I'm always amused by these so-called homosexuality studies that focus exclusively on gay men. What about lesbians, bisexual folks, trans-people? What about those without a defined sexual identity? But of course, all people think about when homosexuality comes to mind are gay men. -.-

It's not even a question that's particularly relevant to homosexuality. What about all those recessive genetic disorders? (Tay-sach's disease, cystic fibrosis, etc.) Just because they're recessive doesn't mean they will be naturally selected out of the gene pool. In most cases, the population of these recessive defective alleles form a sort of dynamic equilibrium with other alleles.

Something as complex as sexuality certainly doesn't follow the classical Mendelian principles of genetic inheritance that may predict the inheritance of - say - hair colour.

Or perhaps, the presence of non-heterosexual behaviour is a side-product - if you will - of another trait which is more useful.

In any case, all these thoughts are so ridiculously heterosexist, as if heterosexuality is the "correct" sexuality. The survival of a species certainly depends on more than just penis meets vagina. (In some animal species the prevalence of non-heterosexual behaviour far out-numbers the prevalence of heterosexual behaviour, and yet here they are, surviving.)

Yey rant about sexuality and genetics.

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"No one has ever said that life is to be easy. Only that it is to be lived."
- Grandmother in "The Road to Rankin's Point" by Alistair Macleod 

I mean, yeah, some of the studies tend to focus mainly on gay men and what not, but I don't really think you can knock this study for that because what the study focused on/found was specific to gay men... and what about lesbians?
""We're still working on lesbianism, but were not getting to the same result, and possibly we'll come out with a completely different explanation"
I don't know about bisexuals, but in regards to transgendered people, that's an ENTIRELY different realm of study.  Gender Identity and sexuality, when you get down to it, don't have that much in common.  Who we're attracted to and who we view ourselves at are two very, very different things.

And yeah, obviously homosexuality is much more complex than simple Mendelian genetics, but like they said, it's just a piece of the big puzzle.  I think there is definitely a genetic factor to it, but I also agree it isn't as simple as that, and how we're raised and what environments we are in have an effect on it (although I don't really know how I could have learned to be gay from my parents...ha)

And again, I agree, most of this stuff is ridiculously heterosexist.  It always is. "Oh look at those gays...how novel.  Let's see if we can figure it out"

Yey

~Jack
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Her: "If I weren't so full, I'd ask you to frolic"

Me: "If I weren't so gay, I'd ask you to be my girlfriend"

 

As you also pointed out many of these studies are monosexist. Often the results for 'gay' include bisexuals as part of the gay sample. The idea being that we are counted as something that we are not simply because the study was designed without a catagory for us so we have to be placed into another catagory.

Yea, I've noticed that. Bisexual men tend to be lumped in with gay men, just because. It seems like a gross error, but not one anyone of influence seems to notice as big enough to correct.

At least,  there's attention paid to the question of nature or nurture when it comes to sexuality (or rather, almost exclusively homosexuality)... right?
 

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"No one has ever said that life is to be easy. Only that it is to be lived."
- Grandmother in "The Road to Rankin's Point" by Alistair Macleod 

well... its not exactly a gross error.

I have to find the study, but basically in the 1970's there was a lot of drama in the gay community regarding the question of whether or not people are born gay (Drama in the gay community? No way! /snark.)  Now just remember the mindset of people in the 70's.  The rise of feminism played a role in the discussions.  Well, apparently people used to stay up and argue about it, and gay men felt that you were born gay and it was absolutely necessary to make that point clear, whereas gay women thought it really did not matter if you were born gay (nature/nurture).  They really did not understand what the obsession was that gay men had with the idea that we are born the way we are born....

Anyway - jump forward quite a few years and there was this study.  The study was something like electrodes monitoring brain waves in the head while images were played across the screen.  The study had straight men, bisexual men, and gay men, as well as straight women, bisexual women and self identified lesbians.  The whole point was to see who got aroused by what pictures.  Results?? Shocking -->  Straight, bisexual, and lesbian women all were aroused (aroused as in the correct brain signals fired off in the brain) by both men and women  - not all 100% but a vast majority.  On the men, it was not as uniform. Straight men were turned on by only women, and gay men by men, and bisexual men, pretty much got turned on by men and not women (again not 100%).

So - sorry that took so long - but that is probably why bisexual men get lumped in with gay men.

OMG I just wrote a long reply to this and then got bounced and it was lost. I'm so pissed.... I'll get back to it later ahhhhhh.

that happened to me yesterday!

O noes.. =\ That happened to me so much that I type longer posts in Notepad now.. XD
 

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"No one has ever said that life is to be easy. Only that it is to be lived."
- Grandmother in "The Road to Rankin's Point" by Alistair Macleod 

its because we eat our veggies! duh