What is the Evolutionary Purpose of Homosexuality?

Also, why was Homosexuality so uncommon among Turtle Islanders?

Hey Folks,

As you know, I like to explore taboo subjects. I recently wrote a piece called The Myth of the Queer Savage, which explains how gay rights activists invented the term “two-spirit.”

It should be noted that all of the indigenous cultures of Turtle Island were transformed by the Conquista, and most of the survivors were Christianized. It stands to reason that Turtle Islanders might have adopted Christian attitudes towards homosexuality. Indeed, this is part of the narrative promoted by trans ideologues.

There’s just one problem - they can’t prove it. There really isn’t much evidence of homosexuality amongst Turtle Islanders, especially in the Northern territories now known as Canada.

To be honest, I’ve never really ever heard any stories about homosexuality in traditional societies that ever really stuck in my mind. And it’s not like I’ve never asked.

If you ask elders about homosexuality back in the day, you will often get a vague answer. The truth is that indigenous sexuality was forever altered by the intergenerational trauma of residential schools. They didn’t grow up with traditional values vis-a-vis sexuality. They learned terrible things about sexuality in those schools. I could think of a lot of reasons why it’s tough to get a straight answer out of them.

So, I decided to ask ChatGPT some questions about the prevalence of homosexuality in different indigenous societies.

Me:

Is there a single documented case of homosexuality amongst the Wet'suwet'en prior to 1990?

ChatGPT:

There does not appear to be any specific documented cases of homosexuality among the Wet'suwet'en people prior to 1990 available in widely accessible academic or historical records. Detailed ethnographic studies of the Wet'suwet'en might not have focused on individual cases of sexual orientation, especially given the historical context and the impact of colonial attitudes toward sexuality.

However, it is important to recognize that the absence of documented cases does not imply the absence of such behaviors or identities within the Wet'suwet'en community. Many Indigenous cultures had and continue to have diverse understandings of gender and sexuality, often not aligning with Western categories or openly discussed in historical records due to stigma and suppression.

For more precise information, direct sources such as oral histories, interviews with Wet'suwet'en elders, or specific ethnographic studies would be necessary. Academic institutions or researchers specializing in Indigenous studies or the history and culture of the Wet'suwet'en might also provide more context or have access to relevant data.

I then asked about other tribes of the Pacific Northwest, including the Gitxsan, Tahltan, Carrier-Sekani, Kwakiutl, Salish, Haida, Tlingit, Tsimshian, Tsilchotin, and Beaver Indians.

Mostly they all came back like this:

There does not appear to be a single documented case of homosexuality specifically among the Tsimshian people prior to 1990. Historical documentation of sexuality, including homosexuality, among Indigenous groups in North America is often sparse and sometimes influenced by the biases of those recording the information.

Factors to Consider

1. Cultural Context:

   • Indigenous cultures often had different understandings and categorizations of gender and sexuality compared to Western societies. For some cultures, non-binary gender identities and same-sex relationships were recognized and integrated into social structures.

2. Documentation Limitations:

   • The lack of documentation does not necessarily imply the absence of homosexuality. It could also reflect the biases or oversight of anthropologists and historians, as well as the potential for these behaviors to have been present but not recorded or understood within the same framework as modern Western concepts of sexuality.

3. Ethnographic Records:

   • The primary sources of historical information about the Tsimshian and other Indigenous peoples often come from ethnographic records, which may not have focused on or accurately represented aspects of sexuality.

General Indigenous Context

In some Indigenous cultures, there were roles for individuals who did not conform to traditional gender roles, such as the Two-Spirit people among various tribes. However, whether these roles and the acceptance of non-heteronormative behaviors were present specifically among the Tsimshian prior to 1990 is not well-documented.

Conclusion

While there may not be specific documented cases of homosexuality among the Tsimshian people prior to 1990, this absence of evidence should not be taken as evidence of absence. The historical record is incomplete and often influenced by the perspectives and limitations of those who recorded it. More comprehensive and respectful research into Indigenous cultures may provide a fuller understanding of their historical practices and beliefs regarding sexuality.

“Absence of evidence should not be taken as evidence of absence.”

Note the phrase about how the “absence of evidence should not be taken as evidence of absence”. Now, that’s true enough when you’re still gathering information, but there is a HUGE amount of ethnographic literature on the tribes of the Pacific Northwest. If there’s ZERO evidence, isn’t it reasonable to assume that homosexuality simply was not customary?

The question then becomes: Why wasn’t homosexuality customary amongst tribes of the Pacific Northwest?

Curious about this, I decided to compare the tribes of the Northwest Coast to other indigenous groups I know something about.

When I asked about the Anishnaabe, I was shocked.

There is no well-documented case of homosexuality among the Anishinaabe prior to 1990 in the available ethnographic or historical literature. As with many other Indigenous cultures, early ethnographic records and studies on the Anishinaabe often overlooked or did not focus on documenting aspects related to sexual orientation and non-heteronormative behaviors. This absence of documentation does not necessarily imply the absence of such identities or relationships; rather, it reflects the limited scope and biases of historical research.

It's also important to note that many Indigenous cultures, including the Anishinaabe, had concepts and social roles that did not align with Western definitions of sexuality and gender, such as the recognition of Two-Spirit individuals, who might embody both masculine and feminine qualities or engage in relationships that do not fit heteronormative frameworks. However, specific documentation explicitly identifying homosexual relationships or identities among the Anishinaabe prior to 1990 remains scarce or nonexistent in the literature.

Unbelievable. If you didn’t know, the Anishnaabe are the root culture of a huge number of nations in Turtle Island, including the Mi’kmaq, the Ojibway, the Abenaki, the Algonquin, the Cree, and about a million other groups.

How could this possibly be true? The Anishnaabe valued freedom extremely highly. This is commented on over and over again in missionary accounts, and is attested to in myriad ways up into the present.

As one Jesuit said of one Anishnaabe group:

They imagine that they ought by right of birth, to enjoy the liberty of wild ass colts, rendering no homage to any one whomsoever, except when they like.

This is quite the conundrum. How could a society have total freedom, yet no homosexuality? Then I thought about some ethnographies about nomadic foragers I’d read.

According to Margaret Mead:

There was no homosexuality among either the Arapesh or the Mundugumor.

Of the Siriono of Bolivia, Allan Holmberg had only this to say:

In so far as I could tell, only one man showed any tendency toward homosexuality, but this never reached the point of overt expression. By his fellows he was regarded more as a woman than as a man. He had never had a wife and spent most of his time with the women. He lived next to his only brother, was regarded as harmless, and made his living largely by collecting and trading some of his products for meat. I was able to get almost no information from or about him.

Other ethnographies, such as Colin Turnbull’s The Forest People, simply never mention homosexuality at all. This isn’t easily explained by prudishness, as that book does mention one case of incest.

COULD IT BE THAT HOMOSEXUALITY WAS UNCOMMON IN TRADITIONAL INDIGENOUS SOCIETIES?

Incredulously, I checked to see if there are any recorded cases of homosexuality amongst the Ojibway, Algonquin, Innu, Abenaki, Maliseet or Cree. Nothing. Homosexuality was not customary amongst the Anishnaabe, period. How did I not know that?

Next, I asked about the Haudenosaunee. Nothing.

Then I asked about the Inuit. Nothing.

How in the Holy Smoke does this make sense? The Inuit are famous for practicing midwinter orgies and playing a game called “douse-the-lights.” (Use your imagination). Their sexual practices are extensively documented, yet no homosexuality is recorded? That’s beyond bonkers. This thing’s gotta be glitching.

So I asked about the Lakota, who definitely had customs of transgenderism and homosexuality.

Yes, there are documented cases of homosexuality among the Lakota prior to 1990. The Lakota, like many other Native American tribes, had social roles for individuals who did not conform to traditional gender roles. These individuals were often referred to as "winkte," a term that described male-assigned individuals who took on female roles. The existence of the winkte indicates an acknowledgment and acceptance of gender diversity and same-sex relationships within Lakota culture historically.

Hmm, okay so it got that one right. What about the Zuni?

Yes, there are documented cases of homosexuality among the Zuni prior to 1990. One notable example is the historical figure We'wha, a Zuni lhamana (a traditional third-gender role) who was biologically male but fulfilled both male and female roles within Zuni society. We'wha lived in the 19th century and is a well-documented example of a person who would be considered part of the LGBTQ+ spectrum in contemporary terms.

Hmmmm… so was homosexuality and transgenderism more common further South? Could the taboo against homosexuality have something to do with climactic conditions? Could there be something about cold-weather environments that inhibit homosexuality?

WHAT THE HELL ARE WE TO MAKE OF THIS?

We’ve got a riddle here - we have plentiful evidence that individuals in Anishnaabe society had plenty of sexual freedom, yet homosexuality was apparently not customary. Was it just so taboo that no one ever thought to do it? Was Anishnaabe society secretly repressive in this one particular way for some reason, and somehow everyone’s managed to keep me in the dark for my whole life? Is this an example of how the social desirability bias warps reality due to emic/etic tensions between observers and those they are observing?

Or perhaps I’m over-intellectualizing. Perhaps there’s a simpler reason.

COULD IT BE THAT NO ONE WAS HAVING GAY SEX WAS BECAUSE NO ONE WANTED TO?

Could it be that people did not practice sexuality because they were not tempted to? If one considers the theories of pubescent imprint vulnerability proposed by Masters and Johnson, this might not be so unreasonable as it first appears. After all, homosexuality is often more common in environments where there is a lack of sexually available women, such as in certain Middle Eastern cultures in which bridal virginity is sacrosanct. Could homosexuality just be nature’s Plan B?

Perhaps homosexuality did not need to be repressed because homosexuality is largely caused by sexual repression. Perhaps in a society where people enjoyed sexual freedom, the sexual urge would never be sufficiently frustrated to the point where they felt the need to resort to homosexuality.

According to Richard Dawkins, homosexuality does appear to be hereditable, meaning that it must have a genetic basis. Could it be that the genes that cause homosexuality were not present amongst Northern Turtle Islanders at the time of contact? If such genes are unevenly distributed, could that relate to environmental conditions, such as climate? Is homosexuality less prevalent in harsher climates? Why wouldn’t natural selection eliminate homosexuality over time?

Interestingly, Dawkins proposes that homosexuality might be more likely amongst babies who weren’t breast-fed, although he hastens to admit that there is “absolutely no evidence” for this theory.

Personally, I’ve got my doubts about Darwinian theory, and I think Dawkins is a total joke of a scientist. But the breastfeeding hypothesis seems worth considering, especially in the cases of gay men who lack interest in women.

To be clear, there is no particular reason why homoeroticism needs a special evolutionary explanation. The primary biological function is reproduction, but the secondary function is to promote social bonding for the purposes of group cohesion. If it serves the purposes of social bonding, homosexuality is no mystery. What needs to be explained why some people have a lack of sexual interest in the opposite sex.

I have had enough gay friends over the years to know that many gay guys are disgusted by female genitalia. This is the real mystery. It’s not mysterious to me why some women would be attracted to other women, nor why some men would be attracted to other men. What is mysterious is that some choose to abstain with sex with members of the opposite sex. Evolutionary theory teaches us to assume that all organisms wish to preserve their specific genetic legacy, and that the biological world is a teeming mass of competing strands of genetic code. If this were true, then disgust at female genitalia seems extremely maladaptive. After all, human procreation depends upon heterosexual intercourse.

Scientists do believe that some homosexuals really are “born that way”, citing twin studies which show that identical twins are more like to both be homosexual than fraternal twins are. This would suggest a genetic basis for sexual orientation. In order words, homosexuality may be hereditable. But this seems counter-intuitive. If homosexuality decreases one’s genetic fitness, we would expect it to be selected against.

An answer may come from the emerging field of epigenetics. If homosexuality is hereditable, it makes sense that it would be an epigenetic trait that is “switched on” under certain circumstances. More about that in a minute.

Before we go there, we should examine one specific reason that the taboo against homosexuality might have emerged amongst egalitarian hunter-gatherers, who lived in close proximity with one another and were sharing food constantly.

THE BEAVER FEVER THEORY

Another possible reason for the taboo against homosexuality is related to disgust. One reason that homosexuality might not have been common is because men were disgusted by the idea of putting their penises in contact with human faeces.

Cultural attitudes toward faeces vary, though all view it with a greater or lesser degree of disgust, which is easy to understand when one considers that faeces is pathogenic.

Disgust at anal sex may have emerged for simple reasons of sanitation. After all, it’s not like people had douchebags, anti-bacterial soap, and easy access to hot showers back in the day.

Anal sex is not particularly hygienic at the best of times, and hygiene may not have seen as a personal matter in cultures in which people were living in close quarters with each other. Perhaps traditional Anishnaabe, Haudenosaunee, and Wet’suwet’en had different standards of cleanliness than modern people do.

Given that food was often shared, and people lived in relatively small communal dwellings through long winters, it stands to reason that anal sex may have been meaningful correlated with higher rates of mortality.

After all, the fecal-oral route is an extremely common transmission pathway for many infectious diseases, including beaver fever.

WHAT IS THE FECAL-ORAL ROUTE?

According to Wikipedia:

The fecal-oral route is a transmission pathway for many infectious diseases, particularly those caused by pathogens that are shed in feces. In epidemiology, this route refers to the transfer of infectious agents from the feces of an infected person or animal to the mouth of another person, either directly or indirectly.

Here's how it typically occurs:

1. Contamination: Feces from an infected individual contain pathogens such as bacteria, viruses, or parasites.

2. Transmission: These pathogens can contaminate food, water, surfaces, or objects in the environment.

3. Ingestion: Another person ingests the contaminated food, water, or objects.

4. Infection: The ingested pathogens enter the person's digestive system, where they can cause infection and illness.

[…]

Preventing the spread of diseases via the fecal-oral route typically involves practicing good hygiene, including proper handwashing, safe food handling and preparation, and ensuring access to clean water and sanitation facilities.

This explains why anal sex may have been frowned upon in traditional societies, but that is, at best, a partial explanation. After all, lesbianism doesn’t need to involve anal sex, nor does anal sex define male-on-male homosexuality.

OKAY, BUT WHAT OTHER FORMS OF HOMOSEXUALITY?

It’s easy to imagine that sanitary concerns might have contributed to unfavourable attitudes towards anal sex, but anal sex is not the only form of homosexual behaviour. Why wouldn’t people engage in fellatio or cunnilungus with members of their own sex? Or what about mutual masturbation, or homo-amorous activities such as kissing, caressing, and hair-stroking? It doesn’t seem like there’s any reason why people wouldn’t do those kinds of things if they were left to their own devices.

My best guess is that this kind of thing did happen, and it wasn’t considered particularly noteworthy. After all, a lot of girls “practice kissing” with their girlfriends before they ever kiss a guy. (If you know a girl who’s a really good kisser, there’s a good chance she didn’t learn from a guy.) Yet no one ever really talks about this. If a Martian anthropologist was visiting Earth, such things could easily escape his notice, could they not?

As for guys sucking each other off, I mean… anything’s possible. I’m guessing that some degree of homo-eroticism can probably be assumed to be universal.

According to Carl Jung, one of the greatest minds that has ever graced the Earth, all people are secretly bisexual. This makes no sense if one believes that sex is only about procreation, but plenty of sense if you understand human sexuality as serving the purpose of social bonding. Indeed, this may be all the evolutionary explanation for homosexuality that is necessary. All sexual desire is pro-social, in the sense that it provides an instinctual motivation for one being to energetically and emotionally connect with another. If this is so, then homosexuality is no mystery at all.

Rather, the mystery becomes why homosexuality is taboo at all. After all, there’s no risk of pregnancy.

It’s easy to understand why so many cultures prohibit adultery. Parents want the best for their daughters, and they don’t to end up them getting knocked up by some fuckboy with nice hair who’s going to keep swinging from tree to tree until his arm falls off. They want their princesses to marry kings. Thus, every culture has rules about who’s allowed to fuck whom. Homosexual sex doesn’t present the same risk. So why do so many cultures have taboos against homosexuality? What’s the big deal?

WERE TURTLE ISLANDERS SEXUALLY REPRESSED?

One possibility is the simplest: Turtle Islanders were sexually repressed. There was a taboo against homosexuality and it was widely observed. Such transgressions as did occur happened in secret, away from the prying eyes of gossipy neighbours and inquisitive anthropologists. This seems likely, but we do then need to deal with what that means - that homosexuality was frowned upon, and seen as shameful. Why might this be? Well, it’s actually not that hard to figure out.

THE “MAKE GRANNY HAPPY” THEORY

All you have to is think about what old people want. After all, we’re talking about cultures where elders were highly respected.

Generally, parents want grandkids. Therefore, they want their children to have children. Indeed, for populations to stay at the same level, every woman would have an average of two surviving offspring. Given that child mortality tends to be about 50% in nomadic hunting-and-gathering societies, that means that every single woman would have an average of four babies in their lives. Therefore, it seems likely that grandparents would likely want their children to have babies. This is one potential line of inquiry - perhaps there is a correlation between the degree of gerontocracy in a society and that society’s attitudes towards homosexuality.

It is also important to note that in traditional societies, women cooked for their husbands. If you didn’t have a wife, who was going to cook you supper? This probably was a potent source of female power, because men were dependent upon women for their sustenance. Likewise were women dependent upon male labour for provisioning, meaning that heterosexual pair bond relationships were likely necessary for the survival of both parties, and thus not really optional for either. Reality’s reality, folks. We need each other.

It seems unlikely that any man or woman in such a society would choose to remain unmarried, even if their sexual preference was for members of his or her own sex.

Also, Dr. Kaczynski reported that the wish not to have children was unheard-of in traditional societies. As hard as this idea is for nihilists to get their minds around, people in traditional societies might have actually WANTED to do what their societies expected of them. Ain’t that a mindfuck for ya?

If you think about it, most people do what is expected of them. This can reach ridiculous extremes. Think of COVID, for example. Societal pressure can convince men to voluntarily enlist in the army during wartime. It is no doubt much less difficult to convince young people to become parents than to convince them to risk their lives in order to kill some strangers because the government told them to.

So, yeah, that’s the simple answer for you: homosexuality may have been taboo because it proved to be detrimental to the intergenerational survival of particular groups. If societies which repressed it outperformed societies in which it was customary, there’s your explanation right there. The taboo against homosexuality must serve some evolutionary purpose.

IS HOMOSEXUALITY “SWITCHED ON” BY AN EPIGENETIC PHEOMENON?

One possible explanation for why the Anishnaabe and Haudenosaunee didn’t practice homosexuality comes from the theory that homosexual is an epigenetic trait which can be “switched on” by certain environmental conditions, such as overpopulation.

Because we have grown up in a world where homosexuality is so common, we tend to think that it must always have existed. But the primary biological function of sexual attraction is clearly reproduction. The social functions are secondary. Indeed, evolutionary theory assumes that the desire (or instinctual drive) to reproduce is shared by all biological organisms. Homosexuals are characterized by their tendency to do the opposite of what Darwinian theory trains us to expect organisms to do. But the mystery disappears if focus on the survival of groups, rather than of individuals. After all, overpopulation is a disaster waiting to happen. Could it be that homosexuality is nature’s solution to overpopulation?

The reason that I’m entertaining this idea is because I think that it explains the riddle of how the Anishnaabe and Haudenosaunee could have so much freedom, yet didn’t choose to use that freedom to engage in gay sex. This is the simplest explanation that I can think of - they didn’t do it because they didn’t want to. Does a lack of desire to have gay sex mean you’re sexually repressed? Maybe, maybe not. If Jung was right, then yes. But maybe homosexuality is a trait which is triggered biologically in response to certain environmental conditions. Who knows? I don’t.

All these questions led me to hit the books, so I consulted a hefty tome with the alluring title of Evolutionary Psychiatry, which was published in 2000.

Keep in mind that this is written from a Darwinian perspective, which tends to emphasize natural selection and de-emphasize sexual selection.

Given that this was published in 2000, it’s very likely that theories have evolved in recent years. I always encourage people to read evolutionary theory critically. It is likely that the Darwinian paradigm will eventually be overturned, but that’s a story for another day.

Given the direction that the science of the 21st century has taken, however, I wouldn’t assume that human understanding has advanced in the past 24 years. After all, homosexuality has always been a very political issue, meaning that people with various agendas might wish to distort data to suit their existing beliefs.

In any case, I submit this for your consideration. As always, I’d love to hear any theories that any of you might have.

I’m curious - what do you think? I hope that I have done a good job of presenting some thought-provoking ideas. I hope no one feels judged or preached at by anything I’ve said. I hope that it shines through that I am genuinely trying to understand homosexuality logically. Due to the political sensitivity of this topic, I think it’s been a long time since a lot of us have really thought about these questions.

Homosexuality seems ubiquitous these days, but let’s not forget that it hadn’t been really socially acceptable up until about 30 years ago or so. We’re currently living through a giant social experiment right now, and it’s obviously not going well. Perhaps it would be wise to revisit some of our basic assumptions about human sexuality.

If you have information that contradicts anything that you have read in this piece, please post in the comments and I will make a correction.

for the Wild,

Crow Qu’appelle

AN OVERVIEW OF DARWINIAN THEORIES ABOUT HOMOSEXUALITY

By Anthony Stevens and John Price, excerpted from Evolutionary Psychiatry (2002)

Homosexuality is the desire to have sexual relations, either in fantasy or in fact, with a member of one’s own sex rather than a member of the opposite sex. It is an habitual pattern of sexual behaviour which, by its very nature, precludes reproduction, and it is, therefore, appropriate to discuss it in this section. This in no sense implies a negative moral judgement. Indeed, it is possible to argue, on the contrary, that any mode of adjustment which brings sexual fulfilment without procreation is to be welcomed in an over- populated world. A common condition of great cultural significance, homo- sexuality constitutes a major puzzle for evolutionary psychology: how is it possible to account for the inclusive fitness of genes which predispose people to homosexual behaviour? Clearly such genes must possess some adaptive advantage otherwise they would have disappeared from the genome. What can this be?

MALE AND FEMALE HOMOSEXUALITY

Homosexual behaviour is of particular interest to evolutionary psychology because it provides an opportunity to study male and female sexuality ‘in pure culture’, so to speak; for homosexual men and women are free to express their sexual proclivities without having to take into account the demands, wishes or needs of the opposite sex.

Male homosexuals are sexually more active than lesbians and, before the AIDS epidemic, they were much more promiscuous. In 1981, Bell et al. estimated that 25 per cent of male homosexuals had sex with more than a thousand partners. Lesbians, on the other hand, show no greater tendency to promiscuity than heterosexual women, their median number of partners being only three in the course of their lifetime (Loney, 1974). While some homosexual males seek and find a lasting sexual bond with one partner, they are an exception. Close and lasting relationships are much commoner among lesbians. These findings are completely in accordance with the differential sexual strategies for males and females described in the last chapter.

As with all other paraphilias, the incidence of homosexuality is far higher among males than among females. This reflects the male propensity to seek sexual variety as a primary goal (Symons, 1979). In many instances this is adaptive because it prompts males to have sex with different partners, thus leading to their greater reproductive success. However, the masculine yen for sexual novelty can result in less adaptive sexual interests, such as fetishism and sex with other males.

Aetiology

That genetic factors are involved in the aetiology of homosexuality is apparent from twin and adoption studies. When pairs of twins are reared apart, monozygotic twins consistently show a greater concordance for homosexuality than dizygotic twins. There is also a greater correlation for homosexuality with biological relatives than with adoptive relatives, and a higher incidence among the brothers of homosexuals than among the brothers of heterosexuals. The fact that a higher incidence of homosexual family members is found among maternal relations than among paternal relations lends support to the contention that a region of the X chromosome may predispose individuals to become homosexual. However, this suggestion has not been confirmed.

Neurophysiological research has established that the centres responsible for sexual orientation (whether an individual prefers same-sex or opposite-sex relations) are separate from the centres responsible for typical gender- related attitudes and behaviours. Both areas are situated in and around the hypothalamus, which is closely related to the pituitary gland. These are:

1. The INAH3 region of the medial pre-optic area: this controls sexual orientation, and is reported in homosexual males to be only one-third to one-half of the size of the same area in heterosexual males.

2. The pre-optic anterior nucleus: this controls male mounting behaviour in mammals, including primates, and is twice as large in males as in females.

3. The ventro-medial nucleus: this is responsible for the cyclic release of sex hormones in females.

4. The anterior nucleus: this organizes female receptivity to male mounting behaviour.

One theory of homosexual development holds that the specialized nuclei which are involved in the establishment of heterosexual preferences escape exposure to circulating male hormone in otherwise normal XY individuals, with the result that although the body becomes masculine, sexual preferences remain those of a female (Feldman and MacCullough, 1971). Less commonly, in XX individuals, the sex preference area is accidentally masculinized with the result that a constitutional female develops a lesbian orientation. A more recent view is that female hormones, especially luteinizing hormone (LH), are also implicated in the development of foetal gender identity and sexual preference. But the idea persists that the separate areas of the brain, one concerned with sexual orientation and the other with sex-typical behaviour, develop in opposite directions in those destined to become homosexual.

Summarizing the evidence, Glenn Wilson (1989) concludes that sex orien- tation is fixed relatively early in pregnancy (during the third and fourth months) whereas sex-role behaviours are determined later (during the fifth and sixth months). The influence of genetic factors in triggering hormonal changes during these critical phases of foetal development has yet to be worked out, but it is known that both endogenous and exogenous hormonal fluctuations can be decisive at these times. Exposure of the mother to stress, for example, can interfere with testosterone production in the male foetus, while the use of drugs which block or augment the effects of androgens can also be decisive in the development of male and female babies.

Development of a male foetus is, as was noted in the previous chapter, a more elaborate process than development of a female foetus, for it involves the added complexity of converting a standard female embryo into a sexually competent male. As a consequence, there are more things to go wrong. This may help to explain why male homosexuality is so much more common than lesbianism. But another, equally important, explanation, examined later in this chapter, depends on the evolved determinants of male ranking behaviour, which become salient during the second (fifth to sixth month) phase of brain masculinization (Wilson, 1989).

Although genetic factors are clearly implicated in the development of a homosexual orientation, they are not necessarily decisive in all cases. As is apparent in a large number of medical and psychiatric conditions, people with the same genotypes can develop different phenotypes as a result of different environmental influences, such as hormonal fluctuations in utero, parental influences in childhood, peer group experiences, and so on, to say nothing of cultural influences operating independently of genes, hormones, and parents. Weak or absent fathers, emotionally demanding mothers, being an only child and subject to parental pampering, have all been blamed by psychotherapists of different schools, but carefully controlled studies of homosexual and heterosexual men and women, together with their family histories, have failed to substantiate these contentions. Neither paternal nor maternal personality traits or parental relationships, sibling constellations or early experiences of many kinds have been shown to be significantly diffe ent between the two groups. Virtually the only significant predictor of later homosexual preference was gender nonconformity in childhood, namely effeminacy in boys and tomboyishness in girls (Bell et al., 1981). In line with this finding, as many as 65 per cent of male homosexuals acknowledge that they may have been effeminate in childhood, compared with only a very small percentage of heterosexual men (Saghir and Robins, 1973). Green’s (1987) longitudinal study has confirmed this association. Green conducted a fifteen-year comparison between two groups of boys aged between 4 and 12 years at the beginning of the study: the boys were allocated to ‘effeminate’ and ‘masculine’ groups on the basis of objective criteria and tests. Of the 30 boys in the ‘effeminate’ group, no less than 24 developed a homosexual orientation, while only 1 of the 25 ‘masculine’ controls became predominantly homosexual as an adult. Boys in the first group scored higher on psychological dimensions such as ‘nurturance’ and were more likely to want to be actors. Boys in the second group were more interested in sports and were more likely to want to be athletes, engineers, or pilots.

While other studies have confirmed that homosexuals are more likely to have been effeminate as boys, it must be clearly acknowledged that there are many homosexual men who give no signs of effeminacy in childhood. However, Weinrich et al. (quoted by Werner, 1995) found that homosexuals who had been effeminate boys were more likely to adopt a passive role in homo-erotic relations.

CULTURAL FACTORS

Phenomena which are due entirely to cultural influences show wide variations in incidence and form. The more universal, stable, and consistent a behaviour appears across cultures, the more likely it is to be genetically determined. Although homosexuals are regarded differently and treated differently by different societies, valued or tolerated by some, despised or persecuted by others, there are striking cross-cultural similarities in the ways that homosexual behaviours are manifested. These manifestations are sufficiently consistent to permit classification, and Dennis Werner (1995) has distinguished four main types which he calls adolescent, age-grade, trans- vestite, and gay types respectively:

1 The adolescent type is found among a number of Oceanic, African, and South American cultures as well as in European boarding schools. In this type, homosexual relations are confined to adolescents and disappear after marriage.

2 The age-grade type is the master/apprentice, mentor/pupil system in which older men have sexual relations with younger men. It prevailed in ancient Greece and the Middle East as well as among Tibetan monks and Japanese samurai. Some cultures hold that sex between older and younger males is indispensable for normal masculine development. The Sambia and the Etoro, for example, are convinced that boys cannot become men unless they receive semen from their elders. Among these peoples, heterosexual unions are taboo for most of the year, but sex between men and boys is considered to be good at all times. Interestingly, the Etoro have no special term for ‘homosexuality’, presumably because they view it as a normal and indispensable part of masculine life.

3 The transvestite type. This is by far the commonest type, in which exclusive homosexuals (often effeminate in their behaviour) have sexual relations with men who are normally heterosexual. This type occurs among such diverse peoples as Southern Europeans and their descendants (for example, Brazilians), North American Indians, native South American societies, Far Eastern and Asian cultures, among whom it is acceptable that a predominant homosexual will have sexual relations with predominantly heterosexual men.

4 The gay type. In this type, men whose orientation is predominantly homosexual have sexual relations primarily with other homosexuals. This is the least common type, but the one that predominates among Northern Europeans and their descendants and is probably spreading to other cultures. Werner (1995) suggests that individualism and the Protestant work ethic, combined with the competitive, capitalist economy, have caused men to renounce the more flexible, easy-going attitude of their forebears to same-sex relations, with the result that exclusive homosexuals have been driven into ghettos where they are confined to sexual relations with each other.

One or more of these types may coexist in the same society. Before liberal- ization of the laws against homosexuals, for example, all four existed among various groups in our own society. Greater public awareness of homosexuality has probably resulted in a diminution of types (1), (2), and (3), and an increase in type (4). Countries where type (3) predominates make a clear distinction between those who adopt the active and passive roles in homosexual relations. Those who adopt the passive role are classified as homosexual, while those who adopt the active role are regarded as normal, and usually marry and have children. This has probably always been the prevailing pattern. There are numerous instances of heterosexual men gratifying their lust with men happy to adopt the passive role when females are unavailable (in prison, on board ship, in barracks and boarding schools, in traditional communities where female virginity is highly prized and strictly protected). When females are plentifully available, however, homosexual men have recourse to each other.

THE EVOLUTIONARY PERSPECTIVE

How is it possible for the homosexual orientation to recur, generation after generation, when the logic of natural selection would dictate that the propensity should be eliminated from the human genome? Since the propensity has survived and is widely distributed as a human behaviour pattern, it must in some way reflect an adaptive mechanism. What could this be?

The probability is that no gene is specifically responsible for ‘homosexuality’ as such but rather that genes exist which may confer inclusive fitness advantages on heterosexual individuals who carry a lower genetic load – in the same way that sickle-cell anaemia genes protect heterozygotic individuals from malaria (see p. 146). A dominant gene for exclusive homosexuality could not be passed on to future generations; but a non-dominant gene could be passed on through the relatives of an exclusive homosexual, either because the homosexual helps his relatives to raise more children (the kin selection hypothesis) or because the non-dominant gene itself provides reproductive advantages when combined with other genes in heterosexual individuals (the heterozygous hypothesis).

One possibility would be that degrees of social dominance/submission are determined by combinations of genes, and that some individuals are born with a heavier genetic loading for dominance behaviour and others with a heavier loading for submissive behaviour. Such loading is probably normally distributed. After all, only one individual is ever at the top of the dominance hierarchy, with a few at the bottom: the majority are somewhere in between and will be called upon to display dominance to their inferiors and submission to their betters. Those with a predominantly submissive loading have less chance of competing successfully in ritual agonistic conflicts and will, therefore, be less likely to mate and reproduce. Dominant males, as we have repeatedly observed, are polygynous and their dominance grants them access to several females, which inevitably leaves fewer females to go round. A number of subdominant males will, therefore, be unable to find female partners. Development of a homosexual orientation, in these circumstances, would afford a solution.

Thus the genetic contribution to homosexuality may not be sexual at all, but may be such as to render a male less able to compete for rank, either agonically or hedonically. Equally, his pre-natal masculinization may have been incomplete, causing similar competitive disadvantages. Another factor could be a fear of rejection by potential female partners, either because of earlier painful experiences with female peers or because he has been made to feel incompetent and unattractive. Such factors could cause males to give up the unequal struggle with other males for heterosexual partners and turn them in the direction of homosexuality.

This has been called the dominance failure theory and it would help to account for the fact that not only are there more male homosexuals than lesbians but also that virtually all reproductive paraphilias are more common in men. As is well recognized, defeat in RAB, causing lower RHP and lower self-esteem, has sexual as well as depressive consequences. Fearing further defeat, a male will turn to substitute gratifications such as masturbation, use of pornographic material, voyeurism, fetishism, sadomasochism, or paedophilia. It is but another solution to the problem of failure in inter-male competition to opt out of the masculine rat race altogether and assume a female role or identity (transvestism, or transsexualism).

Finally, the influence of social and religious taboos against homosexuality must be taken into account. In traditional Jewish, Christian, Islamic, and Hindu societies such taboos were extremely powerful and the pressure on individuals to get married commonly forced people with homosexual prefer- ences to suppress them, and to marry and produce children. Many men whose tastes are primarily for members of their own sex are nevertheless capable of heterosexual intercourse (though this may require the use of homosexual fantasies during the act). Consequently, coercion could have accounted for the persistence of an inherited homosexual predisposition in these societies. This possibility gives rise to an interesting paradox: the dis- appearance of ancient sexual taboos from our own society, which enables homosexuals to enjoy sex freely with each other, avoid marriage, and cease to produce offspring, could result in a gradual decline in the number of homosexual genes in the population and in the number of people displaying a homosexual orientation.

ANIMAL PARALLELS

Sommer’s (1990) study of homosexuality and evolution presents many examples of animal parallels to homosexuality, from the lowly parasitic worm (Moniliformis dubius), the ‘transvestite’ bluegill sunfish, and the female-scented Manitoba garter snake, to the penchant for anal intercourse displayed by male macaques and gorillas. Among primates, most sexual behaviour between males involves the display of dominance and submission.

The study of animal homologues is particularly important because it pro- vides clues to the evolution and structure of human homosexual behaviour. Numerous male primates (including baboons, orang-utans, chimpanzees, and bonobos) demonstrate their dominance by mounting a subdominant male as if he were a female. Others (such as squirrel monkeys) display dominance by mounting and anal penetration, while still others (Japanese macaques, rhesus macaques, and gorillas) mount, penetrate, and ejaculate. Although same-sex sexual behaviours have been most commonly observed in primates, in connection with dominance/submission behaviour, they also frequently occur among adolescent animals at play and between mature males who demonstrate a special affective interest in one another. Such behaviour serves to promote the benevolent interactions characteristic of the hedonic mode. For example, mutual masturbation has been observed among stump-tailed macaques and genital to genital contacts between male bonobos. Some male rhesus macaques have actually demonstrated a preference for homosexual over heterosexual partners, though such a preference is rare throughout the animal kingdom generally (Werner, 1995).

In the great majority of primate societies, the ‘courtesies of rank’ are commonly expressed in gestures which, to the unbiased eye, are clearly sexual in nature. The dominant animal demonstrates his superiority by adopting a masculine heterosexual posture while the subdominant adopts a feminine posture of sexual presentation. It is as if the subdominant is saying to the dominant, ‘I am no more of a threat to you than if I were a female’.

Interestingly, as is often the case with human homosexual partners, roles are sometimes reversed in primates. Thus, among squirrel monkeys, a dominant animal may present his anus to a subdominant, or a dominant howler monkey may sniff and lick a subdominant’s genitals; but it is much more usual for the dominant to take the active sexual role. Homologues also exist in primate dominance behaviour for the exhibitionism and ‘water sport’ activities of human paraphilias. For example, a dominant squirrel monkey will open his thighs and display his erect penis to a subdominant and then squirt urine in his face. Exposure to the urine of a dominant male has the effect of lowering the testosterone level of subdominant male mouse lemurs, with a consequent reduction in their sexual activity (Stoddard, 1990). The consequences of this quaint assortment of sociosexual activities are always to defuse encounters which might otherwise become violent and thus to promote social homeostasis. All such behaviours have been selected because of their contribution to maintaining the basic asymmetry of the vast majority of primate social and sexual interactions. Among free-ranging rhesus monkeys, for example, it is the dominant 20 per cent of males who perform 80 per cent of the copulations. At least 50 per cent of rhesus males never copulate at all. A similar asymmetry is observed among polygamous tribes such as the Yanomamo in the Amazon (Freedman, 1979). In Western society, which is theoretically monogamous, the disparity is not so great, but a sizeable number of men fail to mate, while rich, successful and eminent men may marry several times over as well as having mistresses and casual affairs. Before the use of contraception, particularly in rural or preliterate populations, the great majority of women, on the other hand, mated and produced offspring.

Wilson (1989) adopts a group selectionist standpoint in reviewing these facts, arguing that polygynous groups have a selective advantage over monogamous groups because in the former there is continuous selection for superior males – it is the healthy, strong, skilful, and intelligent males who sire the greater proportion of the next generation. It can be no biological accident that polygyny is the prevailing mating system throughout mammalian, primate, and human populations. As Wilson points out, the removal of some males from the breeding pool does not materially effect group survival, if all the females are impregnated by the other males. On the contrary, it could enhance a population’s effectiveness – and ultimately the effectiveness of the species – precisely because it entrusts reproduction to dominant males of high ‘stud value’. Indeed, the severe male initiation rituals practised by warlike tribes, such as some Indian tribes in North America, went a long way to ensure this. So great were the ordeals decreed by these rites that some young braves perished, while others failed. Any young man who failed yet survived was either expelled (which would have meant virtually certain death) or permitted to continue living within the tribal group on condition that he became a berdache. Berdaches, who were believed to have magical or shamanic powers, had to dress and behave as women and could only enjoy sexual relations with a man. In other words, the berdache was rejected by the group as a male, but tolerated as a ‘female’ – like a subdominant or marginalized non-human primate.

KIN SELECTION AND HUMAN ADAPTABILITY

William Hamilton, who proposed his theory of kin selection in 1963, can justly be regarded as the father of neo-Darwinism, which sees selection as occurring not at the level of the group, the family, or even the individual, but at the level of the gene. Kin selection is thought to work in this way: if a gene emerges that happens to make an individual behave in a manner that promotes the reproductive success of other individuals who are likely to carry a copy of that gene, then the gene may thrive, even if the reproductive prospects of the individual who carries it are diminished in the process. For example, an animal that emits a warning cry when a predator approaches may call attention to itself and perish. But as a result of its public-spirited action, its kin may all survive through heeding the warning and by escaping to their shared burrow, taking copies of the hero’s genes with them to safety. What matters in terms of the neo-Darwinian paradigm, is not the survival of the individual, but the survival of the gene.

The theory of kin selection not only explains altruistic behaviour like that displayed by the individual who dies in order to save his kin, but also an anomaly like the existence of sterile ants, which devote their lives to serving the welfare of their fertile relatives. Could the same principle apply to homosexuality? Are homosexuals adopting a similar strategy? Do they, like sterile ants, decline responsibility for having direct offspring of their own, but nevertheless succeed in getting copies of their genes into the next generation by contributing to the survival of their nephews, nieces and cousins? On the face of it, probably not. In our society, homosexuals are not noted for staying close to their siblings so as to help rear their children. On the con- trary, most seem to escape from their families of origin to large cities so as to be free to enjoy the social support and sexual opportunities available in their own subculture. In the ancestral environment, however, no such cultural alternative existed, and those individuals with a predominantly homo- sexual orientation would have had either to contribute to the survival of the group (their kin) or risk ostracism and death. Moreover, wealthy homosexuals sometimes shock their friends by leaving the bulk of their estate, not to their sexual partner, but to some nephew or niece whom they may not have seen for years. When a man decides to pass on his worldly resources to those who carry 25 per cent of his genes, rather than to a life-long companion who carries none, it begins to look a little like kin selection in action.

It is not unusual for homosexuals to out-achieve their siblings education- ally and economically, perhaps because they have more time and fewer encumbrances, and, as a result, many are in a position to promote the welfare of their siblings’ offspring, should they wish to do so. This could be a fruitful area of research. But whether or not kin selection can help account for homosexual behaviour in contemporary circumstances, it should not be forgotten that such behaviour may have been adaptive in the ancestral environment, where everyone in the same group was kin. The masculine ideal after which many homosexual men are questing (certainly in traditional communities of the ‘transvestite’ type) is undeniably one that carries a high degree of fitness (handsome, muscular, sexy, strong). Such ideal figures when found (considered ‘bisexual’ in our society, but ‘normal’ in traditional societies) usually marry and have children. Is the homosexual who finds him, loves him, and supports him in fact serving his lover’s genes (which in an ancestral kinship group would certainly contain replicas of his own)?

At present we cannot be sure. But, however we seek to explain the genetic processes underlying the homosexual condition, the fact remains that an evolved behavioural system which releases courtship, mating and reproductive behaviour in most men in the presence of a responsive female, releases similar behaviour in a minority of men in the presence of a responsive male. In the latter instance, it is as if the behavioural system has allowed itself to be deceived so that it permits the individual to mate with a person of biologically inappropriate gender. Such is the flexibility of human nature, that, once natural selection has created a form of behaviour, it can be adapted to other uses. For example, a childless couple may so ‘invest’ in their pets, that the sudden death of a loved dog or cat in a road accident can be as devastating as the loss of a child. Similarly, a soldier may risk his life for his ‘brothers in arms’, though they are not his brothers at all and his heroism does nothing for his genes. Yet in ancestral conditions, they would at least have been cousins, since his fellow warriors would all have been members of his clan.

It is in the nature of evolved mentalities and archetypal systems that they are primed to become active in certain typical situations; but it does not follow that they will inevitably be activated by those figures for whom they were planned. A baby becomes attached to the maternal figure who cares for it, whether she be its biological mother or not. In the EEA, those individuals who inspired empathy, compassion, and love were likely to be kin; in the modern world this is unlikely to be the case. But, whatever the genetic explanation may be, the evolved capacity is present and available wherever circumstances may seem propitious for its expression. As Robert Wright (1994) has said: ‘That some people’s sexual impulses get diverted from typical channels is just another tribute to the malleability of the human mind.’

While it is unlikely that genes have been selected specifically because they lead to exclusive homosexuality, there can be no doubt that the capacity for homosexual behaviour is of extremely ancient lineage and that its contribution to social harmony in primate communities in resolving rank disputes, forging alliances, relieving agonic tensions, and promoting friendliness and co-operation has, on the whole, been beneficent rather than inimical. With such powerful evolutionary back-up, those who share this orientation have little cause for shame and every reason to emphasize through their own lives the contribution they can make to the hedonic well-being of society.