Sorry, I should’ve been clearer. You’re right that it wasn’t important in regards to answering my original question; it was important in furthering my overall education. As my ambiguous usage in the OP revealed, I didn’t fully realize there was a difference between the two. I thought “biological” necessarily meant “genetic”, and although I suspected other biological possibilities, I couldn’t think of any off the top of my head so now I’m glad that was clarified. Hormones in the womb? Fascinating. That’s one more bit of ignorance fought 
That’s pertinent information. Thank you very much.
Regarding the question whether homosexuality, assuming it’s a maladaptive trait,* can be “natural”–
Earlier someone brought up a study that shows that the later a child is in birth order, the more likely it is to be gay.
Now, suppose gay people tend to have slightly fewer offspring than straight people.
This means the genes of people who mate with a woman earlier in her life are more likely to go on being reproduced later on.
And this could be accounted for in terms of the woman’s genes’ own drive toward reproductive success. For if she is such that men who “get to her” earlier have a better chance of having grandchildren, then it is to the men’s advantage to compete for that earlier spot. And a woman for whom men are competeing has a reproductive advantage over a woman for whom men are not competing.
So if this just-so story were to have any basis in fact, then homosexuality would be a perfectly natural and species-adaptive trait even if it happened to be an individual-maladaptive one.
Granted it’s just a just-so story, but my point is that it’s illegitimate to call homosexuality “unnatural” just because it is maladaptive in the evolutionary sense.
-FrL-
*I’m just accepting this idea that homosexuality is maladaptive for the sake of argument. I don’t know what the fact of the matter is–though I confess it does seem plausible to me that homosexuals, in the aggregate, tend to have at least slightly fewer offspring than others.
I’m getting hit from all sides here, but I’m just trying to get some of the arguments straight:
- It seems as if the argument boils down to either “being born that way” or it is a “choice”. I would contend that it doesn’t matter either way as far as morality is concerned, as far as whether it is good for procreation, or good/bad in any other way.
I also understand that it is not what what the op asked, but I wanted to point that out because someone will come up with a study to prove a genetic/biological link as if that is an “aha!” moment which someone makes everything right.
On the other hand, my preacher will cite a study proving that it is “nuture” which causes homosexuality, as if that somehow proves it is wrong. It doesn’t.
- That being said, it could be argued that the strongest contention for homosexuality not being a “normal” type of behavior is the fact that, if practiced faithfully, would lead to the death of one’s particular gene pool.
I’m not saying that I agree with #2, but it is food for thought. I don’t mean to offend anyone or their lifestyle. I am just trying to wade through some of the contentions to get at the bottom of this issue.
You say “make everything right” as if the assumption were that it was wrong up until that point. “Wrong” is a matter of morality, which means it is an arbitrary cultural assertion.
Natural is not the same as good, but the innate drives that are disapproved of by moralists tend to fall into one of three broad groups. First is harmful to others or to society. Sociopathy and violence are examples. Second is the squick category that includes bestiality and coprophagia. Third is uncomfortable differentness, like mental illnesses, physical deformities, racial distinctions, even left-handedness.
Homosexual is odd is that opponents try to place it within all three groups, sometimes all at once. That same-sex marriage somehow destroys opposite sex marriage is a prominent example of category one. No one can make a convincing case that this should be so but it is widely heard. Certainly homosexuality has a squick factor for many, as the endless parade of gay jokes in any comedy monologue will attest. Same-sex marriage is often referred to this way, as the start of a slippery slope that will allow for marriage to animals. The counter to this argument is that huge numbers of types of sexual relationships have been antithetical to other groups, including anal sex, BDSM, cousin marriage, fetishes, and the missionary position or lack of it. Same-sex mentoring that included sexual relations has been the norm, even exalted, in many cultures. There is no biological or genetic reason to classify homosexuality as anything but a variant in the vast spectrum of humanity.
All modern cultures have tended toward the removal of stigmatization of uncomfortable differences, placing the burden of disapproval on those who disapprove. Homosexuality and same-sex marriage is becoming one of these differences in western society. My prediction is that 40 years from now it will be as accepted as interracial marriage and that people will look back at these times the way we look back at the civil rights era and wonder how anybody could think that way.
You’re right that it doesn’t. However, it is never correct to cite “a” study on anything. Science is a consensus body that proceeds by having the weight of the evidence on one side. If the weight of all the studies done continues as at present to be overwhelmingly on the side of nature, citing only the contrary is evidence of bigotry. Racial bigotry still exists too, but it’s no longer considered part of conventional morality.
Normal has two meanings that are being conflated here. Homosexuality is admittedly not normal in that heterosexuality is probably 20 times more common. This makes it an uncomfortable difference, as stated above, and that is too often translated into being something that is wrong in some way. Most anything that is felt to be wrong will pick up accretions of justifications. Mental illnesses were caused by devils. Unmarried women had to be witches. Left-handed people were sorcerers.
Take lactose intolerance. Virtually every mammal and every human is born with the ability to manufacture the lactase enzyme to digest the lactose sugar in its mothers milk. And all those mammals and humans lose this ability at about the time of weaning. Yet a small faction of humans are born with a mutation that never sends the signal to stop lactase production. This meant nothing for the first several million years of human evolution. In the last 10,000 years, though, humans started herding and milking animals and the ability to drink milk as an adult proved to advantageous in that they had a slightly higher chance of bearing children that survived them.
The point is that genetic and biological changes are endemic throughout the human genome and in natal development. Some will be passed on, some won’t. Some will be positive, some will be negative, some will be neutral. Some may become useful only under different environmental pressures.
It is a total misconception that any trait is not normal in the moralistic sense just because it does not contribute to the “gene pool”. It’s also wrong in the biological sense in that homosexuality is known in all cultures and in all recorded history. There is no reason to think that it is a new development or is in any way antithetical to human survival. A minority of humans can be homosexual and the human race will presumably continue for as long as the heterosexuals don’t get together and kill it off.
Putting homosexuality in this category is anti-scientific ignorance. That often leads to bigotry and is probably the cause of much of the bigotry in actuality.
If a religious group insists upon discrimination against gays or same-sex marriage, that’s a matter for their conscience. But they can’t be allowed to use science as a justification. That’s no different from creationism. It’s objectively incorrect and based on deliberate blindness to the facts.
That’s why you’re getting hit so hard on this. Your version of science is just plain wrong. Your understanding of history isn’t much better.
Different is just different. Society says whether different is wrong. Society is often wrong on wrongness, and wrong changes to acceptance and then, with luck and time, to right. You have to stop thinking of normal as right and therefore moral. It’s a false construct, and the base of much of the harm humans have perpetrated on one another throughout history.
My favorite evidence that the continuum model is probably not a good fit for men:
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/118661803/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0
I pity the research assistant…
Again with questions like this you need to define your terms first.
A genetic element would mean that if you have this gene, and the gene is expressed in a certain way, you will find men sexually attractive.
This is problematic, for instance, I am a gay man. I have never found any women even remotely sexually appealing. I can look at a woman and say, “yes she’s pretty,” but I would’ve feel sexually excited. For me, homosexuality isn’t a preference. It’s how I am wired.
But it’s not that simple. I know of “gay men,” who could find one or two women sexually appealing and exciting. To these folk homosexuality IS a preference. They overwhelming like men but there are a few women they “COULD” like.
It’s like why are some people left handed. My brother was an he was forced to write with his right hand. He can write pretty much the same with either hand but he chooses to use the left hand. He can write with this right hand but it doesn’t “feel” correct to him.
So that brings up another point, functionality versus feelings.
Heterosexuality IS choice too. Priest for example choose NOT to have sex. It doesn’t make priests assexual. No, they STILL have feeling for women (or men) but are choosing not to act on them.
A man eats vegetables because they are good for him, but he would PREFER cake.
So if the OP is asking where is the genetic evidence that homosexuality is genetic, he has to define specifically what he means. I don’t see any gene that says “left handedness is genetic” but it appears to be.
Also remember there are some genes that act differently. For instance if you’re male and you’re missing a gene on the “X” chromosone, you will get this disease. If you’re missing the same gene on the “Y” chromosone, you will get a totally different disease.
Genes not only “ARE” but they are acted upon by hormones and chemicals, which turn them off and/or on at certain times. This can explain why two people with the same genes are different depending on the timing of the hormones that acted upon them
Yes, for those of us on an extreme end of the Kinsey scale the word “preference” is meaningless, because it implies at least a little ambivalence, even a choice. But for me the choice is not between “men” or “women,” it’s between “men” and nothing.
An idea without any research or basis other than linking points in this thread but it is early on a Monday…
If having older brothers increases the probability of homosexuality, perhaps there is a natural need for homosexuality as a population control. That would be a means to explain homosexual behaviour in other animals also.
This is a pretty weak argument. There are plenty of species which routinely have non-reproductive members as a matter of course–hive species and pack species to name a few, and this appears to be part of an overall reproductive strategy. Now, that may or may not be why homosexuality appears in humans, but you can’t just go around saying “this characteristic makes one less likely to reproduce, so it isn’t normal.” That’s simply not the way gene propagation works generally, and until we have a better understanding of the way human genes propagate and their function, we won’t know for certain what role homosexuality plays, if any, in the human genome.
If sexual preference doesnt at least have a genetic cause (and I mean cause, not correlation), then how do you explain the fact that most people are straight?
Unlike skin color, people can easily fake being gay, so a lot of conservatives dont wanna believe it. But just as how people are born straight, so they must be also born gay
Hypothetically, at least, it’s possible sexual preference has an environomental cause, and only a small group of people are exposed to the enviornmental factor that makes someone gay.
Not every aspect of a person is caused by their genetic makeup.
I’m fighting madly against a very juvenile snerk at the title of that study vis a vis the topic at hand.
Thanks for this (as well as the rest of your post). Truer words have never been written.
I just want to thank everyone for this discussion, as it answers a lot of my questions. I always *knew[i/] already that I was born gay, but now I have some backup of why this is so, which I can bring to any following discussions.
Now… where were those gay twins found again?
Very, very interesting. Would this qualify as evidence for post-birth environmental conditioning?
Absolutely. I deliberately kept morality out of this since it is GQ. I just wanted to know more about the science and research.
I don’t see that as problematic – that’s very much a related scenario. I’d be interested in the causes behind ALL sexual orientations – homo, hetero, bi, none, bestial, multiple, whatever.
I suspect that we’ll find some common links between them.
Likewise. Thank you all again.
This is only true in a vaccum, which we obviously don’t exist in. There are many disadvantages to being left-handed in a society that has designed everything around being right-handed. For example, we’re statistically at a much greater risk of dying of an accidental injury that arises from using an object meant to be used with the right hand…and virtually all objects down to watches and wood screws are biased towards being used right-handed.