I have the "man-loving" gene

Interesting Psychology Today article about theories of how homosexuality could be genetic, despite the counter-intuitiveness of it: Finding the Switch

Comments

[ParatrooperJJ]

Why do you think that is counter intutitive?

[Jacqueline]

Well, homosexuality makes one less likely to reproduce, and thus less likely to pass on one's genes.

[maurile]

It doesn't necessarily make one less likely to reproduce. In Robin Baker's fascinating book Sperm Wars, he cites evidence that gay males have more female sex partners, on average, than straight males do, and reproduce at a greater rate than straight males. (The greater rate is not due to having more offspring, but to having offspring at a younger age, on average -- so more generations per century.)

Baker lumps bisexuals in together with homosexuals. Maybe that's cheating, but I don't think it's genetically irrelevant. As a gross oversimplification, it's possible that homosexuals have two out of two gay genes while bisexuals have one out of two. That would explain how a gay gene could provide a reproductive advantage overall (at frequencies below equilibrium), even if it disadvantages those with two of them. (Compare sickle cell.)

Actually, I think one of the possibilities mentioned in the Psychology Today article -- i.e., "sexually antagonistic selection" -- is more likely to be what's going on than the sickle cell analogy -- i.e., "heterozygous advantage." But it could be some of both, plus lots of other stuff. It seems kind of complicated.

[Scorpius]

First, does this mean you're a gay man in a chick's body?

Second, you're trusting "Psychology today". Psychology as a major was created for people who couldn't pass Gen Chem as a route to Medical school to become a Psychiatrist.

[Jacqueline]

Read the article. My brother is gay. Studies have found that female relatives of gay men tend to have a lot more sex than other women. Thus the theory that there could be a "man-loving" gene that makes men gay and women horny. :)

[Philip Welch]

In Robin Baker's fascinating book Sperm Wars, he cites evidence that gay males have more female sex partners, on average, than straight males do, and reproduce at a greater rate than straight males. (The greater rate is not due to having more offspring, but to having offspring at a younger age, on average -- so more generations per century.)

That would make some sense, since frustrated young gay men in denial are likely to keep trying women trying to figure out what's wrong with them. But that's only an evolutionary adaptation to living in a homophobic society, something that has never been a constant in human history.

Baker lumps bisexuals in together with homosexuals. Maybe that's cheating, but I don't think it's genetically irrelevant. As a gross oversimplification, it's possible that homosexuals have two out of two gay genes while bisexuals have one out of two.

Nah, most men are at least a little bisexual. They just won't admit it. (Not as bisexual as women though--almost all women are bisexual, and a significant number of them are hella bisexual.)

Second, you're trusting "Psychology today". Psychology as a major was created for people who couldn't pass Gen Chem as a route to Medical school to become a Psychiatrist

Not all people get into psychology to be a clinician. Some of them get into psychology to run experiments on shit.

You're right to be skeptical though. Psychology's pretty interesting, but its scientific rigor is questionable. I don't trust any scientific field that hasn't purged people like Freud and Jung.

You might notice I'm a philosophy major, and therefore a hypocrite. Like any philosopher, I'd like to argue that. While there are plenty of nutty philosophers who were also significantly wrong, philosophy doesn't have to fulfill scientific rigor. A lot of philosophers, like Meinong, Berkeley, and Parmenides are presented mostly as living examples (so to speak) of the wrong way to go, while problems like Zeno's paradoxes and skepticism are often presented as obstacles to trying to justify that we actually can move in space, or for that matter, have knowledge. Other dubious achievements of philosophy, like Anselm's ontological proof of God's existence, are presented for similar reasons, and for their historical significance. Likewise, I submit that Freud and Jung would be worthwhile subjects of a study of the history of psychology, and perhaps as living examples of how not to do science. What's indefensible is that there are still psychologists who can agree with these fuckers.

Back to the main subject though, there's nothing that makes more sense to me than a man-loving gene. I've long suspected that gay people and transsexuals are just people who lost the lottery for whatever sex-linked genes control man-loving and all the other things women do. (Though as it turns out, some of the genes for man-loving may not be sex-linked after all.) That's a horrible analogy because most people lose the lottery, while very few people are born gay or transsexual, but I don't consider growing up in an alien body and having to get cosmetic surgery to better resemble your preferred gender "winning". Or for that matter, being gay. Having sex with men would be a lot more fun if you actually had a vagina.