as in the feminist, liberal, gay identity cherishing, monogamous West.

I believe twin studies show an increase with fraternal twins, and a greater increase with identical twins. So it would seem both prenatal environment and genetics play a role but are not absolute either.