Sadly Gay

A large new study has failed to find such a thing as a “gay gene.”

Given the rapid growth of our knowledge of the human genome over the past few years, a negative finding by now is pretty definitive. It turns out that homosexuals are not “born that way.”

This should not be surprising to anyone with common sense. Homosexuals do not reproduce. Were there a “gay gene,” it would eliminate itself from the gene pool over two generations.

But the current concept of homosexuality as a human right, against which one must not discriminate, is based on this false premise.

Yet we also cannot see homosexuality as something anyone is likely to choose as a lifestyle. Less than 3% of the population is homosexual. That means that, if you are, at least 97% of those to whom you are sexually attracted will be repelled by any approach. Not great odds for a happy sex life or a healthy self-image. Worse, you cannot easily tell by looking at them who is in the 3%.

So, if it is not genetic, and nobody would consciously choose it, how does anyone become homosexual?

The obvious alternative is that they are groomed into it. Given that homosexuals face almost certain rejection in most other circumstances, their obvious strategy is to approach adolescents not yet very aware of sex, or their own sexuality, and seduce them before they know what is going on. Or exploit some power relationship.

We are hard-wired to form an emotional attachment to whomever we first have sex with. This is easily explained in Darwinian terms. It is the basis for the oldest of pickup lines, “you remind me of someone.” If our first sexual experience is with a blonde, we will favour blondes from then on; if with a short woman, we will favour short women; and so on. See if it is not true for yourself.

A reason, not incidentally, why premarital sex is a bad idea. If you can marry your first sexual partner, the emotional bond will be far stronger.

But this also means that, if you are seduced by an older gay man when an adolescent, you may well become homosexual yourself.

Homosexuality, in other words, is contagious.

This is currently and often forcefully denied. Relevant authorities will insist that homosexuals are no more likely to be pedophiles than homosexuals.

But the numbers in the sex scandal in the North American Catholic Church say otherwise. Eighty percent of victims have been adolescent males. And common sense says otherwise: given the odds of rejection otherwise, homosexuals must face a stronger temptation here. Moreover, the idea of an older man “mentoring” a younger one is the understood norm of homosexuality in places, like Ancient Greece or English public schools, in which it has been acceptable.

This might then explain in large part why most societies and cultures oppose homosexuality. It is cruel and predatory to turn a young man gay. That forces him onto the same obstacles to sexual satisfaction that drew the partner to this strategy. Not to mention opening him to a much higher risk of sexually-transmitted diseases, the inability to have children, the less comfortable match between two male psyches, and so on.

Putting it all together, it really looks like a remarkably bad idea to celebrate homosexuality, hold “pride” parades, and assign the practice inalienable rights. This has nothing to do with compassion towards homosexuals.

The real reason we have gone so far down this treacherous cul-de-sac, I suspect, is that seeing homosexuality as a human right allowed and allows us to pillory conventional morality as discriminatory. Satan forbid there should be any restrictions on our own sexual license.

There is already hell to pay.

The Gay Gene

Old cigarette ad rendered confusing by new euphemism.

A correspondent recently wrote, in response to a column by my columnist friend Xerxes, “I find it amazing that in this age people do not understand that our sexuality is not chosen, but part of the genetic package we are born with.“

Here is another of those things that “everybody knows” that are not true. Generally deliberately planted for political purposes.

In the 1980s and 90s a notion reached its peak that human behaviour could be explained genetically. I guess the “gay gene” was the leading factor, but alcoholism, depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and all sorts of other things were also posited to be genetic. Among other advantages, this let a lot of people off the moral hook: either for indulging vices, or for driving others mad. So it was an easy sell to the popular culture.

It was always ever a speculation, mostly wishful thinking, but it was seized upon and presented as an established scientific fact. Periodically, The papers even announced that a “gene for schizophrenia” or “gay gene” had been discovered. But none of those studies could ever be reproduced. Unfortunately, the first claimed discovery was news. The later retraction was not. Many people have been left with the impression that the science is settled.

As time marches on, with many researchers searching for these genes, and as our knowledge of the human genome grows exponentially, we still have not discovered any of these genes. It grows increasingly likely that they do not exist.

Gee—people are not robots. Who knew?

The “gay gene” although always the most popular of these hypotheses, was also always the least probable. For a “gay gene” to exist, Darwin would have to have been nuts. No small issue. If natural selection is real, any gay gene would have died out in a single generation. It would prevent reproduction. Bad evolutionary strategy.

The “gay gene” became popular dogma largely because many believed it gave “homosexuals” an inalienable right to homosexual sex. One was born gay like one was born black. So objecting to gay sex was simply prejudice.

Given that only perhaps 3% of the population has any interest in having gay sex, why did this become such a popular issue?

Because it meant that conventional moral codes, notably Catholicism, were guilty of prejudice. So, presumably, they could be ignored, discarded, and everyone could do what they want. Most notably, I suspect, abort unwanted children, allowing unrestricted sex without responsibility.

At the expense of accepting that you were an animal, or a robot. For some, a small price to pay.

So if it is not genetic and inborn, how does one become gay? After all, the great majority of us have no temptation at all in that direction. Quite the reverse.

If one is not “born that way, the obvious alternative is nurture. Opening up a disturbing possibility. What if a desire for gay sex is triggered by a nearly gay experience? That seems entirely plausible. How many of us, after all, spend the rest of our lives until marriage looking for someone who reminds us of our first girlfriend? After all, how are we to explain other sexual fetishes? Can you be born with a sexual attraction to shoes, or to uniforms?

In other words, people may become gay because they were “groomed,” seduced into a homosexual experience at a young age.

This seems to have been the conventional wisdom, until recently, about homosexuality and how it came about until quite recently. In ancient Greece, an older man would recruit a young male lover. In English public schools, an upperclassman would recruit a younger “fag.”

So what if our ancestors were right?

Homosexuality, if there is a choice, is both socially and individually desirable. Most notably because it does not lead to children. Also because it seems to be an efficient way to spread disease. But it also cannot be a pleasant life to be sexually attracted to people 97% of whom are going to reject your advances out of hand.

So what is the obvious solution? The temptation must be very great to seek out a younger person, someone quite inexperienced, barely aware of what sex is about, and in any case smaller, weaker, and socially less powerful than yourself, and lure then into an encounter.

And now one begins to see why homosexuality has traditionally been prohibited in almost all cultures.

The issue is not really sex between two consenting adults. Even where the prohibition still applies, in countries like Saudi Arabia, that seems to be nobody's business. It is the automatic probability of what we now call “hebephilia.”

The modern concept of taking homosexuality out of the closet, and recognizing gay marriage, may be a viable and more humane alternative to banning it: make it easier for gays to find partners, and there will be less incentive to hunt among the young.

But let's see things as they are.

Born This Way?

Two men with gay jeans.

Is there a gene for homosexuality?

Any idea of a genetic basis for behaviour must be anathema to the Catholic Church, or to humanists. It has to be; if behaviour is genetically determined, there is no free will, so no chance for heaven or salvation. We are reduced to the status of lower animals or machines. No more human dignity.

But that is no concern of science’s. Just the facts, ma’am. What are the facts?

Whenever some new science comes to the fore, for a while, as Arthur C. Clarke observed, it looks like magic. For a while, it explains everything. When electricity was discovered, it was at once considered the secret of life. Hence Frankenstein’s monster. When magnetism was discovered, it was also considered the secret of life, and we heard about “animal magnetism.” When radiation was discovered, for a while, we were x-raying everything. Radiation gave us Spiderman, the Hulk, and many movie monsters.

In the seventies, eighties and nineties, thanks to Watson and Crick, genetic science was hot, so the tendency for a several decades or so was to see it as the secret of life too. We heard discoveries not only of a “gay gene,” but a “schizophrenia gene,” a “manic depression gene,” a “depression gene,” an “alcoholic gene,” and an “aggression gene”; no doubt others. None of these “discoveries,” though, have proven to be reproducible in later studies.

Psychologists are perfectly sanguine to admit now that there is apparently no schizophrenia gene, or manic depression gene, or depression gene, and have moved on back to environmental explanations.

But politics complicates the case of the “homosexual gene.” Too many laws were passed, otherwise immoral deeds done, inalienable human rights declared, and constitutional judgements handed down based on the assumption that there was a “homosexual gene.” Those in power in a range of fields, most notably government, now have too much to lose.

Of course, there could be a secondary genetic component to homosexual behaviour. But is this sensibly described as a “gay gene” or deterministic?

Here are a couple of hypothetical possibilities which would result in some trace of a genetic element to homosexuality:

1. Suppose that generally physically attractive boys are more likely to be molested by homosexual pedophiles or pederasts? And suppose that such molestation tends to make them homosexual? As physical appearance is genetic, that would show up in twin tests, for example, as a “gay gene.” 
2. Suppose that any significant difference that sets you apart from others, such as being left-handed, makes you think of yourself as “different,” and therefore less inclined to go along with the general consensus on other things. This tendency to experimentation might, in turn, make you more inclined to experiment with or decide to prefer homosexual unions. Since being left-handed is genetic, this would also show up in twin tests as a “gay gene.” 

But are these really therefore genetically determined behaviours?

Interestingly, it has been suggested that 1. physically attractive men are more likely to be homosexual, and 2. left-handed men are more likely to be homosexual. Odd, that…

Against this, there is an insurmountable argument against a “gay gene”: any such gene would eliminate itself within a couple of generations, through failure to reproduce.