Is Being Gay In The Genes Or In The Heart?
A while back, a few month’s at least, I remember reading some articles that discussed some Italian scientists study that suggested a genetic explanation for being gay. Male gay at least, I’m not sure if it had anything to say about gay females. The idea was that certain women had an especially strong attraction to males, leading them to tend to produce more children than average. But, some of the male children they produced also would carry the gene for an especially intense attraction to males, and thus a predisposition to be gay. Despite the fact that the womans gay sons would tend to have less children than average, the overall tendency of women with this gene to be more attracted to men and therefore have more children than average offset the tendency for male children of such women to become gay - and thus, the gay gene is passed down over time.

Here’s a quote about this, from a more recent article I was reading:

“And last fall, Italian scientists offered a possible explanation for the persistence of gay genes — even though evolution tends to weed out traits that discourage reproduction. The team from the University of Padua found that mothers and aunts of gay men had more offspring than female relatives of heterosexuals, suggesting genes that influence homosexuality in men may increase fertility in females.”

There was more in the original article(altho I might not be remembering this correctly), about how the gene for attraction to men is most likely to be passed down to the youngest sons in the family. I thought this was interesting becuase I am the youngest son of a big family.

Recently, I was thinking about this genetics stuff, and it all sounds fine to me, but it seems to beg a particular question, which is “falling in love”. I’m sure we have all heard the line that being gay is not about who you have sex with, it’s about who you fall in love with.

Why do I fall in love with other men, and not with women? Women are fine to be with, I even have some sexual attraction to women, but I’ve never met a women who made me feel like I could “fall in love” with her. “…IN love”, you know, I love various women, but that magnetic mental and spiritual connection, that woozy electricity, just isn’t there.

I don’t really “trust” women. I “trust” men. (not that I really have any reason to trust men.) Is that crazy?

(This article is reprinted from an earlier blog and is from an earlier time…)

This entry was posted on Friday, January 20th, 2006 at 12:53 am and is filed under Gay Men, Gay Sex, Gay Health, Ranting, Gay Love, Gay News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.