The science of sexual orientation

[Keith 0]

Looks like god really did make us this way. The findings ring true for me - I have older brothers, I'm right handed and there are, dare I say, other homosexuals in my family.

Click here for the 60 Minutes report

Keith

Don't Fuck with me Keith - J. Mandeville

[MC208B 0]

So, 60 minutes has a story on twin boys, one a sissy. So what?

[akarunway 1]

That was cold

I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.

[RhondaLea 4]

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That was cold

Nah, it's just another in a long line of emotive but otherwise content-free posts in response to evidence he cannot find a way to otherwise refute.

rl

If you don't know where you're going, you should know where you came from. Gullah Proverb

[sundevil777 102]

The article is hardly convincing. The article refutes itself with the case of the identical twins not having the same orientation.

People are sick and tired of being told that ordinary and decent people are fed up in this country with being sick and tired. I’m certainly not, and I’m sick and tired of being told that I am

[likearock 2]

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Looks like god really did make us this way.

I don't think you can definitely say that, at least not from this article:

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Studies have shown that homosexuality runs in families. So genes must be the answer. But then the researchers tell you identical twins can have different sexual orientations.

60 Minutes found identical twins Steve and Greg Lofts in New York. They had the same upbringing, have the same DNA — and yet Greg is gay and Steve is straight.

So even though it may seem that being gay may be genetic (or related to pre-natal hormones), there are cases when it most definitely is not.

Also, the whole premise of feminized behavior being related to being gay is somewhat flawed. There are compulsive cross-dressers who are straight as well as gays who are quite macho.

[Trent 0]

I'm sure I'll reap the wraith of those that are more "progressive" than myself, but I have an honest question...

The article seems to lean more towards femine behaviors stemming from a hormonal irregularity in the womb more than it does genetics. (at least it did to me... seems more plausible with the twins example anyway) So do you think that homosexuality should be viewed as a hormonal disorder or, dare I say it, a birth defect that could (maybe) be corrected or influenced (as in the rats in the report)?

I guess what I'm saying is that IF it is not genetic, but hormonal, and can be "fixed"... should we treat it like any other "defect" and "fix" it before the child fully develops?

Oh, hello again!

[mnealtx 0]

Quite an interesting report, Keith...thanks for posting it!

The discussion about how homosexuality could be hormone-linked could make for some interesting studies in the next few years.

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[happythoughts 0]

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I guess what I'm saying is that IF it is not genetic, but hormonal, and can be "fixed"..

The American beef industry gives steers female hormones to gain weight. If a woman eats a lot of meat, she ingests more hormones.

Perhaps the answer is to stop eating hamburgers.

That explains why vegetarians are so masculine too.

[Nightingale 0]

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The article is hardly convincing. The article refutes itself with the case of the identical twins not having the same orientation.

Identical twins don't have the same fingerprints either.

Reading that article, I started to wonder if Adam is transsexual, as he identifies so strongly with girls, to the point of stating he wishes he was born a girl.

[billvon 3,120]

>I guess what I'm saying is that IF it is not genetic, but hormonal, and
>can be "fixed"... should we treat it like any other "defect" and "fix" it
>before the child fully develops?

Consider the opposite. If a boy likes full-contact sports, likes to strut about and brag, and shows unusually large muscular development - should his excess of testosterone be "fixed" by chemical means before it becomes permanent?

[Lindsey 0]

Reading that article, I started to wonder if Adam is transsexual, as he identifies so strongly with girls, to the point of stating he wishes he was born a girl.

...which would speak to gender identity rather than sexual orientation, two very different issues in my mind.

linz

--
A conservative is just a liberal who's been mugged. A liberal is just a conservative who's been to jail

[lawrocket 3]

This is the shame of things, Keith. We, as a society/polity try to find reasons why people are gay.

Why are people religious?
Why are people liberal?
Why are people gay?

Keith, you are gay. By choice? I don't care, and neither should anyone else. By genetics/God? I don't care, and neither should anyone else. You are what you are. You accept that, and to hell with anyone else who doesn't.

I hate that people feel the need to find answers for something that is none of their business, anyway.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[Lindsey 0]

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This is the shame of things, Keith. We, as a society/polity try to find reasons why people are gay.

Why are people religious?
Why are people liberal?
Why are people gay?

Keith, you are gay. By choice? I don't care, and neither should anyone else. By genetics/God? I don't care, and neither should anyone else. You are what you are. You accept that, and to hell with anyone else who doesn't.

I hate that people feel the need to find answers for something that is none of their business, anyway.

That's funny. My first reaction to this thread was, "Well, I guess God (or the Powers That Be) made me like this too." And???

linz

--
A conservative is just a liberal who's been mugged. A liberal is just a conservative who's been to jail

[labrys 0]

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The article is hardly convincing. The article refutes itself with the case of the identical twins not having the same orientation.

You do realize that a a large part of the article addressed that point, don't you? Or did you even bother to read it....

Owned by Remi #?

[Everon 0]

I find Bailey's conclusions about the probability of being gay increasing if one has older brothers very hard to believe.

At any rate, this study seems psychological in nature more than anything. Here's a more scientific (and more convincing) one:
http://www.livescience.com/humanbiology/060224_gay_genes.html

[likearock 2]

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The article is hardly convincing. The article refutes itself with the case of the identical twins not having the same orientation.

You do realize that a a large part of the article addressed that point, don't you? Or did you even bother to read it....

I don't think it adequately dealt with that circumstance. We know with identical twins that the genetic material is also identical. As far as the hormone explanation goes, the hypothesis that two fetuses in the same womb at the same time can be exposed to different hormones needs further explanation, to say the least.

[labrys 0]

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I don't think it adequately dealt with that circumstance. We know with identical twins that the genetic material is also identical. As far as the hormone explanation goes, the hypothesis that two fetuses in the same womb at the same time can be exposed to different hormones needs further explanation, to say the least.

That's not at all the same as claiming that the article refutes itself. Asking for more detail is not the same as claiming contradiction.

Owned by Remi #?

[Trent 0]

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Consider the opposite. If a boy likes full-contact sports, likes to strut about and brag, and shows unusually large muscular development - should his excess of testosterone be "fixed" by chemical means before it becomes permanent?

That's not an answer to my question. The article talks about how pre-natal exposure to hormones may be a strong reason that people exhibit feminine behavior. If that can be detected at an early age, should it be treated? Really, answer the question.

To answer your distracting question... If a boy is exhibiting dangerous-to-his-health muscular development, then treat it... Otherwise... boys are "supposed" to like rough sports and strutting... leave it alone. But you're trying to make a rhetorical point here, aren't you?

If parents have the option to treat "femininity" in male fetuses that may give the kid a chance at a "normal" (notice the quotations) life, would that be a bad thing? The treat all kinds of things on unborn children, why not that too?

And no one has really addressed my questions, which were and still are honest. I guess the subject is too touchy.

Oh, hello again!

[labrys 0]

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If that can be detected at an early age, should it be treated? Really, answer the question.

I don't think it should be treated for any reason, but I'll try to answer your question more objectively than just my opinion.

No, it shouldn't be treated at all because no one could ever come up with reasonable guidelines for normal masculinity.

What one doctor or parent thinks is normal might differ from what another parent or doctor thinks. You'd end up with people trying to "tailor" their kids and/or with a body of legislation telling you what normal is and forcing you to follow it's guidelines.

Sound good?

Owned by Remi #?

[Trent 0]

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What one doctor or parent thinks is normal might differ from what another parent or doctor thinks. You'd end up with people trying to "tailor" their kids and/or with a body of legislation telling you what normal is and forcing you to follow it's guidelines.

Sound good?

Yeah, that's an answer. I didn't think of it going as far as "tailoring" the kid to be some specific amount of masculine... more along the lines of the doctors testing and saying... "We've found that your child is lacking in exposure to testosterone in the womb. This may lead to the child being feminine in nature, homosexual, or have problems identifying with a specific gender. We can treat it with some exposure to testosterone at a mild level to help negate this if you'd like."

I didn't think about people trying to have Schwarzenegger babies just out of the womb...

Oh, hello again!

[labrys 0]

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"We've found that your child is lacking in exposure to testosterone in the womb. This may lead to the child being feminine in nature, homosexual, or have problems identifying with a specific gender. We can treat it with some exposure to testosterone at a mild level to help negate this if you'd like."

I understand what you're saying. It's just my opinion that the words "lacking" and "some" and "mild" in your scenerio have to be quantified to mean anything and that's a bad thing IMO.

Men aren't the knuckle-dragging, hairy, uni-brow creatures they once were...do we really want to give people the option to turn that 180 degrees because they want to have the butchest boy on the block?

Owned by Remi #?

[Trent 0]

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Men aren't the knuckle-dragging, hairy, uni-brow creatures they once were...do we really want to give people the option to turn that 180 degrees because they want to have the butchest boy on the block?

Oh I hear you... I just didn't think it'd be a "cosmetic" type thing. I would think that the option would be to do nothing or to bring the hormone levels to "normal" based on some average of levels tested in other "normal" pregnancies.

I do realize that people can and probably will fight to the death over the interpretation of "normal"...

Oh, hello again!

[likearock 2]

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Men aren't the knuckle-dragging, hairy, uni-brow creatures they once were...do we really want to give people the option to turn that 180 degrees because they want to have the butchest boy on the block?

Oh I hear you... I just didn't think it'd be a "cosmetic" type thing. I would think that the option would be to do nothing or to bring the hormone levels to "normal" based on some average of levels tested in other "normal" pregnancies.

I do realize that people can and probably will fight to the death over the interpretation of "normal"...

In fact, many psych researchers (not just Freud) seem to think that "normal" includes a certain degree of bisexual orientation. In that case, you'd have to adjust "overly masculinized" individuals as well to achieve normality.

[freethefly 6]

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"We've found that your child is lacking in exposure to testosterone in the womb. This may lead to the child being feminine in nature, homosexual, or have problems identifying with a specific gender. We can treat it with some exposure to testosterone at a mild level to help negate this if you'd like."

Pumping up the testo or esto will not change the gender identity in a transgendered person as the idenity is in the mind not between the legs or the size of their muscles. You are either wired male or female. There is no "cure" for GID.

"...And once you're gone, you can't come back
When you're out of the blue and into the black."
Neil Young