Proceed at your own risk

COUNTER EVOLUTIONARY

The other day fossilized human footprints were found dating back 1.5 million years.  They were part of a group, something humans have been doing since the beginning of time.  Everything else aside, groups have always been the key to not only survival, but more importantly, success.

As I considered my own social circle, I realized that diversity was its most extraordinary asset and strength--some 1.5 million years down the road from the footprints of our distant ancestors.

In fact, as any and every Discovery Channel show will tell you, our ancestors, the earliest mammals were prey.  Success as a species depended on many factors  including strength, agility, fangs, claws, venom and stealth--but ultimately wit and numbers.  Frail little monkeys working together prevailed to claim the top of the global food chain thanks to their ability to outsmart and outnumber all predators.

Humans marched to the top without protective fur, venom, fangs, claws or great strength or size.  They did it through social bonding.

Thanks to social bonding, the prey became the world's most dangerous predator.

Social bonding, not sex, by the way.  Every little thing eaten by crocodiles, great cats, sharks and hawks engages in sex.  Humans however have mastered bonding, a profound link that manifests in dozens of ways including sexuality.

Unless you're one of those very silly creationists, it is obvious to you that the road to the success of a species is usually paved with herds, packs, gaggles and increasingly large social units--and bonding of individuals is the evolutionary glue that holds it all together.

Logically, then, one must conclude that the more diversity delivered by evolution to the bonding process, the more adaptable and resilient the species.  With that obvious and I would think irrefutable paradigm in hand, homosexuality is not only natural but an inevitable and vital manifestation among higher life forms.

Clearly, the more complex, diverse, emotional and intimate social bonding becomes, the more powerful and successful a species becomes.

It seems to me that science speaks to this is so many ways, clearly and directly--that  the notion that homosexuality and bisexuality are not a beneficial and productive part of nature and evolution is simply moronic and belongs with the many other counter-evolutionary beliefs that run counter to the health of our civilization thanks to religious fundamentalism, something that should have been left in the caves of our ancestors along with a belief that lightening bolts are forged on an anvil by a hunky deity called Thor.

Yes, you nelly queens.  No Easter Bunny, no Santa Claus and no Thor.  You, on the other hand, along with omniverousness, represent the pinnacle of evolution.  So far.

And that's why Evangelicals "don't" believe in evolution.  They don't dare.

BEETLEMANIA

One small step for science, one big step for homophobia.

The good news is that when you cum in the mouth or up the ass of a heterosexual male, you are heroically doing your part to improve the human gene pool.  Are you surprised?  Shocked?  Pleased?

The bad news is that safe sex is fucking with evolution. Straight boys need your sperm.

Of course, the villain in this story is labeling, the gay label in particular.  The press takes it upon itself to associate variations on copulation among insects to human sexual orientation and gay men.

"Gay sex can produce offspring," reports one "science" magazine, "at least in the case of beetles, says a new study, which found that the ‘kinky’ activity gives males a chance to indirectly fertilize females they may never encounter directly."

Get it?  Gay beetles deposit their semen in submissive straight beetle boy bung holes so that it mixes with the straight bugs beetle juice (had to go there) and then is deposited in the girl beetles vajayjay.

The old theory about homosexual beetles (yes, there was an old theory) was that beetles, like Alaskans, need sex education and fucking each other helps beetle boys become more skilled lovers when they get down to the important task of fertilizing lady bugs.

A second old theory to explain beetle homosexuality was that boy beetles express their dominance by sperming other boy beetles.  It's a beetle hierarchy theory.

Apparently, it hasn't occurred to scientists that sliding your dick up and down against any old thing just feels good and when no beetle pussy is to be found, why not raw liver..and if raw liver isn't around, why not just any old beetle bung hole?

In order to test these explanations, Sara Lewis, an evolutionary ecologist at Tufts University in Boston and colleagues investigated flour beetles (Tribolium castaneum)

She observed that, when housed together in laboratory containers, male beetles often mount one another and copulate, and even end up transferring sperm at times.

As it is already known, that male beetles, being able to discriminate between virgin and mated female males, cannot really mistake their male mates for females, reports New Scientist magazine, why they violated the laws of nature and god and fucked their male mates stood as a big mystery--something that has probably troubled beetle society, especially religious beetle society for eons.

Further confusing everyone, the researchers found that even male beetles with many homosexual experiences were no better than virgin males at siring offspring when allowed to copulate with a female later. This, according to the team rules out the “practice” hypothesis.

Also, the team found no difference between the mating males and neither male had an advantage when the two were forced to compete for a single female. This rules out the “dominance” hypothesis.

However, the researchers found that male-male matings can result in an unexpected, though subtle, benefit.  Some of the sperm transferred during gay sex is later passed along when the recipient male later mates with a female, adding more variety to the gene pool.

The scientist also believes that homosexual matings may offer males a way to move young, vigorous sperm to the front after dumping older sperm that are past their best-before date.

However, Paul Vasey, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Lethbridge, Canada, who studies homosexual behavior in monkeys, has said that none of Lewis's proposed adaptive benefits to homosexual copulation is very strong,

However, he suggested that the beetles” homosexual mating may not be adaptive at all, and could instead be a byproduct of some other behavior that is adaptive, such as a general readiness to mate.

Now there's a theory.  Beetles are just horny little buggers ready to hump the nearest warm body.

REDEFINING THE LGHT COMMUNITY

No, it's not a typo. I deliberately intended LGHT rather than LGBT.  Simply stated: if the acronym is intended to describe and define a sexual minority, the B must be replaced with an H.

Supposing--just supposing--that Evangelicals and Republicans are right in thinking that for the vast majority of humans, sexual orientation is in fact a "choice", a choice they struggle with to varying degrees, almost each and every one of them--because the vast majority of them are bisexual?

And they so often fail. It's understandable and actually quite painful and sad.

Just this past week, a Milwaukee Evangelical clergyman shocked his congregation and his community when he was arrested for sucking dick in a local park.

Forty-eight-year-old Jerome Pitchford, long-time deacon of Milwaukee's Holy Redeemer Church of God in Christ, a married man with children went straight from being on his knees in church to being on his knees in a local park.

Police say after church at the Holy Redeemer Church of God in Christ on Sunday afternoon, he was arrested and charged with lewd and lascivious behavior at Milwaukee's Estabrook Park.

Parishioners say they're stunned that he was caught up in this kind of activity.

“I just couldn't believe it and I was still wondering was it true, because I couldn't believe it cause he's such … a gentleman," said Bernice Sykes, Pitchford’s neighbor.

He’s not only a gentleman, but a deacon, a youth counselor and mentor, says one parishioner who wanted to he heard but not seen. "I'm so speechless, I can't believe that."

"I can't believe it, but I hope that he will get … a little therapy and get himself straightened out,” Sykes said

Alabama's anti-gay rights conservative Republican Attorney Journal is reportedly pulling out of politics after his wife caught him last week in their bedroom pulling out of his young male assistant's ass.

According to reports, Alabama Attorney General Troy King, who has called homosexuality the “downfall of society,” was caught by his wife Paige King having sex with a male assistant in their Montgomery home. Reports say King was kicked out of his home by his wife and is set to resign over the scandal.

King is known for voicing his opposition to abortion and homosexuality. He has worked to outlaw sex toys in Alabama.  King frequently wrote editorials for a local newspaper in which he called homosexuality the “downfall of society.”

In 2004, King was appointed to Attorney General by Alabama Governor Bob Riley. He previously served as the Assistant Attorney General. King is (was?) considered a potential candidate for Alabama governor in 2010.  By last Friday night, King has been fired from the McCain campaign as head of McCain's Alabama team.

Florida's Republican governor and McCain VP short-lister Charlie Crist countered years of cruising Florida gay bars by releasing a soft core sex tape of his suddenly recruited fiance doing a tongue dance on a hotel elevator.  Crist, 51, one of the Republican Family Values Party's few life-long bachelors (except for a brief 1980 marriage that lasted just a few months)  appears to have been told by the McCain campaign that he would need to juice up his resume with a Mrs. in order to be considered for the ticket.  When questioned by the Florida media, former male lovers and boyfriends of the closeted governor just shrugged their shoulders.

Haggard, Craig, Foley, Rove, S&M male prostitute Jeff Gannon's late night visits to the Bush White House....am I the only one who sees the obvious here?  The question isn't how many conservative Republicans and Evangelicals are gay but rather how many are heterosexual?

We've  swept Kinsey's rough but landmark research under the national rug; but I believe he was right on the money: 80% of the human population is bisexual to varying degrees and in a society that is wallowing in two-dimensional religious fundamentalism, an obsession with black & white answers and an almost pathological fear of the inevitability of diversity, the natural fluidity and variance of human sexual orientation is terrifying.

And supposing--just supposing--that the science on nature vs. nurture is all of it deeply flawed because it's based on a very wrong premise, the assumption that most humans are purely heterosexual and homosexuality and bisexuality are on the fringe of the human condition.  Perhaps, nothing could be further from the truth.

The greatest challenge any scientist faces in conducting pure scientific research is to eliminate or at least account for all variables that might influence a study's outcome.

For example if you're going to measure the impact of smoking on heart disease you must find ways to isolate or eliminate confounding variables that might influence the condition of the human heart:  obesity, diet, gender, race and other variables that might make it difficult or even impossible to understand the role of cigarettes alone.

This factor in and of itself accounts for the slow and tedious process of scientific research, variations in outcomes that tend to confuse the lay media and the obligatory use of qualifying words like may, perhaps, suggest and indicate rather than most certainly, proven and conclusive.

The media sucks in this regard which is why coffee is good in 2005, bad in 2006, harmless in 2007 and beneficial in 2008.  The media looks at science and hungry for a headline and ratings, pushes fact aside and goes for the sensational.  When consumed five times daily, tomatoes may in certain populations of rats reduce the potential risk of certain forms of rare cancers by as much as 10 percent BECOMES "Tomatoes cure cancer."

With that in mind and bearing in fact that I'm no scientist, I'd like to put forth a theory that would suggest that every bit of research on the origins of homosexuality and sexual orientation overall is fatally flawed.

The current generally accepted premise is that the vast majority of the population is heterosexual with no more than 10 percent and by some calculations, no more than 1-2% of the population falling into the category of sexual orientation outliers, aka the LGBT population.  Based on that premise, researchers assume one biological configuration represents heterosexuality and based on that premise, they search for biological evidence that appears to be common to common to L, G, B and/or T.

But supposing--just supposing-- the "B" in LGBT is grossly misunderstood. What if B is the norm and the outliers are the the LGHT community.  For one thing, it explains a lot about Evangelicals and their struggles and fears.  It also paints the ex-gay movement in an entirely new and more sympathetic light.  Many do change and many can enjoy a heterosexual sex life because they are bisexual.  And they don't understand the homosexual claim that we are born this way because the majority, the "B'"s, can and do choose.

So supposing--just supposing--that human sexuality is not something neatly categorized like life and death (although the Terri Schiavo case suggests that even life and death can be a somewhat murky issue.)  Supposing--just supposing--that human sexuality is a spectrum, like the rainbow, with colors running into each other.  In fact, supposing that degrees of bi-sexuality are the norm and that pure homosexuality and pure heterosexuality are the minorities--and rather small minorities at that.  What if 80 percent of the human population is bi-sexual to varying degrees--a phenomenon we see in over 1500 other animal species and very much so in several other primates.  In fact, the July issue of Scientific American reports that bisexuality is likely the norm in the animal kingdom from insects to mammals; but who dares suggest such a thing is almost certainly descriptive of the human condition as well?

Following through on this crazy theory, one might also speculate that at the hard-line core of the Evangelical movement and its GOP tool is a population of bisexual men and women who are driven by self-loathing and fear over feelings that are contrary to the Puritan and Victorian principles they daily peddle. 

Decades of legitimate research links childhood experience to political affiliation; and the studies consistently show that more insecure children are likely to grow up conservative or Republican.  In a society that imposes an educated and extremely narrow-minded definition of human sexuality, the bisexual majority grows up a frightened mess.

In 2003 a mammoth survey of more than 50 years of research on the psychology of conservatism concluded that conservatives tend to be “rigid,” “close-minded” and “fearful,” less tolerant of minorities and more tolerant of inequality.  If these folks are also predominantly bisexual imagine how they react to those impulses and feelings within themselves.  Actually, you don't need to imagine it, you see it daily.

A number of large European studies suggest that while sexual orientation may be biological, how we respond to sexual orientation within ourselves is determined by environmental factors, and conservatives and Evangelical are folks who are not responding to it well.

MORE FAITH-BASED SCIENCE

Another quack has violated the integrity of her university degrees and license as a psychologist and scientist publishing "research" that is best characterized as faith-based pseudo-science.  The Evangelical and Catholic news services are celebrating Dr. Trayce Hansen's "scientific" revelations proving that children raised by gay parents are 7 times more likely to become practicing homosexuals.  Monkey see, monkey do.

Dr. Trayce L. Hansen is a state licensed psychologist with a clinical and forensic practice.  She received her Ph.D. from a respectable school, the California School of Professional Psychology.  She has worked in detention facilities, inpatient psychiatric facilities, outpatient treatment centers, and most recently in a private practice setting.

But what's education and clinical experience worth when it comes up against the Jesus Stupid Stick?

Sadly, Dr. Hansen's new research will likely slither it's way into courts and adoption proceedings and make the lives of thousands of decent gay parents a living hell.

Hansen did an exhaustive review of research completely irrelevant to her findings and conclusions--but when it comes to Christian science, facts are logic are the devil's work.

"Research by social scientists, although not definitive, suggests that children reared by openly homosexual parents are far more likely to engage in homosexual behavior than children raised by others," claims Dr. Hansen.  "Studies thus far find between 8% and 21% of homosexually parented children ultimately identify as non-heterosexual. For comparison purposes, approximately 2% of the general population are non-heterosexual. Therefore, if these percentages continue to hold true, children of homosexuals have a 4 to 10 times greater likelihood of developing a non-heterosexual preference than other children."

Hansen, of course, is basing her conclusion on the Evangelical claim--based on belief pulled out of their collective asshole--that queers represent no more than 2% of the general population.  Dobson's group actually puts the number at under 1%--which would mean that more than a third of the entire homosexual population of America paraded down Fifth Avenue last weekend.

Actually, when Hansen reviewed all the existing research on this matter she found that the researchers "covered up sexual preference differences between homosexually and heterosexually parented children, declaring that in their research summaries no differences were found."  Hansen explains that they lied, all of them, concealing their true findings "so as not to harm their own pro-homosexual, socio-political agendas."

Hansen, positioning herself as the only honest and objective scientist in this field (who, by the way, has never done any research in this field) notes that "All social scientists who conduct research in this emotionally-charged area have personal biases. That's a given. But if the authors of these studies want to be regarded as scientists, and not activists, they must set aside their biases and straightforwardly present their findings."

Furthermore, Hansen reveals, "percentages of non-heterosexual children in these studies would be even greater if more of the children had been raised from birth by openly homosexual parents. But most weren't. A majority of these children actually were born into and raised by mother-father couples before one of their parents "came-out" and the parents divorced."  The recruitment oftentimes began well into childhood and often during the early pre-teen years when normal heterosexual children at the age of 13 or 14, in the first blush of puberty, were suddenly exposed to a gay parent and, as a result, turned from heterosexual to non-heterosexual.

Hansen admits that "No one knows for sure by what complex mechanisms homosexual parents disproportionately rear homosexual children. But regardless of how, it appears they do. The public needs to be made aware of the findings of these studies so that when courts adjudicate and citizens vote on issues related to homosexuality, they're fully informed as to the possible consequences of those decisions on children."

Hansen has based  her conclusion on a faith-based review of all the existing research on this subject--all of which demonstrates no difference in children raised by gay or straight parents.  But Hansen has set aside scientific methodology as pro-homosexual and relied instead on faith-based supposition to rewrite the conclusions of some dozen or so studies.

How did Hansen change the statistical outcomes of these studies?

First of all she concluded that all study subjects who responded with "I don't know" or who dropped out of the study actually meant that "my child is a homosexual."  So everyone who didn't agree to participate in the study, didn't agree to participate because as homosexuals they tend towards dishonesty.

Hansen determined that if the parents or the researchers could not determine the sexual orientation in a child as old as 14 or 15, it was safe to assume this meant that the child was homosexual.

Hansen's review of the studies suggested that 8 or more percent of children raised by homosexual parents would grow up gay.  Since no studies have been done to determine what percentage of children raised by heterosexual children grow up gay, Hansen relied on the official Evangelical statistic claiming  that less than 2 percent and perhaps only 1 percent of the population is gay.  And when you compare this two numbers, it becomes clear that gay parents raise gay children.  Hansen fears that as gay parenting becomes more common, the percentage of homosexuals in the general population will increase.  Hansen makes no allowance for the Closet factor, especially among Evangelicals.

Hansen also ignores the fact that none of the studies designed to assess differences in parenting and parenting outcomes were intended to be representative of the overall population, meaning that percentages of gay and straight children were irrelevant to the rates of incidence in the general population--until Hansen came along.  Hansen also ignores the fact that the sample size for all of these studies was too small and self-selective to render them statistically significant by any scientific standard, expect faith-based science, of course.  The various studies reviewed had subject populations ranging from 75 to 7, with most studies including only 20 or 30 subjects.  The actual researchers explain that these are qualitative and pilot studies and by no means applicable to the general population.  But who cares about statistical significance when you've got Jesus chewing away on your brain.

Hansen's report also documents why a child must be raised by Adam and Eve in order to grow up as a normal heterosexual.  I'm not going to bother you with her endless detail analysis of what constitutes a healthy American but suffice it to say that Hansen's views seem based on some perverse 1950s understanding scripted by the writers of Leave It To Beaver and Father Knows Best.

One of my favorite quotes from Hansen, a trained and practicing psychologist who clearly would prefer to be barefoot and pregnant:  "A father teaches a boy how to properly channel his aggressive and sexual drives. A mother can’t show a son how to control his impulses because she’s not a man and doesn’t have the same urges as one. A father also commands a form of respect from a boy that a mother doesn’t––a respect more likely to keep the boy in line. And those are the two primary reasons why boys without fathers are more likely to become delinquent, end up incarcerated or even worse, homosexual.

Father-need is also built into the psyche of girls. There are times in a girl’s life when only a father will do. For instance, a father offers a daughter a safe, non-sexual place to experience her first male-female relationship and have her femininity affirmed. When a girl doesn’t have a father to fill that role she’s more likely to become promiscuous in a misguided attempt to satisfy her inborn hunger for male attention and validation."

At the heart of Hansen's scientific view is a basic life perspective that is remarkably but not surprisingly Victorian.

Hansen's dire warning to society, activist judges, legislators and voters is that same-sex marriage will foster tolerance and diversity in America.  No, really; and she says this with a straight face (pun intended).

"The implicit and explicit message of same-sex marriage is that all choices are equally acceptable and desirable. So, even children from traditional homes—influenced by the all-sexual-options-are-equal message—will grow up thinking it doesn’t matter whom one relates to sexually or marries. Holding such a belief will lead some—if not many—impressionable young people to consider sexual and marital arrangements they never would have contemplated previously. And children from homosexual families, who are already more likely to experiment sexually, would do so to an even greater extent, because not only was non-traditional sexuality role-modeled by their parents, it was also approved by their society."

OMG.  Now that's a really scary future for a free society!!!!

"There is no question that human sexuality is pliant. Think of ancient Greece or Rome—among many other early civilizations—where male homosexuality and bisexuality were nearly ubiquitous. This was not so because most of those men were born with a “gay gene,” rather it was because homosexuality was condoned by those societies. That which a society sanctions, it gets more of."

Somehow Hanson has managed to remain oblivious to the implications of homophobia: closeted secret lives, human souls twisted out of recognition by sexual repression and persecution.  Hansen would rather believe that if we criminalize homosexuality and refuse to talk about it, gayness will simply disappear a la Iran.

And she still holds her California state license to practice psychotherapy?  Now that's about as scary as scary can get.

THE MATTRESS PROPOSAL AND GAY BRAINS

 

The latest research on gay brains reminded me of a conversation I had with my now ex-wife and still best friend within hours of coming out to her after 18 years of marriage.

As she struggled through the shock and fear--fear of a life lived that now seemed a fraud and fear of a future that had within minutes transformed from secure and predictable to unknown and seemingly chaotic--she desperately began examining and considering alternatives to ending our marriage.

I couldn't imagine how we might save the marriage now that I was coming to terms with my own sexuality, but I loved and respected her enough to listen.

After an hour or so of tabled and rejected ideas, she settled on what I now call the "mattress on the floor proposal."  There was no need for divorce or even separation.  Why couldn't I just rent a small studio apartment, throw a mattress on the floor, buy some condoms and lube, perhaps a radio and then do what I had to do whenever I needed to do it and then come home?

I was profoundly insulted by this but didn't know why; after all it seemed a reasonable, generous and noble gesture.  And our life together had always been good, in fact, very good.  She was and remains to this day the best person I have ever known--and I include myself in that measure.

But it was at that moment when she made the mattress proposal that I first realized that being gay had little to do with the sex act itself.  In fact my gayness was about my humanity, my intellectual, psychological and emotional wholeness.

I didn't understand it, but in that moment I knew it.

As the years would pass, the notion that a non-practicing homosexual wasn't a gay man, a notion advocated by the Catholic Church and the ex-gay soul eaters would astonish and deeply offend me whenever I would hear or read of it.  In my heart, science aside, I've always known that the entire ex-gay concept so painfully dysfunctional and destructive and should in fact be criminalized along with heroin peddling and acts of illegal medical quackery.  The idea that gay men and women can "come out of homosexuality" by forcing themselves to engage in sex with the opposite gender and through prayer to a supernatural being is an offense to nature and the practice and advocacy of sound mental and physical health.

Not that we needed more research or science to confirm any of this, but the new work out of the highly reputable and world-famous Karolinska Institute provides enough fact to render any degree of acceptance or "tolerance" of ex-gay therapy or religion-driven homophobia to be simply obscene and contrary to every imaginable principle underpinning a responsible and robust society.

As you've likely read by now, scientists at the Karolinska Institute studied brain scans of 90 gay and straight men and women, and found that the size of the two symmetrical halves of the brains of gay men more closely resembled those of straight women than they did straight men.  In heterosexual women, the two halves of the brain are more or less the same size. In heterosexual men, the right hemisphere is slightly larger. Scans of the brains of gay men in the study, however, showed that their hemispheres were relatively symmetrical, like those of straight women, while the brains of homosexual women were asymmetrical like those of straight men. The number of nerves connecting the two sides of the brains of gay men were also more like the number in heterosexual women than in straight men.

Just what these brain differences mean is still not clear but it is clear that sexual orientation is hard-wired and what is even more clear and even more important is that this new research confirms that the "gay brain" operates differently than the straight brain in many ways beyond sexual arousal.  In fact, the new research indicates that sexual arousal may be the least of it. It also confirms that orientation is biologically determined; the areas of the brain examined in this study are mostly determined by birth.

Until now, the brain regions that scientists have come to believe play a role in sexual orientation have been related to either reproduction or sexuality. The Swedish study, however, is the first to find differences in parts of the brain not involved in reproduction or sexual arousal.

The evidence clearly would indicate that gay brains are unique, neither biologically feminine nor masculine but combining attributes of both.   Experts conclude that everything from genes to gender to environments may play a role in ultimately determining your perfect sexual and emotional partner, but this new research on the gay brain makes it clear that gay men and women do perceive and respond to their environment in ways that are as distinct as the masculine and feminine.

In fact, it may very well be that our uniquely gay brains allow us a more comprehensive and creative understanding of life, a different way to perceive and interpret our environment.  This may also provide some actual scientific support for why gay men are so ubiquitous in the visual, design and performing arts.  Obviously much more study is needed to gain a full understanding of who we are, but we are so much more than a mattress on the floor.  And as we consider this groundbreaking research in months and years to come, we may find ourselves compelled by science to accept that we are indeed more than two biologically determined genders that go very far beyond the genital structure.

It's also worth noting for those who might question the reliability and credibility of this research, the Karolinska Institute is one of the most respected and influential scientific bodies of the 19th, 20th and 21st Centuries.  It has produced an almost countless list of Nobel winning world class scientists in a broad variety of fields.

The Institute appoints the laureates for the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine. Karolinska is ranked as the 53rd best research university in the world, 11th in Europe and 1st in Sweden.

It is ranked as 16th in the world within the subject field of Life and Agricultural Sciences, 9th in Clinical Medicine and Pharmacy.

THE TRUTH BEHIND GAYDAR AND THE SWEET SCENT OF MALE URINE

I'm a pervert.  It's a fact I occasionally have to face head on.  For example, I just read an article in the Los Angeles Times about new science suggesting that gay men and straight men actually do look and behave differently and, in fact, manifest differently in a myriad of physical ways.  Of perhaps most interest:  gaydar may be very real and based on physical manifestations measurable by science, not just a roving queer eye.

But here's the pervert part:  The article aroused me.  OK, to be blunt, it made me semi-hard.  I think it was a combination of how gay men vs straight men react to the smell of male sweat and urine and the "clinical" discussion of penis size.  Science is hot.  I mean really.

Anthony Bogaert of Brock University in Ontario and his colleagues re-analyzed data on 5,000 gay and straight men from sexologist Alfred Kinsey's famous files, collected from the 1930s to the 1960s.  The results, published in 1999, showed that gay men had longer, thicker penises than did straight men: on average, about 6.5 inches long and 4.95 inches around when erect, versus 6.1 inches long and 4.8 inches around for straight men.

Scientists are speculating that the reason for this happy disparity is that gay men could have been exposed to an odd mix of hormones in the womb. Testosterone levels might peak early, causing enhanced penis growth, then drop off later in pregnancy -- leading to some feminine characteristics.

The bottom line is that when a major daily newspaper prints "longer, thicker penises" I just get all tingly.

But it doesn't stop there, not be a long (er, thicker) shot.

According to a 2005 study published in the Proceedings of the The National Academy of Sciences of the United States, gay men are able to identify other gay men through subliminal recognition of the scent of each other's sweat and urine, both of which lead to arousal.

The researchers reported that even a subtle whiff of wet stuff of either kind "activated regions covering sexually dimorphic nuclei of the anterior hypothalamus, and that this activation was differentiated with respect to sex and compound."  Furthermore, "In contrast to heterosexual men, and in congruence with heterosexual women, homosexual men displayed a much higher degree of hypothalamic activation in response to the hormones found in male sweat and urine."

Did you get that?  It's simple.  We can sniff each other out better than heterosexuals.

But more importantly, this means that when the heavenly scent of a man's armpits waft across the locker room and draws your attention, he's likely queer.  It also means that blindfolded and denied a GPS, George Michael, Larry Craig and the rest of us could use our noses to locate the nearest public men's room.  They say bees can sniff out a preferred pollen from hundreds of miles away.  When you get aroused in a public toilet, it's not the charming ambiance, it's the pheromones.

In a review of the science, the LA Times explains that there are many well-documented "sexual orientation correlates" (the scientific term for gaydar.)

Scientists around the country are searching for innate traits that might not appear to be related to sexual orientation or even to standard cliches.  So measuring a subject's shoe size is permissible; but asking about ownership of Barbra Streisand albums or an uncanny ability to identify a Broadway song to describe every life experience would be cheating.  But some inborn traits might be expected if homosexuality is--as most scientists believe--rooted in biology, and they might provide clues about the biological origins of sexual orientation.

Beyond penis size and the captivating and Chanel No. 5 qualities of armpits and urinals, many other biological and behavioral characteristics are now coming to the forefront.

Study after study--including one of 87,000 British men published last year--has found that gay men have more older brothers than straight men do. Only big brothers count. Lesbians don't show such patterns.

Each older brother will increase a man's chances of being gay by 33%, says Ray Blanchard of the University of Toronto, an expert on the "big-brother effect." That's not as dramatic as it might sound. A man's chance of being gay is pretty low to begin with--perhaps as low as 2% (lowered from 10% by researchers in the early 1990s). So having one older brother ups the chance to only about 2.6%.

Psychological influences are probably not at work, because the pattern holds even for gay men who weren’t raised with their older brothers. Instead, the mother's womb might be key. After giving birth to a boy, her immune system might create antibodies to foreign, male proteins in her bloodstream. Subsequent sons in the womb could be exposed to these "anti-boy" antibodies, which might affect sexual development in the brain.

Accordingly, you'd expect the percentage of gay men in a society to vary depending on demographic differences in family size: One study calculated that a one-child-per-family law would reduce male homosexuality by about 29% from current levels.

The hand you use to sign your name might have something to do with what gender you are drawn to.

More lefties--or at least more somewhat-ambidextrous folks--crop up in the gay population than among straight people, several studies have shown. An analysis of more than 23,000 men and women from North America and Europe in 2000 found that being non-right-handed seems to increase a man's chances of being gay by about 34%, and a woman's by about 90%.

One guess is that different-than-normal levels of testosterone in the womb--widely theorized to play a role in determining eventual sexual orientation--could nudge a fetus toward brain organization that favors left-handedness as well as same-sex attraction.

Another theory is that development of a fetus might be disturbed by factors such as a mother's illness, steering the fetus into being less than strictly right-handed--and, in some cases, less than strictly heterosexual.

It's a politically sticky idea, says Qazi Rahman of Queen Mary-University of London. "It's essentially saying that homosexual preference . . . is some kind of biological error," he says. (It might tick off the left-handed folks too.)

How does your hair grow? This might also reflect your sexual orientation.

A 2004 study of nearly 500 men--272 on Delaware's Rehoboth Beach, popular with gay men, 200 on a beach without that reputation--found that hair on the heads of men on the gay beach was 3.5 times more likely to grow in a counterclockwise direction. (Scalp hair typically resembles a clockwise-rotating typhoon.)

One theory is that a single gene might influence hair-whorl direction, left-right brain organization and, somehow, sexual orientation. Exactly how it would do all this, however, is anyone's guess.

The study, although intriguing, suffers from a lack of scientific rigor. The author walked around while on vacation, collecting hair-whorl observations on men from a discreet distance. He didn't know anyone's sexual orientation for sure, and didn't objectively examine any scalps up close. Rahman's group is attempting to replicate the results in the lab.

The LA Times also reports that there are quite a few studies now underway around the nation looking to establish a range of biologically determined differences between gay and straight men.  Preliminary results suggest, for example, that gay men navigate new territory more like women than like heterosexual men.  Additionally, gay men respond more rapidly and with greater brain activity to gay porn than straight men do with straight porn.

In conclusion, let's discuss careers.  No, silly, not in terms of hair stylists and interior decorators (or dog groomers as in the sad and tragic case of Jai Rodriguez), but in terms of what degrees do I need to legitimately study large numbers of young healthy gay and straight men in terms of beach surveys, penile and breathing response rates to porn, reactions to the smell of rank arm pits and fresh piss, and of course penis size.? And get paid to do so?

HURT ME

Evolution is the cornerstone of modern biology; and the constant American Evangelical assault on this critical body of science may actually be the biggest threat to the future of this country.  If you believe, as do I, that an educated population is the key to any nation's ability to achieve greatness, stability, health and success then you should be quaking in your boots.  A nation dominated by people who believe the Flintstones is a History Channel documentary is a nation that will soon be written off by the rest of the modern world under "ancient history."

The Evangelical war on gay Americans is obviously a media darling, but the Evangelical war on science is a far worse threat to American Democracy, our economy, medical research and our standing in the modern world.  It is disappointing and even somewhat frightening that this issue receives scant attention from our major media outlets.

The simple numbers send a clear message:  the Evangelicals are winning the war on modernity and progress.  With 41 states now banning core gay rights--and more to come in November, the Evangelicals are also making progress in their crusade to churn out new generations and new voting majorities of the ignorant and the misguided.

The Washington Post recently shook its collective head in wonder over this issue:

"No one would think it acceptable for a teacher to question the existence of gravity or to suggest that two plus two equals anything but four. It's mystifying, then, that a movement to undermine the teaching of evolutionary biology is attracting some support. Equally perverse is that this misguided effort is being advanced under the false guise of academic freedom."

In fact, the Evangelicals are pursuing legal bans on reason with as much vigor as they are pursuing legal bans on same sex marriage.

Bills that would protect teachers critical of the findings of Charles Darwin appeared in five states this year, and legislators in others are said to be considering similar moves. Florida came perilously close to inviting creationism back into the classroom, but its legislative session ended before different versions of its bill could be reconciled. Supporters say they will be back. It's all part of a national movement emboldened by a new film from writer and actor Ben Stein that purports to speak out for free expression by educators.  But advocating ignorance and superstition has nothing to do with academic freedom.  And Ben Stein, who some of you may know from various television shows, is a charming piece of fringe shit cushioned in a Harvard law degree.

What's insidious about these measures is that at first blush they appear so harmless. Isn't everyone in favor of academic freedom? What's so wrong about allowing all sides of an issue to be heard? Why should teachers be punished for speaking their minds? Those arguments might have standing if there were any doubt about the reality of evolution, but, as an official with the National Academy of Sciences recently told the Wall Street Journal, "There's no controversy." Consider, also, that there really is no such thing as academic freedom in elementary and secondary education. A teacher can't deviate from the accepted curriculum to present alternative lesson plans or to offer his or her own notions.

We call these standards; standards that protect this nation's ability to remain competitive and free.

The Florida teachers association opposed the bills, though ostensibly they are meant to benefit educators. Clearly, the strategy is to devise an end run around legal decisions--going all the way to the Supreme Court--that restrict the teaching of creationism in public classrooms.

The Evangelical goal is to use the rubric of "academic freedom", "freedom of speech" and "freedom of religion" to render the Constitution, science and reason subservient to fundamentalist Christian beliefs. In fact the only real check we have on this madness is the courts, and ultimately the Supreme Court

At the heart of this crisis stands the complex fact that we have failed as society to protect ourselves against the cancer of religion.  We've tackled smallpox, Avian Flu and measles, yes, but Evangelism, no.  Ironically, the 2001 attack on New York City and the collapse of the World Trade Center towers is a powerful reminder of the horrors of religious fundamentalism, a warning to be as vigilant domestically regarding this danger as we are internationally.

The principles of evolution, unlike religion, provide reasonable and rational explanations for almost every aspect of life.  And as a man who passionately advocates reason over faith, I find it particularly fascinating to explore the evolutionary basis for each and every aspect of human behavior.  As thrilling and as noble a concept as "free will" may seem to both those of reason and faith, I'm of the school that our behavior is more hardwired than voluntary.

And the hardwiring is--in my view--indisputably the result of millions of years of evolutionary process.

So what on earth has any of this to do with S&M, you ask?

A recent and particularly compelling example of evolutionary hardwiring comes from one of Britain's leading scientists, academicians, authors and rational thinkers,  Terence Kealey, ex-Oxford, ex-Cambridge and currently Vice Chancellor, University of Buckingham.

Kealey considered the thorny issue of S&M.  How is one to explain the evolutionary basis for this sexual practice that is most often used by Evangelicals to highlight the perversity and sinfulness of homosexuality.

In his 1919 essay A Child Is Being Beaten, Sigmund Freud described S&M as a universal human fantasy.  But Kealey wonders what is the evolutionary basis for a man wishing to beat and to be beaten.  Why do humans find pleasure in this practice?

Kealey explains that the first thing to understand about sexual intercourse is that it is not--His Holiness The Pope's pronouncements notwithstanding--primarily about reproduction.  It is about co-operation.  "Consider homosexuality," he says.  As Bruce Bagemihl described in his book Biological Exuberance, more than 450 species engage in homosexuality, and for many of those species homosexuality is the predominant form of sexual expression. More than 90 per cent of sexual encounters for male giraffes are homosexual, for example, and male walruses are almost as gay. Bonobo chimpanzees, moreover, will be relentless lesbians, while hedgehogs are into girl-on-girl cunnilingus. These animals derive mutual pleasure from their same- sex alliances, which they translate into friendship. Consequently they co-operate in hunting or childcare or other challenges. Thus we see that reproduction is only one use Nature makes of the alliances that flow out of the mutual pleasure of sex.

Is it a coincidence that Western societies in which gay rights are flourishing are also societies that rate higher on international scales of happiness and quality of life, nations that are more advanced and successful in providing universal health care, education, housing and social welfare?

Hard science confirms that Nature's most important alliance, however, is the pecking order.  Many animals are social and Nature has had, therefore, to identify a method of government. Nature could have settled on democracy, say, or laissez faire, but instead animals are generally ruled by autocracy. As was noted a century ago, hens peck each other - but not randomly. Some hens peck, others are pecked. And that hierarchy is found in all social animals.

Kealey reminds us that the pecking order is not based on fear, it is based on pleasure.  When animals settle into a role of pecker or pecked, they enjoy it.  It becomes a source of physical and emotional pleasure.

The hierarchy emerges in youth: each generation, as it leaves the protection of the parents, fights for status. Soon certain individuals routinely win, and others lose, and the losers accept the winners as their bosses. A pecking order has thus been established. But to maintain the pecking order, the losers need to accept their subordinacy: they need to embrace a psychology of masochism, actively lusting after the lash of a whip. Meanwhile, the winners, charged with maintaining order, need to adopt a sadistic personality, they need to enjoy punishing the disobedient and the slackers.

Freud was not the first to notice this: 2,000 years ago Publilius Syrus wrote that “tears gratify a savage nature, they do not melt it”, while Ovid maintained that “pleasure is sweetest when 'tis paid for by another's pain”. More recently, in a paper published in Nature, Anna Dreber and her colleagues from Harvard University confirmed by the classic psychologist's experiment of the “prisoners dilemma” that the evolution of pleasure in punishment can best be explained by the evolution of the hierarchy.

So if sex is a means by which we cement our relationships, and if our relationships are innately hierarchical, then it is not surprising that punishment is hardwired into intercourse.

This does not justify dysfunctional excess, self-destructive behavior or compulsive behavior, but Kealey's perspective is that S&M plays a valuable role in social bonding, gay and straight; and to deny it's critical importance in nature is--Evangelicals please take note--simply unnatural and an abomination.

It may very well be that a key lesson of evolution is that sexual repression is anti-social and in fact drives pathologically sociopathic behavior and even criminal behavior and when we allow religion to color or censor education and constitutional law and rights, we find ourselves on the path to oblivion.  Freedom of religion, freedom of speech and academic freedom are intended to nourish progression and open minds, not provide a mechanism to institutionalize practices that will actually erode the First Amendment and the core values of a free society.

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Certain photos used above are courtesy of the best online source for pecking order toys and games.  Go there and buy something for me (or yourself.)  My pecker is waiting.

JAMES DOBSON AND OTHER CANCERS

Even though I've become accustomed to the routine filth of fundamentalist Christians, I'm still disturbed by their arrogant reliance on dishonesty.  These people cobble together delusions and lies based on nothing more than their specific agenda of hatred of our Constitution and democracy and their fervent pursuit of those of us who do not conform to their truly perverse view of the world at large.

The man TIME magazine has called America's most influential evangelical leader, James Dobson of Focus on the Family is claiming a small victory in steering the outcome of the new brochure on sexual orientation just published by the American Psychological Association.  I was mortified when I read this.  Could it be?  Did these enemies of life truly influence the science and reason of the APA?  Did Dobson's barbaric religious views actually color what should have been a document designed to underpin mental health and completely discredit the efforts of Dobson and his perverse soul-crushing Love Won Out reparative therapy sham?

Dobson's website actually reports:

"The American Psychological Association (APA) may be shifting from its view that homosexuality is inborn. The group now says both nature and nurture are involved, and clients have a right to self-determination.

In a new brochure, the APA concedes that there is no scientific consensus on what causes same-sex attraction.

They are starting to have the integrity of reporting accurately about the condition of homosexuality," said Randy Thomas, executive vice president of Exodus International. "We find this to be a very exciting move and hope that it indicates future movement toward recognizing that people can and do overcome homosexuality.” 

Glenn Stanton, director of global family formation studies at Focus on the Family, said the brochure has an activist bent, but he sees a ray of hope.

This doesn’t mean that we’ve completely succeeded in all the things that we’ve wanted to," he said, "but it’s a move in the direction that we’ve wanted them to move in, and I think that’s very positive news.”

This Focus on the Family and Exodus International claim is one of the most monumental perversions of truth ever told.  It is nothing less than a grotesque lie.

In fact, the new brochure is primarily focused on two key points--and I quote directly from the brochure:

1. The prejudice and discrimination that people who identify as lesbian, gay, or bisexual regularly experience have been shown to have negative psychological effects.  This pamphlet is designed to provide accurate information for those who want to better understand sexual orientation and the impact of prejudice and discrimination on those who identify as lesbian, gay, or bisexual
2. Several decades of research and clinical experience have led all mainstream medical and mental health organizations in this country to conclude that these orientations represent normal forms of human experience.  Lesbian, gay, and bisexual relationships are normal forms of human bonding.

The brochure than goes on to provide many proof points to support these two very clear statements.  But clear is not enough for Dobson, not at all.  I'm actually finding this difficult to write simply because I can't seem to swallow my rage.  The fact that Dobson is allowed any sort of public platform, the fact that Dobson is often welcomed to comment in the mainstream media and the fact that many of this nation's politicians pander to Dobson and his followers offends me on levels that I cannot even begin to express.

The American Psychological Association brochure (Download pdf) --and I highly recommend that you read it--goes on to describe the severe mental and physical health perils associated with the closet, prejudice, discrimination and reparative therapy.

Dobson hangs his horns on one paragraph that explains that there is no consensus among scientists about the exact reasons that an individual develops a heterosexual, bisexual, gay, or lesbian orientation.  The APA explains that "Although much research has examined the possible genetic, hormonal, developmental, social, and cultural influences on sexual orientation, no findings have emerged that permit scientists to conclude that sexual orientation is determined by any particular factor or factors.  many think that nature and nurture both play complex roles; most people experience little or no sense of choice about their sexual orientation."

The extraordinary thing about this paragraph that Dobson is either too stupid or too evil to notice is that science has yet to identify the determining factor or factors for any kind of sexual orientation; but when you read through the following paragraphs you learn that science has concluded that however sexual orientation manifests it is normal and not a choice.

Dobson's conclusion that this represents a victory for Christian fundamentalism is either just plain stupid, evil, dishonest or--more likely the case--all of the above.

The only reason I regret my atheism is that it means that Dobson will not burn for all eternity in the fires of Hell.  Dobson and his minions do more harm to the hearts and souls of young men and women than even Hitler ever dared dream of.

FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE

While Russian music, literature and architecture stand high among the great accomplishments of humankind, Russian science has always been just a little bit dodgy.  I'm not pointing fingers at Chernobyl or Stalin's attempts to make better soldiers by crossbreeding humans and gorillas, but while Russians excel at emotion and passion, they are the unloved stepchildren of logic and reason.

The prestigious and influential Russian news outlet, PRAVDA,  in an attempt to assuage Russian fears that homosexuals will overrun Red Square much in the way homosexuals have overrun Sheridan Square, has determined that homosexuality is mostly nothing more than a hot fashion trend that will eventually go the way of bell bottoms, hula hoops and crinolines.  Additionally, PRAVDA tells us that homosexuality is also partly an instructional practice that Russian men employ to improve their normal heterosexual love-making skills.

Are you confused?  Drink a bottle of vodka and all will become clear.

PRAVDA poses the question as to why some individuals feel sexually attracted to people of the same sex.  Is it a psychological disorder, promiscuity or a genetic defect?

"Even though modern-day society is more tolerant towards homosexual relationships, that does not clarify the phenomenon--the mystery of this unnatural kind of human relations."

The main reason for homosexuality, according to Russian scientists, is fashion. Gay is trendy and the gender-bending styles and creations that currently dominate the catwalk, advertising and the popular media, have encouraged a fashion-conscious public, especially the young and impressionable, to try on gay much in the way they try on the latest color or look from Milan, London or New York.

"Curiosity is the main reason why people decide to experience something new that they never tried before," explains PRAVDA.  "It triggers different kinds of experiments. In this sense, every new experience can be considered an experiment--sex with people of other races, phone sex, or homosexual acts, for example. People are just curious what it feels like.  They see it on television or in a magazine and they want to try it."

"Unbelievable as it may sound," the reporter continues, "sexual relations are susceptible to fashion, though in a smaller degree than clothes and literature. When TV screens and advertising keep showing you two hot girls embracing each other, when Madonna kisses Britney Spears, girls consider it to be a fashion trend. Some of them want to follow the trend, to be a part of it.

"Such fashion may influence only the immature and that is why lesbian experiments are characteristic of seniors or first-year students and are mainly designed to attract public attention.  So they finish very quickly (by 20 years at the latest)."

Furthermore, now that "gay" is fashionable, many Russian men, PRAVDA goes on to explain. are using homosexual experiences to become better heterosexual lovers.  "Curiosity may be caused by the interest of what a man feels when he caresses a woman. Sometimes a man may want to know what a woman feels in this. These are rather natural human desires – to gain more experience, to be someone else, to wear somebody else’s shoes."

Yes, you read that right.  Russian experts are suggesting that that an otherwise normal and healthy Russian heterosexual male will take another man up his butt because he wants to better understand female sensation, making him a better lover.

Frankly, this trashes the old "I was so drunk last night" rationalization which in Russia at least is now replaced by: "I did it for you, my little sugar beet; now I know how it feels when I'm deep inside of you rubbing my penis against your prostate gland." 

Russian science has likely not taught Russian men that women don't have prostate glands--but that's a minor point.

PRAVDA insists that the reported increase in homosexuality is grossly exaggerated and is nothing more than a fashionable up-tick of curiosity and instruction-based fashionable same sex one night stands between young people who want to be like Madonna or come to better understand the sexual needs of the opposite sex.

"Everyone seems to know at least one story about two women," says PRAVDA.  " Two girl friends were sitting in a bar for a long time, complaining bitterly to each other about their problems in life and blowing off some drunken impudent guys. Then one of them stayed overnight at another girl’s place. They went to sleep and embraced each other to display understanding and support…then a lingering hand on the breast, a kiss on the lips, instead of the cheek and friendly support turned sexual. In the morning girls usually feel embarrassed, try to act as if nothing happened, and their sexual relations end as soon as they began."

PRAVDA admits that there are other reasons women in particular turn to homosexuality, facilitated by the fashions of these times.

Among them?

• Difficulty to find a man who knows how to provide an orgasm.
• Fear of pregnancy can be an additional motive here. Even the thought itself that there is no risk to get pregnant helps a woman to relax, urges her to have homosexual relations and get pleasure.
• Psychological trauma:  Childish complexes, boys’ mockery, ill-success of the first sexual experiment with a man and a rape top this list. A man and his sexuality is something hostile or unobtainable for such women.  Homosexuality is not usually caused by healthy human instincts and desires, but by morbid fears urging women to seek refuge from men.

Men, however, as previously stated, are primarily motivated by fashion and the opportunity to learn how to become better lovers by assuming the female position during penetration.  Personally, I had no idea that Russian men were so generous and thoughtful.  The teacher in me is dying to help.  I've already placed a personal ad in PRAVDA.

IS EVANGELICAL HOMOPHOBIA DESTROYING TRADITIONAL FAMILY VALUES?

Startling new scientific research may suggest that the real threat to the American family is not gay marriage or homosexuality but rather homophobia.  It's a possibility that could shatter the premise on which Evangelicals and the Roman Catholic Church have built their house of bigotry.

Stud­ies of traditional gay culture in the re­mote Pa­cif­ic have led sci­en­tists to sur­pris­ing con­clu­sions about ho­mo­sex­u­al and oth­er gender-bending be­hav­iors.

One of these con­clu­sions: sex­u­al at­trac­tion to mem­bers of the same sex may have an ev­o­lu­tion­ary func­tion, though past stud­ies had failed to find one.

A sec­ond as­ser­tion to emerge from the work is that psy­chol­o­gists should re­con­sid­er the way they classify as a “disorder” trans­sex­u­alism—a strong de­sire to be the op­posite sex.

The re­search fo­cus­es on a re­mark­a­ble group of men who have sex with men, though they de­fy much con­ven­tion­al wis­dom on what be­ing “gay” is. They form a broadly accept­ed so­cial class in the South Pacific island nation of Sa­moa

A group of Canadian scientists were searching for an evolutionary reason for homosexuality, based on the assumption that most if not all human behavior has been determined by evolutionary and natural forces.

Ev­o­lu­tion­ary the­o­ry, the lens through which most sci­en­tists study bi­o­log­i­cal traits, holds that in each popula­t­ion, the genes of mem­bers who re­pro­duce the most come to dom­i­nate the gene pool.  That’s be­cause these in­di­vid­u­als, un­sur­pris­ingly, spread their genes most wide­ly.

By that limited logic gays, who re­pro­duce lit­tle, should­n’t ex­ist. Yet they do, along with some evi­dence their ten­den­cies may have a ge­ne­tic component.  The reason may be that heterosexuals who carry a recessive gay gene may have produced more successful families and cultures during the course of human evolution.

The ex­plana­t­ion, ma­ny sci­en­tists ar­gue, could be that generally child­less gays put extra ef­forts in­to help­ing raise nephews and nieces. That would boost the chil­dren’s chances of sur­viv­al, and some­day reproduc­tion. These youths, even if not gay, might share with their aunt or un­cle a few genes pro­mot­ing homo­sex­u­al­ity—en­sur­ing a clutch of “gay genes” in eve­ry genera­t­ion.

One prob­lem with this pro­pos­al: it has failed past sci­en­tif­ic tests. A few stud­ies have found gays aren’t es­pe­cially help­ful to their fam­i­lies but that may be due to nothing more than homophobia driving gay relatives away.  So studies conducted in aggressivly homophobic populations produce re­sults suggesting that ho­mo­sex­u­al­ity has no ev­o­lu­tion­ary func­tion.  Sci­ent­ists who back this view say homosex­u­al­ity is an aberra­t­ion, so it has about as much bi­o­log­i­cal func­tion as a birth de­fect—none.

If this new research is heading in the right direction, one would have to conclude the fundamentlist religion is simply counter-evolutionary.

Main­stream physi­cians no long­er con­sid­er ho­mo­sex­u­al­ity a dis­or­der, but it was only in 1994 dropped from the Amer­i­can Psy­chi­at­ric As­socia­t­ion’s hand­book of men­tal disorders.  Trans­sex­u­al­ism, or “gender ident­ity dis­or­der,” is still list­ed, though the manual says it’s only a dis­or­der if it causes the patient sig­nif­i­cant dis­tress, again pointing to homophobia as the problem/disorder, not transsexualism.

In the new stud­ies, Ca­na­di­an psy­chol­o­gists sought to test some of these com­pet­ing ideas by vis­it­ing Samoa, a rel­a­tively un­-westernized land.  By stu­dying peo­ple who they said live clos­er to the ways of human­ity’s “ances­tral” past, the re­search­ers said they hoped to as­sess pos­si­ble ev­o­lu­tion­ary func­tions for ho­mo­sex­u­al­ity and the roles of other gen­der-blur­ring be­hav­iors.

The idea about gays helping their kin, called the kin-selection hy­poth­e­sis, might have failed past tests be­cause these were done in mod­ern­ized West­ern so­ci­eties, the research­ers said.  Gays might help rela­tives more in tra­di­tion­al, tribally-based cultures, the sci­en­tists claimed, be­cause these of­ten have tighter-knit fam­i­lies and fewer an­ti-gay bi­ases that could al­ien­ate gays.  More­o­ver, the re­search­ers ar­gued, the tra­di­tion­al en­vi­ron­ment is more ap­pro­pri­ate to stu­dy, as it’s more like the set­ting in which humans mainly evolved.

Men who ha­bit­u­ally have sex with men are so­cially ac­cept­ed in Sa­moa, where they’re known as fa’a­fines. Some char­ac­ter­is­tics of fa’a­fines, the psy­chol­o­gists said, are quite for­eign to West­ern con­cepts of ho­mo­sex­u­al­ity: no­ta­bly, they have sex only with men who are con­sid­ered “straight,” not with each oth­er. But they are Sa­mo­a’s equiv­a­lent of what West­erners would call gay men.

Based on fa’afine re­sponses on ques­tionnaires, com­pared to re­sponses of heterosex­u­al Sa­mo­an men, the re­search­ers con­clud­ed that fa’a­fines put “sig­nif­i­cantly” more ef­fort in­to raising nephews and nieces. The child­care ac­ti­vi­ties that saw stronger in­put from fa’a­fines includ­ed babysit­ting, buy­ing toys, tu­tor­ing, ex­pos­ing the chil­dren to art and mu­sic, and con­tri­but­ing to daycare, med­i­cal and educa­t­ion ex­penses, the sur­veys indi­cat­ed.

It’s the first study to of­fer real ev­i­dence for the kin se­lec­tion hy­poth­e­sis’ bas­ic prediction, “that androphilic [“gay”] males should di­rect more al­tru­is­tic be­hav­ior toward kin than gy­nephilic [“s­traight”] males,” the team wrote in a re­port of their findings. The pa­pe­r has been published (and not surprisingly ignored) in the peer-reviewed research jour­nal Ev­o­lu­tion and Human Be­hav­ior.

But more stud­ies will be needed, wrote the au­thors, Paul Vasey and col­leagues at the Un­ivers­ity of Lethbridge in Al­ber­ta.  A stronger study would com­pare the fa’a­fines to child­less non-fa’a­fines, they not­ed. In their own stu­dy, 58 pe­r­cent of the “straight” respon­dents had chil­dren, who might have di­verted their at­ten­tion from nephews and nieces.

In anoth­er stu­dy, Vasey and Nan­cy Bart­lett of Mount Saint Vin­cent Uni­vers­ity in Nova Sco­tia con­clud­ed that psy­chol­o­gists’ as­sessment of trans­sex­u­alism as a dis­or­der, at least for chil­dren, should be re­vised.

The rela­t­ion­ship be­tween trans­sex­u­alism and ho­mo­sex­u­al­ity, if any, is un­clear, though some ex­pe­rts say that ma­ny boys with “gen­der iden­t­ity dis­or­der” be­come gay.

Vasey and Bart­lett wrote that fa’a­fines they in­ter­viewed sel­dom re­called being “distressed” by feel­ing or act­ing like a girl in child­hood. Most such dis­tress—the research­ers con­clud­ed based on that and oth­er fac­tors—arises in West­ern so­ci­eties because of the stig­mat­iz­a­tion of such children. 

Thus, the researchers wrote, the di­ag­no­sis of “gen­der ident­ity dis­or­der in chil­dren” should no longer be list­ed “in its cur­rent form” in the Amer­i­can Psy­chol­o­gy Association’s hand­book, the Di­ag­nos­tic and Statis­ti­cal Man­u­al of Men­tal Dis­or­ders.  Some gay acti­vists have called for the con­di­tion to be de-listed com­plete­ly. Vasey and Bart­lett didn’t go that far.  But in their study, in last fall’s is­sue of the re­search jour­nal Per­spectives in Bi­ol­o­gy and Med­i­cine, they did write: “There is no sound evidence that cross-gender be­hav­iors or ident­i­ties, per se, cause dis­tress.”

And why hasn't this extraordinary research made headlines throughout North America?  Why hasn't it factored into legal and legislative battles over gay rights?  The science is beginning to clearly suggest that the homophobes are the real threaat to American family values and the protection and nurturing of our family.