Posted on 06/26/2006 7:36:28 AM PDT by presidio9
A new Canadian study suggests a male's sexual orientation is influenced by so-called nature as opposed to nurture.
Researchers at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ont., found evidence that the more biological older brothers a man has, the more likely he is to be homosexual, findings which suggest a man's sexual orientation is genetically determined.
The study says "prenatal mechanism (s) ... affect men's sexual orientation development," which means sexual orientation may be the result of biological processes that occur in the womb.
The study's author, Prof. Anthony F. Bogaert, explored the causes behind what is called the fraternal birth order, or the theory that suggests a man's chance of being homosexual increases with each biological brother that precedes him.
"These results support a prenatal origin to sexual orientation development in men and indicate that the fraternal birth-order effect is probably the result of a maternal 'memory' for male gestations or births," Bogaert writes in the study, which will be published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
It has been theorized that the fraternal birth order effect is the consequence of bodily changes stimulated in the uterus when a woman is carrying a boy, which affects subsequent sons.
Bogaert claims that only the number of biological brothers had an impact on sexuality, whether or not they were raised in the same home.
"The number of biological older brothers, including those not reared with the participant ... increases the probability of homosexuality in men," the study reads.
Bogaert examined more than 900 heterosexual and homosexual men in Canada who had either biological or non-biological brothers.
Bogaert observed the influence of all types of older brothers, including step and adopted siblings, as well as the amount of time brothers spent together while growing up.
Writing a commentary piece that accompanied the study study, professors from Michigan State University said the research disproves the theory that sexuality is learned behaviour.
"It is the number of older biological brothers the mother carried, not the presence of older brothers while growing up, that makes some boys grow up to be gay," write David Puts, Cynthia Jordan and Marc Breedlove.
Bogaert's study, called Biological versus nonbiological older brothers and men's sexual orientation, will appear Monday in an online version of the PNAS journal.
I also think this is garbage retrospective analysis. I do feel that some of the many factors that lead someone to chose this could have something to do with economics... now some might say this is silly. However, I think that physiologically the gay man will find their pleasure and then economically it seems less taxing than to get married and raise a family. I think under these circumstances it's easy to recruit gay men. I base this off some of the gay men that I've met in places like college and liberal circles that I've come across - Also some of my gay family members.
Good point. My wife's brother is gay and he's the oldest. The whole family knew he was gay since junior high. LOL
And,if homosexuals rape little boys and they 'dabble''in gay sex,I guess that means that child molesting homosexuals are only targeting baby homo's...SOOOOOOOO,that's why homosexuals think raping boys is okey-dokey..Their only raping the baby queers.....
My personal experience tells me that is toal crap. My cousin is the oldest, he's gay. My former neighbor only had an older sister, he's gay. My friend from high-school was a middle child with one older brother, he's gay. I've known a fair amount of gay people and I can't say that any of them were the youngest in a line of boys. Of course, I know several guys with several older brothers but none of them are gay. "Scientists". Bah.
shirtlifters... thats a first for me.
Looks like another half-baked study by pseudscientists who already know their answer in advanced. Anytime homosexuality is studied it undermines science in general.
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