Startling Study Says People May Be Born Gay

HealthDayNews ^ | October 6, 2003 | Amanda Gardner

[AntiGuv]

MONDAY, Oct. 6 (HealthDayNews) -- The origins of sexual orientation may be evident in the blink of an eye.

In what is the first study to show an apparent link between a non-learned trait and sexual orientation, British researchers have discovered the way peoples' eyes respond to sudden loud noises may signal differences between heterosexual and homosexual men and women that were developed before birth.

The authors, whose study appears in the October issue of Behavioral Neuroscience, say about 4 percent of men and 3 percent of women are gay. Scientists have long sought to determine whether sexuality is learned or biological.

"We have several decades of research which suggests rather strongly that human sexual orientation is to some degree biologically determined," says study author Qazi Rahman, a lecturer in the School of Psychology at the University of East London. "The problem with those types of studies is that we can't disentangle the effects of learning."

The question then became, "What kind of task could be used that is not influenced by learning or socialization?" The answer came in human startle responses, which are involuntary and instinctual.

Specifically, Rahman and his colleagues decided to use pre-pulse inhibition (PPI). When humans hear a sudden noise, they respond by blinking. If that loud noise is preceded by a quieter noise (the pre-pulse), the response to the second, loud noise is weaker. In other words, it is inhibited.

The researchers compared responses to a loud noise both alone and after a quieter noise to see what the degree of inhibition was. Participants were 59 gay and straight men and women.

In the heterosexual women, the PPI averaged 13 percent and, in heterosexual men, 40 percent.

Lesbians, however, had a PPI of 33 percent, closer to the straight-man end of the spectrum, while gay men averaged 32 percent, slightly lower than that of straight men but not statistically significant.

The findings are consistent with other studies, which have found that certain traits in lesbians are highly "masculinized," while the same traits in gay men are almost the same as in straight men.

While it's difficult to make generalizations about gay behavior on the basis of these findings (for example, "all gay male thinking is like that of women"), it is possible to build a case for the origins of sexuality, the authors say.

"On the basis of these results and in conjunction with the bulk of the literature in the last three decades or so, the evidence points to some prenatal factor or factors [in determining sexual preference]," Rahman says.

The findings could have implications for a number of social issues.

"Actual sexual orientation and sex-related research is now being accepted as a legitimate national investment in terms of research," Rahman says. "We have problems with STDs [sexually transmitted diseases]. Understanding sexual behavior is clearly important to that."

The findings may also help illuminate sex differences in mental health issues. "Although homosexuality per se is not related to psychiatric problems, on those occasions that gays and lesbians do present with psychiatric problems, they often show disorders that are typical of the opposite sex," Rahman says. Gay men, for example, may be more likely to suffer depression, anxiety and eating disorders than their straight counterparts, while lesbians may be more vulnerable to substance abuse than heterosexual women.

"Maybe having an understanding of brain basis of sexual orientation in healthy individuals may give us some clues in what is going wrong in the brain circuitry underlying certain psychiatric problems," Rahman says. "In the future, we may be able to tailor treatments more specifically."

It's important not to draw too many generalizations. "It's not that the gay brain is like the heterosexual brain of the opposite sex. It seems to be a mosaic of male and female typical traits," Rahman says. "Because we're looking at humans, thing are always more complicated that you would expect."

[AntiGuv]

I'm posting this primarily to make two relevant observations (aside from the fact that it just hit at least Yahoo's frontpage news):

1) Without going into boring detail, Qazi Rahman has come under some question for misrepresenting other researchers work. While I do not mean to cast doubt on this study of its own accord and on its own merits, Rahman's characterization of the results is open to valid objection, IMHO. Rahman is clearly an adherent to the biased agenda of proving that sexual orientation is an inborn trait in both men & women.

2) It must be emphasized - as Rahman does not and as the 3 media reports I've seen on the matter do not - that the difference between straight men and gay men was not statistically significant. These results actually point toward one of the conclusions which are the subject of a much broader work that I've been engaged in for some while now (to be published some day or other):

That sexual orientation is largely predetermined amongst females but not so amongst males - or, more accurately, that biological factors exert a much stronger influence on the sexual preferences of women than of men (where the influence is marginal, at best). In short, that the mechanisms of sexual orientation are not directly comparable mirror processes between men and women (as most researchers have tended to assume - incorrectly, IMHO) or necessarily uniform within either.

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[Saundra Duffy]

Oh, I see - a generational curse.

[Temple Drake]

The testing was done on adults. Nature vs. nurture is not addressed. Basically he is saying what can be seen without any tests at all: "Look, queer men are girly! queer women are mannish!" What he has not shown is how they got that way .. and when.

[sirchtruth]

CHOICE...

[sirchtruth]

Let me rephrase that...Perverted Choice!

[txzman]

Garbage! I bet I can find an opposite conclusion in studies done with outdoor bathroom lights in camp sites.

[liberallarry]

Robert Kagan has been doing a lot of work on the biological basis of basic personality traits. While not directly bearing on the question of inborn sexual orientation it is interesting.

[cavtrooper21]

I like this idea.
Now that it is "OK to be Gay", there will be little or no pressure for the gay population to reproduce / produce viable offspring.
They have caused their own extinction by "winning equal rights"
Yes, I know there are gays that have children, but the number is so low as to be statisticly nil...
Now that the sodomites have won the right to NOT knuckle under to the pressures of family, church and culture to engage in "normal relationships", there is a good chance that they will sodomize themselves out of the picture.
So although there are fears that the homos are "taking over" they are really just a flash in pan and will soon be departing for the home of the Dodo and the dinosaurs.
Bye bye....

[Paleo Conservative]

The testing was done on adults. Nature vs. nurture is not addressed. Basically he is saying what can be seen without any tests at all: "Look, queer men are girly! queer women are mannish!" What he has not shown is how they got that way .. and when.

But straight women tend not to be promiscuous while gay males tend to be extremely promiscuous. If anything male homosexuals exaggerate the male tendency to be promiscuous.

[LPM1888]

I am firmly convinced that genetics is a major factor in sexual determination. One of my friends who is a lesbian has bodily features that are so obviously male that she alone constitutes a very strong proof of genetic disposition. Anyone she meets knows immediately that she is a lesbian and that she didn't have any choice, she's built like a Mack Truck.

I also had a male cousin who was almost a full double cousin (ours fathers were brothers and our mothers are first cousins). On his side, the only genetic lineage we do not share included an uncle who was definitely homosexual and a concert musician. My double cousin was homosexual and he said he never had a desire for a female in his life, he also was an accomplished musician and had a brief career in ballet. I on the other hand am completely straight and tone deaf. Those two people have completely convinced me about the genetic aspects of homosexuality. I am proud to have both of them as family members.

These are obviously anecdotal instances but they are also cases of which I am extremely familar.

[Mark]

IF a gene can be discovered showing a future gay person, the liberals wouldn't complain if a couple chose aborting the "tissue" would they?

[Rodney King]

So, if they are born that way, does that make them genetic defects?

[CodeMonkey]

Have any of the people who think that it's not biological in many, if not most, cases ever stopped to ask why a man would prefer a man instead of a woman? I'm attracted to women and when I look at another man I feel nothing along the lines of what a heterosexual man feels when looking at an attractive woman. The only nature versus nurture here is involved in those too indoctrinated to see the simple, rational explanation for most cases of homosexuality.

[weegee]

People are born poor (an inherited condition that often is associated with the father). We do not ebrace "poor culture" and strive to see that the poor are proud of who they are and that they remain true to their poor roots.

We seek to bring them into the norm of society so that they can better themselves.

[AntiGuv]

There are two additional points worth making about this study. A fairly consistent feature of biological research into sexual orientation has been a clear divergence in the results within females and those within males. By the relevant measures, lesbians tend to situate clearly separate from straight women while by any measure there is overlap between straight men and gay men.

In other words, with this study, whereas you might expect all lesbians to evidence a more 'masculine' startle response than other women, you would expect some straight men to evidence a less 'masculine' startle response than some gay men. In fact, what you often tend to see is two distinct subgroups of men - one best described as 'effeminate' and one best described as 'hypermasculine' - with the rest just intermixed amongst the straight men.

This is consistent with studies of prenatal androgen exposure, adult circulating testosterone, brain structure size differentials, secondary sex characteristics, and otoacoustic emission studies (off the top of my head).

I strongly argue that one of the frequent conceptual errors promulgated by researchers is this idea that if you establish a biological basis for sexual orientation amongst, say, women, then that establishes a biological basis amongst men as well (or vice versa). Many of these studies that proclaim evidence of inborn sexuality (actually, near all of them) really only evidence a strong biological component to female sexual preferences, but not to male sexual preferences.

[AntiGuv]

See my post #17.

[sirchtruth]

Anyone she meets knows immediately that she is a lesbian and that she didn't have any choice, she's built like a Mack Truck.

Are you seriously saying she had NO choice, she HAD to become a butch dike lezbo?

[AntiGuv]

Make that: "what you often tend to see is two distinct subgroups of gay men"...