Dr. Warren Throckmorton was quoted in an article at HealthCentral.com about the just-released study identifying different brain processing of certain smells (potentially pheromones) between heterosexual women and lesbians:
The research suggests that “sexual preference is associated with the brain response,” said Warren Throckmorton, an associate professor of psychology and fellow for psychology and public policy at Grove City College in Grove City, Pa. “Lesbian women don’t show the same pattern of [brain] activation in response to the pheromones.”
While he finds it interesting that different parts of the brain responded differently in the study, “how those differences get there this says nothing about,” he added. Whether the women were born that way or learned the behavior, he said, is beyond the scope of this research.
Kathleen Doheny, the author, did not identify Dr. Throckmorton as a leading proponent for reorientation in her article. However Dr. Ivanka Savic, the author of the study, did give her opinion as to reorientation:
Larger populations need to be studied, Savic said. When asked if her research suggests that programs to change sexuality would not be effective, she said: “We have no proof, but I anticipate in the majority of people these programs will not work.”
Of course, that’s just her educated guess. As Dr. Throckmorton has indicated, Dr. Savic may undertake similar testing using ex-gay participants and/or bisexual participants.
How exactly does one learn to smell differently?
Boo, I think the idea is that different associations may cause your brain to respond differently to odors. For example, if you smell apple pie every time you were hit in the face, you’d probably learn to associate the odor of pie with fear.
The study itself actually mentions that it’s possible that heterosexual women learn to respond sexually to AND (the male odor), although there is no sexual arousal reported in the study for either lesbians or straight women. However, based on sexual experiences, they may have begun processing them differently.
We shouldn’t be asking whether lesbians learn to respond to odors–we should be asking whether anyone learns to associate these putative pheromones with sexual arousal.
(A fuller summary of the article is available on my blog, with commentary–but I don’t have a science background, I’ll admit.)
There is a basic flaw with the way these results are being presented (by Warren as example). And Boo has got it in one easy question.To pick up on ck’s pie in the face, one could learn to associate the smell of an apple pie with the inevitable experience of copping one in the kisser a few moments later.But sexual attraction does not start with such a “blank slate”. A lesbian does not start with “doing” lesbian things and only then learn to attach lesbain sexuality to the object.Instead, as with heterosexuals, the sexual attraction exists beforehand. One does not go from being a virgin to a non-virgin, and only then connect — say — pheromones, or voice pitch or whatever else we care to nominate. Experience may reinforce, but the very reason that experience occurs is because the sexual attraction already exists.I think it is entirely deliberate when attemps are made to claim (gay) sexual experiences occur before (gay) sexual attractions. It’s simply one more version of the “nobody is born gay, they get recruited”.Helpful hint: swap heterosexual woman for lesbian etc in any such articles. And then look at the commentary…
While Throckmorton’s background wasn’t identified, the context of mentioning him was “Others [who] debate the meaning of the new research.”
Perhaps a telling indicator: The article uses the word orientation in its title, and also refers to:
lesbiansheterosexual womenheterosexual menmale and female sexualityhomosexual menpheremones involved in sexual preferences
And Dr. Throckmorton’s first quote opens with sexual preference, a term which, as he himself noted in a 2005 paper (.pdf), “was largely abandoned in the 1970s.”
I am not a physician or a biologist, but did major in Pysch in college and have worked in health care, including analyzing clinical literature, for 17 years. I for the life of me cannot remember any phenomenon where the brain is changed merely by behavior. In fact, if anything, research over the last few decades has demonstrated the fundamental biological underpinnings of nearly all human behavior – why would homosexuality be the only difference?
These questions are exactly why I think further kinds of studies need to be done, to determine what ‘pheromones’ do–at what point in someone’s biological development does the brain begin processing AND/EST in these ways?
The article itself actually suggested that heterosexual women could learn to respond to AND–although because none of the women reported sexual arousal, nor did those parts of the brain receive extra blood flow, it’s not clear that this “learning” would be linked with sexual experience.
The study’s authors were quite conservative in what conclusions they drew from the results, naturally, as scientists. It’s the press who has done a poor job (mostly, not everywhere) of reporting the findings.
For those who might be wondering about Throckmorton, it’s good to be aware of who he is and what he represents. He’s a counseling psychologist who teaches at Grove City College, a Christian college in PA. His web site is revealing.
First learned about him when he was imported to testify at a legislative hearing on the DOMA bill in Ohio. He testified for the issue. Two psychologists from our state psychological association testified about the peer-reviewed research that undermined his arguments but DOMA passed anyway. He tends to get dragged in by the religious right to give them a veneer of scientific credibility,
Lots of women’s magazines tell you how to use perfumes and colognes and the differences between them.
Womens’ pH and other factors are what most creates the maximum effect of applied scents.
Most women’s scents are way too flowery for me. So I tried a man’s scent that was spicy, rather then flowery.
It was SCARY how many MEN and some women would
follow me and inquire about what I was wearing, evidently my female pH and that particular scent worked so spectacularly.
But worked for what?!
Pheromones aren’t conscious. Applied scents are manufactured for a reason.
But none of it really matters.
Sometimes our sense of smell changes. With pregnancy, aging…all kinds of things.
These tests aren’t conclusive, and pretty much just tell us more of what we already know.
The bottom line is: no matter what someone smells or smells like, what does that have to do with how they are treated politically and Constitutionally?