The understating of the fluidity of sexual orientation

[ponderingturtle]

So you're saying Ted Haggard could well be straight? Good luck.

It depends. I could see someone who had transient sexual encounters with the same sex but only long term relations with the opposite sex classifying themselves as straight and I wouldn't argue.

Monosexual vs bisexual is something that is hard to put up lines that people agree with.

 

[Bad Lieutenant]

I shouldn't have used the term "Oedipus complex" because everybody always equates anything ostensibly Freudian with hogswash, despite the fact many of his "findings" are born out in contemporary research. He got a lot of stuff wrong and quite a lot of stuff right (eg the mechanisms of transference and projection) it would seem, but that's for another time and thread.

The reason I mentioned the Oedipus complex is that there seems to be some agreement that sexual orientation often becomes clear at around the same time that the Oedipus complex is said to occur. Lets forget the Oedipus complex reference as it is actually largely superfluous to the theory I put forward about gender role model identity confusion in early childhood, because it is plausible that somebody could most closely identify with the other gender at any time, and so seek out "what they lack" by romantically desiring the stereotypical other gender type.


RandFan - You ask me for evidence and I haven't got any. All I know is that the low concordance for monozygotic twins and homosexuality necessarily directs an environmental determinant. I am merely throwing a plausible/possible environmental cause out there. Perhaps evidence exists to support that hypothesis, perhaps not. At least a hypothosis exists in this thread and I believe it is the scientific method to disprove hypothesese, not prove them. Read any Popper recently? Empirical falsification?

 

[Bad Lieutenant]

The thing is that it is a bad categorization, as you are conflating biological environmental causes and psychological causes.

Hmmm, fair enough; it's possible sexual orientation doesn't involve psychology. Do you think that's likely though?

 

[Bad Lieutenant]

Well, sure, there's a connection between alcohol and testosterone, but you retracted the statement that it causes homosexuality, then you immediately responded to RandFan that he would find evidence on whatever you're claiming. Its not clear whether the connection between alcohol and testosterone is a red herring. What does alcohol's effect on testosterone have to do with the fluidity of sexuality?

I didn't retract the statement; it was a typo. Again, Move the bracket five words to the right. Please.

Lower testosterone is associated with feminisation, so lower testosterone individuals would be more likely to identify with the feminine gender role.

 

[Pup]

Lower testosterone is associated with feminisation, so lower testosterone individuals would be more likely to identify with the feminine gender role.

So if a man has lower testosterone, are you saying he's going to want to become a woman, or does that mean he's going to have sexual desires like a heterosexual woman (in other words, focussed on men)?

Those are two completely different things, as we can see from the distinction between people who identify as male-to-female transgender and men who identify as gay.

 

[TragicMonkey]

It's amazing to me that anybody still confuses "being gay" with "being like the opposite gender".

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

I didn't retract the statement; it was a typo. Again, Move the bracket five words to the right. Please.

Lower testosterone is associated with feminisation, so lower testosterone individuals would be more likely to identify with the feminine gender role.

IIRC, when men or women, gay or straight, have their level of testosterone raised, both become more sexually motivated towards their preferred sex. Similarly, patients being treated for prostate cancer with antiandrogens don't turn gay.

 

[Professor Yaffle]

IIRC, when men or women, gay or straight, have their level of testosterone raised, both become more sexually motivated towards their preferred sex. Similarly, patients being treated for prostate cancer with antiandrogens don't turn gay.

And lowered testosterone is associated with a lowering of sexual desire and function, not a change in its target.

The levels of testosterone, if involved, seem only to have an effect during the gestation period, as the relevant brain structures are forming.

 

[ponderingturtle]

So if a man has lower testosterone, are you saying he's going to want to become a woman, or does that mean he's going to have sexual desires like a heterosexual woman (in other words, focussed on men)?

Those are two completely different things, as we can see from the distinction between people who identify as male-to-female transgender and men who identify as gay.

I believe he is talking about the prenatal environment not an adults hormone levels.

 

[Pup]

I believe he is talking about the prenatal environment not an adults hormone levels.

Don't think so. I'm basing it on the following post, with the parenthesis moved where he later requested it, to correct the typo:

It may be the case that people can identify primarily with the opposite sex, instead of the same sex, at later points in life, causing their libido to switch at that time. Drinking excessive quantities of alcohol had been shown to result in reduced testosterone levels for males (perhaps leading to their identifying with the opposite sex and causing homosexuality that way).

 

[RandFan]

RandFan - You ask me for evidence and I haven't got any. All I know is that the low concordance for monozygotic twins and homosexuality necessarily directs an environmental determinant. I am merely throwing a plausible/possible environmental cause out there. Perhaps evidence exists to support that hypothesis, perhaps not. At least a hypothosis exists in this thread and I believe it is the scientific method to disprove hypothesese, not prove them. Read any Popper recently? Empirical falsification?

Popper? You are turning this around and you have me confused with some other body. Monozygotic twins are a better predictor of homosexuality than left handedness but that's NOT the issue here. In any event, low concordance or not, I accept environmental factors being contributory. I accept that the mothers womb is an environmental factor. But none of those environmental factors would be exclusive causes.

The truth is we may never know the precise interplay of variables. Orientation, identity, behavior are all likely a very complex dynamic that is highly sensitive to initial conditions. Much like a storm. If we could model all of the variables, then at best we could only predict a fetuses likely sexual preference to some degree.

 

[RandFan]

So if a man has lower testosterone, are you saying he's going to want to become a woman, or does that mean he's going to have sexual desires like a heterosexual woman (in other words, focussed on men)?

Those are two completely different things, as we can see from the distinction between people who identify as male-to-female transgender and men who identify as gay.

I think the focus is wrong. The question is like asking "if a given butterfly flaps it's wings will that cause a storm?". Orientation, identity and behavior are the result of a complex dynamic of environmental and genetic factors. A dynamic so complex it would be absurd to make some such delineation of testosterone as always being a contributing factor or never being a contributing factor. The science is far beyond that.

 

[RandFan]

Lower testosterone is associated with feminisation, so lower testosterone individuals would be more likely to identify with the feminine gender role.

No. Again, that's like saying that a given butterfly flapping its wings will more likely cause a storm. You are reducing orientation, identity and behavior to an absurd degree (not to be confused with reductio ad absurdum). These are themselves a dynamic influenced by genetic and environmental dynamics.

 

[Trakar]

Don't think so. I'm basing it on the following post, with the parenthesis moved where he later requested it, to correct the typo:

If he isn't talking prenatal, he probably should be.

The formation of brain architecture in the earliest stages of developement is more important than the miuch more mild, mostly behavioral, post puberty influences of these hormones after all physical and mental development is largely complete. But even here we are talking propensities, not hard and fast rules.

 

[AvalonXQ]

Reminds me of this:

 

[bookitty]

I think the focus is wrong. The question is like asking "if a given butterfly flaps it's wings will that cause a storm?". Orientation, identity and behavior are the result of a complex dynamic of environmental and genetic factors. A dynamic so complex it would be absurd to make some such delineation of testosterone as always being a contributing factor or never being a contributing factor. The science is far beyond that.

If you add in the testosterone production drop experienced by all males due to age, it gets even murkier. If changing testosterone levels had any effect on same-sex attraction, we'd see waaaaay more gay grandpas.

 

[Pup]

If you add in the testosterone production drop experienced by all males due to age, it gets even murkier. If changing testosterone levels had any effect on same-sex attraction, we'd see waaaaay more gay grandpas.

What Bookitty, Randfan and Trakar said. There's some evidence that testosterone levels may be one of the things that influence sexuality before birth, but I don't think there's anything to indicate they affect orientation (as opposed to desire) later, for exactly the reason Bookitty states above.

 

[Complexity]

It's amazing to me that anybody still confuses "being gay" with "being like the opposite gender".

I know. They must be reading silliness from the fifties.

It also means that they don't have a clue how surrounded they are by gays and bis.

 

[Bad Lieutenant]

I know. They must be reading silliness from the fifties.

This is getting really boring now. You're the one sticking their head in the sand and/or attempting to pass off your perception of the gay rights movement's agenda as science/logic/reason. The studies show people aren't born gay so it must be due to later environmental influences; 1+1=2. All I've done is put forward one hypothesis that could explain some homosexuality; you've done nothing but pretend the study by Bailey et al in 2000 never took place. Pathetic.

Ironically enough, by accusing me of being old fashioned when it is in fact you who are refusing to acknowledge contemporary studies, you are demonstrating projection, first formally identified by Sigmund Freud.


~Bailey, Michael J., Michael P. Dunne and Nicholas G. Martin (2000). Genetic and environmental influences on sexual orientation and its correlates in an Australian twin sample. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78, 3, 524-536.

 

[Alan]

What was that argument you were making in the past about monogamy causing homosexuality?