Indeed Mr. Kidd!
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.
Neither have I. And I would agree with you, lj, that it was most likely discredited or initially bogus. The closest thing I can think of was Simon LeVay's hypothalamus study, but LeVay himself admitted his study didn't support what many claim it supported.
Indeed Mr. Kidd!
This research does not say anything about physiological factors causing gay tendencies or behaviors.
ASSOCIATION/CORRELATION IS NOT CAUSATION.
However, BEHAVIOR CHANGES THE PHYSIOLOGY OF THE BRAIN. WE KNOW THAT FROM TONS OF STUDIES.
And, we also know from solid evidence that mothers who are super stressed during the first trimester of pregnancy while carrying male babies produce a significantly higher percentage (as a group) of homosexual sons.
However, the best estimate currently is that at most there is a 10-20% PREDISPOSITION TOWARD homosexuality that is hormonal/genetic.
Regardless of what you read by the propagandists, the huge percentage of it is learned behavior. Though I also lay plenty of it to demonic forces.
But you need not be overly cheeky, skeptical, ignorant, foolish about solid research. This is solid research. It just doesn't say what the author tried to make it say. It says nothing about causality.
Or homosexuals turning straight... Indeed, the very existence of former homosexuals speaks volumes to the entire genetics argument.
Indeed. As Satinover says in The Gay Gene?:
I'll bet people who pray regularly have certain enlarged portions of their brains!And, we also know from solid evidence that mothers who are super stressed during the first trimester of pregnancy while carrying male babies produce a significantly higher percentage (as a group) of homosexual sons.
I'd like to see that study. I've read a number of studies and don't remember reading a study that supported the above.
However, the best estimate currently is that at most there is a 10-20% PREDISPOSITION TOWARD homosexuality that is hormonal/genetic.
What's the source for the above? I think this is an excellent summary of how it all happens: How Might Homosexuality Develop? Putting the Pieces Together.
Regardless of what you read by the propagandists, the huge percentage of it is learned behavior. Though I also lay plenty of it to demonic forces.
It's really all quite complicated. For males, a very high percentage is due to the father/son relationship. Many stories of former homosexuals bear this out. I've put together a list of testimonies here.
Never been to prison, huh?
Got a site for the research?
NO?
Didn 't think so...
And this is news?
Tabula rasa was for all social behavior. The entire project of the left is based on the assumption that environment can be used to shape human beings into anything--not just at the level of intelligence, but economic activity. The phrase originates either with Rousseau or with someone commenting on Rousseau (it's been decades since I read that crank and don't recall off hand whether he himself used it), not with the later psychologists who took it up in the nature vs. nurture debate centered on intelligence.
You are making a connection that doesn't exist.
This study is junk science and we, as good honest people, can't tolerate junk science and the lie that it represents.
This has no connection to any facet of morality at all. (and no one postulated such a connection except yourself IIRC)
But since you seem to be tripping over it, let me assure you that inborn does not equal moral. Man's inborn nature is immoral. We are murderers, sexual predators, dishonest and self-centered etc. All the normal basic human reactions are immoral. Watch a two year old at play with other kids. All they understand is mine and me. Morality is learned.
Now science has shown us that homosexuality is an unnatural and diseased (perhaps damaged is a better word) response in human beings (read the studies in scripter's database of links). The biology of homosexual behavior just doesn't work. While the male and female members 'fit' together perfectly (right down to the angle of attack of the fully erect penis and the vagina) the male members don't fit at all.
Homosexuality is caused by one of three (or a combination of ) factors (listed in order of importance). 1. Being molested or sexually abused. 2. Having an absent or insufficient relationship with one's father. 3 . Being relentlessly teased by one's peers during the formative years.
Someone earlier in the thread mentioned 'gays' that had to have been born that way because of their characteristics. I've known people like this. Some came from good families with fathers that were there for them and are mentally healthy (straight) as can be. Others came from families with no father and are mentally damaged ('gay'). Sexual perversion is always a learned behavior.
Excellent point and well worth repeating
EXACTLY. I know that genetically, I have a propensity towards drinking alchohol so much that I'd poison myself, thanks to my family history. But I choose never to act on those propensities. It is a choice to act on the behavior, even if is inborn or not.
First, I thinkg you misuse 'straw man': as 'straw man argument' is a feeble expositoin of the opponent's position which is then easily knocked down to produce a false rhetorical triumph.
The examples I gave (Downs and twin studies for the surprisingly complex, and usually though to be socially deteremined phenomenon of career choice) were in fact strong arguments first as a reminder of the physicality of the brain, and second that complex social behaviors can have a strong genetic component.
The were a propos of the post to which I was responding, and were presented as arguments against what I characterized as its tabula rasa attitude toward behavior, not as any kind of conclusive arguments about the behavior at hand.
You will observe I have nowhere argued for genetic determinism as a basis for erotic attraction, and have always spoken of propensities, or in posts dealing with moral judgement, besetting temptations.
Now, if 'homosexual' is defined behaviorally, one will flag only those who have acted according to the propensity, and thus will not get the entire population of those who have it, whatever its source.
And on what basis do you claim that there is no similarity in 'the tendancy to go gay'? I find no studies with large samples of twins reared apart (hardly suprising for a phenomenon with an incidence rate of about 3% in the general populace). The twin studies which have been done comparing siblings form the same household--all of which find a substantially higher concordance rate for MZ twins of homosexuals (52%) as compared with biological brothers (22%) or adoptive brothers (11%) (I cite only the most recent, Bailey & Pillard, 1991)-- cannot tease apart environment (including prenatal) and genetics, but suggest both play a role.
I debate this nonstop.
And I also have a theory. Oh what is my theory, that it is. Yes, well you may well ask, what is my theory. And well you may. Yes my word you may well ask what it is, this theory of mine. Well, this theory that I have -- that is to say, which is mine -- ...is mine. Oh, my theory that I have follows the lines I am about to relate. (Coughs) Ahem. Ahem. Ahem. Ahem. Ahem. Ahem.
All brontosauruses are thin at one end, much MUCH thicker in the middle, and then thin again at the far end. That is the theory that I have and which is mine, and what it is too.
This doesn't pass the smell test...
1. Shalimar - The essence of Scent of a Woman. Makes any woman look better.
2. Musk - the essence of Odor of Fag. Makes me almost retch whenever I sense it.
Like Michael Jackson?
I see male dogs humping each other all the time. Not that there's penetration, but its fairly typical dominance behavior.
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