Contrary to the idea of “born that way” which implies a biological determinant of sexuality, I’ve always considered it highly likely that homosexuality is a condition which could be caused by any one of a number of things. Same sex attraction is the symptom, but the cause of the symptom can be different from individual to individual. One might have a biological predisposition, another may have been sexually abused as a child. A boys relationship with a parent, choice, the bullying of a sensitive natured child which leads to a self-fulfilling prophecy. It seems evident that human sexuality is somewhat plastic (think of prison populations, ancient warrior cultures, the British Navy, etc). It is so because it has evolved to fill a social function and not just a reproductive one. Thus quite a number of things could cause one to change orientation.
Have you ever looked at rates of childhood sexual abuse among LGBTQ community people? I remember looking at several studies with quite alarming rates. It may be another piece to this puzzle.
In this badly formatted BBC News article from 2011, a graph shows that child abuse is significantly higher in the US compared to the UK. The stated source is Unicef. When I find the Unicef report they used, I will post the link here.
The most likely explanation for the decline in bestiality since 1900 is the dramatic urbanization of the population in that timeframe. Less lonely, lovelorn men at the end of long dirt paths, looking longingly at the doll-eyed ewe in the corner of the pasture. I find the notion that bestiality was encouraged / propagated by culture dubiously supported.
With respect to homosexuality, the negative effects are Darwinian fitness are obviously quite large, making any genetic basis very hard to maintain in the absence of any remotely-plausible countervailing positive effects. And the low concordance between monozygotic twins is telling. The most likely biological explanation I've seen is the "gay germ" hypothesis in which a childhood infection causes organic damage to a region of the brain involved with sexual targeting. At the moment, no such candidate agent has been found, so the evidence for it is purely evidence against other explanations.
But recently, looking at data similar to that presented here, I am increasingly privileging the role of social/cultural factors as well.
Apr 24, 2023·edited Apr 24, 2023Liked by Peter Nimitz
There’s lots of examples of homosexual behavior in animals. Swans for example. My understanding is that they frequently raise young after kicking females out the nest
Also anecdotally, when visiting relatives in Zimbabwe there were 4 elephants that frequented to property, 2 of which were gay males.
I don't understand the preoccupation of the author (and many other people) with who other people are having sex with. As long as both partners are consenting adults, who cares? As William Shatner famously said, "Get a life!"
It’s always seemed to me that much of the behavior restricting ethics codified in religious systems and texts is about curbing male tendencies to violence and sexual perversion. When those restricting ethics lose sway and are replaced with the valorization and bear hug embrace of every deviancy (as long as it’s between *consenting adults*), is it really any surprise that fetishizing is now normal?
(The destruction of Sodom wasn’t ONLY about about sodomy (which is anal sex, something straight men/boys increasingly view as desirable), but also about the desire to gang rape and the violation of hospitality to the stranger, which is a core cross cultural religious principle.)
Glory holes and girly men and trans-men and bdsm and bears and body fluids … it’s perverse and it’s all tinged with a palpable contempt for the biological female. Always has been.
Maybe people are born this way, but we’re also born with an impulse to take whatever we want whenever we want it and destroy whatever we don’t like (see sacking of Chicago Walmart and BLM riots) — doesn’t make it good. Oh wait, I forgot, those were good and PEACEFUL and completely justified when they weren’t completely PEACEFUL.)
PS: Lesbians, on the other hand, are fetishized by straight men and mocked by gay men for “Lesbian bed death”, as if lack of ravenous lust is disordered.
> Alleles that increase likelihood of homosexuality are rapidly purged by natural selection, although they could possibly survive at a low frequency if they have other effects that render an organism more fit. No human population can naturally have an eleventh of its men be born homosexual.
Mother Nature is far more absent-minded than many people seem to think. We have a human population where around one in thirty are either schizophrenic, bi-polar, autistic, obsessive-compulsive, or prone to depression; despite their obvious fitness costs, these traits appear to be constantly renewed throughout the population by random mutation.
Granted, I do agree that a homosexuality rate of one in eleven is too high for the heritability to be 100% - but who says it's 100%, except for people ignorant of heritability calculations? We've known the heritability of homosexuality was around 30% for decades, now, and newer research doesn't say anything really different:
"heritability is estimated as... .32, meaning that about a third of variation in sexual orientation is attributable to genetic differences. The best estimate of the nonshared environmentality is simply one minus the MZ correlation,.43, and shared environmentality is the remainder, .25."
So here genes account for 32% of the variation, shared environment 25%, and unique environment (or randomness, or error) 43%. People are gay for a variety of reasons, including both genes and the rearing environment.
The rest of this piece is a good analysis, though. It really rings true that modern culture has, among other things, shifted everyone's sexual behavior away from bestiality and towards homosexuality.
Contrary to the idea of “born that way” which implies a biological determinant of sexuality, I’ve always considered it highly likely that homosexuality is a condition which could be caused by any one of a number of things. Same sex attraction is the symptom, but the cause of the symptom can be different from individual to individual. One might have a biological predisposition, another may have been sexually abused as a child. A boys relationship with a parent, choice, the bullying of a sensitive natured child which leads to a self-fulfilling prophecy. It seems evident that human sexuality is somewhat plastic (think of prison populations, ancient warrior cultures, the British Navy, etc). It is so because it has evolved to fill a social function and not just a reproductive one. Thus quite a number of things could cause one to change orientation.
Have you ever looked at rates of childhood sexual abuse among LGBTQ community people? I remember looking at several studies with quite alarming rates. It may be another piece to this puzzle.
Demographics may be a factor.
In this Gallup's poll you can see that Hispanics in America are more likely than any other group to identify as LGBT.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/234863/estimate-lgbt-population-rises.aspx
In this badly formatted BBC News article from 2011, a graph shows that child abuse is significantly higher in the US compared to the UK. The stated source is Unicef. When I find the Unicef report they used, I will post the link here.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-15288865
The most likely explanation for the decline in bestiality since 1900 is the dramatic urbanization of the population in that timeframe. Less lonely, lovelorn men at the end of long dirt paths, looking longingly at the doll-eyed ewe in the corner of the pasture. I find the notion that bestiality was encouraged / propagated by culture dubiously supported.
With respect to homosexuality, the negative effects are Darwinian fitness are obviously quite large, making any genetic basis very hard to maintain in the absence of any remotely-plausible countervailing positive effects. And the low concordance between monozygotic twins is telling. The most likely biological explanation I've seen is the "gay germ" hypothesis in which a childhood infection causes organic damage to a region of the brain involved with sexual targeting. At the moment, no such candidate agent has been found, so the evidence for it is purely evidence against other explanations.
But recently, looking at data similar to that presented here, I am increasingly privileging the role of social/cultural factors as well.
FYI New IPSOS study on LGBT in 30 countries
https://www.ipsos.com/en/pride-month-2023-9-of-adults-identify-as-lgbt
There’s lots of examples of homosexual behavior in animals. Swans for example. My understanding is that they frequently raise young after kicking females out the nest
Also anecdotally, when visiting relatives in Zimbabwe there were 4 elephants that frequented to property, 2 of which were gay males.
I don't understand the preoccupation of the author (and many other people) with who other people are having sex with. As long as both partners are consenting adults, who cares? As William Shatner famously said, "Get a life!"
It’s always seemed to me that much of the behavior restricting ethics codified in religious systems and texts is about curbing male tendencies to violence and sexual perversion. When those restricting ethics lose sway and are replaced with the valorization and bear hug embrace of every deviancy (as long as it’s between *consenting adults*), is it really any surprise that fetishizing is now normal?
(The destruction of Sodom wasn’t ONLY about about sodomy (which is anal sex, something straight men/boys increasingly view as desirable), but also about the desire to gang rape and the violation of hospitality to the stranger, which is a core cross cultural religious principle.)
Glory holes and girly men and trans-men and bdsm and bears and body fluids … it’s perverse and it’s all tinged with a palpable contempt for the biological female. Always has been.
Maybe people are born this way, but we’re also born with an impulse to take whatever we want whenever we want it and destroy whatever we don’t like (see sacking of Chicago Walmart and BLM riots) — doesn’t make it good. Oh wait, I forgot, those were good and PEACEFUL and completely justified when they weren’t completely PEACEFUL.)
PS: Lesbians, on the other hand, are fetishized by straight men and mocked by gay men for “Lesbian bed death”, as if lack of ravenous lust is disordered.
Hi Nemets!
Bestiality is most likely lower because - people no longer live in the countryside, have much less interaction with animals.
> Alleles that increase likelihood of homosexuality are rapidly purged by natural selection, although they could possibly survive at a low frequency if they have other effects that render an organism more fit. No human population can naturally have an eleventh of its men be born homosexual.
Mother Nature is far more absent-minded than many people seem to think. We have a human population where around one in thirty are either schizophrenic, bi-polar, autistic, obsessive-compulsive, or prone to depression; despite their obvious fitness costs, these traits appear to be constantly renewed throughout the population by random mutation.
Granted, I do agree that a homosexuality rate of one in eleven is too high for the heritability to be 100% - but who says it's 100%, except for people ignorant of heritability calculations? We've known the heritability of homosexuality was around 30% for decades, now, and newer research doesn't say anything really different:
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1529100616637616
"heritability is estimated as... .32, meaning that about a third of variation in sexual orientation is attributable to genetic differences. The best estimate of the nonshared environmentality is simply one minus the MZ correlation,.43, and shared environmentality is the remainder, .25."
So here genes account for 32% of the variation, shared environment 25%, and unique environment (or randomness, or error) 43%. People are gay for a variety of reasons, including both genes and the rearing environment.
The rest of this piece is a good analysis, though. It really rings true that modern culture has, among other things, shifted everyone's sexual behavior away from bestiality and towards homosexuality.
I'd definitely recommend "The Man Who Would be Queen" for anyone interested in learning more about male homosexuality