Posted on 05/09/2005 4:59:01 PM PDT by Scenic Sounds
WASHINGTON -- Scientists trying to sniff out biological differences between gay and straight men have found new evidence - in scent.
It turns out that sniffing a chemical from testosterone, the male sex hormone, causes a response in the sexual area of gay men's brains, just as it does in the brains of straight women, but not in the brains of straight men.
"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 that conducted the study, said the findings 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.
This has been my own observation as well over the years. I majored in theater in college, and had the opportunity to observe *many* homosexuals and bisexuals for a period of about six years (mostly male). I learned to separate them into two groups, the born and the "made" homosexual. There were some young men that were just gay, gay, gay. I got to know some of them well, and it just appeared obvious to me, as a non-scientific observer, that that was just the way they were and appeared to have been born that way. But there was another group who seemed to have proclivities towaard both men and women, but associated mostly with gay men because it was so much easier to get "action" in the gay community. My conclusion about them was that they were either born with the preference for both sexes, or had been "turned on" to the gay lifestyle later on.
My conclusions about the two groups were that with the "born" group, there was nothing in the world you could do to make them straight. You could probably threaten them into celibacy, but that was about it. However, the "made" group seemed to choose the lifestyle, for whatever reasons. My guess is that men who claim to have been cured of homosexuality come mostly from the "made" group.
I never did any smell tests with either group, though .... :)
In related news: no one cares!
We know for certain that behavior changes the brain.
These studies say nothing about which came first, the chicken or the egg. It is entirely possible, as far as these studies are concerned--that the homosexual behavior changed the brain orientations.
Now. Do such a study on newborn infants--entirely possible with today's technology. And control all other factors and let's see how many of who with what sorts of responses to what odors turn out to be homosexual.
And even then . . . that would still not deal with a lot of other factors which could contribute to the hormonal/genetic/spiritual factors resulting in such an origin of the tendency.
And, compulsion; predispositions do not force behavior.
Not everyone with a predisposition to alcoholism is alcoholic.
Why are they looking for a gay gene? Do you want to justify induced extinction? Almost like saying "some people are too stupid to live therefore make sure they never procreate"
......Film at Dawn.
The study indicated homosexual men did have a preference for homosexual men's smells.
Whether it's a powerful enough preference to help them select each other out of a crowd or not . . . is another issue--and a doubtful one, imho.
It's a mixed bag.
Some pheromones are evidently very powerful things.
But it's a very complex picture with most humans involving a lot of conditioning and conscious choice, too.
Some powerful perfumes have been created but I forget the marketing experiences. I think they weren't consistently powerful across a broad enough spectrum of the population enough of the time to make them a raging success. But I could be wrong. Been a long time since I read anything about such.
Agreed. That comment bothered me as well.
I think you're dead on. I've worked in the musical theater and the dance music scene as a musician and I concur with your observations.
You know, I wouldn't mind an honest scientific study of the differences between homosexuals and heterosexuals. What I oppose are the "scientific" "studies" that have one and only one goal in mind: to remove all remaining opposition to the homosexual agenda that resides in us recalcitrants. An honest study would show that homosexual desires are an emotional/psychological/spiritual problem, not physical...
I also have been in classical music and a bit of opera and dance, so have been around the homosexual crowd. Despite their denials, it is a fact that they nearly always come from messed-up families, esp. from families with fathers that don't function well in their roles as fathers. Why in the world would someone be genetically disposed toward homosexuality? Doesn't make sense, and there is no evidence of it. Instead, it seems that boys get converted to homosexuality at an age too early for them to remember.
You, sir, are an idiot. In that half hour I posted a carefully argued Scriptural exegesis, which required a retranslation of a passage from 2 Timothy from the original Greek, on another thread. Do you think I'm sitting around watching my ping list for your replies with batted breath?
What point have you made when I answer "Two"?
"I was conceived in iniquity, and in sins did my mother bear me," the King and Prophet David wrote centuries ago. Read Scripture, study the biological basis of behavior literature and get back to me.
If you are not interested in the other person it doesn't matter what they smell like. Trying to equate animal behavior based on smell to humans is kind of insulting to any thinking person.
In a graduate psych text in the 70's I learned that autopsys showed that a small proportion of gay males have rudimentary structures similar to female sexual organs with bone structures similarly feminine. This tells me that there is a genetic component to some percentage of homosexual orientation. But not all.
As some one else said, there is a spectrum of genetic and leaned behavior. I often wonder if the current homosexual campaign is designed to push the margin, and increase the homosexual numbers?
Hmmm. . . a biological basis for hating gays. Well, if it's inborn it must be right. NOT!
I think that's better than what I was about to suggest as a reductio ad absurdum of the "inborn = morally acceptable" nonsense the homosexualists hawk, and which folk on this thread who want desparately to debunk the study have accepted : all heterosexual males have a biologically determined attraction for well-developed fifteen year old females. Shall we abolish statutory rape laws?
That we have a very clear comprehension of dogmatic truth in a simple mathematic equation, not up for arbitration nor oblique reasoning, and thus, for the Lord has called sodomy an abomination, it is against His nature to create, in His image, a genetic structure that is an abomination.
Homosexual Agenda Ping.
As if being attracted to smells couldn't develop from behavior. Duh.
Let me know if you want on/off this pinglist.
Can't speak for everyone, but I couldn't "learn" to be attracted to a man.
You fail to recognize the actual implications of the Fall. All creation was distorted when Adam turned from God's intent to be in communion with Him, and human nature most of all. We are not souls dwelling in bodies, or imprisoned in bodies, but unities of soul and body. It was not Adam's soul which was distorted when he was robbed of the garment of incorruption which is the Holy Spirit, but his whole being, how should this change not be reflected in the fiber of our being? Yes, even at the molecular level.
You also fail to distinguish between the temptation and the sin. There is no abomination in overcoming through grace a besetting temptation or propensity toward sodomy, but triumph. The propensity is either a source of sin if yielded to, or an ascetic podvig, which borne and overcome is a source of glory. Likewise with all the propensities toward sin which we bear. Wrath and pride will land us in Sheol just as quickly as buggery.
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