How can gayness have a genetic basis?

[All-In Flynn]

Personal attack deleted by Rduke55

Let's keep it civil, people

[Leaky Eye]

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Same sex preference is observed in pretty much EVERY vertebrate animal, from fish to chickens, from horses to chimpanzees. It occurs in approximately the same ratio to general population as in humans.

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Really?

[Leaky Eye]

Man: bang women 1-10 repeatedly.
Women: Want same amount of sex as men but not if it results in a less desirable father.
Woman 1 is pregnant.
Man: Leave woman 1 alone. Bang women 2-10 repeatedly.
Woman has baby.
Man: bang women 1-10.

Women who seek the extra sex with other lesser fathers instead of women are ultimately less successful. Because the lesser fathers have lesser offspring, and they can't get pregnant by the good male while they are pregnant by the bad one.

This would also seem to select for women being "male faithful".

[MelchyBeau]

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Mmmm. You didn't read my whole post, did you?

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Yes I did. A gene that makes it more possible for women to reproduce, when found in men, could make it more possible that they don't reproduce. So the gene has a use in half the population, while in the other half, it makes it less likely that they reproduce.

[All-In Flynn]

As I said in the OP, I find this unsatisfying as an explanation. I can see how an excess of hormones/whatever might make a male less likely to reproduce - I don't see how it could result in gayness. And it leaves female gayness unexplained. The theory seems superficial.

That said, if any data support it it would be interesting to see if the theory did also incorporate female gayness.

[All-In Flynn]

I don't see where you're going with this...

[MelchyBeau]

[ QUOTE ]
As I said in the OP, I find this unsatisfying as an explanation. I can see how an excess of hormones/whatever might make a male less likely to reproduce - I don't see how it could result in gayness. And it leaves female gayness unexplained. The theory seems superficial.

That said, if any data support it it would be interesting to see if the theory did also incorporate female gayness.

[/ QUOTE ]

Maybe male homosexuality and female homosexuality are determined by different factors. So where scertain things may lead to a male being gay, it may have no affect upon a womans sexual preference.

[CrayZee]

Why can't sexuality be both genetic and social (i.e. nature and nurture)? And why is it not plausible that people are on a gay-straight sexuality scale (where most people are generally straight to support/encourage sexual reproduction)? In other words, people are bisexual by nature favoring sexuality toward one pole or another (pun intended) and rare for someone have exactly, or near, equal preference. (I've dated women that have this profile tending to prefer men but having an occasional dating relationship with women.)

It's also more fashionable for women to exhibit lesbian tendencies in our society right now. Some women do it to attract attention from men alone. Women also seem much more fluid, and men rigid, when it comes to their sexuality.

[All-In Flynn]

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Why can't sexuality be both genetic and social (i.e. nature and nurture)?

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Well, ultimately everything is a combination of both, since a gene can generally only find successful phenotypic expression in an environment hospitable to that expression (while that environment primarily consists of other genes, 'pure' environmental factors obviously play their part). I'd say that ultimately the distinction between nature and nurture is a matter of discursive convenience.

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In other words, people are bisexual by nature favoring sexuality toward one pole or another (pun intended) and rare for someone have exactly, or near, equal preference.

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This is what seems intuitively to me to be the case. But I don't see how this could come about from an evolutionary point of view. Guess I should really Google this stuff before hectoring people about it.

[Leaky Eye]

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gay-straight sexuality scale

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I think both this and the binary notion are both do to our current societal structure. I find it much more plausible that there are two separate traits. Desire for same sex, and desire for opposite sex. Which would mean that desire for same sex nooky would not diminish reproductive drive.

There is so much bisexual behavior in our history and even today's world that I would be surprised if it weren't more common than one or the other.

As for nature. I could be possible that both these traits respond differently to your hormone balance/whatever else.