It is not difficult to accept that sexuality of any persuasion is not a choice, but it is quite a stretch to attribute it to genetics. It is socially accepted that pœdophiles do not choose to be attracted to young children, that homosexuals do not choose to be attracted to persons of their own gender, and straight men do not choose to be attracted to women.
HEREDITY
If homosexuality were genetic, I suggest, we should see a lot fewer homosexuals now than in the past. Hear me out before making the obvious contention that in the past, homosexuals lived under the necessity of closeting their deviant sexuality and therefore disguised their numbers:
In the past, regardless of sexuality, it was an economic necessity for men to marry women and produce many offspring. George Friedman offers a cogent explanation this in The Next 100 Years. He furthermore describes the current trend, in which childrearing is a great expense with no hope of any economic return for at least two decades, generally. Populations are declining or preparing to decline in industrialized countries, and in second- and third-tier nations, population growth is leveling off.
If homosexuality is genetic, we can derive two ideas from Friedman’s observations: homosexuals of ancient days should have been marrying and passing on their genes just as prolifically as heterosexuals of their time; whereas in present day (starting 20+ years ago), homosexuals’ incentive to engender children is removed; ergo the current and rising generations should contain a paucity of homosexuals.
An acceptable theory which uses heredity as an explanation for sexuality might say that the explosion of the homosexual population is attributable to mass mutation (and why not? from power lines to processed foods, people point at almost everything in the modern world as a mutagen). But it is more than a little far-fetched to expect such a global uniformity in an anomalous phenotype.
CULTURAL DOCTRINE
The primary source of homosexuality, I postulate, is our culture. There is no intelligent debate as to whether sexual beauty is primarily (and by a wide margin) determined by culture. It is accepted fact. There is nothing inherently superior about full, sensual lips, for instance; it’s only a matter of cultural indoctrination.
When homosexuality becomes socially permissible or even a mark of progressive-mindedness or perhaps a social earmark (relating to the entertainment industry, for instance), then culture is teaching people that to be sexually attracted to someone of the same gender is correct. (‘Correct’ does not mean moral nor ‘the only correct mode’; it just means ‘correct’.)
SEX
In a society in which sex is not tightly bound to procreation, the myopic tend to think that the purpose of sex is pleasure and that any other view is unnatural or worse: intolerant. “Well isn’t it?” some readers will ask. Yes, that’s all it is for many readers. But for others, it is an exclusive expression of real love and loyalty. That statement perhaps begs an essay to explain what real love is; this is not the place for that discussion.
I'm going to mention some things that may temper your claims. First, in the 1880s many gays and lesbians who were persecuted (and unmarried) in Europe took up residence on the island of Capri, where they were free to practice their lifestyles relatively unencumbered. A similar thing happened in New England on Fire Island, starting in the 1920s (as near as I can ascertain).
ReplyDeleteSecond, there have been several civilizations which were notably accepting of homosexuality, even to the point of allowing (some of) them not to reproduce (e.g. ancient Mesopotamia, ancient Greece, ancient Japan). This, taken together with the above, implies that in the past homosexuals haven't always been constrained to produce offspring.
Third, if we take into account the Kinsey scale, we realize why it's hard to get an exact percentage for the number of homosexuals. Given our increasingly permissive society, individuals who would normally classify from 1 to 5 might now feel more comfortable experimenting with homosexuality—even to the point of declaring themselves a homosexual. I think this is the major contributing factor to the "explosion of the homosexual population".
Fourth, if only one or two genes contributed to homosexuality, then we would expect to see it persist in a population of homosexuals that are constrained to breed. Once that constraint were removed, the 'gay' alleles would no longer be passed on and would gradually begin to disappear. However, it is much more likely that there are a host of genes involved. Any one of those genes alone isn't sufficient to cause homosexuality but all together they do (to varying degrees, depending on the number of contributing alleles and the strength of their effect). It is much harder to eliminate six or eight alleles from a population.
Fifth, sometimes even though an allele generally has a deleterious effect, there can also be a strong benefit that selects for it to persist in the population. This phenomenon is called heterozygote advantage. For example, the allele for sickle-cell anemia is deadly if you get two copies of it. But if you only have one, you're protected from malaria. The allele for cystic fibrosis is deadly if you get two copies of it. But if you only have one, you're protected from cholera and typhoid. If any of the genetic contributors to homosexuality carry a heterozygote advantage, then they're unlikely to diminish in the population (unless the selective pressure is removed).
Sixth, there are strong evidences for the genetics of the mother being involved. An important effect of this is that women with homosexual children are more fertile. They and the maternal relatives have more children than do the paternal relatives. So while the homosexual individuals themselves are less likely to pass on those alleles, their heterosexual relatives who carry some of them are more likely to pass them on.