The causes of homosexuality

[OC_Dallas]

i think its genetic...

one of my best friends is a twin... and him and his identical twin are gay...

also my cousin is gay from my moms side, where im attracted to men as well

my neighbor who just turned 18 is having issues figuring things out too... turns out his uncle from his mom's side is gay...

maybe it comes from your mom's side of the family?

 

[jason_els]

My father's brother was gay. If there's a gene, I've got it.

 

[snoozan]

I think it might be because my Mom didn't cut my bananas in pieces and let me eat them whole. Also she gave me really large kosher dill pickles that I dearly loved. Yup, it's definitely her fault (and it almost always is the mother's fault anyway no matter what happens to us), too many phallic foods.

Aw shit! That explains my son's sudden love of Ethel Merman. I knew I should have taken the time to cut his bananas and feed him more vagocetric foods.

 

[cocktaste]

Wow, we're still talking about this?

 

[HazelGod]

"Since 1962 when our volume was published, I have interviewed about 1,000 male homosexuals and 50 pairs of parents of homosexuals. The classic pattern was present in more than 90% of cases. In my entire experience, I have never interviewed a single male homosexual who had a constructive, loving father. A son who has a loving father who respects him does not become a homosexual. I have concluded that there is a causal relationship between parental influence and sexual choice (p. 368)."

I can't convince myself that this is true. It sounds like crap.

That's because it is crap. Anyone familiar with the social sciences knows that causality is impossible to establish. At best, preponderance of a phenomenon will substantiate a strong correlation...but no scientist worth his Ph.D. would claim to have isolated a definitively causal relationship.

It goes downhill from there. He interviewed a thousand gay men? Whoop-dee-doo. That's not even a rounding error in the number of gay men in the human race, much less a statistically meaningful sampling size. One couldn't even base a weak correlation from that data set, much less any causality. The fact that he's never encountered a single case that counters his hypothesis itself speaks to a flawed methodology. I don't know of many cases in the scientific realm that present as true in 100% of all people. There are virtually always exceptions to the paradigm.

Then there's the multifactor issue...which is the true reason social sciences work in loose terms of correlation. Factors such as: geography, age, race, socioeconomic and educational backgrounds? Amongst all these divisions, there are varying likelihoods for fathers to be disappointed with a son who identifies as gay.

While I'm not a researcher myself, the most convincing science thus far points to homosexuality being most likely a genetic trait. The notions that people are "made" gay by parental neglect, or "turned" gay by exposure to traditionally gay culture or influence seem more and more like the antiquated relics of homophobes they truly are. It's sad to see such nonsense still masquerading itself in the garb of legitimate science.

 

[Dave NoCal]

The above quote is from Bieber, whose work has been largely discredited.
Thanks, sugarandspice.
A while back, in this thread, I offered to find the references I used in my discussion of Freud's position on homosexuality. So here we go:

Note: Somewhere in this thread I think I mentioned Freud's refusal to supprot the exclusion of gay analytic candidtates from analytic training. However, now I can't find where I wrote that. At any rate, the reference for that is Freud, S. (1921). Letter (to Jones). Body Politic (Toronto, Canada), May 1977, 7.

In some of his writings he addressed the nature/nurture issue and concluded that nature was probably the stronger factor (Freud, S. (1906). Three essays on the threory of sexuality. In J. Strachey, Ed. and Trans. The Standard Edition of the Complete Works of Sigmund Freud. Vol 7, 125-245. London: Hogarth Press. (Original work published in 1910).​

He wrote a very sensitively worded letter to a woman who inquired about him "helping" her adult son. His response was that homosexuality was not a pathological condition and that, in fact, some of the most important contributors to human civilization had been so. He mentioned Leonardo da Vinci, as an example. Freud, S. (1935). Letter. American Journal of Psychiatry, 107, 786.


​

 

[aliveboi]

that is crap. my dad is a great guy.

many years of scientific study has finally proven the true causes of homosexuality:

vagina

abercrombie and fitch clothing

spelling the word boy with an i instead of y (i.e. boi)

dance music

tanning beds

overwhelming desire to be "fabulous"

If it's your desire to be fabulous, then mission accomplished!

 

[Hunt3ed]

Who resurrected this post! You have to be joking! We are all uniquely individual, and yet we all share, to a greater or lesser degree, similar traits. If you wish to assume that your traits are so similar to those of others around you and not indeed individual to yourself, please become a politician or reclassify yourself as a sheep.

Be gay, be jolly, have fun and take care.

 

[Male Bonding etc]

Other environmental factors could be steroids and other chemicals in our food supply, pushing false modesty on young people who naturally want to expose more of their blossoming selves at that stage in life, styles that seem to advertise available asses, hyper-sexualized media while on-the-ground culture is pushing denial of sexual urges, perpetuation of narcissistic inclinations in an over-consume-based economy...

I started off thinking this post was going to be tongue-in-cheek, but found myself believing some or all of it could be true... that is... true for those who are struggling with gay urges and weren't just naturally born that way.

 

[bottombuddy]

such ubber ubber crap

 

[Male Bonding etc]

lol

Glad to oblige with Über crap on occasion!

 

[IdahoTom]

"I have interviewed about 1,000 male homosexuals and 50 pairs of parents of homosexuals"

I would venture to say that most of his interviews were with people seeking 'psychiatric council'. Men with lousy dads are among those who seek counseling. His interviews would not likely include people that are happy and functional - gay or straight. He may simply report his observation but the world is a big place ... It seems an oversimplification to classify 90% as he does.

What about the old classic 'gays are women haters' category - they had a lousy mom and therefore hate women. Freud was fond of promoting the idea of an overbearing mother and weaker father. Weak isn't the same as lousy.

I don't doubt that many men with lousy dads seek a close male relationship, sexual or non-sexual, to replace or counterbalance the former lack. But whether that relationship becomes sexual is probably more complex. After all, do most male homosexuals really want to have sex with their fathers? I doubt it. And so the debate goes on ...

 

[Wave]

Henry Miller is the one making sense on this thread, fellas and girllas. Don't shoot the messenger (Freud) by discrediting him via drug use just cuz you don't like what he said. We also owe him a great deal of thanks for the psychological theories he invented that have helped folks.

As for the idea of the origin of homosexuality, who can say for sure. It IS interesting that scientists are finding amazing things about the body through DNA studies but no gene for homosexuality has been found. And MOST if not ALL the gay guys i know had bad relationships with their dads - distant, unemotional, or unable-to-be-real-and-vulnerable-and-affectionate-with-their-sons type dads. It makes perfect sense to me that what you don't get as a child through nurture, you go after later in life through primal methods like sex.

 

[erratic]

Lots of gay and bi men have bad relationships with their dads because lots of dads are homophobic.

That being said, twin studies indeed show some cases where twins do not have the same sexual orientation. The problem with these twin studies is that their sample sizes are too small to draw any inferences from that. The only way to rule in environmental influence is to show that twins who are raised together and separately have differing rates of concomitant homosexuality. There simply are too few identical twins in both of those categories.

Meanwhile, animal research is starting to show that sexual behaviour can be influenced biologically. In Fruit Flies, Homosexuality Is Biological But Not Hard-wired, Study Shows

That being said, the research is still in its infancy, and this particular study (sorry to cite a news report and not the actual article, but I'm lazy right now) relies on pheromonal signals which do not operate among humans. Further, genetic expression among humans is staggeringly complicated. Many, many genes are implicated in different physical properties (such as height). The science of genes and behaviour is grotesquely complicated.

Finally, there are millions of animals out there, humans included, happily having homosexual sex. Seeing as these animals are spread across taxa that suggests deep biological roots for homo humpin.

 

[erratic]

Oh, and as for the finding that sibling order is correlated with queerness:

1) Correlation never, ever shows causation. Whenever a study says there is a "link" between two things, or that they are "correlated" all that means is that further research needs to be done to examine the effects. Stock market volume and the hem heights of skirts are positively correlated. Clearly, one does not cause the other.

2) The study that showed the sibling correlation had a humongous sample size. They way correlations work, if you have enough people in your study you will be able to show a correlation. Throw a million people at a correlational study and you can show whatever you want. What's more important than finding a correlation is finding the effect size. Men outperform women on spatial performance tests, but when you look at the effect size it only shows that the top 1 % or so of men do better than the women - and that effect is destroyed if you give both groups ten minutes of practice. The effect size was so small as to show no effect of gender, despite the "statistically significant" result. My guess is if you looked for the effect size of sibling order on homosexuality you'd reach the same sort of conclusion.

 

[JustAsking]

...As for the idea of the origin of homosexuality, who can say for sure. It IS interesting that scientists are finding amazing things about the body through DNA studies but no gene for homosexuality has been found. ....

Wave,
In the world of science, this is very faulty logic. It is called an "appeal to ignorance". It refers to an argument about a scientific theory that exploits those aspects of the theory that are not yet complete. For example, using appeal to ignorance, I might make the claim that modern medical germ theory is wrong because we don't yet have the cause for a common cold.

Presently, the science of genetics as applied to microbiology is only 50 years old. Also, the techniques of gene sequencing on a practical scale is only 25 years old. The amount of what we don't yet know about the human genome outweighs what we do know by thousands of times.

The point of all this is that it is unscientific to draw conclusions from what is yet undiscovered. It is only scientific to draw conclusions from what has been discovered. Therefore, the fact that there is no gene yet identified that contributes to homosexuality is no basis for concluding that one doesn't exist.

Finally, over a thousand species have been identified in which some amount of homosexuality exists. It is hard to believe that the homosexual members of those species have all had "bad childhoods".

 

[deltablues2]

Everyone knows that Homosexuality was caused by Disco music and polyester bellbottoms.

 

[Tonynyc]

I found this article online. This is not some right wing christian agenda, but a psychiatric council. I want you to read it and tell me what you think. I have an extremely hard time believing what they claim. I especially want you to comment on the part that says,

"Since 1962 when our volume was published, I have interviewed about 1,000 male homosexuals and 50 pairs of parents of homosexuals. The classic pattern was present in more than 90% of cases. In my entire experience, I have never interviewed a single male homosexual who had a constructive, loving father. A son who has a loving father who respects him does not become a homosexual. I have concluded that there is a causal relationship between parental influence and sexual choice (p. 368)."

I can't convince myself that this is true. It sounds like crap.

-----

Hmm, sounds a bit like bullshit to me. I have always had a very close relationship with my dad, and I still turned out a homo. I think guys who come from a relationship of "loving respect" by dad, is more apt to HIDE his homosexuality, just like I did.

I never made it public, went through the whole nine yards of marriage and even a kid to hide "the evil within". The only person I was fooling was myself. When I was 24 my dad and I were having dinner, when I made a comment about this gay couple calling them "fags". My dad looked at me out of the corners of his eyes and said..."how can say that, you're gay."

I should have trusted my parents more. BTW, all you have to do is look here, or craigslist or pretty much anywhere that gay men post, and you will see a WHHOOLLLLEE lotta "straight guys" posting out of curiousity.

The studies....are skewered at best.


I know why I'm a homo by the way. After I suck cock, I have the infinite urge to do it again, and again..etc (you get the picture).

 

[Axcess]

According to some ignorant people it is by choice.

 

[hotguy8884]

stupid homophobic straight people are only trying to find this "cause" so they can prevent it...

otherwise, there is no point to find out what makes people gay.. can we not all jsut be 'people'?