On the causes of sexual orientation

RE: The causes of heterosexuality and homosexuality:WHEREAS: Heterosexual orientation is the undisputable cause of human babies and every other kind of baby you could possibly think of, with the only exceptions being binary fission, parthenogenesis, and cloning.WHEREAS: Heterosexual orientation is a genetic condition that is accountable in humans by the genes on their X and Y chromosomes.WHEREAS: Heterosexual orientation evolved as the key mechanism for facilitating a populations’ dynamic equilibrium and its resistence to Darwinian natural selection.WHEREAS: Homosexual orientation does not cause babies in any species, nor is the cause of homosexual orientation known to science.WHEREAS; Homosexual orientation did not evolve to facilitate a population’s dynamic equilibrium or its struggle against Darwinian natural selection; in fact, it may be a mechanism that suppresses a population’s ability to resist NS.THEREFORE: Heterosexual orientation is entirely consistent with biological principles that improve a population’s wellbeing, while homosexual orientation is detrimental to a population’s wellbeing because it does nothing to protect it from the ravages of Darwinian NS.Does science know enough about homosexual orientation to refute any of the WHEREAS statements and alter the THEREFORE statement?”HM

BB, is it fair to call any of these examples a true form of homosexuality? I've seen dogs hump pillows, babies, and people's legs, but that doesn't prove they're homosexual. I used to be a member of the YMCA, but that didn't make me gay.”HM

I don't see how homosexuality could be beneficial to a population's evenly proportioned reproductive success amongst individuals, which is required to prevent NS. Homosexuals don't seek out relationships that participate in a population's reproductive activity. As such, they may even degrade it into a state of vulnerability when NS comes to call. Maybe homosexuality is an acquired disease of populations that weakens them to the ravages of NS. Such a theory could argued on the grounds that NS is defined as "differential reproductive success amongst individuals of a population."”HM

Nah! I'm sticking with it. If a man's penis is not heterosexually oriented toward a woman vagina (not I'm getting hot, even at my age) he will not get where he needs to go to make a baby. I don't believe homosexuals care to be oriented in the said same way. Orientation has everything to do with it. Is there something you know of about sexuality that is not determined by genetics? I don't believe heterosexuality is a developmental process. Do you? I don't know what kind of a process homosexuality is. Does anybody know? None. It's just a bald assertion. No more bald than the assertion that gays need to get "married." Or the assertion that they became homosexuals by an act of nature that resembles the way black people become pigmented.”HM

Because the Village People seemed to be a little light in their loafers when they scored their hit "YMCA."”HM

I'd like to give it up. But I really want to know what causes homosexuals and why they are like blacks. All we've got to go on are bald assertions.btw: I already know what causes heterosexual orientation, and without it no pecking penis will ever find its proper place where babies are made.”HM

I really think it's good stuff, Taz, very interesting. I'll be using it as a good reference in this discussion. Thanks for sharing it. Are you suggesting that gay sheep might make good partners for gay men? Wedding bells, maybe, out in the pasture? The last time I checked I wasn't. But I do drop a lot of acid.”HMEdited by Hoot Mon, : No reason given.

I like the metaphor. And I suppose you're right. But whatever it is that causes homosexuality is still unknown to science, as I have argued before.
”HMEdited by Hoot Mon, : No reason given.

I am certain I know what caused my heterosexuality. I can't speak for women and their heterosexuality, but I can say for sure that I got it from my Y chromosome. If another man has a Y chromosome, just as I do, then I don't know why he prefers to have sex with men instead of women. It is up to him to explain why this is NOT an aberration of the normal male condition, and also to explain why it deserves access to heterosexual institutions.”HM

Thanks, Deftil. Interesting discovery indeed. However, it made me ask if the brains of musicians, for example, would show roughly the same kind of differences to the brain's of non-musicians. Call it "exercising the brain muscle," which of course is voluntary.”HM

Oh but please do! I'd be very interested in anything that scientifically links gays to mutants.”HM

Links to my heterosexuality: XY chromosomal configuration ”> testicles ”> testosterone ”> heterosexuality. Can't speak for either women or gays, though.”HM

Can't speak for squids, but here in Bremerton, WA, they seem to be more interested in fighting each other than fucking each other.”HMEdited by Hoot Mon, : No reason given.

Coragyps, very interesting and relevant to this thread. Thanks. From the Nature article:

quote:

---

By forcing males to express the female-specific fruF transcript, Demir and Dickson produced males that showed the characteristics of the worst-affected fru mutants. These males were sterile, they barely courted females and they were more interested in courting males, forming courtship chains. By contrast, females jammed into fruM mode mated poorly, produced very few eggs, but ” astonishingly ” courted other females (Fig. 2), even to the point of forming chains. And an identity crisis of similar epic proportions was observed in females that were 'masculinized' using a different fru-related genetic trick. Finally, by feminizing specific abdominal glands in males to produce female pheromones, and placing the altered males with fruM females, the sex roles were reversed, so that the females courted the males.

---

While your article is pretty good, I think, it doesn't have much to say that about the benefits bestowed upon to a population that must endure those queer mutations. However, at the very least, it lays such queer characteristics at the feet of genetic predisposition.”HM

Nosey, from your cited article:

quote:

---

An unexpected implication of the new models concerns the impact that the sexually antagonistic genetic factors for male homosexuality have on the overall fecundity of a population. The findings suggest that the proportion of male homosexuals may signal a corresponding proportion of females with higher fecundity. Consequently, these factors always contribute, all else being equal, a positive net increase of the fecundity of the whole population, when compared to populations in which such factors are lower or absent. This increase grows as the population baseline fecundity decreases; this means that the genes influencing male homosexuality end up playing the role of a buffer effect on any external factors lowering the overall fecundity of the whole population.

---

This seems awfully relevant here. It suggests that a population may contain a fecundity function that is affected by homosexuality. This is huge! It implies that NS ” differential reproduction amongst individuals across a population ” is enhanced by homosexuality. Is this a good thing for a population's dynamic equilibrium? Or is it a good thing for Darwinian NS?”Hm