Posted on 05/09/2005 2:09:15 PM PDT by Pyro7480
Gay Men Respond Differently to Pheromones
By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - Gay men's brains respond differently from those of heterosexual males when exposed to a sexual stimulus, researchers have found. The homosexual men's brains responded more like those of women when the men sniffed a chemical from the male hormone testosterone.
"It is one more piece of evidence ... that is showing that sexual orientation is not all learned," said Sandra Witelson, an expert on brain anatomy and sexual orientation at the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada.
Witelson, who was not part of the research team, said the findings clearly show a biological involvement in sexual orientation.
The study, published in Tuesday's issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, was done by researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden.
They exposed heterosexual men and women and homosexual men to chemicals derived from male and female sex hormones.
These chemicals are thought to be pheromones — molecules known to trigger responses such as defense and sex in many animals.
Whether humans respond to pheromones has been debated, although in 2000 American researchers reported finding a gene that they believe directs a human pheromone receptor in the nose.
The Swedish study was one of a series looking at whether parts of the brain involved in reproduction differ in response to odors and pheromones, lead researcher Ivanka Savic said.
The brains of different groups responded similarly to ordinary odors such as lavender, but differed in their response to the chemicals thought to be pheromones, Savic said.
The Swedish researchers divided 36 subjects into three groups — heterosexual men, heterosexual women and homosexual men. They studied the brain response to sniffing the chemicals, using PET scans. All the subjects were healthy, unmedicated, right-handed and HIV negative.
When they sniffed smells like cedar or lavender, all of the subjects' brains reacted only in the olfactory region that handles smells.
But when confronted by a chemical from testosterone, the male hormone, portions of the brains active in sexual activity were activated in straight women and in gay men, but not in straight men, the researchers found.
The response in gay men and straight women was concentrated in the hypothalamus with a maximum in the preoptic area that is active in hormonal and sensory responses necessary for sexual behavior, the researchers said.
And when estrogen, the female hormone was used, there was only a response in the olfactory portion of the brains of straight women. Homosexual men had their primary response also in the olfactory area, with a very small reaction in the hypothalamus, while heterosexual men responded strongly in the reproductive region of the brain.
Savic said the group is also doing a study involving homosexual women but those results are not yet complete.
In a separate study looking at people's response to the body odors of others, researchers in Philadelphia found sharp differences between gay and straight men and women.
"Our findings support the contention that gender preference has a biological component that is reflected in both the production of different body odors and in the perception of and response to body odors," said neuroscientist Charles Wysocki, who led the study.
In particular, he said, finding differences in body odors between gay and straight individuals indicates a physical difference.
It's hard to see how a simple choice to be gay or lesbian would influence the production of body odor, he said.
Wysocki's team at the Monell Chemical Senses Center studied the response of 82 heterosexual and homosexual men and heterosexual and homosexual women to the odors of underarm sweat collected from 24 donors of varied gender and sexual orientation.
They found that gay men differed from heterosexual men and women and from lesbian women, both in terms of which body odors gay men preferred and how their own body odors were regarded by the other groups.
Gay men preferred odors from gay men, while odors from gay men were the least preferred by heterosexual men and women and by lesbian women in the study. Their findings, released Monday, are to be published in the journal Psychological Science in September.
The Swedish research was funded by the Swedish Medical Research Council, the Karolinska Institute and the Magnus Bergvall Foundation. Wysocki's research was supported by the Monell Center.
That doesn't mean we encourage alcoholics to get wasted. We care about their health and the health of those around them.
I never learned or decided to be physically attracted to curvy zaftig women, so I don't think it's unreasonable to think the same is true for men who are attracted to other men.
Interesting. But usually these articles generalize results. It is like putting 10 6' men and 10 5' men in a room and saying the average height is 5'6", when not a single person is that height.
Also, there were only 36 subjects. A couple thousand over a few years may be better.
Studies have also found that they are aroused by th smell of flatulence.
SSA would still be a disorder even if it were 100% genetic.
Sorry...the test should be done prior to sexual encounter. Anything less is tainted as "learned".
I'm 6'3". I have the "Basketball Gene".
Very good. Now explain why some men screw sheep....
Gay men are aroused by the smell of Fromunda.
Just a layman here but it would seem to make sense to study homsexuality as a mental disorder.
Consider this, I choose to stop drinking regular coke and now only drink diet coke. After two years of this, the taste of regular coke produces a gag action as it is just way to sweet for me anymore.
Who's to say the same mechanisms aren't working on smells for these folks?
Gay men in a culture probably DO smell the same since they would be living in the same culture and would be eating, behaving and living the same ways.
Of course there could be a distinctive smell that is associated with gay men.
If you go to an immigrant area as an American, you'd for the most part think the immigrants smell different.
Well, they do. Because of how they live and what they eat, they give off a different odor.
This article proves nothing but how desperate attempts can be to create a reason for why they are what they "choose" to be.
No DNA genetic proof has EVER been found and verified. THREE IS NO GAY GENE, NO PROOF OF BEING BORN THAT WAY.
We have to leave it at that.
What a stupid article I must say.
I'm with you. I never "decided" to be attracted to redheads either.
I don't see how this study proves anything one way or another. I have no idea if sexuality is nature or nurture. I think there can be no question many instances of homosexuality are nature, since so many gays have histories of abuse. Whether it's all nurture or not seems unlikely to me, but I really have no idea.
LOL.
You beat me to it.
Not certain where, so I'll credit FReepers. I'd heard this theory floated here a long time ago. Someone had mentioned seeing a Pheremone ad and pondered that, if it works, could it be that gay men are reacting to the pheremones of men instead of women, and vice versa.
Fromunda? Would that be similar to a subpoena...?
Cuz the sheep was asking for it, they it was acting.
j/k.
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