From Medical News Today, there’s news of a biological basis for “gaydar,” the rumored ability of some gay people to identify one another through poorly understood, non-verbal cues:
Gay men preferred odors from gay men and heterosexual women, whereas odors from gay men were the least preferred by heterosexual men and women and by lesbian women.
Reference: Yolanda Martins, George Preti, Christina R. Crabtree and Charles J. Wysocki. Preference for Human Body Odors Is Influenced by Gender and Sexual Orientation. Psychological Science, September 2005 (not yet published).
Meanwhile, the New York Times reports new evidence of biological underpinnings for sexual orientation:
Using a brain-imaging technique, Swedish researchers have shown that men and women respond differently to two odors that may be involved in sexual arousal, and that homosexual men respond in the same way as women. …
The new research may open the way to studying human pheromones as well as the biological basis of sexual preference. The study, by Dr. Ivanka Savic and colleagues at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, is being reported in Tuesday’s issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
But the studies do not mean that sexual orientation is necessarily fixed…
From the Chicago Tribune:
The current climate of debate over whether homosexuality is a matter of choice or is inborn makes such research extremely controversial, said team leader and neuroscientist Dr. Ivanka Savic of the institute’s Center for Gender Related Medicine.
“I want to be extremely cautious – this study does not tell us anything about whether sexual orientation is hardwired in the brain. It doesn’t say anything about that,” Savic said.
For more information: Google News search
Re: “Gay men preferred odors from gay men…”
Well sure, if it’s Halston, Hugo Boss or Paco Rabone… 🙂
Anyway… here we go again.
Very good update, Mike.
I like your sense of balance, in that you also took the time to mention that the jury is still out with regards to whether orientation is fixed. This shows intellectual honesty.
What role does smell really play in sexual arousal? It seems that at least for humans, a very large component of it is visual as opposed to olfactory, given the fact that men can get off quite well on pornography (minus the smell),while finding it quite difficult to get off on smell alone (minus the visuals).
“Our findings support the contention that gender preference has a biological component that is reflected in both the production of different body odors and in the perception of and response to body odors.”
I don’t doubt their findings. Sexual orientation, like everything else about us, DOES have a biological component, but I believe, as you probably do too, that we should not attempt to read anymore into this study than is warranted, in order to be intellectually sound.
I would love to read the original article and evaluate the actual data, as I don’t usually trust media sound bites, especially when they relate to issues like these.
Interesting post Mike.
I think ‘gaydar’ has also something to do with the facial structure of some (or most) gay men rather than simply mannerisms or rainbow flags. These physical features do indicate that ‘biology’ has a lot more to do with sexual orientation in all individuals than most conservatives would like to admit.
The problem though is that the dichotomy between biology v.s psychology is flawed in certain ways because both these aspects are intricate connections. Psychology does have a foundation in biology with a person’s environment. Psychology can affect biology in certain ways (e.g. psychological stress making you physically ill), but I think only to a certain limit, and certainly not as far as making a person’s face have sex-atypical characteristics.
So, can somneone’s sexual orienation change? Again, that depends on what sexual orienation consists of and what causes it for each individual. Personally, I don’t think it’s possible for anyone to change it on its biological foundation without a future form of bioengineering that conservatives would likely to find unethical. Those that say they’ve trully changed (even the author and community of yestergay) have more likely been ‘biologically’ bisexual all their lives and perhaps they’ll revert on the other side like a pendulum.
Oh, there’s an exception: it is possible for anyone to change their sexual orienation in one way with our knowledge in biology and medicine, but that one involves castration and a lobotomy. X(
So, are some of you aware of the facial characteristics of gay men that I mentioned?
Yu says:
‘given the fact that men can get off quite well on pornography (minus the smell),while finding it quite difficult to get off on smell alone (minus the visuals).’
Why is this a fact? Leather bars are filled with men who are odor oriented. Who can easily get off on smells alone. So are Radical Faerie gatherings.
To my mind, the weakness of this approach is in more or less lumping all sg sexual activity/ attraction into one category. I think it can be shown that ‘homosexuality’ can be broken into a number of different manifestations which superficially can be shown to be alike but are rather different things when looked at closely.
Dalea,
My point was in pointing out that one should not give primacy to odors and pheromones as sexual triggers, because most people do not need odors to be aroused; case in point: there is a multi million dollar visually based porno industry DVD’s, internet pics, etc), but no such industry exists for sexual odors, at least not at the same magnitude.
Xeno:
“Those that say they’ve trully changed (even the author and community of yestergay) have more likely been ‘biologically’ bisexual all their lives and perhaps they’ll revert on the other side like a pendulum”
You may serve to discount the experiences of those of us (including yestergay.com) who have felt they changed, but ultimately yours is a skepticism that is scientifically unfounded, as no specific biologic etiology as been found, thus far. You posit that it is biologically based, but until you show me the precise biological basis, the whole affair remains Chimerical. Hint: you won’t find one credible researcher who states that sexual orientation is purely biological (and you do imply that it is purely biological when you say that the only way to change orientation would be to change biology). Even the most militant gay researcher wouldn’t admit that.
I’m not disagreeing with the assertion that biology is involved, rather I’m disagreeing with YOUR assertion that biology is all it is.
Also, even if a biological etiology is found, things are NOT going to improve for us Queer people. In fact, they might actually get worse.
Lastly, I don’t think Dan Biguy (yestergay web master) is going to swing back to the other side anytime soon, sorry to dissappoint you (he likes girls now).
Yu: You may serve to discount the experiences of those of us (including yestergay.com) who have felt they changed, but ultimately yours is a skepticism that is scientifically unfounded, as no specific biologic etiology as been found, thus far.
That’s an interesting perspective to come from. I was always of the opinion that skepticism itself was one of the foundations of scientific inquiry. Should we instead rely upon the subjective, unverifiable and personal experiences of you and others? Should we only exercise skepticism for studies that link homosexuality for biology but blindly accept every wild claim of change that is made?
Yu: You may serve to discount the experiences of those of us (including yestergay.com) who have felt they changed, but ultimately yours is a skepticism that is scientifically unfounded, as no specific biologic etiology as been found, thus far.
That’s an interesting perspective to come from. I was always of the opinion that skepticism itself was one of the foundations of scientific inquiry. Should we instead rely upon the subjective, unverifiable and personal experiences of you and others? Should we only exercise skepticism for studies that link homosexuality for biology but blindly accept every wild claim of change that is made?
You may serve to discount the experiences of those of us (including yestergay.com) who have felt they changed, but ultimately yours is a skepticism that is scientifically unfounded, as no specific biologic etiology as been found, thus far. You posit that it is biologically based, but until you show me the precise biological basis, the whole affair remains Chimerical. Hint: you won’t find one credible researcher who states that sexual orientation is purely biological.
Actually, the biological etiology for, at least, male homosexuality has been posited – that the gene or genes responsible for homosexuality are triggered by high levels of androgen in the mother’s bloodstream during prenatal development. The combined effects of androgen and the genes actually androgynize the brain, and that could easily explain the differences in hypothalmi, in finger length and in other biological and biochemical findings that gay men are more feminine than their straight counterparts.
As for no researchers believing homosexuality is purely biological, you may be correct, although normally what I see in print is that both genetics and environment play a role, but the scientists do not distinguish between the physical (e.g., pre-natal) environment and child-rearing effects. But we must remember that science is loathe to pronounce anything “proven” without direct observational evidence, which may not even be possible in regards to human sexuality. After all, there are still scientists who doubt HIV causes AIDS.
But what I like about this study is that it points to a potential mechanism not just for homosexuality or heterosexuality, but the full spectrum of sexuality we see in humanity. If brain structures like the hypothalmus are affected by genes and the biological environment to produce what will eventually be the adult sexual orientation of the individual, then that would explain all sexualities. Those people who perceive a “change” in their sexual orientation may not have had any real change at the biological level, but perceive that change because the right combination of sexual arousal signals (pheremones, visual stimuli, who knows what else) were present.
If this finding holds up, it would also eliminate the purely environmental argument “we’re all bisexual at a basic level” because there would always be those whose brains were hard-wired only to be attracted to opposite-sex or same-sex people, in addition to the millions who have the capacity for attraction to either sex.
Hmmm, the pornography industry is barely 40 years old. Prior to 1965 there were gay people. So, that does not seem to prove that smell is unimportant as we have found other means of satisfying desires. Pornography is a produced method of satisfaction. It is produced round about. Smells are a by product of everyday existence. As they occur naturally there is no real need to produce them.
Yu:
Nonsense, like Ricardo already mentioned, skepticism is one of the foundations of scientific inquiry; it comes before an inquiry is concluded. Rational skepticism is not ‘scientifically unfounded’ simply because it doubts the subjective experiences of others and there isn’t concrete proof of what is hypothesized. Also, mine is based on the objective biological evidence on the sex-atypical characteristics we’ve found not only in the queer population, but in animals as well.
Yu:
You’ve misunderstood what I’ve written. I’ve never stated that it was purely biological. First, I’ve stated that the dichotomy between biology and psychology is flawed because biology is a foundation of psychology and psychology can affect biology in certain ways. Second, I did imply that the cause of sexual orienation can vary between individuals, like those with more sex-atypical features than others are likely to have a more innate homosexual orientation. Third, I’ve stated that sexual orientation most likely remains innate on the biological level, implying that the fluidity of sexual orienation is only at the psychological level.
Yu:
I disagree. It can definately improve in social acceptance and legal recognition, providing that the queer community doesn’t ghettorize itself to the point of isolation. However, these improvements would take generations to properly sink in.
Yu:
How can you be so certain of that if he already switched before? Are you implying that his ‘heterosexuality’ is innate? Quite frankly I don’t really care. My bf and I could have ended up with girls (since we find some of them attractive), but that wouldn’t make us heterosexual the least one bit (and neither does our relationship make us homosexual).
Sexuality is a complex thing and is not easily explained in a 1, 2, 3 manner. Most researchers tend to think that gay orientation is a mixture of biology and social background. Most biologists I have known think that it is a combination of genes rather than a single gene, making it much more complicated to find origin. There have been suggestions through a multitude of studies that attraction is biologically based. Also, there is homosexuality in nature and is probably purely biological (although urban movement and power positions can also influence animal behavior). It has been seen that genes influence violence and alcoholism, so why would it be such a stretch to think that attraction is biologically founded?
Science uses inductive logic, so nothing is fully answered or confirmed in science. It cannot ever be. There will never be absolute facts in science. To search for such is wrong.
In the end, it does not matter to me. I never cared about origin. I am gay. That is true. I don’t really care how I got this way. I have been aware that I am gay since childhood. It is not going to change for me. Origin always seems to me to be a strawman. Is it really necessary to know origin to give people equal rights and respect them? THere is more choice in religion than there is sexuality, yet we don’t question the rights of the religious.
I’m just wondering how many high level meetings and conference calls are taking place today amongst the ex-gay echo chambers on how to talk down this study.
It seems that every time something like this comes out, Throckmorton writes a hit piece attempting to shout down any results that contradict his pre-conceived notions about the origins of homosexuality.
After his piece is published (in a day or two most likely), the ex-gay spokespeople will repeat his findings ad nauseum.
Call this a prediction.
Addendum:
It may not be Throckmorton who writes the hit piece, he was just a convenient example.
It could be Nicolosi, Socrades, one of FOTF’s in house researchers (Minnery?)or Paul Cameron for that matter.
I’m just guessing that whomever does it, we’ll see it within a week.
Scott,
You’re right… I’ve been skimming around expecting it. Traditionalvalues.org (Crazy Lou’s group) will carry it for sure.
And let me guess what it will say: “NEW STUDY AGAIN SHOWS NO PROOF OF “GAY GENE”. Although the liberal news media elite have been running screaming headlines about gay pheromones, a careful review of the actual study shows again that there is no direct biological connection with being gay. The results show only 98% of the self admitted homosexuals responded in the described manner. Had there been a true biological component there would have been 100%…”
They’re always good for a laugh.
Well Tim, you’re assuming that all self described gay people are biologically gay. I believe most gay people (myself included) were gay from birth, we don’t know exactly why yet but I think there is a biological reason.
The 2% leftover may be simply psychologically gay. Who knows why?
Maybe that 2% ends up in an ex-gay ministry somewhere.
I think a natural follow-up to the pheromone study would be to run it on self described ex-gays to see just how ex-gay their brains really are.
I can’t add much to the comments, but I very much want the womens’ study to come out. My wife is blessed with a very strong sense of smell (or cursed, on NYC public transportation! :-), and almost 13 years ago, she elected not to pretend that she didn’t know English because she liked the way that crazy hippie girl who asked her what she was reading smelled.
Yep, I called it. Randy Thomas is the first out of the gate on this story.
https://randythomas.info/2005/05/10/kfia-710-am-interview-tonight/
Scott… it was satire.
I was just spoofing the type of stuff they say. So now I’m going to go off and read the actual article.
thants for the link
ooops… thought he’d already written something. But it’s just an anouncement of his being scheduled to discuss it.
Satinover and Throckmorton both beat him to the punch at drkoop.com. Here’s what they have to say.. nothing too surprising considering the source:
https://drkoop.com/newsdetail/93/525660.html
“This study says nothing about homosexuality being innate,” said Dr. Jeffrey Satinover, a psychoanalyst who has written about homosexuality and lectured on its social consequences. “There is an automatic knee-jerk assumption that if there is a difference in the brain, that difference has to be innate,” he added.
Changes in the hypothalamus could be caused by repetitive sexual behavior, Satinover said. “The brain is extremely plastic, like a muscle,” he said.
“There have been dozens and dozens of studies attempting to show a genetic or biological basis for homosexuality,” Satinover said. “Not one has ever succeeded in doing so.”
Warren Throckmorton, an associate professor of psychology at Grove City College, a Christian-based college in Pennsylvania, finds the study intriguing. “It does show that there is some involuntary reaction on the part of the brain to a stimulus that is imperceptible to the person,” he said.
But like Satinover, Throckmorton believes that the sense of smell is partially learned. “The brains of the participants may have acquired a sexual response to these chemicals as a result of past sexual experiences,” he said. “So, learning could be implicated here in a way the subjects wouldn’t have been aware of.”
(me again)
You have to admit Throckmorton is bright. He’s already found a way to discount both studies. Just when did the sense of smell become learned? I’ve not heard that before. Maybe there’s something to it, but it just seems a little too cute for words. I think that if it were discovered that gay toenails are different, toenails would magically become “learned” as well.
I would comment on Satinover’s theory but my gym routine today was back, biceps, and hypothalmus and now my brain is sore.
“I did imply that the cause of sexual orienation can vary between individuals, like those with more sex-atypical features than others are likely to have a more innate homosexual orientation.”
Actually you didn’t say this in your previous post, but now that you did, I will say that I agree with you up to a point, particularly regarding the “cause” of sexual orientation being different for different people.
“Third, I’ve stated that sexual orientation most likely remains innate on the biological level, implying that the fluidity of sexual orienation is only at the psychological level.”
Is this a joke? So you maintain that sexual orientation can be felt by some individuals to change, but that this fluidity is superceded by your “fact” that it is innate on a biological level. Again, the word “innate” is intellectually vacous without a further explanation. What is the specific biologic etiology? Don’t bother referencing the article posted by Mike A. because it says nothing about “innateness.” Or are you going to throw me more jargon to navigate through?
You argue that sexual orientation can change (be fluid) on a psychological level, but that ultimately the innate “biological” orientation doesn’t change. And it is VERY obvious to me that you give priority to the biological aspects of sexual orientation in order to make your claim that nobody ever changes. So according to your argument, people who experience changes in their sexual attractions and arousal only change on a psychological level, but have not truly changed because they have some mysterious innate biological “something” (that is yet to be found) that is immutable. Therefore, they “haven’t really changed.” To me this sounds incredibly weak.
I agree with CPT Doom that prenatal hormones may play a large role in influencing orientation, and may predispose a child to a homosexual orientation. However, this is not an essentialist position like Xenos, as there are men who are bio-chemically more feminine than other men but who are straight.
Ultimately I’m trying to move away from seeing sexual orientation as this singular, biological organ or entity, as a metaphysical thing that is innate and never changes. The problem is conceptual confusion. Researchers say they research sexual orientation, but even among the scientific community, there is dispute as to what constitutes a sexual orientation and how it should be measured. The APA only seems to give a very vague and general description of it.
I agree that sexual attractions don’t change much for a lot of people, but I’d have to disagree with CPT Doom because he appears to be making the same type of argument as Xeno when he says “Those people who perceive a “change” in their sexual orientation may not have had any real change at the biological level,” because then we have to talk about what we mean by “change.” According to CPT Doom’s thinking, one can always say that no one has “changed”, even if they experience changes in attraction and arousal, because unless change is on a biological level, it is not “true” change.
Ultimately this becomes a meaningless position because then we have to distinguish between “psychological change” and “biological change.
For example, suppose we had someone who was depressed, but after some time, is no longer depressed. He “feels” happier and no longer feels a black mood. We then measure his brain chemistry, and we find that it hasn’t changed at all. Are we to tell him that “according to our findings, you are still depressed?”
Timothy, if you read Throckmorton’s critique closely, regarding the learned sense of smell concept, you will find that he is only repeating what the researchers themselves said in their report. They actually state that is quite possible that the response to different smells is acquired, and is not hardwired i.e. innate.
He’s not shouting down the research in anyway. I read his original critique, and it doesn’t read like a typical critique. He had good things to say about the research methodology, but his only concern was the exclusion of lesbians from the results of the study.
Yu:
A better example might be left-handedness. Social conditioning can result in a left-handed person performing things with their right hand. And yet the underlying biology remains (presumably) the same.
They may come to think of themselves as ambidextrous or even right-handed, yet if a measure of dexterity were devised that could eliminate trained movements, they would still be left-handed.
Where is throckmorton’s original critique?
Timothy,
“A better example might be left-handedness. Social conditioning can result in a left-handed person performing things with their right hand. And yet the underlying biology remains (presumably) the same. They may come to think of themselves as ambidextrous or even right-handed, yet if a measure of dexterity were devised that could eliminate trained movements, they would still be left-handed.”
Well, my reply is: suppose a “natural” left hander is socially conditioned into using his right hand. He then loses the ability to use his left hand over time but is able to use his right hand quite effectively, goes on to become a champion tennis player, and his quite happy. What would be the point in saying: “but you are still left handed no matter what!”
Also, I have a friend who was born a “natural” left hander, but was conditioned into using his right hand at a young age. Now, using his right hand feels “innate” to him. It feels awkward to use his left hand, although he has more control of his left hand than “natural” right handers. Are we to say that he is still “left handed?” After all, since when did the definition of being “left handed” go from being the hand one prefers to use (and is comfortable using) to a metaphysical, vaguely biological definition?
Timothy, here is a direct quote from the ACTUAL study itself.
“The difference between HoM (homosexual males) and HeM (heterosexual males) could reflect a variant differentiation of the anterior hypothalamus in HoM, leading to an altered response pattern. ALTERNATIVELY, it could reflect an acquired sensitization to ANDROGEN (testosterone – male pheromone) stimuli in the hypothalamus or its centrifugal networks, due to repeated sexual exposure to men (35). A third possibility is that HeW (heterosexual women) and HoM associated ANDROGEN with sex, whereas HeM made a similar association with EST (estrogen – female pheromone). These tentative mechanisms are not mutually exclusive, nor can they be discriminated on the basis of the present PET data. (Ivanka, et al, 2005, p. 7361)”
So, in real life, science rarely yields simplistic, black and white results. Notice how the three possibilities need not be mutually exclusive, meaning that the hypothesized mechanisms may actually work in concert with each other, or work differently in different people.
Yu:
Nevermind… I found it at https://www.drthrockmorton.com/article.asp?id=146
I agree with you that the critique is well presented. Additionally, I liked that he let the researches speak in their own words (although I don’t know what was not included).
I found the following interesting:
“This study could help us better understand why sexual attractions seems so natural and at time illogical. If stimulating this area of the hypothalamic region influences a subjective experience of sexual arousal, then imperceptible “chemicosignals” could be, metaphorically speaking, the little fiery darts that trigger sexual temptations. Engaging in sexual activity could set in motion brain changes that are difficult to reverse, although not impossible, once established.”
It seems as though Throckmorton is saying that this test could possibly be used to determine the validity of his claims and those of the other ex-gay ministries.
It may be a bit simplistic but something along this model could used: start with a test group willing to participate and determine to what extent their hypothalmus responds to either pheromone. Go through the change process and see to what extent their responses change.
If indeed a) the hypothalmus response to pheromones is learned, and b) it can be reversed (as throckmorton claims), then a study should support that assertion.
Yu:
Right-handedness or left-handedness are not factors of actions or of feeling. They are measures of dexterity.
… so in the example of your Tennis champion, his potential is higher in his left than in his right hand. Just imagine what he could have accomplished had he followed his natural course.
“Right-handedness or left-handedness are not factors of actions or of feeling. They are measures of dexterity.”
But its ultimately subjective, is what I’m saying. After all, if you wanted to see if someone was left handed or right handed, you would ask him which hand “feels” more natural and comfortable to use. And 99.9% of the time (barring serious neurological disorders) that hand would also have increased manual dexterity. You say that left handedness is not a “factor of action,” but “manual dexterity is a factor of action,” just to remind you.
Strange, I just had a conversation with a student yesterday who was forced to become right-handed even though she was left-handed originally. Her right hand works but is somewhat weak. However, she has been trained not to use her left–so she feels guilty and does not. Her son was born left-handed, but she decided to let him stay that way because her experience scarred her forever. Sounds similiar to exgay experiences.
Actually, yu depression has an effect upon brain chemistry and such a person would be lying if no change in brain chemistry was found.
Also handedness is biologically determined before birth. Sure some people can learn to use or naturally their non-dominate had a bit more than others, but most people would find it extremely difficult to do so. I can think of only one somewhat ambidextrous person and a careful observation would reveal that she prefers the right hand. It also leaves open the question of why would anyone want to perform such a frustrating task that will almost certainly not lead to equal amount of dexterity in both hands. The dominate hand will always be the more dexterous of the two unless there is some sort of damage.
What makes sexual orientation difficult to study is the fact that it is about feelings which can be pretty hard to quantify but then again out sense of sight, smell, and taste are likewise about feelings that can be hard to quantify. It also involves behaviors which there can be lots of motivations for. It is hard to put the why, when, what about the person you find attractive in some sort of absolute and universal scale.
Now I personally have my doubts that anyone can change their sexual attraction.
Not those attractions can change, but that someone through force of will can unlearn to be attracted to whatever they like and learn to be attracted to something new. People really don’t come with an undo switch and my own experience with life is that people usually like what they like off the bat without having to force it upon them. I think you can change your feelings about your attractions, but that is just about it.
“Actually, yu depression has an effect upon brain chemistry and such a person would be lying if no change in brain chemistry was found.”
My point is that we need to get clear about what we mean by change. Do we define it purely as a biological phenomenon? Psychological phenomenon? Subjective vs. Objective? Etc.
I believe that though biology may influence psychological change, it is the opinion of current research that psychological change can also influence biology. Hence the example with depression: my point is that biology can be influenced, perhaps through psychological counseling, that may lead to a resolution of the depression and a concurrent change in brain chemistry.
You say that brain chemistry is the absolute criteria for judging someone’s state of depression. Well, I’ve never heard of a psychologist/psychiatrist/physician use measures of “brain chemistry” as a criteria for judging their patient’s state of depression. This should tell us that it is not well understood.
My global point is that the interaction between body and mind is not well understood, and to be intellectually honest, we should refrain from making any black and white generalizations (I”m not saying that this is what you do).
Interesting thing Jason–often people try to change the lefthandedness to righthandedness due to religion. That was true in my student’s case. The Bible teaches that the lefthanded person is not in line with God. In fact, there is a lot of scripture that suggest righthandedness is the only righteous position (i.e. Jesus is on the right side of God). I think this is a perfect allegory for what happens with religion, society, and gays. Also, society is only really accomodating to righthanders since lefthanders are seen as a small minority that should change to fit the majority.
Regarding the original post, this regarding smells may be true, but I doubt it. When I was a kid, I fantasized about having sex with Tony Dow (Wally on Leave It To Beaver) and the Luke Halpin, who played Sandy on the original Flipper show. (Lest anyone call me a pedophile, I’ll just let you know that Tony was older than I and Halpin and I were contemporaries.)
Regardless, I doubt that I could have smelled them over the television.
Yu,
In reviewing your various comments above, I noticed what I think may be your viewpoint (I could be wrong).
I’m inclined to believe that some things just are what they are. You seem to believe that nature of things is impacted by what you believe them to be.
I don’t know if you agree with this, but it would go a long way towards explaining why we seem to talking past each other.
“I’m inclined to believe that some things just are what they are. You seem to believe that nature of things is impacted by what you believe them to be.”
My viewpoint is that it is easy to fall into conceptual confusion regarding “the nature of things.” You believe things “are what they are,” but I want to take the extra step and call to question our common black and white perceptions of the world.
If you wanted to test if somebody is left handed, you don’t run a biological test, you ask them how they feel and which hand they prefer using. This to me seems quite obvious. Since when was being left handed defined in terms of some vaguely known biological organ/gene?
Remember, biological studies on sexual orientation are never conclusive; there’s always a significant group of gays who don’t have the hypothesized biological attribute, whether it be genes (Xq38) or finger lengths or sense of smell.
However, these people feel that they are gay, are attracted to the same sex, and live as gays and are happy being gay.
Are we to argue with them and tell them that they are not really gay? After all, is our current understanding of sexual orientation enough to posit biological attributes as the ultimate criteria of whether someone is gay or straight?
Who is arguing that biological attributes are the ultimate criteria? This seems to be read into the discourse. Looking at it, all I see is tendency to find a biological basis for a wide range of tendancies. No one that I have ever heard of has suggested your scenario.
One if you know anything about biology it is that life tends to be on a range. Rarely are things black and white in biology. For instance people range in height, skin color, caloric requirements, sensitivity to stimulus ect… It just reduces complexity to assume things are one way or the other.
Actually genetics is suspected to be involved in handiness. Basically there is a link between the direction that your follicles are whorled around your scalp and handedness. The hair follicles of people that are right handed whirl around their scalp clockwise 91 % of the time. However the hair follicles of people who are not right handed only do so 55 % of the time. Basically if your hair follicles are not placed around your head in a clockwise fashion there is a high probability that you are not right handed? In addition there are differences in the location of the language processing areas as well as in the areas of the brain that control hand movements. So yes, you could possibly determine the handedness of a person by doing brain scans and looking at their scalps. Expensive, but possible. The exact mechanism and the location of the gene are unknown, but it is mighty hard to find a cultural reason why there is a link between langue processing areas in the brain and hair follicles.
As for brain chemistry. Yes there are links between certain brain chemicals and mood and if those brain chemical level have not changed then no matter what you are probably still depressed. Yes, psychological consoling may cure depression but drugs also do improve mood without counseling. The best methods combine both psychological counseling and drugs. The reason why brain chemistry is not used as a criteria is because frankly doing cat scans and measuring Serotonin levels is expensive. It is just cheaper and easier to ask the person how they feel. However no matter what the cause if your serotonin levels drop you will feel depressed.
Also biology is complex. There will always be people who don’t fit a biological attribute because frankly they do not know everthing there is about the world. For instance there is a link between the presence of smoke and buildings on fire. However do all instances of smoke mean a building is on fire and do all types of fires create visible smoke? No.
However you can make some generalizations about sexual orientation. Most people stay what ever sexual orientation they are for life. The best “ex-gay” programs only claim a 30% success rate which means that the majority did not change. Of the people who clam to be ex-gay many go back to being gay which suggests that whatever change that happened(if it happened) was tempory at best. Finally few “ex-gays” claim to be rid of their same sex attractions and fewer still claim to have develop new opposite sex attractions. All this suggests that mind over matter doesn’t work too well in the long run.
Dalea,
There is an implicit belief that someone might change on the psychological level, but that such change is not “true” change if no “biological change” occurs concurrently. See all the previous posts. This implicity assumes that biology takes priority over the psychical.
If you read all the previous posts, you will find a strong bias in favor of biological essentialism.
For example, someone above said:
A) “Those people who perceive a “change” in their sexual orientation may not have had any real change at the biological level, but perceive that change because the right combination of sexual arousal signals (pheremones, visual stimuli, who knows what else) were present.”
Notice how change is seen as a perception (delusion?) that is not “real.”
Further,
B) “I’ve stated that sexual orientation most likely remains innate on the biological level, implying that the fluidity [change] of sexual orienation is only at the psychological level.”
This statement ultimately is meaningless. What exactly is it that remains the same (innate) about sexual orientation? The obvious answer would be “thoughts, feelings, attractions.” However, by replying in this fashion, we are all of a sudden back at the psychical level. Suppose someone were to instead say, “well, the biological aspects of sexual orientation remain the same.” I would then ask: what exactly are these biological aspects? Have they been found? How widespread are they upon the gay population? but more importantly, if they were so essential, they’d have to be present in EVERY man who self identifies as gay. And they AREN’T. You might reference finger lengths studies and such, but the fact remains that in every study, there is a significant number of gays who don’t have the hypothesized biological essence. What then? Are these gay people “lying” about being “gay” because their biology doesn’t fit a particular model? To answer in the affirmative would mean that one is a hardcore biological essentialist/reductionist who believes that biology ultimately is the criteria. I know that nobody would admit to this on this board, but this conclusion seems to be one that a person can logically arrive at, given the two statements referenced above.
One hopes that you can comprehend this.
Jason you’ve totally missed the point.
“One if you know anything about biology it is that life tends to be on a range. Rarely are things black and white in biology. For instance people range in height, skin color, caloric requirements, sensitivity to stimulus ect… It just reduces complexity to assume things are one way or the other. ”
Jason, if you knew anything about what I was talking about you would also realize my point that there is a temptation to give priority to biology, and to head down the road of biological reductionism. Telling me that life is on a continuum is useless and misses the point.
You make some pretty bold statements regarding depression as it relates to brain chemicals: “if your serotonin levels drop, you will feel depressed”
See https://opioids.com/dynorphin/depression.html
and realize that your belief is outdated. Modern researchers believe that it is a lot more complicated than reducing depression down to a mere chemical phenomenon. The modern approach attempts to sketch out all the parts of the brain that are involved in depression, but that is all it is, a sketch, or a description of what really might be going on: “But now, despite the obvious efficacy of serotonin-boosting drugs such as Prozac, Zoloft and Paxil, it’s clear that when a person is depressed, there’s a lot more going wrong in specific areas of the brain than just low levels of serotonin.” I’m not discounting biology, rather I’m discounting biological reductionism.
“The hair follicles of people that are right handed whirl around their scalp clockwise 91 % of the time. However the hair follicles of people who are not right handed only do so 55 % of the time. Basically if your hair follicles are not placed around your head in a clockwise fashion there is a high probability that you are not right handed?”
First, there is a correlation between follicles and handedness, but no cause and effect relationship can be gathered from this. Second, due to your previous statements on depression, it wouldn’t be below you to go so far as to say that a person is NOT left handed unless his biology fit the proposed model for left handedness (just as you said for being depressed with respect to serotonin. I don’t discount that biology plays a role, but what I’m attacking, and you are missing the point, is biological reductionism..
Re: “There is an implicit belief that someone might change on the psychological level, but that such change is not “true” change if no “biological change” occurs concurrently. See all the previous posts. This implicity assumes that biology takes priority over the psychical.”
I don’t think that just because someone questions the nature of “change” or “true change” (whatever either term means) that it necessarily follows that the person doing the questioning is demanding proof of “biological change”.
In fact, I haven’t heard of anybody asking whether the size of anybody’s hypothalamus changes as a result of becoming “ex-gay” 😉
I have a problem with the imprecise definitions of change. I accept that someone who is calling himself “ex-gay” have changed his identity from gay to ex-gay. But sexual orientation and sexual identity are two completely different things. One would hope that in a healthy individual there is a degree of congruity between the two, but it doesn’t necessarily follow that such is the case.
I think when most people question whether some sort of change actually takes place, they are questioning whether there continues to be a significant congruence between the individual’s sexual orientation (as understood to be defined by what gender that person finds himself naturally and easily attracted to) and that person’s sexual identity. But it doesn’t automatically imply that the questioner (someone like, say, myself) has resolved in his own mind whether nature or nurture prevails in determining sexual orientation, or whether that person (like myself) even buys into such an overly-simplified dualistic explanation.
Jim,
I personally believe that sexual orientation includes parts of sexual identity, as does sexual identity contains parts of sexual orientation. I don’t see the two as two distinct categories.
The two are not the same, but there might be significant “cross talk” between the two.
Just to echo Regan’s post from above:
From a political perspective, whether homosexuality is innate or learned misses the point, according to Winnie Stachelberg, a vice president of HRC (Human Rights Campaign). And she says, “How we treat people should be based on principles of basic fairness and not on scientific evidence,” she said.
I agree with her. So who gives a flying f___ about whether it is biologically determined, or mutable/immutable?
Even if homosexuality was potentially reversible and changeable, it shouldn’t affect how gays are treated. Rather than taking a defensive posture (trying to argue that they are born that way, and are cursed by biology), gays are better off demonstrating that they can be high functioning, productive, caring individuals in a uncaring society.