Evolution of Homosexuality

first doyle · 06-11-2013 7:27pm #1

Anyone have any ideas on why homosexuality evolved? It would be absurd if it didn't have a purpose.

Torakx · 06-11-2013 8:35pm

Maybe as a means to curb procreation.

first doyle · 10-11-2013 12:04am

How do you explain a homosexual with better genes than a heterosexual, yet the heterosexual has more of a chance at procreating?

shanered · 19-11-2013 10:43pm

Torakx wrote: »

Maybe as a means to curb procreation.

Interesting take on the question, wonder are homosexuals more likely to come from urban centers, where populations are higher, as the first homosexuals I am aware of came from urban centers such as Greece and Rome back in the day, although I'm sure it is quite hard to find out any solid facts on this issue as homosexuals haven't exactly had freedom of expression in modern societies and any representative facts would be unreliable, I wonder if there was any rural/urban correlation of earlier societies, but I guess, we'll never know...

AerynSun · 01-12-2013 12:19am

I'm curious about how we arrived at accepting that homosexuality evolved, as opposed to having always been around? Also, if history documented accounts of homosexuality in urban centres, could that be because urban centres were doing more of the documenting of things than rural communities at that time? Wouldn't mean that homosexuality was more or less prevalent in one place than the other, would it?

Kinda in a way that 'civilised western society' were writing down their history, and wrote from their own perspective, while 'uncivilised' parts of the world were far more advanced in the oral traditions of telling their stories, but ended up being 'documented' by 'civilised' people as having been backwards, when what was really backwards was more likely the newcomer's understanding of the cultural environments they had only recently entered?

There was old Christopher Columbus writing about 'discovering' America... while the locals were sitting around their campfires telling highly entertaining stories about the new arrival. The way I see it, it's all about perspective, and being willing to let your perspective be challenged.

Torakx · 05-12-2013 9:59pm

This is something that has interested me for years on and off.
I often wonder if it's really genetic or environmental or a bit of both.

I have known a good few people over the years and in my travels who were homosexual, Now I can't speak for them all(well any of them!), but of those I knew well, a good majority were abused or had close family that were abused.
Like ex girlfriend who was abused by a parent, her brother was homosexual and so I think there maybe a chance with him it could have been environmental.
Obviously I don't set this in stone, its more a speculation and curiosity for me.
Also know of others who most likely were abused quite young(relations) and began associating themselves gradually over the years as being more feminine and also bragging about how they liked certain movies.. example "dirty dancing" as early as 10-12 years old.
I could go on, but I have also met others who I didn't know well enough and so I would be interested to see the science behind this.

To counter that I think a lot of creative people are bi-sexual and wonder if that is more to do with how the brain works and culture etc..
Very confusing.
I think if I had to pick a theory I would say all of the above could be factors.Culture, environment, genetics, brain make up.. would love a clear answer though.
Questions annoy me when they just sit there unanswered lol

AerynSun · 07-12-2013 8:04pm

Torakx wrote: »

... a good majority were abused or had close family that were abused.... I would be interested to see the science behind this.... I think a lot of creative people are bi-sexual and wonder if that is more to do with how the brain works and culture etc...

Like you, unanswered questions aren't something that sit easily with me

I prefer to have answers. But I think that some questions can be red herrings. While it would indeed be interesting to know the whys, surely the more interesting question is 'Can I make peace with my/someone else's sexual orientation?'. Because honestly, however a person 'ended up becoming' anything other than heterosexual... the reality is, they're attracted to who they're attracted to.

I have my own theory about that 'it's because they've been abused' line of thinking. The people I know who have either come out or revealed details about past abuse are the sorts of people who have sat and thought long and hard about their lives and have grappled with difficult issues and have claimed their truth for themselves, and then had the courage to speak it aloud to someone else. I think there are PLENTY of straight people who have also been abused or who have some connection to someone who has experienced abuse, but when they find their courage to tell their stories we don't see people jumping to the conclusion that their past experience must be the root of their straight-ness. I think the urge to 'explain' gayness is more likely the connection?

As for creativity being linked to bisexuality, that's an interesting line of thought

I will ponder that at my leisure :P

Torakx · 07-12-2013 8:51pm

Hmm good point, I have no issue with people either way they wish to go, homosexuality isn't a threat to me with regards my male counterparts. Leaves more women for me

But yes, I had not thought of your point about abuse and if that made them straight.Maybe its due to coming from a male perspective, or that I was brought up originally to believe straightness was natural and homosexuality was not.Not sure..However these days I firmly stand on the fence with as much as possible. See my signature below haha

Even though it happens with both sexes, I and many people usually consider abuse to come from males and projected onto males and females.
In the male v male case I wonder did that make them gay, I don't know of any straight guys abused by males but am sure it has happened.
So thanks for bringing up more questions haha
It is hard to be objective when considering sexuality. Certain associations can easily get applied to males and females.
Is there any recent science on all this stuff?
One year I heard animals are gay so its officially "normal". i don't believe in normal anymore, just IS.
But the paths that lead us to places interest me a lot.

El_Duderino 09 · 20-01-2014 6:20pm

shanered wrote: »

Interesting take on the question, wonder are homosexuals more likely to come from urban centers, where populations are higher, as the first homosexuals I am aware of came from urban centers such as Greece and Rome back in the day, although I'm sure it is quite hard to find out any solid facts on this issue as homosexuals haven't exactly had freedom of expression in modern societies and any representative facts would be unreliable, I wonder if there was any rural/urban correlation of earlier societies, but I guess, we'll never know...

If you consider that all mamals have homosexuals then its not really going to be caused by human urban environmental conditions. More likely that you can be gay in a city under the cover of anonimity.

On the other hand having a tribe with a few homosexuals could be highly productive. Whilst most members are riasing children, the gays can consentrate on other matters like hunting/gathering, defense of the tribe and whatever else.

I can see how having people who are less inclined to reproduce could strenghten a tribe.

Torakx · 21-01-2014 3:04pm

Sine posting here a friend of mine recently gave me his thoughts on sexuality.
He gave me an example of a baby born hermaphrodite where the parent had to choose which sexuality the baby would settle for. What if they chose wrong?
I do remember vaguely reading about sexuality being chosen by hormones during pregnancy.
Say a mother had hormone issues at this stage or even the child right after birth or from the mothers milk.
I can see more ways now someone could be "born" gay. And no longer apply the abuse theory so strongly as before.
I think the cases I knew about were coincedance. Since I'm on the fence I will say it might be both those cases and probably genetics as well, and probably again some other reasons.

I don't know if it would be relating to evlution.
Us humans may have disrupted that already, with all the chemicals,anti biotics and grains,dairy etc that we consume.
We are a mess at the moment.
Or maybe we are a mess because evolution is working still and we will have a big war cleanse ourselves with the strongest most psychopathic families at the top of tha chain surviving to repopulate. And give ourselves a pat on the back thinking it was us that did it

Can you show me for sure that other animals/mamals can be gay? I have never seen this anywhere or heard of it being true.
I don't think bisexual activity counts either. Sometimes animals do things because of dominance and not sexuality. Even humans!

El_Duderino 09 · 22-01-2014 11:29am

Torakx wrote: »

Sine posting here a friend of mine recently gave me his thoughts on sexuality.
He gave me an example of a baby born hermaphrodite where the parent had to choose which sexuality the baby would settle for. What if they chose wrong?
I do remember vaguely reading about sexuality being chosen by hormones during pregnancy.
Say a mother had hormone issues at this stage or even the child right after birth or from the mothers milk.
I can see more ways now someone could be "born" gay. And no longer apply the abuse theory so strongly as before.
I think the cases I knew about were coincedance. Since I'm on the fence I will say it might be both those cases and probably genetics as well, and probably again some other reasons.

I don't know if it would be relating to evlution.
Us humans may have disrupted that already, with all the chemicals,anti biotics and grains,dairy etc that we consume.
We are a mess at the moment.
Or maybe we are a mess because evolution is working still and we will have a big war cleanse ourselves with the strongest most psychopathic families at the top of tha chain surviving to repopulate. And give ourselves a pat on the back thinking it was us that did it

Can you show me for sure that other animals/mamals can be gay? I have never seen this anywhere or heard of it being true.
I don't think bisexual activity counts either. Sometimes animals do things because of dominance and not sexuality. Even humans!

http://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=dvcEwGusLfUC&oi=fnd&pg=PA51&dq=homosexuality+in+animals&ots=VWB8hQTZJr&sig=o6axoyaPqPV2bMTRJofYGJm7jOU#v=onepage&q=homosexuality%20in%20animals&f=false

http://rierc.org/social/paper162.pdf

Here are two papers demonstrating homosexuality is ubiquitous in animals. Undoubtedly some of that is dominance. The test is monogamous animals like swans and penguins. The paper demonstrates examples of monogamous homosexuals.

Hope this helps

GaelMise · 26-01-2014 4:38pm

first doyle wrote: »

Anyone have any ideas on why homosexuality evolved? It would be absurd if it didn't have a purpose.

Not having a purpose would be far from absurd, infact there is no evolutionary reason for a trait not to stick around even if it does you no good at all as long as it is'nt going to efficiently kill off the members of the species that possess it.

There are plenty of things that don't seem to have any evolutionary basis that did not develop themselves but simply piggybacked on other traits that did have a usefull function.

El_Duderino 09 · 27-01-2014 10:27am

GaelMise wrote: »

Not having a purpose would be far from absurd, infact there is no evolutionary reason for a trait not to stick around even if it does you no good at all as long as it is'nt going to efficiently kill off the members of the species that possess it.

There are plenty of things that don't seem to have any evolutionary basis that did not develop themselves but simply piggybacked on other traits that did have a usefull function.

From that it may seem that discrimination against homosexuals is the unnatural part.

ironcage · 30-01-2014 9:59pm

I always find the evolutionary emphasis a bit incapacitating: the idea that 'people are what they are because nature made them that way'. Too much emphasis on the evolutionary aspect ignores how much social relations are involved in influencing practices and the social acceptability of said practices. How many people have latent desires for same sex relations of one kind or another (I am avoiding the misleading notion that people are attracted only to an entire gender, as for Lacan the unconscious is not concerned with gender but instead has object attractions which are not necessarily marked by genitalia such as a voice, or hands or anything really - for example how many self-identifying heterosexuals watched the first half of the Crying Game without realising they were attracted to a member of the same sex). The argument can be made that these same-sex desires have become latent due to social stigma, particularly for guys who can easily compensate with their attraction for members of the opposite sex.

I find the evolutionary arguments are usually circular, people being deemed to be hard-wired through evolution is taken as the starting point and then evolutionary psychologists find a regularity of behaviour and try to explain it by concocting some aspect of hunter-gatherer societies and survival of the fittest scenarios (which they can never know for sure existed) and then use them to explain the behaviour. This dangerously ignores the power of social relations which in the case in question may have played a part in producing a society in which heterosexuality is the dominant norm. As for this always being the case Foucault would beg to differ: http://mythsofourtime.wordpress.com/2014/01/17/gay-priests-and-a-herd-of-elephants/

entangled · 30-01-2014 10:04pm

I would have thought that homosexuality didn't evolve in and of itself, but it's the result of the interaction of many different evolved
behaviors and attributes around love and sexuality which are each beneficial to the propagation of the gene.

Evolution doesn't really work towards a given trait according to some plan, but rather changes to genes are selected if they are
beneficial overall, even though they can have a variety of different and sometimes conflicting effects.

macker33 · 11-02-2014 2:56am

Gays in the head, life imitating art.
Gays arent born that way and how is it that there will be more gays per 1000 people in a place like san fransisco than there is per 1000 in a place like the amazon jungle.

Its a myth and theres nothing biological about it, if gays themselves understood it they wouldnt be gay.

elfy4eva · 11-02-2014 3:06am

There's no reason behind it, evolution is just a change. Like with any evolutionary trait. It's natural selection which determines whether that change was for the better or not or whether it's indifferent.

I believe all humans have the potential to have Gay children and so the abundance of homosexuality in today's society (I believe) is directly tied to the success of humans in general.

Dr.Tank Adams · 14-02-2014 6:02pm

elfy4eva wrote: »

There's no reason behind it, evolution is just a change. Like with any evolutionary trait. It's natural selection which determines whether that change was for the better or not or whether it's indifferent.

I believe all humans have the potential to have Gay children and so the abundance of homosexuality in today's society (I believe) is directly tied to the success of humans in general.

Nail on the head I think. There doesn't always have to be a concise "reason" for a genetic change, they can just occur spontaneously and I suspect that is how homosexuality arose. As for the person wondering why there are so many gays in San Francisco compared to other places, maybe because they know it's an area where they won't be discriminated against and so move to there from far and wide, as opposed to moving to, oh I don't know, Alabama maybe? It's actually not that difficult to figure out if you just think about it for a moment.

El_Duderino 09 · 15-02-2014 2:44pm

macker33 wrote: »

Gays in the head, life imitating art.
Gays arent born that way and how is it that there will be more gays per 1000 people in a place like san fransisco than there is per 1000 in a place like the amazon jungle.

Its a myth and theres nothing biological about it, if gays themselves understood it they wouldnt be gay.

Not so according to this research.

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/feb/14/genes-influence-male-sexual-orientation-study

Or this research.

http://press.endocrine.org/doi/full/10.1210/en.2011-0277

But don't let facts get in the way of uninformed opinion.

Culture is probaly the answer to the San Fransisco question.

robp · 22-02-2014 12:58pm

Dr.Tank Adams wrote: »

Nail on the head I think. There doesn't always have to be a concise "reason" for a genetic change, they can just occur spontaneously and I suspect that is how homosexuality arose.

That unlikely to be the case with homosexuality as homosexuals have been shown to produce far lower numbers of offspring in their lifetimes. Such a random mutation with no positive effect on fitness would have been selected against very rapidly even if it made people gay only a small percentage of the time.

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

Not so according to this research.
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/feb/14/genes-influence-male-sexual-orientation-study

Or this research.

http://press.endocrine.org/doi/full/10.1210/en.2011-0277

But don't let facts get in the way of uninformed opinion.

Culture is probaly the answer to the San Fransisco question.

Bear in mind the first link is not peer-reviewed. Its from a conference paper, and the second link is a review with no data and is not new.
There may well be a genetic component but bisexuality and more recently pan-sexuality confirms its much more then genetics. Indeed culture or the cultivation of a gay identity is probably part of it too.

The problem with this genetics theory is that there is no explanation on the mechanism by which the gene could make people gay.

Dr.Tank Adams · 22-02-2014 2:17pm

robp wrote: »

That unlikely to be the case with homosexuality as homosexuals have been shown to produce far lower numbers of offspring in their lifetimes. Such a random mutation with no positive effect on fitness would have been selected against very rapidly even if it made people gay only a small percentage of the time.

Bear in mind the first link is not peer-reviewed. Its from a conference paper, and the second link is a review with no data and is not new.
There may well be a genetic component but bisexuality and more recently pan-sexuality confirms its much more then genetics. Indeed culture or the cultivation of a gay identity is probably part of it too.

The problem with this genetics theory is that there is no explanation on the mechanism by which the gene could make people gay.

Not necessarily, there are hundreds of diseases and physical ailments with no evolutionary advantages that have persisted throughout human history even though you would have expected them to be selected against. Not that I'm suggesting homosexuality is a disease or ailment of course. I suppose a lot of it could be to do with cultural pressures, very few cultures fully accepted them so most just settled with women and had children even though it wasn't their preference. As you said yourself, they may reproduce in lower numbers that heterosexuals, but they are still reproducing. That's enough for the genes to persist.

robp · 22-02-2014 4:45pm

Dr.Tank Adams wrote: »

Not necessarily, there are hundreds of diseases and physical ailments with no evolutionary advantages that have persisted throughout human history even though you would have expected them to be selected against. Not that I'm suggesting homosexuality is a disease or ailment of course. I suppose a lot of it could be to do with cultural pressures, very few cultures fully accepted them so most just settled with women and had children even though it wasn't their preference.

Just because we haven't identified selection for certain diseases doesn't mean they offer no fitness advantage. Secondly, how many of disease afflict those over reproductive years.

Dr.Tank Adams wrote: »

As you said yourself, they may reproduce in lower numbers that heterosexuals, but they are still reproducing. That's enough for the genes to persist.

Well the figures reported of their lower fertility are quite drastic so maybe not.

Dr.Tank Adams · 22-02-2014 11:36pm

robp wrote: »

Just because we haven't identified selection for certain diseases doesn't mean they offer no fitness advantage. Secondly, how many of disease afflict those over reproductive years. Well the figures reported of their lower fertility are quite drastic so maybe not.

People get wrapped up in this idea that only beneficial mutations are passed on and all detrimental ones are quickly phased out, the fact is that evolution often doesn't work quite as quickly as many think, and it can take an inordinately long amount of time for traits to be fully eradicated.

Now given that we've only been around for about 200,000 years, it's quite possible that it's still in the process of being removed, or maybe the way in which civilisation has developed allows detrimental traits to persist, i.e we help people out who in fully competitive circumstances would lose out. There's also the possibility that homosexuality is a completely ambivalent trait with no discernible benefits or drawbacks and has therefore just carried on, never particularly selected for or against.

robp · 24-02-2014 11:34am

Dr.Tank Adams wrote: »

People get wrapped up in this idea that only beneficial mutations are passed on and all detrimental ones are quickly phased out, the fact is that evolution often doesn't work quite as quickly as many think, and it can take an inordinately long amount of time for traits to be fully eradicated.

Now given that we've only been around for about 200,000 years, it's quite possible that it's still in the process of being removed, or maybe the way in which civilisation has developed allows detrimental traits to persist, i.e we help people out who in fully competitive circumstances would lose out. There's also the possibility that homosexuality is a completely ambivalent trait with no discernible benefits or drawbacks and has therefore just carried on, never particularly selected for or against.

Presuming any such tentative gay gene is absent in other primates (which I don't know) there is a good 14-8 million years for it to disappear. What we really need is a study of average homosexuality fertility in traditional societies such as hunter-gatherers but that might not be forthcoming.

5live · 27-02-2014 3:01pm

This may be of interest

http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/health/being-gay-is-only-40pc-due-to-genes-research-at-top-university-finds-30010117.html

The interesting line for me is

'Each older brother raised the odds the man was homosexual by one third.'

Torakx · 28-02-2014 12:05am

5live wrote: »

This may be of interest

http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/health/being-gay-is-only-40pc-due-to-genes-research-at-top-university-finds-30010117.html

The interesting line for me is

'Each older brother raised the odds the man was homosexual by one third.'

"
They believe that the immune response produced by a pregnant mother increases with each son, increasing the odds of producing more feminine traits in the developing brain of the foetus.
Each older brother raised the odds that a man was homosexual by one third."
Very interesting stuff.
I don't know what this immune response is against though?

Could it be an evolutionary trait? Kind of thinking of my first post in this thread suggesting it could be to curb procreation/overpopulation. But then do genes read/respond to the environment like this? I don't see how yet.
Overpopulation doesn't seem to me tobe somethign that would be a problem for an evolving species. The idea is usually to dominate and replicate. Unless we start going into a collective consciousness or some physical representation of that. I doubt it, but I don't rule anything out either.

Evolution of Homosexuality

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