Posted on 03/07/2004 5:32:14 PM PST by knak
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Researchers who found homosexual rams in a herd of sheep said they had found changes in the brains of the "gay" animals.
The results, published in the latest issue of the Journal Endocrinology, tend to support studies in humans that have found anatomical differences between the brains of heterosexual men and homosexual men.
The researchers at the Oregon Health & Science University School of Medicine found certain groups of brain cells were different between rams and ewes in a part of the sheep brain controlling sexual behavior.
And in rams that preferred to mate with other males, this area was smaller than in males that preferred females.
"There's a difference in the brain that is correlated with sexual partner preference rather than gender of the animal you're looking at," said Kay Larkin, an OHSU electron microscopist who worked on the study.
"This particular study, along with others, strongly suggests that sexual preference is biologically determined in animals, and possibly in humans," added Charles Roselli, a professor of physiology and pharmacology who led the research team.
"The hope is that the study of these brain differences will provide clues to the processes involved in the development of heterosexual, as well as homosexual behavior."
Animal experts have found that about 8 percent of domestic rams display preferences for other males as sexual partners.
"Same-sex attraction is widespread across many different species," said Roselli, who worked with a team at Oregon State University and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's U.S. Sheep Experiment Station in Dubois, Idaho.
They looked at 27 adult, 4-year-old sheep of mixed Western breeds including eight male sheep that preferred to mate with females, nine that mated mostly with males and 10 ewes.
They found a densely packed cluster of nerve cells in the hypothalamus of the sheep brain, which they named the ovine sexually dimorphic nucleus or oSDN.
The hypothalamus regulates sex hormone secretion, blood pressure, body temperature, water balance, and food intake, and also helps regulate complex behaviors such as sexual behavior.
The oSDN in rams that preferred females was "significantly" larger and contained more neurons than in male-oriented rams and in ewes. There were also hormonal differences between the brains of homosexual and heterosexual sheep.
I was in grad school right after the research was published. It did set off a firestorm. I remember the gay activist angry response and their dismay when they found out one of the lead researchers was gay and denounced their activism. The suppression efforts failed and a new avenue of research took off.
A biological disorder cannot be tolerated as the origin of sexuality deviation from the norm, after all. What if a treatment might be developed?
Yep - that is the fear. A treatment means that homosexuality would be reclassified as a disease or a disorder. Treatment would mean that homosexuals would be relegated to less political status than diabetes patients.
The female like hypothalami should be inhibitory not provocatory.
That's funny.
More than one issue there. One is that the homosexual lifestyle, especially the one you bring up, is a deviant lifestyle no matter what the PC movements try to claim. There are many psychological problems in members of that community - drug addictions, abuse behaviors, depressions, etc. Unaddressed, these lead to greater aberrant behaviors like the startling levels of promiscuity. It's as if the circuitry of sexual behavior and emotional feedback is broken so the deeper satisfaction of a committed, mature sexual relationship becomes incredibly difficult to attain if at all possible. So, the behaviors get more and more frantic and deviant in an effort to accomplish an impossible goal. The psychological problems worsen and the cycle of deviancy becomes more extreme.
The second issue of the "inhibitory" female headaches you bring up is a social issue, if anything. American culture spent so long in the sex as a woman's "unpleasant duty" mode that many women, and men, have really messed up conceptions of sex in a relationship. The pathways in other species, other primates, are involved stimulatory behaviors and the 'not tonight, I have a headache' seems to be an almost exclusive American or English/American phenomenon.
Ever since the research was first published, I've maintained that this is the tack conservatives should take w/r/t the "gay" problem. Vilifying them for religious reasons is counterproductive.
The most interesting thing is how the "Gay" "Community" - like all leftist enclaves - cares nothing for the scientific facts of the matter; any and all facts and conclusions must conform to the orthodoxy and objectives of whatever vapid socialist group is involved at the moment.
Horowitz documents how the "Gay" "Community" intimidated the government of San Fagdisco into refusing to close the bathhouses during the early stages of the AIDS epidemic, and went to great lengths to ensure that AIDS was always characterized as a disease affecting the entire population and not just homosexuals - both of which tactics helped delay any epidemiologically effective countermeasures, and thereby ensured the establishment of a permanent reservoir of the virus. In other words, protecting "Gayness" as a political status was even more important than preventing "Gay" men from dying of AIDS!!
Research to determine whether homosexuality is biologically determined should be pursued without regard to whether or not the resulting conclusions are "politically correct" or palatable to the "Gay" community. And if it is determined that "Gays" are simply biologically defective, it will be no more than they deserve, for their willingness to subjugate scientific objectivity to their political and social objectives.
You're absolutely right. I saw a Q&A column on pets once; one letter asked about two neutered male dogs (or maybe it was cats). One occasionally seemed to try to "mount" the other. The answer was that this was not actually sexual behavior at all but an assertion of dominance.
Well my female Boston Terrier dog enjoyed mounting my male cat. The cat didn't like it.....both were neutered and so, yes, dominance is a likely answer.
I've never seen any animal allow a member of the same sex to actually penetrate. That's fighting behavior for sure. Seems to me that the "gay" rams in this study aren't the ones doing the penetrating,[dominating] but the ones who would allow themselves to be penetrated by a fellow male. That's over the line!
The question of actual penetration and domination aren't dealt with in the article.
And also never addresssed, were any lesbian sheep observed?
And when this can be detected in utero, will homosexuals become pro-life. I mean we already have sex selection abortions, can sexual orientation selection abortions be far behind?
The penalties for violating this law will be serious, and the whole thing will be made up by some courts.
"San Fagdisco" - tasteless but funny :-)
Re: Disease or disorder - Ever since the research was first published, I've maintained that this is the tack conservatives should take w/r/t the "gay" problem. Vilifying them for religious reasons is counterproductive.
I agree with you there. The religious "attacks" are too easily seen as prejudiced, holier-than-thou, pompous arrogance. Whereas, individuals refusing to get treatment for a disease or disorder are easily seen as irresponsible.
In other words, protecting "Gayness" as a political status was even more important than preventing "Gay" men from dying of AIDS!!
Exactly. Even worse, once new AIDS cases began to decrease from prevention, a new grotesque fad started in the gay communities -- deliberately having unprotected sex with HIV/AIDS infected people for a thrill and to "share" the disease experience. Some sort of negligent homicide charge should be brought against those involved.
"Super!"
It's been a few years since I gave that seminar but I believe the studies used different species of whiptail lizards.
Other animals used are protandry and protogyny. Animals that are "protandry" begin life as males and then switch to females. "Protogyny" refers to animals that begin as females but the switch to males.
For example, cleaner fish are all female but one dominant male. If the male is killed or leaves, the largest female becomes male. There is an actual phenotypic change, not just the presence of both sex organs. The organs develop at different times - female develops then disappears as male develops. This avoids self-fertilization.
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