Topic 8: Sexuality

While the cause of female sexual orientation is still particularly unclear, there is more evidence to suggest that male sexual orientation is more due to birth conditions and genetics than to one’s upbringing or environment.

In 1991, neuroscientist Simon LeVay found a tiny clump of neurons in the anterior of the hypothalamus which was double the size in homosexual men.
Richard Pillard and J Michael Bailey’s male identical twin studies found that if one twin was gay, the other had a 50% chance of being gay.

75% of children who show CGN, or Childhood Gender Nonconformity, in which children display several characteristics of the other gender or find themselves able to identify with the other gender at a young age become homosexually orientated when they mature into adolescence.

- There are case studies where there are two identical male twins of whom one twin is very masculine and the other is very feminine
Family Research Council, a Christian Organisation in Washington, D.C., argues in its book Getting It Straight that finding people are born gay "would advance the idea that sexual orientation is an innate characteristic, like race; that homosexuals, like African-Americans, should be legally protected against 'discrimination;' and that disapproval of homosexuality should be as socially stigmatized as racism. However, it is not true."

Martin Duberman says that if sexual inclinations are genetically determined it is unreasonable to punish homosexual behaviour as crime or stigmatise as sin, however might prompt genetic tampering or abortions if foetus is discovered to have “deviant gene”.

- What are the other possible causes of sexual orientations? I.e. If twins are born genetically identical, and are brought up in the same circumstances, why do their sexualities vary?

- What are your thoughts on the matter?


“On Gay Nuture vs Nurture” – New York Times http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9802E2DC1F3EF937A15755C0A961958260
By Neil Swidey, Published August 14th 2005, “What Makes People Gay?”, in the Boston Globe http://www.boston.com/news/globe/magazine/articles/2005/08/14/what_makes_people_gay/