What's the purpose of homosexuality in humans?

[Bowyn Aerrow]

I acknowledged in my first post that yours is a reasonable and interesting hypothesis. My question is, is it testable?

I'd like to throw into this discussion the following diagram:



For the first 200,000 years of human habitation, global population remained below (ETA *well* below) 1 billion. However, it has quadrupled in my lifetime alone. This is a staggering historical anomaly due in large measure to the successful application of science to agriculture and many other things. However, it should also be evident that population growth of this magnitude is unsustainable in a closed ecological system with limited resources. Thus, population growth now threatens species survival as it never has before. This would suggest significant stress in the global population due to competition for resources which, if your hypothesis is correct, should be leading to increased birthing of 'non breeders'. I've yet to see any research suggesting that homosexuality is increasing at a rate disproportionate to the population. Yet as we see, if there were ever a 'survival need' for 'non breeders' (an assumption I question), now would certainly be it.

How do you see this in light of your hypothesis?

Without knowing the population sizes of all of those species that humans descend from and how they coped with explosions in their populations, its going to be real hard to say exactly how human's will cope with this particular explosion.

Some species do throw of homosexuality as a means to slow the birth rate, but most end up just eating up all of the food then dying back down to a more manageable number.

Homosexuality and other 'social' changes in particular species (such as increased violence) does take place as population pressures mount. But, those changes are usually too slow and not solving the overall problem, so something else kicks in like starvation, or a predatory species getting the upper hand.

For humans the only predatory species left that could get the upper hand with us presently are viruses.

Its going to be hard to say if there is or is not a sudden increase of homosexuals in the population. My generation (the lower end of yours I guess) Was the last to see the widespread 'closet lifestyle' of men getting married, having kids and meeting these expectations of society in order to survive.

Today we have greater tolerance, gay rights, gay marriage, which is allowing a lot of LGBT to step out and be who they are without having to take the 20+ year side track or life long stay in the closet.

Since the Kinsey Report of the middle 20th century that tagged us with 10%, many other reports came out and refuted 10%, but then they disagree on the exactly percentage, some say 1% some say as high as 3%... Are all of these somehow skewed? Does it depend on how we define homosexuality? Are there just a hella lot more closets then we previously thought?



Another and more troubling feature of the 21st century and its affect on sexuality especially for 'straight' males is that too many straight males have become bored with straight sex due to the proliferation of pornography.

While I can't recall the article i read (psychological journal) a quick look t Google seems to support the general allegation that straight guys are turning to gay porn: https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=por...h+gay+porn

There is a trend where too much 'vanilla' pornography is causing guys (and some gals, but guys mostly) to see out new and more exciting pornography, leading them to start watching gay porn, and get all excited over this new 'wild' sex, thus causing them to wonder if their getting wood while watching two dudes do it means they are gay. It means they are addicted to porn.

Porn Addiction is on the rise: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2013/2/prweb10382404.htm And its side effects are being seen/felt.

While technology is a thing humans do, we can wonder if humans just do things blindly, or if stages in development of technologies are actually caused by population numbers.

For instance the Industrial Revolution, while we can argue it was all about the use of steam, Rome and Greek folk were a single step away from piston steam engines. The only thing really holding back an industrial revolution was the total over all population which needed a larger working force to mass produce crap.

There is certain critical mass of population before innovation swept through humanity, Starting with the leap from the stone age to the copper age, and most likely ending with the current Information Age.

So is the pressures of modern human population triggering a wide spread pornography thing which in turn is triggering more 'suspected' homosexuality?:eek:

I know, the mind begins to boggle at this possibility, and it brings the old Devil into the matter - is there a god behind all of this with a plan.... :eek:

[jaxc]

This Video should give a good explanation

[Bowyn Aerrow]

I don't get it.

How does homosexual offspring preserve genes? Their programming is to not produce offspring and thus not carry on the genes. I totally get that it could be hormonal, but I still don't see why.

And population control happens by default as there's only so many mouthes to feed and (if you have predators above you in the food chain, more you = more food for them = more of them = less of you = less of them.

Oh and one reason why this isn't that heavily researched is that those of us (homos) who care about it, also don't really want to know. Maybe knowing why would lower our worth? Maybe it would inspire the creation of a cure and we'd go extinct. If it is entirely hormonal (which makes sense as gay genes wouldn't be carried on) it should be reasonably doable to prevent it......... I don't like this road. I don't want to know. One of the few things I don't want to know.

Do you have brothers/sisters? If so, chances are high that they share your exact genetic material (Same mom, same dad - IDK, where their milkmen around your conception date? :tongue.

The majority of families of several siblings have one or two homosexual members the rest are straight. The survival of the DNA is met through your brothers/sisters.

Being gay you are most likely susceptible to allowing others to use you to their advantage, I bet your sister calls you at all odd hours to ask you to watch her kids and you agree because you are the sensitive type, not wanting confrontation - besides you love your little nieces/nephews - so it works for you - well on those lonely single Friday nights where your totally through with men as it is and this gives you a great way to deny you are totally turned off by the prospect of going club jumping to find a potential mate. your other straight gay friends will be disappointed, but they will understand that the needs of the nieces/nephews come first.

In the end, your being gay makes you available to watch the nieces and nephews today. Back in the day when families stuck together it meant that when you joined the hunt or the foraging, your productivity being equal to any other adult but with no direct offspring to feed yourself meant the whole tribe (who were largely blood relatives mind you) benefited.

While you may not have personally passed on your genetic code, your brothers/sisters did and you helped to insure that DNA survived by all the hard work you put in all for the interest of your nephews and nieces.

This all fits very well with survival of the species, survival of the DNA.

IF we uncover evidence that this is the purpose gays, I doubt that we will see a mass purging of homosexuals, instead we may start to understand that the needs of children is far more than just one or two parents can meet and we may actually start healing that horrific wound to the real family unit.

[MikeW]

I cannot type with a lab face under each hand staring up with wagging tails asking me to go running ...Lemme go play daddy dawg and I'll be back

Running with doggers is *always* more important than anything else (especially happening online). Hope you're having oodles of fun!

[MikeW]

...There is a trend where too much 'vanilla' pornography is causing guys (and some gals, but guys mostly) to see out new and more exciting pornography, leading them to start watching gay porn, and get all excited over this new 'wild' sex, thus causing them to wonder if their getting wood while watching two dudes do it means they are gay. ...

All interesting stuff, isn't it! IMO, there is definitely some kind of 'shift' going on in terms of sexual identification as a result of the internet. I say this having lived most of my life without it. During the 60s there was what we called 'the sexual revolution' which basically meant questioning and openly choosing to live outside the conservative sexual norms of the generations just preceding ours.

What I'm seeing today makes *that* look rather pale in comparison: Sexuality is becoming a *public* expression of eroticism. Just consider how many selfless are being taken daily by both men and women in various degrees of nudity and being shared both privately and 'publicly' on internet blogs such as this [NSFW].

Which brings me to present another hypothesis: It isn't that homosexuals do not breed or have not breed throughout the centuries. We have no evidence of this except in recent times and that is sketchy and in any case inapplicable to the evolutionary hypothesis.

What if the role of homosexuality is to provides a sexual outlet for those horny, testosterone driven hunters that does *not* lead to procreation?

I need to toss into this as well that we're looking at all this from the luxury of an urbanized, industrialized, technology driven civilization. Our ancient hunter gatherer ancestors had a much different, and largely 'magical', approach to life. In many archaic cultures there was 'women's magic' and 'men's magic' and in both instances these were highly developed cultural institutions deeply rooted in sexual roles and perceptions of erotic, sexual energy. We can barely even wrap our head around such thinking.

The often cited example is the Sambia Tribe of Papa New Guinea. Their culture provides a six stage initiation process of boys beginning around age 6 to 10 which included their being, first 'fed' seamen through fellatio and, subsequently, 'impregnated' anally by warriors in order to 'give birth' to the warriors they are to become. Seamen is viewed by them as a sacred substance to be used for cultivation of the warrior cast. By the way, this initiation process is far from cuddly puppy dog lets all roll around on the floor and make one another feel good activity. It is brutalizing and (would certainly be for us) traumatizing, for the purpose of making fearless warriors unafraid of hardship, isolation (especially from females) and pain.

I just cite this to point out that the way we think of sexuality is most certainly NOT the way archaic peoples thought about it. At. All.

[50Plus]

Why does it have to have a purpose? Why can't it just 'be'?

THANK YOU for being the first to question this. Much appreciated.

I agree, why must something have to have a purpose? What is wrong with the human species that something can't just be. I see Beetle it and 'Let It Be'.

And on the other side, if it was only for pleasure, would that make it wrong?

[50Plus]

So, I read. I try and follow. I sort of understand. Its still a stretch.

In the flotsam and jetsam of the comments, two stand out:
1. homosexuality is in essence in place for population control or to strengthen the population by having fewer 'breeders'
2. homosexuals may or may not breed

Fuzzy logic on both of these. Its seems that somehow in the processes involved in creating the homosexual individual, that the individual also became sterile. I say this for homosexuals are still able to reproduce - not generally same sex to same sex, but across the sexes. We know people on this forum with biological offspring that were conceived through the tried and true male-female coupling process.

I am totally missing something here.

[Virge]

You don't believe sexual orientation is a trait based in genetics and epigenetics? I'm pretty sure the science supports genetic and epigenetic factors as the origin of sexual orientation.

If you don't subscribe to that, what is your belief on the origin of homosexuality in humans? Keep in mind, your solution also has to account for homosexuality and same - sex pair bonding in the more than 2000 species, including every mammal, that exhibits homosexuality.

Let's look at human homosexuality as what it is, nothing but a sex variance that's not uncommon in mammals. Read about the sex variances of clownfish and wrasses that change from females to males and back to females simply by hormones and environmental stresses. Mole rats in a colony don't attain adulthood due to hormones released by the dominant female. When she dies her eldest daughter will undergo a phenomenal physical transformation into maturity --- all due to stresses and hormones. Beavers that remain in their family unit will have their sexual maturation delayed until they leave --- by means of hormones excreted by parents and social stresses. Look at wolfpacks and how sexual activity is suppressed in all but an alpha pair. What changes the sex of alligators and crocodiles as eggs in the nest? Hormones and stresses due to temperature. They've determined human homosexuality is the result of low (for males) or high (for females) hormone levels in the womb.

Any genetic causes could only be genes that would facilitate homosexuality and not determine it. Decades of studying gay -- straight identical twins has established this.

[Virge]

This Video should give a good explanation

YEP thanx Jaxc! I've seen that Dawkins video! It explains right in the beginning.

[Virge]

Another problem here is you're *assuming* that homosexuals *do not breed*. I don't think history bares out this premise. To my anthropological knowledge, there is no 'unattained by western civilization' tribe that had 'non breeding adults', let alone exclusively given 'child rearing' responsibilities. (There certainly *have been* studies of unsullied tribal peoples who engage in socially sanctioned homosexual acts but this in no way related to our concept of 'sexual orientation').

This also begs the whole question of sexual orientation as it is understood and practice by humans outside our social (western) history.

I know homosexuals can and do breed. Listen to Dawkins tell about the "sneaky fucker theory" in the video Jaxc put up.