Is There a “Gay” Gene?
It’s been my longstanding opinion that people aren’t born gay, at least not in the sense that most people would understand it. As far as I see it, though, when I debate this topic with other people, there are three possibilities in the world of “gay formation”:
1. Gay people are born like the rest of us, but consciously make a decision to become gay.
2. Gay people are born like the rest of us, and unconsciously make a decision to become gay.
3. Gay people are born gay and have no choice, unconscious or conscious, in the matter.
If you see a fourth option, feel free to let me know, but for the purposes of argument, let’s pretend these are the only possibilities. For the record, I subscribe to theory #2.
First, here are some popular counter-arguments to my “people aren’t born gay” theory.
Who Would Choose to Be Gay?
One common argument you’ll commonly get from people when you believe that people choose to be gay (either #1 or #2) is that “Well - who would CHOOSE to be gay? Being gay can come with a lot of hardship and possible social rejection from parents and loved ones. Why would anyone want that?”
My answer to that is, simply, “Well, why would people choose to be a Star Trek nerd?” Why do people choose to indulge in any behavior that may expose them to social rejection?
There are a myriad of answers, but just remember that people are indeed capable of freely choosing courses of actions that don’t appear to be to their benefit.
Recall from “Ten Politically Incorrect Truths About Human Nature” that sex will drive politicians to risk their careers (cough Spitzer cough) and make men do other crazy things.
If sex is enough to make people blow things up, it’s more than enough to drive other behaviors, including the stereotypical effeminate behaviors of gay men, no matter how flaming.
You’re probably asking, “but how does the desire for women drive men to be gay?” Keep reading.
But there are gay giraffes and gay monkeys. Doesn’t that mean that homosexuality is natural and embedded somewhere in a gene?
First, there aren’t “gay giraffes” or “gay monkeys.” Yes, there are animals that indulge in homosexual behavior, but that doesn’t make them exclusively homosexual. The distinction is a subtle but important one.
According to The Mating Mind by Geoffrey Miller, any gene that would cause the organism that contained it to be exclusively homosexual would die out in one generation:
Not a single ancestor of any living human was exclusively homosexual…there may have been many gay and lesbian hominids, but if they were exclusively homosexual, they are not our ancestors, and we are not their descendants.
Any genetic propensity toward exclusive homosexuality would have been eliminated in just one generation of selection.
This means at the very least - at the VERY least - there is no exclusively homosexual gene. People don’t blow up immediately after being born, either, because the gene for doing so would die with them before they had a chance to grow up and pass it on.
In order for a male gene to survive, it has to mix with the sweet, boobly genes of the female persuasion and replicate itself, producing gene heirs. Those animals you see gaying it up would at the very least be bisexual, and will probably mate with the opposite sex.
In other words, those giraffes and monkeys swing both ways, baby. If they don’t, their “gay gene” dies out. It’s that simple. If 1-2% of people are gay, that means about 100,000,000 people on Earth are gay. No gene that tells you to NOT mate and produce offspring could ever become that prevalent.
So, if, for the sake of argument, I had to accept “born with it” theory, then I’d ask you to at least cede as much to me - that any organism that is “born with it” is born with bisexuality, not exclusive homosexuality.
This opens up a can of worms.
Now, For What I Believe
Recently on 20/20, Clinical Psychologist Dr. Stanton Jones said science has proven there is no genetic component to being gay.
“What they found in studying (the) Australian twin registry, of 27 identical twin pairs where at least one person was gay, in only three of the 27 was the second twin gay as well,” he said.
With that said, the lack of evidence for a genetic component still leaves this void: then why are some people gay?
I believe gay men are mostly in it for the women.
Stay with me. In our formative, pubescent years, choosing a unique identity that gets us to stick out from the crowd is crucial to our future reproductive success. For others, choosing a conforming, bland identity is a good way to fit in and gain access to - you guessed it - reproductive success.
I realize this sounds like a “catch-all” and a cop-out. But if you accept sexual selection, as Geoffrey Miller puts it, as the engine that drives evolution, it’s true.
Remember the episode of Family Guy where Stewie explains that he’s not worried about going to high school? He says that at the very least, he’ll carve out a niche as the effiminate friend to the popular girls. Then we see a clip of it.
The truth in jest, my friends - carving out that particular “niche” would give Stewie access to a clique he otherwise couldn’t have achieved since he wasn’t the quarterback of the football team.
All normal humans have digestive systems, a circulatory system, and functional reproductive organs. Everyone you know - they all have to poo, pee, eat, breathe, and sweat at some point. Do you really think that something as important as the survival of the species is simply “missing” from 1-2% of the population, or that, even if it did, it could survive long enough to last to this day? No.
(Sure, humans overcome the need to procreate by being celibate - take priests, for example. But they do it consciously. So if you’re going to make the argument that gay people transcend those needs through their human willpower abilities, then you’d have to admit it’s a conscious choice.)
So while gay men may be totally sincere about liking men, that doesn’t really mean squat. I’m really sincere about liking Lambourghinis, too, but I probably wouldn’t like them if they didn’t impress women.
Taking on a gay persona can work to benefit a male’s chances at mating with a female. For some, it can be a handy “identity” to improve their chances of success with some women.
Even if you want to talk about guys or women who claim to be exclusively gay - okay, whatever. I’m sure many of you know men who have claimed never to have sex with a woman and are totally gay. That’s possible. But they didn’t inherit that - just ask Geoffrey Miller.
If we accept this premise, it means there’s no gay gene. It means that some people are more bisexual than others, and choose to indulge this behavior more because it’s presented them with the possibility of more reproductive success.
Where I stop with the my opinion on “choice” is that I don’t think this is entirely a conscious choice, any more than it was the quarterback’s conscious choice to be popular and cool.
So what’s an “unconscious” choice?
When you’re forming your identity, it’s usually an unconscious process.
Take a Star Trek nerd. (And who would “choose” to be a Star Trek nerd, right?) You wouldn’t really say “Hey, Worf’s pretty cool. I think I’ll be a Star Trek nerd now!” You just like how Star Trek makes you feel, how being perceived as smart makes you feel, and lo and behold - before you know it, you’re a Star Trek nerd.
I just made a connection between the mating habits of Star Trek nerds and homosexuals. Isn’t this a great blog?
Anyways, this is the way I understand homosexual behavior. It’s possible that I’m wrong, but I don’t think I’m far off.
I know that my argument about gays can be a little like the arguments for man-caused global warming, in that even people being gay proves they secretly love the opposite sex. However, if you ask “gay people are born with it” theorists about formerly gay men who have reformed and become straight, they’ll probably say the same thing. “They’re just repressing it - they’re still gay.”
What do you think?
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