Gay Hypothesis

[Yui108]

Well, if being gay/lesbian is passed down genetically, possibly through parents who were simply "holding in" their homosexual urges perhaps that sexual orientation will die out. I say this because if homosexuality is passed down through repressed parents, yet more and more people are "coming out" with a same sex partner, then will these genes not be passed on?

Please, if I have said something dreadfully politically or scientifically incorrect(I bet I have.) correct me.

 

[Mise]

I asked this question on this forum before! It was taken a bit more seriously than I had hoped though... (I thought it was obvious I was joking!).

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=114344

 

[mdwh]

They key word in your question is "if"

Also, how does your hypothesis account for bisexuality?

(I am amused that, according to this reasoning, people who oppose homosexuality should be encouraging them to come out and be actively homosexual as much as possible - yet it is they who would rather they pretend to be straight, and have children.)

 

[Dubai Vol]

I don't do "politically correct."

Scientifically, though, your idea has serious flaws. Read the other thread and you'll see that while homosexuality has a biological basis, it has not so much a "genetic" basis, as a gestational chemistry basis.

Recent studies showed that gay men have brains much like straight women, and gay women have brains much like straight men. Their brain development was influenced during the mothers' pregnancy.

Sexuality is not an either/or, but a range. Some people are strongly hetero, some are strongly gay. Many are somewhere in the middle, and may either be bisexual or decide to stick with one team or the other. Nothing "wrong" with any sexual orientation, biologically.

 

[El_Machinae]

It won't die out because gay men make great uncles, and homosexuality is carried as a probability. Every time an uncle helps out his nephew, he's helping preserve 1/4 of his genes.

 

[Luckymoose]

Well seeing as gay isn't a trait and merely a choice, this is impossible.

 

[mdwh]

Well seeing as gay isn't a trait and merely a choice, this is impossible.

You chose to be straight then (assuming you are straight)? Presumably this means you're really bisexual, but just made a choice to only date the opposite sex. There's nothing wrong with being bi, I am too, but the way other people talk about sexuality suggests that not everyone is bisexual, as much as I would like to believe otherwise.

(I'm also not sure why a choice is qualified with "merely" either.)

 

[Riffraff]

Well seeing as gay isn't a trait and merely a choice, this is impossible.

I think the term is 'closet case'...

 

[sourboy]

If anything, I would think genetic homosexuality would be related to a natural evolution of humankind to not reproduce so fast, considering we're spreading like a virus across the planet. Problem is, there's no scientific proof of this, nor does genetics work that way, AFAWK.

 

[Mise]

Having a few otherwise fit, healthy and productive members of a group unable to produce viable offspring probably has survival advantages for the children of other members of the same group. A higher provider-dependant ratio -- more providers for each dependant means that the children get more food, clothing, education, love and affection, and other resources.

 

[El_Machinae]

Mise is right, just ask the honeybees.

 

[Luckymoose]

You chose to be straight then (assuming you are straight)? Presumably this means you're really bisexual, but just made a choice to only date the opposite sex. There's nothing wrong with being bi, I am too, but the way other people talk about sexuality suggests that not everyone is bisexual, as much as I would like to believe otherwise.

(I'm also not sure why a choice is qualified with "merely" either.)

I am not bisexual or homosexual. I am straight, because I chose to be at an early age. Probably has something to do with my parents and wanting to be like them or something. I dunno, but what I do know is that every person who is gay chose to be gay. I know a few gays and they all tell me they chose to be that way. My guess is they turn gay because no one of the opposite sex wants them.

 

[mdwh]

So, you fancy members of the same sex too, but you choose only to have relations with the opposite sex?

This is basically a matter of definitions - whether sexuality is who you're attracted to (i.e., not one's conscious choice), or who one actually has or tries to have sex with. The latter is clearly a choice. So by the former definition, you and your friends would be bisexual, but you've chosen one gender over the other.

I'm bisexual myself, however the evidence suggests that not everyone is. Many people are only attracted towards the opposite sex (and some only towards the same sex).

My guess is they turn gay because no one of the opposite sex wants them.

Are you trolling, or serious? And to think I decided to stay here rather than Off-Topic because I was fed up with that level of debate...

 

[C~G]

Probably has to do with the brains and how brains see the selection of the mate.

It should be also noted that in human behaviour sex isn't only used for reproduction but also as way of socializing, buying favours in the group, just getting pleasure and also in terms of having significant life partner.

Such habit and behaviour as of acts of homosexuality wouldn't die because it would probably make the group more coherent and have more closer relations between individuals in group.

But I think the hypothesis is that there aren't that many closet case homosexuals but there are many closet case bisexuals. So that in case yes, it's possible that there are genes which lead to homosexuality.

 

[warpus]

I decided to be straight at an early age because the gays didn't want to do me.

 

[Zelig]

I decided to be straight at an early age because the gays didn't want to do me.

Still doing better than me, no humans wanted me.

 

[Onionsoilder]

Sexuality isn't a choice, nor is it genetic. It is something that develops in a person after conception, including everything from the time spent inside the womb to experiences after birth. Now granted, if you are gay, you can choose to get married and have kids with the opposite sex, but in general you will be very unhappy and stressed. The same goes for if your straight, and for some insane reason try to be gay.

Basically, saying you can choose to be straight or gay is like saying you can choose to be smart or athletic. Genetics plays a very minor part, but it really has to do with how your raised. Unless you have a birth defect, you can't be born dumb. It all has to do with what your interested in.

 

[Moggy]

Isnt being bisexual just greed?

 

[Brighteye]

I sincerely doubt that all gays choose to be that way.
If it were a choice, why would one choose to be hated by a great many small-minded people, be the subject of endless jokes and have a more difficult time finding a partner unless one had a natural desire that way?
I think, Luckymoose, that you've got the wrong forum. This is Science/Technology, not trolling/lies.

 

[GoodGame]

According to the first reference below, in some cases the cause may be a large number of brothers (3ish) and the birth order of the person (e.g. were they the 3rd male born).

The second reference finds a strong correlation between acts of familial incest (not necessarily immediate family) and homosexuality.

Anyways Science-Tech isn't the place for OT SPAM.





Arch Sex Behav. 2002 Feb;31(1):63-71. Links
How many gay men owe their sexual orientation to fraternal birth order?Cantor JM, Blanchard R, Paterson AD, Bogaert AF.
Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

I

n men, sexual orientation correlates with the number of older brothers, each additional older brother increasing the odds of homosexuality by approximately 33%. However, this phenomenon, the fraternal birth order effect, accounts for the sexual orientation of only a proportion of gay men. To estimate the size of this proportion, we derived generalized forms of two epidemiological statistics, the attributable fraction and the population attributable fraction, which quantify the relationship between a condition and prior exposure to an agent that can cause it. In their common forms, these statistics are calculable only for 2 levels of exposure: exposed versus not-exposed. We developed a method applicable to agents with multiple levels of exposure--in this case, number of older brothers. This noniterative method, which requires the odds ratio from a prior logistic regression analysis, was then applied to a large contemporary sample of gay men. The results showed that roughly 1 gay man in 7 owes his sexual orientation to the fraternal birth order effect. They also showed that the effect of fraternal birth order would exceed all other causes of homosexuality in groups of gay men with 3 or more older brothers and would precisely equal all other causes in a theoretical group with 2.5 older brothers. Implications are suggested for the gay sib-pair linkage method of identifying genetic loci for homosexuality.

Psychol Rep. 1995 Apr;76(2):611-21.Links
Does incest cause homosexuality?Cameron P, Cameron K.
Family Research Institute, Washington, DC 20013, USA.

A random sample of 5,182 adults from 6 U.S. metropolitan areas were questioned about incestuous sexual relationships during childhood. Incest was disproportionately reported by both male and female bisexuals and homosexuals. 148 gays (7.7% of the sample) reported 14 (50%) of same-sex, and 7 (22%) of opposite-sex incestuous experiences, and 20 (69%) of same-sex and 2 (3%) of opposite-sex sexual experiences with other relatives. 88 lesbians (3% of the sample) reported 2 (33%) of same-sex incest and 7 (9%) of opposite-sex incest and 1 (17%) of same-sex and 10 (13%) of opposite-sex sexual experiences with other relatives. 12% of 98 male homosexuals vs 0.8% of 1,224 male heterosexuals with a brother reported brother-brother incest. These findings are consonant with those of other studies in which disproportionately more incest by homosexuals was reported. As opposed to an evolutionary genetic hypothesis, these data support the alternative that homosexuality may be learned, since homosexuals do not produce children at sustainable levels and the incidence of homosexuality varies as a function of various social factors. Incest cannot be excluded as a significant basis for homosexuality.