1 in 200?
Did anybody check the closets?
Has this ever been demonstrated in humans? I hear the theory a lot, but I have never seen any evidence that gay people are more involved in child care than straights in any society.
Regards,
Shodan
I found Jimmy Hoffa! In a dress!
Seriously though…
Lots of good examples have already been mentioned as to why it is so difficult to quantify homosexuality in the current social climate.
Do we only count those who self-identify? Do we count everyone who has ever had even one sexual encounter with someone of the same sex? Do we hire some geeks to come up with Google-esque algorithms to help us extrapolate into the deep dark closet? Or another set of equations to account for the social and cultural stigma that may discourage people from ever even exploring the possibility that they might be gay…so they can even answer a pollster in an informed manner?
I am interested in quantifying the proportion of us gay folks out there in the world, but we humans have a lot of work to do before we can hope for any sort of valid data.
" I hear the theory a lot, but I have never seen any evidence that gay people are more involved in child care than straights in any society."
Well, there’s no particular reason they need to be directly involved in child care for the theory to work. They just need to engage in any activity that helps the family/tribe as a whole, e.g. hunting.
The key point being that it’s the reproduction of the genes that’s important, not of the individuals. E.g. ants, which have large segments of their population that are completely sterile (though that’s not 100% determined by genetics.)
It sure can. The females of many reptile and amphibian species, for instance, can replicate through a process called parthenogenesis. In essence, she is cloning herself, in the absence of males. Humans can’t do this outside of a laboratory, of course, but it’s fairly common in lower animals.
Neither have I, but they wouldn’t have to be for the argument to hold. An “altruistic” model of homosexuality could have developed as an early adaptation of pack-oriented early humans or proto-humans and become a conservative or neutral trait that carried over into modern populations. For social carnivores like wolves, which generally operate in at least loosely related groups and where generally only the most dominant animals breed, kin selection would seem to be a natural explanation for the behavior of non-breeding animals. In thinking humans or proto-humans, with the ability to reproduce year-round and thus do an end around any dominant hiearchical figure(s) ( which couldn’t possibly police available females 24/7, 365 days a year ), homosexuality may have been an additional insurance policy that helped with the successful raising of a next generation in times of relative resource scarcity.
Maybe.
But regardless, modern child-raising patterns need not have anything to do with it.
- Tamerlane
As noted above, the theory is that gays can assist in the propogation of their relatives’ genes. This strategy wouldn’t even need to be very effective to still produce results. For a gay person, having a niece or nephew achieve reproductive age is as successful an evolutionary outcome as having a grandchild is for us breeders* – and it can be achieved at much cheaper cost.
–Cliffy
- This is true because, on average, children get half their genes from each parent, and siblings share half their genes. Therefore, a gay uncle shares on average 25% of his genes with his nephew, as does a grandfather with his grandson.
It is about 10%. Definitely not 1 in 200!
That may be true but if the gay uncle didnt exist the child could still have the same genes. The gay uncle has nothing to do with what genes any child gets.
In addition to what others have said, I would add that it’s only very recently in human history that the concept of “homosexual” as a separate and distinct social identity has existed. The word itself dates back only to the 1860s. This is not to say that there were not people who prior to the coinage of the word who were not possessed of a homosexual orientation, just that there was no social construct. Rather than “homosexual” they were the “spinster aunt” or the “extra man” or “confirmed bachelor” without a sexual identity. Those people undoubtedly did contribute to the raising of the offspring of siblings. When the “immorality” associated with homsexual sex acts transferred by association to people of a homosexual orientation, society began to consider it “dangerous” for children to be around gay people and so the participation of gay adults in the raising of their siblings’ offspring undoubtedly decreased. This societal attitude persists through the lies told by anti-gay people and organizations and is sometimes codified (as in Florida’s ban on gay adoption and various court rulings stripping custody from gay parents) and is frequently exploited as a reason for denying gay rights (as in the excuse given that marriage is for procreation or Anita Bryant’s naming her group “Save Our Children”).
Typed by The Griffin:
Some of the child’s genes are the gay uncle’s own, and by contributing to the potential survival/reproduction of the child, the gay uncle contributes to the potential survival/reproduction of those shared genes.
I think this is very difficult to ascertain. I know many women who have had a sexual experience with another woman, but would in no way consider themselves lesbian or even bisexual. I think the 1-3% figure is only in regard to exclusive homosexuality. I’d say teh tweeners would be just about impossible to quantify. Kinsey’s study was way off. His data was skewed , he used young men who had been in reformatories and prisons as subjects, and counted them as homosexual, even if it was only when they were in an all male environment, and exhibited no homosexual behaviour outside of jail.
This is more of a debate than anything, so I’ll move this thread to GD.
bibliophage
moderator GQ
One reason why homosexuality is believe to have a genetic component is from the studies of twins. In sets of identical male twins, when one is homosexual, there is a significantly higher rate of homosxuality in the other twin than there is in fraternal male twins, when one fraternal twin is homosexual. Yet, there is not a 100% correlation in homosexuality among identical twins; in fact, fewer than half show a correlation. So, there are probably also non-genetic factors in determining one’s sexual orientation.
As to why any such genetic trait for male homosexuality would not be bred out of humans, given the low numbers of male homosexuals who have offspring: it may be a sex-linked genetic trait like hemophilia, which although expressed in males, is carried by females. Until recent times, hemophiliacs rarely survived to adulthood to reproduce, but their sisters carried the hemophilia genetic factor on into their sons.
Ive known over 100 women who were lesbian, so the 1% “could” be true, esp since not all women I knew who might have been admitted it to me. Ive never personally known a single gay male, so that 3% sounds high to me.
Same here – my department at work consists of roughly 40 people, and there are five fully out gays/lesbians here, so we’re talking even better than 10%.
Hmmm…On preview, I noticed your Sydney location…our company has a Syndey office. I wonder…
Oh geez, Great Debates? Well, it was interesting while it lasted. 
Based on my lifelong study of porno films, for women who weight less than 120 pounds and have a size 36 or greater chest, the figure is about 100%. Also, a strong correlation exists between a job as a delivery man and living in a sorority and being homosexual, or at least bisexual.
My god, HomerIU! I think you’re onto something.
How in the world can our experiences be so different? I’ve known only a handful of Lesbians and probably about 100 homosexual men.
How can you tell?
One statement does not contradict the other. I’m straight and I love that show too. I think that it is fascinating!
And there are always the “spinster aunts” who are simply unclaimed treasures or who are single by choice. And there are still “confirmed bachelors” who don’t meet the right woman for them or decide not to marry for other reasons.
I always took the 10% figure as gospel and appreciate being required to do some thinking on the matter.
One question for those of you who are absolutely certain that you are heterosexual: Were you born that way or was that shaped by your environment?