Posted on 11/27/2004 11:30:26 PM PST by JohnHuang2
The same reason that there are a wide variety of personalities in any population. There are many areas that are involved and many different experiences in different lives.
Also, the female side of homosexuality seems to be more complex from what the research indicates.
Please explain to me how a chemical imbalance causes someone who is looking at another with certain physical characteristics to become sexually attracted to them? Are you saying this imbalance causes homosexual males to confuse their gender? If so, I ask again, why are they not repeating these EXACT SAME STUDIES on women? (Human women, not monkeys)
My contention is that any sexual behavior is in one's head - not the hypothalamus, but the cognitive, sensory, and memory portions. I don't believe there is a gene that emits some kind of cosmic rays that causes a sexual attraction to someone with certain physical characteristics. That defies logic.
All physiological research begins with animal studies. you can not in any ethical manner do invasive or alteration studies on human beings. Just to do post-mortem studies requires a mountain of regulatory work and to do live human studies requires wading through endless Federal regulations that eliminate most studies from the financial strain. Thus animal models are valuable research and are amazingly informative. Believe it or not - almost every neurological system, receptor mechanisms, control/feedback systems in the human body were determined from animal studies. The drugs we use know were developed from this type of research - the surgical techniques, the treatment modalities, the physiological paradigms that give rise to modern medicine are all from animal studies. They can't be discounted.
Yes, relationships are more complicated than "basest animal instincts" but are all based upon those instincts and the neural pathways that produce those behaviors. The brain is not a magic box that produces complex behavior from nothing - all must be laid down in a pathway - a sequence of interneural connections.
Please explain to me how a chemical imbalance causes someone who is looking at another with certain physical characteristics to become sexually attracted to them?
When you see someone with certain characteristics, there are chemical changes, neurotransmitters, hormones, proto-oncogene expressions, etc., that can alter your behavior towards them. When a woman sees her baby for the first time, there is a massive oxytocin release. Serotonergic and dopaminergic pathways alter in action and form new connections. The woman becomes bonded to that baby and feels an onrush of maternal, nurturing, and love feelings. If the serotonin pathways are defective, such as can occur in postpartum depression, this onrush of emotions is not a positive one but one of anger and rejection to the baby. By the way, the structural geometry of an infants face activates similar pathways which is part of the the "aww, how cute" nurturing reaction initiated in most people. The theory being that this is a protective mechanism for groups to care for all young in the group and not just their own.
If so, I ask again, why are they not repeating these EXACT SAME STUDIES on women? (Human women, not monkeys)
The original study was a simple anatomical comparison. It showed that a difference in neuronal density, size, and connectivity produces a different sexual behavior. The next step is determine why and what other factors are involved. Thus studies on men and women have been performed involving neurotransmitter levels, receptor binding, second messenger signaling, proto-oncogene expression, and more. These are more in depth and get to the microbiological mechanisms behind behaviors.
As mentioned above, human studies are very limited - by ethics (do you want everyone to be a lab rat?, by regulations, by finance, and by limited resources. Again, animal models are much more efficient.
My contention is that any sexual behavior is in one's head - not the hypothalamus, but the cognitive, sensory, and memory portions. I don't believe there is a gene that emits some kind of cosmic rays that causes a sexual attraction to someone with certain physical characteristics. That defies logic.
Like I said before, the brain is not a magic box. All behaviors have pathways in the brain that initiate and control them - anger, fear, happiness, etc. You can not have a thought or an emotion without neurons interacting.The limbic system of the brain, especially the hypothalamus, is deeply involved in emotional states and sexual behavior. Defects in this area has been shown to be responsible for depression, PMS, and altered sexual activity.
There is no magic gene either. No one gene codes for the brain. No gene emits "cosmic rays" to cause sexual attraction. That requires the interplay of neurons within neural systems. To believe that the personality operates independently of brain function is the illogical stance.
If this is right, than the bulk of "natural" human intercourse is not reproductive, but geared towards bonding,
The impulse is there for a number of reasons. The biology is designed for reproduction - that, as I said, is obvious right on the face of it.
If the biological wiring is discovered, there will be rejoicing in the gay community.
There isn't... they're afraid of getting marginalized as "mutants". They're at best uneasy about the research, if not outright in favor of stifling it.
Wouldn't this prove it to be "natural," a part of Mother Nature's design?
The problem is, you can't make that argument about the reproductive biology...
The landmark studies were done by Simon LeVay at the Salk Institute and published in Science in the early 1990's.
Here is what LeVay said of his own work in a March 1994 interview with Discover magazine:
"[His 1991 research] made the unassuming LeVay one of the most misunderstood men in America. "It's important to stress what I didn't find," he points out with the courtly patience of someone who long ago got used to waiting for the rest of the world to catch up. "I did not prove that homosexuality is genetic, or find a genetic cause for being gay. I didn't show that gay men are 'born that way,' the most common mistake people make in interpreting my work. Nor did I locate a gay center in the brain --INAH3 is less likely to be the sole gay nucleus of the brain than part of a chain of nuclei engaged in men and women's sexual behavior. My work is just a hint in that direction--a spur, I hope, to future work."Source: Interview with David Nimmons (March, 1994) "Sex and the Brain", Discover, Vol. 15, No. 3, p. 64-71.
There are tens of thousands of former homosexuals. This fact supports environment being the major factor behind homosexuality. This article summarizes it well:
How Might Homosexuality Develop? Putting the Pieces Together
Never has it been sated in the research that homosexuality is genetic. LeVay's work pioneered work into evidence that there is a developmental disorder. Developmental NOT genetic. That is when something goes wrong between the "blueprint" of the gene and the production of proteins and the structuring of cells.
The subjects in such studies are genetically male and have no genetic abnormalities but something went awry in their early development that affected areas within a neural pathway of a neural system that controls sexual behavior. The hypothalamus, the basal ganglia, the amygdala are not 'gay centers' they are portions of a system that effects emotions and behavior. Alter the system - alter the output of that system.
As to "tens of thousands" of former homosexuals - that is a gross exaggeration. There are some who engage in homosexual behavior as a result of sexual abuse from when they were younger. The homosexual behavior is a symptom of a deeper trauma that produces many deviant behaviors. With proper therapy, some of these individuals can become more well adjusted in their sexual behaviors and relationships. This is one reason why homosexual behavior should remain in the DSM. However, that is a homosexual aberration from abuse - not the 'born gay' developmental disorder.
Cults like NARTH have a falsely inflated success rate. In actuality, the failure rate is about 85% and the recidivism rate of those "cured" is extremely high. This is from not understanding the population that requires treatment and the population that simply has a developmental disorder. It is easier to give sight to someone born blind than to 'cure' a homosexual with the NARTH brainwashing methods.
I'll leave you to trolling other old threads.
Yawn. There are many, many organizations that help homosexuals leave the lifestyle. Even Dr. Spitzer changed his mind that homosexuals can change, but don't let facts get in your way.
As to "tens of thousands" of former homosexuals - that is a gross exaggeration.
The facts state otherwise.
I'll leave you to trolling other old threads.
I'll leave you with some links regarding former homosexuals:
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