MOMMAS, DON'T LET YOUR BABIES...

Gay Gene Or Gay Germ? (Steve Sailer, 8/17/03, V-Dare)

Homosexuals are somewhere between one percent and six percent of the male population in the U.S.--the demographic data isn't very reliable. Their existence is an embarrassing anomaly for Darwinism. From the standpoint of Darwinian fitness--i.e., the propagation of
descendents--male homosexuality represents a huge loss in reproductive capacity. Genetic mathematics suggests it should go extinct.

At various times and places--for example, ancient Greece, some New Guinea tribes, elite English public schools, and the more violent American prisons--widespread homosexual behavior has been an accepted part of the culture. In almost all these cases, older and/or more masculine males use younger and/or less masculine males as female substitutes. They turn to women almost as soon as they become available.

But that's not at all what's happening on Castro St. and Christopher St. Instead, we see males with lifelong homosexual orientations and, typically, with as strong an urge to give pleasure to as take it from another man--especially if he is highly masculine.

For at least a decade, many male homosexuals (but, interestingly, few lesbians) have been arguing that their sexual orientation has biological roots. However, they've been reluctant for both political and personal reasons to mention the best evidence: most of them were effeminate little boys.

My friend J. Michael Bailey, the chairman of the psychology department at Northwestern University, is probably the leading researcher into sexual orientation in America. He notes that many gay men are loath to admit they were effeminate boys partly because, as can be seen in the many "Men Seeking Men" personal ads that specify "no sissies," gays find effeminate men much less sexually attractive than masculine men.

Still, the evidence is clear. In his highly-readable new book The Man Who Would Be Queen, Professor Bailey summarizes 30 studies that asked gay and straight men to rate their agreement with statements like "As a child I often felt that I had more in common with girls than boys." He found that the average adult gay man was a more feminine boy than 90 percent of straight men.

Likewise, Richard Green of UCLA followed into adulthood a group of effeminate boys and a control group of masculine boys. He found massive differences in the likelihood they would become homosexuals.

This suggests that male homosexuality is not just a sexual preference, or even a sexual orientation, but part of a larger personality structure in place long before puberty.

Mr. Sailer seemingly overestimates both the Darwinist capacity for embarrassment and the necessity for biological causes of homosexuality. The effeminization of boys seems even more likely to be a product of nurture than nature, less likely a disease than a disorder. Posted by Orrin Judd at August 20, 2003 9:29 AM