The assumption that underlies current discussions of homosexuality and genetics is that homosexuality is a static concept, and this is simply untrue.

The idea of dividing people on the basis of whether they have sex with people of the same sex is a recent development, and peculiar to the west. The best known example, of course, is ancient Greece, where the idea that a man would have sex only with women or only with men would have been seen as utterly bizarre. What mattered was not the sex of the person you had sex with, but that person's social status and who was the dominant partner. Wealthy, older men were to be the dominant partner, while younger men and women were to be submissive. What was "unnatural" to them was someone of higher social status than his partner playing the submissive role.

More recently in England and America, into the eighteenth century at least, homosexuality was seen as an act rather than an identity. Like adultery it was certainly sinful, but it was something a person did, not who he or she was. As in the ancient world, nobody identified him or herself as homo- or heterosexual. In part this was because the words didn't exist, but mostly because the idea didn't exist. Just as we don't have categories for people who have sex with tall/short, thin/fat, blond/brunette, they didn't have categories for people who only had sex with men or women.

Finally, note that that there are cultures (both in the present and past) that don't accept that there are just two sexes. Several Native American groups have a "third sex" as do people in India. (For the hijra see: <link> Lest you scoff at this, remember that from a biological/genetic perspective the idea there are only two sexes is demonstrably untrue. There are hermaphrodites, of course, but that is only the best known example. By some estimates, 2% of the population (30,000,000 Americans) have an atypical genetic pattern that puts them somewhere between male and female.

If we complicate "male" and "female" in this way, how tenable are categories such as "hetero" and "homo"? And if "heterosexual" and "homosexual" are not timeless concepts (which they clearly are not) how can they be biologically determined?

Reading, if you're curious:

Johnathan Katz, The Invention of Heterosexuality

Holt Parker, "The Myth of the Heterosexual," Arethusa 34 (2001), 313-62.

David Greenberg, The Construction of Homosexuality

David Halperin, One Hundred Years of Homosexuality

Yes and no. Do you really feel that the presence of rare unusual genotypes really "complicates" the definitions of male and female? Sure, there are exceptions, but the vast majority of the population fits neatly into one or the other category, and thus the categorizations are very useful.

The same applies for hetero and homosexuality. Those are far messier to define than male/female, to be sure, but not so difficult that we throw our hands in the air and pretend we can't make any sense of it. If we define them by pair-bonding partner preference, then again, most people neatly fit in one group or the other. At least, some point in their lifetime they do, and that definition usually does remain static.

It's interesting that many don't fit in the neat little boxes we draw, but that doesn't invalidate the models.

Sanjait:

If we define them by pair-bonding partner preference, then again, most people neatly fit in one group or the other. At least, some point in their lifetime they do, and that definition usually does remain static.

Sure, we could define it that way, but don't you think that's a bit arbitrary in light of the fact that large numbers of people in past and present society exhibit fluid sexuality?

Sanjait:

It's interesting that many don't fit in the neat little boxes we draw, but that doesn't invalidate the models.

Why not? If we discovered that sickle-cell anemiacs only had that condition occasionally, or that it came on only during prison, or that some people have sickle-cell anemia for a few years and then later shake it off, don't you think that would invite us to question our model of the disease as a static, genetically predetermined condition? I would think so.

I see your point, but what I'm trying to say is that what Saletan and other treat as universal and ahistorical categories aren't universal or ahistorical.

Are intersex people rare? Yes, but there are more of them than there are Native Americans, and we don't pretend that they don't exist. (Except when we do, but that's a different issue.) Moreover, since Saletan is arguing for a biological basis for homosexuality he has to account for those who complicate his evidence. And while I don't want to repeat myself, how does he account for the fact that from a cultural perspective male and female are not entirely clear categories? Is a hijra who has sex with men hetero or homo? The answer, of course, is "no" because hetero and homo have meaning only if sex is a binary state. If the line between male and female has not always been as clear as it is today, arguing for sexual immutability is problematic at best.

And while you are right that pair-bonding is common today, this is a far-cry from saying that hetro/homo are timeless concepts. Do most people fit into one group or the other? Yes, they do today. Did they do so in the past? No, they did not. Moreover, they would have thought that our rigid categories were quite strange. All I'm arguing here is that because hetero/homo are socially constructed, finding roots in genetics is a fool's errand, if for no other reason than the fact that we as human beings are socially constructed. Genetics cannot make you hetero or homo if the idea of hetero or homo does not exist.

Using the Occam's Razor principle, I would suggest that the reason for the existence of homosexuality (both male and female) is the possible existence of reincarnation. In this model, we may "pick" our parents but have an emotional attachment to the last sexual identity we had rather than the one that matches the body we acquire in this lifetime.

I'm theorizing that in highly developed societies where birthrates are seriously declining,. the competition for new baby bodies is so great that more beings are forced to pick up a baby body of the "wrong" sex. I'm positing that in societies with high birthrates and mortality rates, there is probably less competition for babies of the "right" sex, and therefore a lower incidence of homosexuality. I'm going to have to do some research and find out if there IS such a statistical correlation....

Reincarnation would also explain bisexuality, since we've all probably had successive experiences of having either male or female bodies.Hermaphrodistism is undoubtedly a genetic mutation, since it affects the physical body, not the mind.

Science still seems unwilling to address what animates bodies, who the operator is who sits at the controls of this carbon/oxygen machine.

What I'm saying is that hetero and homo are not just social constructs. You say looking for roots in genetics is a fool's errand, and yet you just read an article where researchers did exactly that. If it were nothing but a social construct, we should have a tough time finding genetic patterns and biological markers, but that isn't the case.

From history, we have only anecdotal evidence to work from. You paint a picture of history rife with deviation from our modern understanding of gay/straight. I question the methodology in drawing that conclusion, but in the end, it doesn't really matter. Nobody is saying culture doesn't influence how we behave in radical ways. What Saletan and this article say is that genetics do as well. In modern times, the gay/straight dichotomy seems to be very useful, and encompasses most of the population very neatly. That's why using it as part of a statistical model isn't an assumption of universality nor the presumption that a category of "other" doesn't exist (I believe the study in question actually addresses that specifically), it's just a practical thing to do when setting up a model.


Basically, biology does play a strong role in defining sex (duh), gender, and sexual preference. Pointing out that nature plays a role doesn't mean anyone is assuming nurture is irrelevant.

I don't think resorting to reincarnation for an explanation of homosexuality is a remotely appropriate use of Occam's Razor. Seeing that there are plausible theories stemming from genetics, neo-natal enviromnent and early life environmental factors, why would we erect such an elaborate structure as reincarnation to explain what can most likely be solved on a purely naturalistic basis? Occam's Razor cuts out unnecessary entities from a theory. We already have good reason to believe in genes and the influence of brain chemistry on actions. Why bring transmigrating "souls" into the discussion?

There were little beads of sweat starting on my upper lip.

Sanjait:

What I'm saying is that hetero and homo are not just social constructs. . . . In modern times, the gay/straight dichotomy seems to be very useful, and encompasses most of the population very neatly. That's why using it as part of a statistical model isn't an assumption of universality nor the presumption that a category of "other" doesn't exist. . . .

I seriously question the assertion that the dichotomy "encompasses most of the population very neatly." By that, do you simply mean that it encompasses most of the population as self-identified? If so, I'd agree with you -- but that does nothing to undercut the idea that rigid orientation classifications are largely a social construct.

The problem is that while most people do identify themselves into neat categories, their actual behavior tends to defy clean demarcation. A good example is the prison population, a point that was raised by another poster a couple of weeks ago. Many inmates would have been classified as 100% heterosexual before they entered prison, and yet, during their time there, they often adapt same-sex interests. Likewise, some studies have revealed that even the most self-professedly heterosexual males exhibit some degree of sexual response to same-sex visual stimuli.

(And, anecdotally, it is often observed that boundaries become more flexible once alcohol is introduced. On the flip side, I've personally known 100% self-professed gay men who admitted they had some degree of sexual interest in women, but didn't want to pursue the idea because they felt it threatened their social identity.)

My point is that if one pries into behaviors and responses on an individual level, the clear notions of gay and straight begin to crumble. One could postulate some complex reason why a straight person sometimes likes the same sex and vice versa -- but wouldn't the simpler explanation be that sexuality is basically fluid and that people tend to conform to social expectations?

Now, if you like, you can categorize most people farily easy by their majority inclination. Sure, that's easy -- most are not 50/50. But I would question the utility of such an exercise, since it's just a matter of tweaking the definitions. You know, all numbers are whole if you round to the nearest integer. :-)

In reality, Athens had a whole body of law restraining homosexuality. Take a look at Douglas MacDowell's work on the subject, as well as Dover and Cohen. Even the average college level reading of Aristophanes, Xenophon, and other original authors, will tell you at least that there was, shall we say, at the very least, heated debate on the topic at the time. That's not to pass judgment one way or the other, but let's not corrupt history for the sake of a point.

As I read this, your thesis is that: since homosexuals have only recently identified as a group for political grievance, then any prior history couldn't have been affected by homosexual behavior where reproductive activity is concerned.

I'll agree that different cultures in different times and places have had different attitudes toward homosexuality. These various expressions of same gender sexuality could conceivably have divergent outcomes regarding genealogy. Still, I don't see how homosexual behavior could be neglected altogether just because of the social circumstances under which same gender sex occurred.

"If we complicate "male" and "female" in this way, how tenable are categories such as "hetero" and "homo"? And if "heterosexual" and "homosexual" are not timeless concepts (which they clearly are not) how can they be biologically determined?"

It sounds as if you think that you can make the behavior irrelevant simply because the words used to describe the behavior haven't been in use long enough to give them adequate weight. The terminology may not be timeless, but the concept is.

I don't believe that is the original poster's thesis. At least, it's not mine.

The issue isn't precisely that ancient societies lacked a group of people identified as homosexuals (for political grievance or otherwise). The issue is that an identity classification based on sexuality did not exist and was not conceivable -- because the individuals engaging in homosexual sex did not do so exclusively.

In modern times, I believe, we have cultivated an almost oppressive need to shoehorn human sexuality into boxes it doesn't fit into. An adolescent boy growing up today who realizes he is attracted to another boy will go through all sorts of hand-wringing and navel-gazing to determine "am I gay or straight?" That's because popular culture tells us we must be one of those two things.

I suspect that in societies with no preconceived notions of sexual orientation, such a boy might have had pleasant encounters with members of both sexes without ever infusing it with any special significance.

"I suspect that in societies with no preconceived notions of sexual orientation, such a boy might have had pleasant encounters with members of both sexes without ever infusing it with any special significance."

You are free to suspect that, but I suspect that you would have a hard time proving it. Are you actually aware of a society (past or present) with "no preconceived notions of sexual orientation"?

If anyone is still reading this...

I think I confused the issue by not defining terms clearly enough. I said before, if you define hetero/homo by pair-bonding preference, then the groups can be regarded as stable and definitive. But what does it mean, "pair-bonding"?

What I should have said was long term pair bonding specifically. Pair bonding is a biological term. Long-term pair bonding isn't just who you mate with, but who you partner with for extended portions of your life, as in what we might colloquially categorize as a "serious, long-term relationship". We know this is something that isn't just a social construct as well, as it is a behavior commonly found in animals, especially mammals.

Long-term pair bonding can be contrasted with a simple sexual encounter or sexual partner. In prison, or a Navy ship, or on a drunken night in college (sorry for the string of stereotypes, but it is illustrative), people do venture outside their usual sexual orientation. But this is a transitory event, and really truly doesn't correlate tightly with pair-bonding preference.

To illustrate why this is, with an extreme example, consider masturbation. If you masturbate, does it make you then "autosexual"? Of course not. It's gratification. You can have sex with your hand, or an inanimate object, or pretty much anything.

But pair bonding preference is more fixed. People are born with a preference for partnering with one or the other gender. Even when we do have transient matings with our hands, or same sex partners, or dildos, or the prison-mate, or girl-on-girl action in the dorm, the person's preference for a particular gender for long-term pair bonding doesn't change.

If you are born straight, you know you will marry/partner with the opposite sex. For most people, there isn't much doubt that this is what you want to do. If you are born gay, because of societies presumptions and prejudices, you may try to be straight for a while, then end up giving in to some biological imperative telling you that it isn't correct for you. Once people realize and accept that, they self-identify as gay, and they very rarely go back.

And that last point is also illustrative. If sexuality really were this fluid concept easily influenced by social pressure, wouldn't we be able to change gay people back into straight? And yet, we find this is nearly impossible, despite the ardent efforts of some very motivated religious persons. Sure, a gay man, or a straight woman, might be aroused by women (brain studies show everyone is aroused by pretty women), and may act on that arousal, but that doesn't change his/her long-term pair bonding preference.

Gay people tell us they didn't choose to be gay, they discovered it, and it's not something they could change. Whatever your sexual orientation is (whoever may be reading this), you too can probably say with near certainty that its not something you will or even could change in the future.

So no, I don't think it's a fluid concept at all. I think we are born with a distinct sexual orientation, defined as our long-term pair bonding preference. It appears to be fixed, well-defined and unchangeable for most people. Sure, there may be exceptions, such as true bisexuality (I haven't met one but I suspect they may exist), or transsexuals (probably also biologically determined, but I don't know), but for the most part, drawing neat little boxes of "straight" and "gay", defined by which gender you prefer to be seriously involved with, seems to work very well.