Gay Brain - Discuss

[whatsupwithat]

makes sense.

so, i guess the whole 'men are from mars, women are from venus' theory needs to be amended.

sequel! :P

[hombredetia]

Friends, americans and countrymen,

several articles have been published lately on the subject.
But nevertheless, it seems to me there (still) might be a connection to
the Sexually Dimorphic Nucleus (SDN), as described here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexually_dimorphic_nucleus)
I'm not a biologist, but from what I understand, the sexual behaviour
of people is linked to the (comparitive) size (and cell number) of the 2 nuclei.

Hombre

[trish]

It all seems very tenuous to me. First of all, I’m very suspicious of jumping to behavioral conclusions based on brain scans. What is scanned is in fact not the brain but the blood flow to various parts of the brain. In any particular behavior crucial neuronal circuits may not require as much oxygen as circuits less crucial to the behavior. We’ve been told by cognitive scientists that brain scans will someday soon give us a foolproof lie detector test. Don’t believe it.

But let’s say some of the results mentioned in the article above are repeatable. Suppose it’s established that gay men and straight women have slightly asymmetrical brains. We would then know a physiological trait both groups have in common. But we still don’t know which way causation goes. Are straight women and gay men attracted to men because they have asymmetrical brains or do they have asymmetrical brains because of their attraction to men? It’s interesting stuff but I think it’s way too early to draw conclusions.

This is a little bit off topic, but politically, I think it’s irrelevant whether “gayness” has a physiological cause. If it doesn’t, then the fundamentalist right wing will claim it’s a life style choice that shouldn’t be tolerated. If it does, they will claim it’s an affliction. Worse, if it has a cause that can be controlled, they will claim the gay can and should be cured.

I think physiology is irrelevant to gay, lesbian and transgender politics because we should accept these behaviors simply because they are loving, caring and beneficial behaviors.

[tg4me]

I stay open-minded enough to think some might be "born gay", but I don't buy into the PC concept that all are born gay. It's not ever chosen.
As a member of the fetish scene, I've seen hundreds of people that have very specific likes and dislikes. How much of this behaviour is genetic?
My likes have changed from spanking to Doms, to Dom's with strapons, to TG's, to TG's looking like doms that enjoy spanking. I WAS NOT BORN THAT WAY. When I first saw SULKA, I was not turned on at all. Over 40 years of exposure to these images and play have developed my perverse mind. I know the day I discovered spanking as exciting.
So am I to believe that all homosexual behavior is genetic but no other is? Or all of it is genetic? Or it's because one side of my brain is smaller?
Have we suddenly given birth to thousands of hot lesbians? Or has the exposure of the young to unlimited porn and the culture shift to the left, at least part of the reason for the explosion of hot G on G porn. (Remember, Dyke on dyke is still not popular.)
It's the PC agenda part that buggs me as much as the right wing moralist. We are trying to force-feed the genetic opinon as if it was fact. It destroys credibility to make an absolute statement without proof. Just like 'we are THE reason' for global warming.