Gay men have the biggest dicks?

baseball99

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the study was probably done by a gay researcher who had a bf who told him longer is better

the other one was done by a straight researcher who had a gf that said thicker is better


those studies are crap and usually have p values of 0.75 when 0.05 is the highest allowed value

(just so i dont get crap a pvalue of 0.75 would mean that 75% odds the results are due to chance)
 

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*ignores mister y's post*

i have come across a study (maybe the same one dentrilite mentions?) that should VERY small differences in size, with gay men VERY sligthly longer (like quarter inch) and str8 men VERY slightly thicker (like quarter inch).... so both are bigger!!!

Hmmm, guess bi guys win... again. Why do they have all the fun?!?!?! ;)

*doeshappydance*
 

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Gay men don't have bigger dicks. Its not scientificly proved or something, nor is the opposite.
It would be more logical if gay men had smaller dicks, because they are more female (their brains and their hormones) than straight men.

Novice_btm thought this would draw a lot of fire. And so did I! But I guess it's just too, too stupid to warrant more than a laugh?

Sorry Mister Y, maybe my bitchy estrogen is speaking up again. Or maybe I'm acting out because of penis-envy, since I'm really not endowed at all. Or maybe my daddy didn't love me. Or maybe my daddy loved me "down there." Or maybe my mommy was too smothering. Or maybe it was my mommy who loved me "down there." (I've likely repressed it, so coulda been anyone!) And you should remember that I'm terrible at logical thinking thanks to my female "brain." Tho damned emothional, you know. Oh woe to the pathologies in my development, the faulty wiring in my brain!
 

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Novice_btm thought this would draw a lot of fire. And so did I! But I guess it's just too, too stupid to warrant more than a laugh?

Sorry Mister Y, maybe my bitchy estrogen is speaking up again. Or maybe I'm acting out because of penis-envy, since I'm really not endowed at all. Or maybe my daddy didn't love me. Or maybe my daddy loved me "down there." Or maybe my mommy was too smothering. Or maybe it was my mommy who loved me "down there." (I've likely repressed it, so coulda been anyone!) And you should remember that I'm terrible at logical thinking thanks to my female "brain." Tho damned emothional, you know. Oh woe to the pathologies in my development, the faulty wiring in my brain!

I wont even touch on the penis size portion.....but there have been studies that have shown homosexual male brains have similar metabolic profiles upon stimulation to female brains.....It's not fault wiring, just variation.....neuroscience is fascinating
 

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I wont even touch on the penis size portion.....but there have been studies that have shown male brains have similar metabolic profiles upon stimulation to female brains.....It's not fault wiring, just variation.....neuroscience is fascinating

If I misquoted you studies have shown that my male hormones were completely responsible for my actions.:rolleyes:
 

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Haha, don't interpret my post wrong! I didn't say they are smaller but it would be more logical because their brains and hormones are more female-like than straight. Thats not an assumption but a fact. Just like people with a lot of fat. Fat contains female-hormones so when you are fat when you're young, the change is bigger that you have a smaller dick.

I wont even touch on the penis size portion.....but there have been studies that have shown homosexual male brains have similar metabolic profiles upon stimulation to female brains.....It's not fault wiring, just variation.....neuroscience is fascinating

There has been ONE study, by Simon LeVay, and it has been discredited:

"In 1991 LeVay made news by claiming to have discovered that homosexual and heterosexual men have a difference in size in the third interstitial nuclei of the anterior hypothalamus. Some criticized the work as science by press conference, and critics have pointed out a number of concerns about the methodology, including sample size and measurement methods. LeVay has also been heavily criticised for his homosexual research sample being entirely composed of gay men whom had died of AIDS related diseases. This study has not been consistently replicated, and no consitent difference betweenthe brains of hetero- and homosexuals has been discovered. (Pinel, 2006)"

Just because you "heard of a study" doesn't mean that study met all the criteria for being accepted as fact (or even theory) in the scientific community. You, of all "People" should know that baseball99.
 

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There has been ONE study, by Simon LeVay, and it has been discredited:

"In 1991 LeVay made news by claiming to have discovered that homosexual and heterosexual men have a difference in size in the third interstitial nuclei of the anterior hypothalamus. Some criticized the work as science by press conference, and critics have pointed out a number of concerns about the methodology, including sample size and measurement methods. LeVay has also been heavily criticised for his homosexual research sample being entirely composed of gay men whom had died of AIDS related diseases. This study has not been consistently replicated, and no consitent difference betweenthe brains of hetero- and homosexuals has been discovered. (Pinel, 2006)"

Just because you "heard of a study" doesn't mean that study met all the criteria for being accepted as fact (or even theory) in the scientific community. You, of all "People" should know that baseball99.

Note your study was talking about size differences in brains.....im talking about metabolic profiles (lighting up on functional MRI's on LIVE people). I just ran a quick search on the subject through a journal search program (NOT GOOGLE WHICH IS CRAP FOR RESEARCH).....and 309 hits came up and probably close to 100 are relevant.....no significant brain structure has been noted, but it has been noted different neuronal tracts and size of brain nuclei (which are all microscopic structures)

btw i find your tone rude
 

joyboytoy79

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Note your study was talking about size differences in brains.....im talking about metabolic profiles (lighting up on functional MRI's on LIVE people). I just ran a quick search on the subject through a journal search program (NOT GOOGLE WHICH IS CRAP FOR RESEARCH).....and 309 hits came up and probably close to 100 are relevant.....no significant brain structure has been noted, but it has been noted different neuronal tracts and size of brain nuclei (which are all microscopic structures)

btw i find your tone rude

My tone isn't intended to be rude, it is reflective of dissapointment in someone i once respected for his scientific background. I used to admire that you would take the time to post scientifically backed evidence on the subjects you chose to address.

Now... the best you can do is say "i have information you aren't privvy to." Well... forgive me for not trusting information i can't see.

And by the way, all of the studies i'm reading about metabolic differences in gay men on my OWN journal search engine (which i will happily share is Entrez PubMed www.pubmed.com), referenced either men with advanced HIV/AIDS or fail to mention how they attained their samples.
 
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baseball99

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My tone isn't intended to be rude, it is reflective of dissapointment in someone i once respected for his scientific background. I used to admire that you would take the time to post scientifically backed evidence on the subjects you chose to address.

Now... the best you can do is say "i have information you aren't privvy to." Well... forgive me for not trusting information i can't see.

And by the way, all of the studies i'm reading about metabolic differences in gay men on my OWN journal search engine (which i will happily share is Entrez PubMed www.pubmed.com), referenced either men with advanced HIV/AIDS or fail to mention how they attained their samples.

Ive gotten tired of constantly providing sources and information and having people just ignore it and post their biased opinions anyways. Pubmed is good, but its not the best. The best ones are usually hospital/academic research engines. The reason I cant copy and paste the 100 relevant ones are bc blatantly it doesnt let you copy and paste off the site.

My scientific background is still here but it gets annoying constantly having to back everything up (especially when it was backed up a few posts before).....you shouldnt always trust information you cant see but keep in mind that for every journal article that is published there are probably 10 other research projects going on that wont be published bc some people dont care about publishing all their results. Equivalent studies are shown and discussed at conferences and symposiums.....journals are not and should not be seen as the only reliable source

also on a personal note, recent developments/disagreement with another poster have kind of caused me to become irritated with you
 

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... 309 hits came up and probably close to 100 are relevant.....no significant brain structure has been noted, but it has been noted different neuronal tracts and size of brain nuclei (which are all microscopic structures)

Quite a vague response, but it does show that you were unable to prove that at a microscopic level one is able to tell the difference between a male "straight" brain and a "gay" brain. Nor would I expect to be able to determine an individual's sexuality from his "metabolic profile."

Well done JBT.
 

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Quite a vague response, but it does show that you were unable to prove that at a microscopic level one is able to tell the difference between a male "straight" brain and a "gay" brain. Nor would I expect to be able to determine an individual's sexuality from his "metabolic profile."

Well done JBT.

It wasnt a vague response, you just didnt understand it. I didnt say you could look at a microscopic level and see differences. I said the differences are microscopic in nature, meaning on gross study of the brain you will not see a difference. You are also misinterpreting metabolic profile. I dont mean you can take a lab test and measure the gay protein.....thats not what i was saying. What I meant was under specific stimulation different areas of a homosexual male's brain has a different metabolic response to a heterosexual, on functional MRI this is shown by "lighting up" in different colors. THERE ARE DIFFERENCES between a homosexual brain and a heterosexual brain.....that pretty much is an understood fact. The confusion comes in bc no two brains are the same and variation in brains makes it very difficult to trace.....Neuronal tracts, nuclei, gyri, etc grossly will look the same, but on microscopic metabolic examination they prove different. I actually remember some of the controversy over these studies.....some group was ranting and raving that the government was secretly going to put functional MRI machines in the public so they could trace who was homosexual and who was straight....yes, it was funny to laugh at their paranoia and lack of understanding of functional MRI's.....but hey everyone is up for conspiracy. So without any further waiting, I present you with 3 studies illustrating my point. Now, discuss amongst yourselves


Brain response to putative pheromones in homosexual men.

Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska University Hospital, 171 76 Stockholm, Sweden. ivanka.savic-berglund@neuro.ki.se

The testosterone derivative 4,16-androstadien-3-one (AND) and the estrogen-like steroid estra-1,3,5(10),16-tetraen-3-ol (EST) are candidate compounds for human pheromones. AND is detected primarily in male sweat, whereas EST has been found in female urine. In a previous positron emission tomography study, we found that smelling AND and EST activated regions covering sexually dimorphic nuclei of the anterior hypothalamus, and that this activation was differentiated with respect to sex and compound. In the present study, the pattern of activation induced by AND and EST was compared among homosexual men, heterosexual men, and heterosexual women. In contrast to heterosexual men, and in congruence with heterosexual women, homosexual men displayed hypothalamic activation in response to AND. Maximal activation was observed in the medial preoptic area/anterior hypothalamus, which, according to animal studies, is highly involved in sexual behavior. As opposed to putative pheromones, common odors were processed similarly in all three groups of subjects and engaged only the olfactory brain (amygdala, piriform, orbitofrontal, and insular cortex). These findings show that our brain reacts differently to the two putative pheromones compared with common odors, and suggest a link between sexual orientation and hypothalamic neuronal processes.

Smelling of odorous sex hormone-like compounds causes sex-differentiated hypothalamic activations in humans.

Division of Human Brain Research, Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden. ivanka.savic-berglund@neuro.ki.se
The anatomical pathways for processing of odorous stimuli include the olfactory nerve projection to the olfactory bulb, the trigeminal nerve projection to somatosensory and insular cortex, and the projection from the accessory olfactory bulb to the hypothalamus. In the majority of tetrapods, the sex-specific effects of pheromones on reproductive behavior is mediated via the hypothalamic projection. However, the existence of this projection in humans has been regarded as improbable because humans lack a discernable accessory olfactory bulb. Here, we show that women smelling an androgen-like compound activate the hypothalamus, with the center of gravity in the preoptic and ventromedial nuclei. Men, in contrast, activate the hypothalamus (center of gravity in paraventricular and dorsomedial nuclei) when smelling an estrogen-like substance. This sex-dissociated hypothalamic activation suggests a potential physiological substrate for a sex-differentiated behavioral response in humans.

Imaging of brain activation by odorants in humans.

Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institute, Retziusvag 8, 17177, Stockholm, Sweden. ivanka.savic-berglund@neuro.ki.se
Application of positron emission tomography and magnetic resonance imaging has provided several new insights into various olfactory functions. One is that sniffing and smelling engage separate subsystems in the human olfactory cortex. Another is that perception of odorous compounds (odorants) is mediated by a set of core regions, which are partly different for pure olfactory than for olfactory plus trigeminal odorants. Depending on the task associated with odor perception, the core regions are recruited together with other circuits, in a parallel and hierarchical manner. The sense of smell seems, therefore, to be organized similarly to other sensory modalities, and the specific psychophysical characteristics of olfaction should be attributed to an early involvement of the limbic system rather than to a conceptually different mode of processing.
 

Matthew

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btw i find your tone rude

Ive gotten tired of constantly providing sources and information and having people just ignore it and post their biased opinions anyways. My scientific background is still here but it gets annoying constantly having to back everything up (especially when it was backed up a few posts before)..... also on a personal note, recent developments/disagreement with another poster have kind of caused me to become irritated with you

It wasnt a vague response, you just didnt understand it. .... Now, discuss amongst yourselves

baseball99, thanks for the study information. It seems the three studies are all the same work of that lab in Sweden. I thought it was interesting, although what conclusions you draw from it, I'm not sure - that sexual orientation is at least in part biological, I guess? It would be interesting to see the study done among bisexuals. I hope we'll hear from fortiesfun about this. :wink:

In terms of the tone, let's be fair - in addition to the medical advice and other helpful contributions you have sometimes made, you have also been involved in many minor sniping matches with all kinds of different people here. And you generally give as good as you get.

It's also not the first time you have been called out for making a controversial assertion without backing it up. But I have to give you credit this time for providing something at least. It is interesting information.
 

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I wont even touch on the penis size portion.....but there have been studies that have shown homosexual male brains have similar metabolic profiles upon stimulation to female brains.....It's not fault wiring, just variation.....neuroscience is fascinating

This is an oversimplification of the studies you present later in this thread. A PET scan, which is what is used for these studies, shows only one thing-- increased blood flow to certain areas of the brain. In the studies, when a gay man is subjected to sexual stimuli that are associated with men, they react the same way to that stimuli as a woman who is also attracted to men. I argue the term "metabolic profile" only because the area in the hypothalamus where we are seeing increased blood flow only indicates one area in the brain where we can see a causal relationship between stimulation and brain activity. We really don't know anything else, including the existence of metabolic differences (or other things) that are responsible for this increase in blood flow. All this tells us is there is increased activity in the hypothalamus when a subject is given pheromones of the sex they prefer. This in no way proves that the brains are structurally or chemically different, it just shows there is activity in this area of the brain when exposed to sex pheromones of the sex that is preferred. All this suggests is that gay men are stimulated by male pheromones just as straight females are. It doesn't mean their brains are any more "female" than another man's would be, which is where this thread seems to be headed.

I am sure there would be similar, if not the same, findings if you gave a PET scan to a set of subjects that like peas while hungry and in the presence of a bowl of peas as well as a set of subjects that hates peas and is also hungry. This study does would not prove or even suggest chemical or structural differences in pea-lovers or pea-haters.

My point is, none of this suggests that we know how, overall, a gay male brain is different from a straight male brain. We just intuit that there probably is some sort of difference, though I doubt it would be the same for each gay man.

Note your study was talking about size differences in brains.....im talking about metabolic profiles (lighting up on functional MRI's on LIVE people).

The studies you cite are not fMRIs or MRIs, they are PET scans, which show levels of blood flow to certain regions of the brain. This is not a metabolic profile. A metabolic profile would have to study specifically changes in chemical composition, which PET scans are unable to do.

no significant brain structure has been noted, but it has been noted different neuronal tracts and size of brain nuclei (which are all microscopic structures)
None of the three studies you cited say anything about this. JBT was writing about a similar study to what you are describing that has subsequently been debunked. Remember, PET scans do not determine anything about structure.

It wasnt a vague response, you just didnt understand it. I didnt say you could look at a microscopic level and see differences. I said the differences are microscopic in nature, meaning on gross study of the brain you will not see a difference.

I don't think you understand this as well as you may want to. Remember when you spanked me for not having clinical medical experience? Well, you don't have experience in a neuroscience lab, I do. I worked in one doing research as an undergraduate.

You are also misinterpreting metabolic profile. I dont mean you can take a lab test and measure the gay protein.....thats not what i was saying. What I meant was under specific stimulation different areas of a homosexual male's brain has a different metabolic response to a heterosexual, on functional MRI this is shown by "lighting up" in different colors.
PET scan, not fMRIs, show this activity. In general, the two need to be used together as an fMRI shows structure and the PET scan shows activity (the "lighting up"). Again, this is not a metabolic profile because it shows nothing about the chemical reactions, only the level of blood flow and where this is happening. The actual chemical metabolism is likely to be the same, only activated at different times or in different areas upon stimulation.

The confusion comes in bc no two brains are the same and variation in brains makes it very difficult to trace.....Neuronal tracts, nuclei, gyri, etc grossly will look the same, but on microscopic metabolic examination they prove different.
Not really. All the studies show is the variance in blood flow upon stimulation. I'm not arguing that something makes gay men different from straight men (and women), just that these studies don't really suggest any difference chemically or structurally, just a difference in what is stimulating to gay men versus straight men. The chemical metabolism in the brain is most likely exactly the same, it is just activated by different stimuli. For there to be a difference in metabolism of any sort, there must be fundamental differences in how the gay brain changes and uses chemicals within the brain. None of the studies you cite come anywhere near to suggesting this. Such metabolic differences may exist somewhere, but there is no evidence of it so far within the scientific community.

I am also wondering, since you said in PM that multiple people use your account, which one of you is writing the responses. Though one of the users of this account claims to be a doctor, I don't think it's fair that the rest of the LPSG readers may think this information is coming from a doctor (which automatically adds, to many people, legitimacy when posting on health-related topics) when it may well be coming from someone who is not trained in the sciences at all.

also on a personal note, recent developments/disagreement with another poster have kind of caused me to become irritated with you.
I was not even going to respond to you in this thread at all, but making this statement that is blatantly about me to my housemate is a really crappy, juvenile, troll-like thing to do. I asked you leave me alone and put you on ignore only to hear that you are trying to get to me through someone else on the board? Lame.
 
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capt. nemo

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I wont even touch on the penis size portion.....but there have been studies that have shown homosexual male brains have similar metabolic profiles upon stimulation to female brains.....It's not fault wiring, just variation.....neuroscience is fascinating
Hey Baseball, thanks for the posts. I know there have been a lot of studies on pheromone responses, but I've never looked at the articles before. Anyways, I'm just sayin' something obvious -- that it's hasty to argue from them that gay men are "like women" in any way other than, oh... their response to pheromones! This started out, after all, with the idea that it would be logical for gay men to have smaller penises because they are "like women."

Of course, if anything might be reasonably predicted, it is that gay men and straight men have different neurophysiological responses to sexual stimuli. I get horny when I see a big cock, another guy gets horny when he sees a shaved pussy. That there is some kind of brain activity that correlates with these different responses isn't surprising. So there's a certain amount of the "doh" factor here -- at least (or especially) in the popular press's publicity of these studies.

The studies are useful because they show some of the mechanisms involved in desire. But it gets sketchy, in my mind, when we start saying that this research demonstrates how gay men's brains are "like" women's brains. Gay male brains are MOST "like" gay male brains, aren't they? If (straight) women respond to the whiff of testosterone like gay men do, then why aren't we concluding that (straight) women are "like gay men?" Think for a minute what other statements this new formulation might enable. Try this one: Women who take it up the ass enjoy it because they are "really," somehow essentially, like gays. Doesn't the fact that they take it up the ass show how they are just like gays? The pheromone study proves that they are like gays. And then our minds wonder in what other ways women might turn out to be really, secretly, and truly like faggy men....

The whole language game here assumes that heterosexual men and heterosexual women are the two poles, the two naturally given models. With this kind of presupposition in play, the gay male has to be made to fit somewhere in the spectrum between the two, has to be related to the two "given" quantities by being more or less "like" the one or the other.

When we choose to keep this paradigm of "like men" or "like women" in play, we also keep in play all of the potential derivative statements, up to and including "gay men should logically have smaller dicks because the studies show that THEY ARE REALLY LIKE WOMEN."

EDIT: Ha, I just read Snoozan's last post, a damn good one. And I thought I'd add in the interest of disclosure that I DON"T have a medical background. I DO have one in gender and sexuality studies.
 

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Thank you for debunking this statement snoozan and b-99.

"gay men are more female re: their brains and their hormones than straight men."

Come closer mister_y. I'm going to give you an injection.:crazy2:


Don't panic sir. :scared1:
All you'll feel is a little prick and then you will be very merry indeed. :240:
 

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I didn't mean to start a debate. Everyone friends again?
It was just a remark made to me but a big lug of a military guy that caught me off guard.
Jake
 

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This is an oversimplification of the studies you present later in this thread. A PET scan, which is what is used for these studies, shows only one thing-- increased blood flow to certain areas of the brain. In the studies, when a gay man is subjected to sexual stimuli that are associated with men, they react the same way to that stimuli as a woman who is also attracted to men. I argue the term "metabolic profile" only because the area in the hypothalamus where we are seeing increased blood flow only indicates one area in the brain where we can see a causal relationship between stimulation and brain activity. We really don't know anything else, including the existence of metabolic differences (or other things) that are responsible for this increase in blood flow. All this tells us is there is increased activity in the hypothalamus when a subject is given pheromones of the sex they prefer. This in no way proves that the brains are structurally or chemically different, it just shows there is activity in this area of the brain when exposed to sex pheromones of the sex that is preferred. All this suggests is that gay men are stimulated by male pheromones just as straight females are. It doesn't mean their brains are any more "female" than another man's would be, which is where this thread seems to be headed.
you can argue metabolic profile on semantics but it really doenst matter for the point of this thread

I am sure there would be similar, if not the same, findings if you gave a PET scan to a set of subjects that like peas while hungry and in the presence of a bowl of peas as well as a set of subjects that hates peas and is also hungry. This study does would not prove or even suggest chemical or structural differences in pea-lovers or pea-haters.
Sexuality is quite more complex than preference for food. Sexuality is influenced by brain structure, whether or not you want to acknowledge that. Think about Kluver-Bucy syndrome if you dont think so. Think about how communication and speech are affected by brain structure. Your argument is an "oversimplification" of a moot point

My point is, none of this suggests that we know how, overall, a gay male brain is different from a straight male brain. We just intuit that there probably is some sort of difference, though I doubt it would be the same for each gay man.
Gay mens brain react differently to certain stimuli than straight men and similiar to women. Make your own conclusions. There is clearly a difference



The studies you cite are not fMRIs or MRIs, they are PET scans, which show levels of blood flow to certain regions of the brain. This is not a metabolic profile. A metabolic profile would have to study specifically changes in chemical composition, which PET scans are unable to do.
I will give you credit for the PET scan thing. I wasnt cross-referencing articles for use of fMRI and brain structure and yes many studies have used PET scans but many use fMRI's now based on the better visualization and less exposure risk for contrast and radiation

None of the three studies you cited say anything about this. JBT was writing about a similar study to what you are describing that has subsequently been debunked. Remember, PET scans do not determine anything about structure.
I should have been more clear "has been noted" in other studies, research and is what is understood in the medical community. Sorry for the confusion


I don't think you understand this as well as you may want to. Remember when you spanked me for not having clinical medical experience? Well, you don't have experience in a neuroscience lab, I do. I worked in one doing research as an undergraduate.
Actually, I do have extensive time in a neuroscience lab. Despite currently working on a PhD in neuroanatomy (which i hope to be able to finish within 10 years bc of my inability to devote countless hours at the current time), neuroanatomy research has pretty much been a job for me since i was 17. Remember what people say about "assuming"


PET scan, not fMRIs, show this activity. In general, the two need to be used together as an fMRI shows structure and the PET scan shows activity (the "lighting up"). Again, this is not a metabolic profile because it shows nothing about the chemical reactions, only the level of blood flow and where this is happening. The actual chemical metabolism is likely to be the same, only activated at different times or in different areas upon stimulation.

this is from columbia's website
"Functional MRI is based on the increase in blood flow to the local vasculature that accompanies neural activity in the brain. This results in a corresponding local reduction in deoxyhemoglobin because the increase in blood flow occurs without an increase of similar magnitude in oxygen extraction (Roy and Sherrington, 1890; Plum, Posner & Troy, 1968; Posner, Plum & Poznak, 1969; Fox and Raichle, 1985). Since deoxyhemoglobin is paramagnetic, it alters the T2* weighted magnetic resonance image signal (Ogawa, et al, 1990a and b, 1992, 1993; Belliveau, et al, 1990, 1991; Turner, et al, 1991; Tank, et al, 1992). Thus, deoxyhemoglobin is sometimes referred to as an endogenous contrast enhancing agent, and serves as the source of the signal for fMRI. Using an appropriate imaging sequence, human cortical functions can be observed without the use of exogenous contrast enhancing agents on a clinical strength (1.5 T) scanner (Bandettini, et al, 1992, 1993; Kwong, et al, 1992; and Turner, et al, 1993; Schneider, et al, 1993). Functional activity of the brain determined from the magnetic resonance signal has confirmed known anatomically distinct processing areas in the visual cortex (Belliveau, et al, 1991; Ogawa, et al, 1992; Blamire, et al, 1992; Schneider, et al, 1993; Hirsch, et al, 1995), the motor cortex (Kim, et al, 1993a; Kim, et al, 1993b), and Broca's area of speech and language-related activities (Hinke, et al, 1993, Kim, et al, 1995). Further, a rapidly emerging body of literature documents corresponding findings between fMRI and conventional electrophysiological techniques to localize specific functions of the human brain (Atlas, et al, 1996; Puce, et al, 1995; Burgess, 1995; Detre, et al, 1995; George, et al, 1995; Ives, et al, 1993). Consequently, the number of medical and research centers with fMRI capabilities and investigational programs continues to escalate.
The main advantages to fMRI as a technique to image brain activity related to a specific task or sensory process include 1) the signal does not require injections of radioactive isotopes, 2) the total scan time required can be very short, i.e., on the order of 1.5 to 2.0 min per run (depending on the paradigm), and 3) the in-plane resolution of the functional image is generally about 1.5 x 1.5 mm although resolutions less than 1 mm are possible. To put these advantages in perspective, functional images obtained by the earlier method of positron emission tomography, PET, require injections of radioactive isotopes, multiple acquisitions, and, therefore, extended imaging times. Further, the expected resolution of PET images is much larger than the usual fMRI pixel size. Additionally, PET usually requires that multiple individual brain images are combined in order to obtain a reliable signal. Consequently, information on a single patient is compromised and limited to a finite number of imaging sessions. Although these limitations may serve many neuroscience applications, they are not optimally suitable to assist in a neurosurgical or treatment plan for a specific individual."

fMRI terminology includes "lighting up" when discussin in lay terms. Please lets not argue semantics


Not really. All the studies show is the variance in blood flow upon stimulation. I'm not arguing that something makes gay men different from straight men (and women), just that these studies don't really suggest any difference chemically or structurally, just a difference in what is stimulating to gay men versus straight men. The chemical metabolism in the brain is most likely exactly the same, it is just activated by different stimuli. For there to be a difference in metabolism of any sort, there must be fundamental differences in how the gay brain changes and uses chemicals within the brain. None of the studies you cite come anywhere near to suggesting this. Such metabolic differences may exist somewhere, but there is no evidence of it so far within the scientific community.
I think you are misunderstanding when i saw chemical metabolism and whatever. Any part of the brain when metabolically stimulated can basically be viewed. If I yell at you different parts of your brain will become active and this can be seen metabolically. You are way overreading the point. When a gay man's brain is stimulated with a particular scent it react in a more SIMILAR metabolic profile to a woman's brain than a straight mans brain. The studies do show that.