Latest Gay Brain Study Scrutinized
The mainstream media is reporting on the latest research that purports
to show that gay males and heterosexual males respond differently to
certain pheromones.
May 11, 2005 - The New York Times has just reported on findings from
Swedish researchers who claim to have found that gay males are
attracted to a different kind of scent than heterosexual males.
"For Gay Men, an Attraction to a Different Kind of Scent," by Nicolas
Wade (5/10/05) quotes Swedish researchers with the Karolinska Institute
in Stockholm who have studied pheromones and the different ways women,
gay males and heterosexual males react to them.
Lead researcher Dr. Ivanka Savic studied a testosterone derivative
produced in men's sweat and an estrogen-like compound in women's urine.
Both of these have been suspected of being pheromones.
Savic and her associates found that that gay males responded to these
pheromones in the same way women respond. Heterosexual males responded
differently.
This study is being reported in the mainstream press as more evidence
for a biological basis for homosexual behavior. However, Dr. Jeffrey
Satinover, a lecturer in Civil Liberties and Constitutional Law at
Princeton University disagrees. According to Dr. Satinover*:
The key statement in the New York Times interview with one of the
authors of the article is this:
"We cannot tell if the different pattern is cause or effect," Dr. Savic
said. "The study does not give any answer to these crucial questions."
The same discussion arose after LeVay's study and he finally
conceded--years later--that repetition of homosexual activity can
change the brain to produce the effects he discovered--likewise here as
the researchers state directly.
This study says nothing about homosexuality being innate (whether on a
direct genetic or indirect, epigenetic hormonal-developmental basis).
Likewise, if one changes the state of one's sexuality. The pheromone
response would presumably change in consequence of behavioral-induced
alterations in the underlying hypothalamic structures.
Because it is tacit and not explicit, the widely-held and erroneous
presumption that brain structures are fixed and unresponsive to
experience generates a second presumption, also tacit: That if a brain
structure or function can be correlated to a behavioral trait then the
trait must be both unchangeable and innate. Unaddressed and left
non-explicit, this two-step sequence of tacit presumptions attached to
explicit, high quality scientific data but of only a correlative kind,
almost invariably generates in the mind of the scientifically
unsophisticated something akin to a "belief."
Every single study that has emerged since the original LeVay study that
falls into the above class--looking for or finding bimodal statistical
physiological correlates (nervous system or otherwise) to homosexual
versus heterosexual populations, in both males and females, however
defined--comes with the same essential caveat: That cause and effect
cannot be distinguished by the study.
Yet the press invariably editorializes, by implication or openly, that
each new study somehow builds upon the last; that there exists a slowly
but surely growing literature supporting the case that "homosexuality
is biological," that "homosexuality is innate," "...genetic,"
"...unchangeable." Nothing could be further from the truth.
It would be identically and oppositely tendentious to say that "yet
another study fails to find a biological, genetic, innate basis for
homosexuality."
Dr. Warren Throckmorton has also examined this latest study and draws
the following conclusions:
The study does show involuntary hypothalamic response associated with
self-assessed sexual orientation
The study shows that gay males do react to the estrogen condition but
in a different manner than they react to the testosterone condition
The study cannot shed light on the complicated question of whether
sexual orientation of the participants is hard wired.
The brains of these participants may have acquired a sexual response to
these chemicals as the result of past sexual experience. In other word,
the response described in this study could well have been learned.
If these results hold up, this could explain why varying sexual
attractions seem so "natural." Also, such conditioning could give
insight into why changing sexual attractions is often experienced by
those changing sexual preferences as a process of unlearning responses
to environmental triggers.
Dr. Sander Breiner, a Psychoanalyst and Professor of Psychiatry at
Michigan State University and Wayne State University, has observed of
this study:
The study is interesting and gives some information about the brain,
particularly the hypothalamus. The information is not conclusive and
only provides information.
Their studies of straight and gay man were not confirmed by their equal
studies of lesbian and straight women. Furthermore, males who identify
more with their mothers, and may appear somewhat more "effeminate" in
behavior, may still function very adequately and comfortably in normal
heterosexual relationships, including marriage and family. There is no
study of this group of males. In addition, there is no study of a
select group of very masculine appearing and acting (husky) males. The
same consideration applies the study of women.
Males who have anxiety about feeling love and closeness to their
mothers would unconsciously and--neuroendocrine-wise--erect barriers to
similar responses to other females. This might delay their movement
into adult heterosexuality but not necessarily or even likely to
prevent it. Similar reasoning applies to lesbian females.
The difference between identical twins and fraternal twins has been
noted in many other areas of psychological consonance. Identical twins
very commonly develop a private language and communication that no one
else in the family (especially the mother) can translate. This can last
for many years. Therefore, the twin studies (identical and fraternal)
do not establish any validity for organicity for homosexuality.
It is well known that rodents usually produce multiple births. It is
also well known that when a male embryo lies between two female embryos
that it will be a less aggressive male adult rodent than those male
rodent embryos who were not so juxtapositioned. What is true for
rodents is not true for humans as many other hormone studies have
demonstrated.
More than 50 or 60 years an accidental hormonal study was done as I
recall in Puerto Rico. Young women were given a drug that affected
their sexual hormone balance. This resulted in many children being born
whose genitals appeared to be females. These children were raised as
little girls without any evidence of discomfort in this social
structure. However, when they reached puberty, normal male genitalia
developed. What had been thought to be a clitoris turned out to be a
penis; and undescended testes descended. Following this unexpected
event, the girls-now-turned boys were treated as boys and grew up to be
men. Follow-up studies did not indicate any significant increase in
homosexuality or decrease in percentage of marriages in this group.
This old and infrequently referred to accidental study clearly
demonstrates that it takes a great deal of psychological problems in
the first five years of life to produce the imperfect conflict
resolution of homosexuality.
The emotionally charged corridor in the brain is the amygdala and the
hypothalamus leading to the pre-frontal cortex. Any emotional charge
will cause this area of the brain to show increased activity.
Therefore, increased activity in any part of this corridor only
indicates an emotional charge, which could be anxiety, anger,
depression, or love (to name a few). The study is interesting; but that
is all.
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