B
bobby618
Guest
slight difference between the brains of homosexual and heterosexual men. The region he examined is a part of the hypothalamus, located on the floor of the brain, and it is barely the size of a kosher salt crystal, but the report has unleashed emotions as big, murky, contradictory and impassioned as those in any discussion of human sexuality are likely to be.
Many gay men said they welcome proof that might convince mainstream, straight society of what they themselves have always believed: that their sexuality is profoundly inscribed in their being, and is not a perversion brought on by willful disregard of social norms, a sordid upbringing or too much time spent playing with dolls.
Above all, they say, it is certainly not a condition they can be cured of or cajoled out of, any more than devout heterosexuals can be persuaded to change their erotic ways.
"The fact that the report talks about homosexual orientation as something innate is good, because that's what most of us experience," said Andrew J. Humm, a commissioner on the Human Rights Commission of New York City and a gay rights activist. "Homosexuality used to be seen as a character or a moral defect, so if you want to look at it as hypothalamic in nature, that's probably a step toward looking at it for what it is."
But others scorn as foolish and reductionist the notion that any one area of the brain may strongly influence sexual proclivity. "Are they next going to try to find the area of the brain that makes you like broccoli, or that makes some straight men like big-breasted women or redheads?" said Steve Cohen, a free-lance writer in Los Angeles who describes himself as bisexual. "What about the man who, every time he makes love to his wife, fantasizes about making love to another man? What is his hypothalamus doing about that?"
Others liken the new work to that of the eugenicists, who sought to use the banner of science as a way of promoting racist views. "This research on trying to identify some malformation of the brain as a cause of homosexuality has been going on for 100 years," said Dr. John P. DeCecco, a professor of psychology at San Francisco State University and the editor of the Journal of Homosexuality. "In Germany, in the 20's, it resulted in psychosurgery. The idea that you can describe a person by looking at the brain is a dreadful 19th-century invention." The new study, he said, is "nonsense."
The debate is complicated by the fact that the researcher who made the discovery, Dr. Simon LeVay of the Salk Institute of Biological Studies in La Jolla, Calif., is himself a homosexual, and thus cannot easily be dismissed as yet another crazed homophobe who wants to somehow explain away homosexuality. As a gay man with a particular take on life, he sought to see if a biological foundation for sexual preference could be identified.
After reading that another research team had found that a section of the hypothalamus, the third interstitial nucleus, is at least twice as large in men as it is in women, Dr. LeVay wondered if there might be a discrepancy between gay and straight people as well. Behind his speculation were suggestions from animal studies that the region could be partly responsible for some male sexual behavior. For example, male monkeys with lesions in the anterior hypothalamus refuse to pursue females, while retaining enough sexual energy to keep masturbating in their cages.
Examining autopsied brain samples from 19 gay men, 16 men presumed to have been heterosexual, and 6 heterosexual women, Dr. LeVay discovered the hypothalamic nucleus in the gay men was, on average, as tiny in size as it was in the women. Dr. LeVay would have liked to compare the dimensions of the region in lesbians as well, but he couldn't get the samples.
Dr. LeVay in no way claims to have discovered the -- or even a -- cause of male sexual preference, but merely suggests he has detected something worth further investigation. He does say, however, that some of his gay friends and colleagues were pleased with the discovery. "They would say half humorously that they were sorry to hear about having something smaller in their brain than what's found in heterosexual men," said Dr. LeVay, "but most have reacted quite positively to the idea."
Some optimists have even proposed that proof of an inborn difference between gay and heterosexual men could provide further ammunition in the battle against discrimination. If homosexuality were viewed legally as a biological phenomenon, rather than a fuzzier matter of "choice" or "preference," then gay people could no more rightfully be kept out of the military, a housing complex or a teaching job than could, say, blacks.
In a statement on Dr. LeVay's study, the Lambda Legal Defense Fund, a national gay rights advocacy group, questioned many of the methods and results of the experiment, but said "the findings are intriguing -- if, as some have suggested, there is a biological basis for homosexuality, it is difficult to fathom on what moral, ethical or religious basis one can reasonably discriminate" against homosexuals.
Yet even those who are intrigued by the research express qualms. "It certainly rings true to me that one's sexuality is something you feel so deeply," said David Barr, assistant director of policy for the Gay Men's Health Crisis in New York, an AIDS service organization. "But it doesn't really matter why people are gay or not gay. That's not the important question. What's really important is how they're treated. I haven't spent that much time thinking about where my sexuality comes from. I've spent a lot more time thinking about how I fit into this world I have to live in." A Worst-Case Scenario
Mr. Barr described the new biological approach as "opening up a can of worms with good sides and bad sides." "You can say, O.K., there are differences in the way people are, and you can't punish gays for being biologically different." But, he wondered, "are people going to ask, how can we detect those differences and what can we do about them?"
As a worst-case possibility, some people are even suggesting that the new discovery could lead to prenatal diagnosis, a test that would detect a budding homosexual in the womb early enough for the fetus to be either whisked out in an abortion, or somehow changed with the proper cocktail of hormones.
But some scientists said that even if the possibility exists, Dr. LeVay's finding is so preliminary and so uncertain that it will surely be many years before people will be forced to confront that particular dilemma.
Others have objected to the new research as an irrelevant distraction from the far more urgent problem of encouraging society to more willingly accept homosexuals into the fold.
"The issue is not what causes sexual orientation, but the reaction to it," said Frances Kunreuther, the executive director of the Hetrick-Martin Institute in New York, a social service and education agency for lesbian and gay youths. "And that reaction leads to suicides. It causes gay people to be beaten up, to be thrown out of their homes, to be in incredible isolation." She described one young man who came to the institute. "He told his mother when he was 12 that he was gay, and she sent him to a psychiatric hospital. They couldn't do anything for him, so she sent him to a foster home.
"If this work could be a magic bullet to make people accept lesbians and gays, I'd say terrific. But I don't believe that's going to happen. I don't believe that mother is going to read about how it's all in the brain and therefore think her son is O.K."
Many gay men said they welcome proof that might convince mainstream, straight society of what they themselves have always believed: that their sexuality is profoundly inscribed in their being, and is not a perversion brought on by willful disregard of social norms, a sordid upbringing or too much time spent playing with dolls.
Above all, they say, it is certainly not a condition they can be cured of or cajoled out of, any more than devout heterosexuals can be persuaded to change their erotic ways.
"The fact that the report talks about homosexual orientation as something innate is good, because that's what most of us experience," said Andrew J. Humm, a commissioner on the Human Rights Commission of New York City and a gay rights activist. "Homosexuality used to be seen as a character or a moral defect, so if you want to look at it as hypothalamic in nature, that's probably a step toward looking at it for what it is."
But others scorn as foolish and reductionist the notion that any one area of the brain may strongly influence sexual proclivity. "Are they next going to try to find the area of the brain that makes you like broccoli, or that makes some straight men like big-breasted women or redheads?" said Steve Cohen, a free-lance writer in Los Angeles who describes himself as bisexual. "What about the man who, every time he makes love to his wife, fantasizes about making love to another man? What is his hypothalamus doing about that?"
Others liken the new work to that of the eugenicists, who sought to use the banner of science as a way of promoting racist views. "This research on trying to identify some malformation of the brain as a cause of homosexuality has been going on for 100 years," said Dr. John P. DeCecco, a professor of psychology at San Francisco State University and the editor of the Journal of Homosexuality. "In Germany, in the 20's, it resulted in psychosurgery. The idea that you can describe a person by looking at the brain is a dreadful 19th-century invention." The new study, he said, is "nonsense."
The debate is complicated by the fact that the researcher who made the discovery, Dr. Simon LeVay of the Salk Institute of Biological Studies in La Jolla, Calif., is himself a homosexual, and thus cannot easily be dismissed as yet another crazed homophobe who wants to somehow explain away homosexuality. As a gay man with a particular take on life, he sought to see if a biological foundation for sexual preference could be identified.
After reading that another research team had found that a section of the hypothalamus, the third interstitial nucleus, is at least twice as large in men as it is in women, Dr. LeVay wondered if there might be a discrepancy between gay and straight people as well. Behind his speculation were suggestions from animal studies that the region could be partly responsible for some male sexual behavior. For example, male monkeys with lesions in the anterior hypothalamus refuse to pursue females, while retaining enough sexual energy to keep masturbating in their cages.
Examining autopsied brain samples from 19 gay men, 16 men presumed to have been heterosexual, and 6 heterosexual women, Dr. LeVay discovered the hypothalamic nucleus in the gay men was, on average, as tiny in size as it was in the women. Dr. LeVay would have liked to compare the dimensions of the region in lesbians as well, but he couldn't get the samples.
Dr. LeVay in no way claims to have discovered the -- or even a -- cause of male sexual preference, but merely suggests he has detected something worth further investigation. He does say, however, that some of his gay friends and colleagues were pleased with the discovery. "They would say half humorously that they were sorry to hear about having something smaller in their brain than what's found in heterosexual men," said Dr. LeVay, "but most have reacted quite positively to the idea."
Some optimists have even proposed that proof of an inborn difference between gay and heterosexual men could provide further ammunition in the battle against discrimination. If homosexuality were viewed legally as a biological phenomenon, rather than a fuzzier matter of "choice" or "preference," then gay people could no more rightfully be kept out of the military, a housing complex or a teaching job than could, say, blacks.
In a statement on Dr. LeVay's study, the Lambda Legal Defense Fund, a national gay rights advocacy group, questioned many of the methods and results of the experiment, but said "the findings are intriguing -- if, as some have suggested, there is a biological basis for homosexuality, it is difficult to fathom on what moral, ethical or religious basis one can reasonably discriminate" against homosexuals.
Yet even those who are intrigued by the research express qualms. "It certainly rings true to me that one's sexuality is something you feel so deeply," said David Barr, assistant director of policy for the Gay Men's Health Crisis in New York, an AIDS service organization. "But it doesn't really matter why people are gay or not gay. That's not the important question. What's really important is how they're treated. I haven't spent that much time thinking about where my sexuality comes from. I've spent a lot more time thinking about how I fit into this world I have to live in." A Worst-Case Scenario
Mr. Barr described the new biological approach as "opening up a can of worms with good sides and bad sides." "You can say, O.K., there are differences in the way people are, and you can't punish gays for being biologically different." But, he wondered, "are people going to ask, how can we detect those differences and what can we do about them?"
As a worst-case possibility, some people are even suggesting that the new discovery could lead to prenatal diagnosis, a test that would detect a budding homosexual in the womb early enough for the fetus to be either whisked out in an abortion, or somehow changed with the proper cocktail of hormones.
But some scientists said that even if the possibility exists, Dr. LeVay's finding is so preliminary and so uncertain that it will surely be many years before people will be forced to confront that particular dilemma.
Others have objected to the new research as an irrelevant distraction from the far more urgent problem of encouraging society to more willingly accept homosexuals into the fold.
"The issue is not what causes sexual orientation, but the reaction to it," said Frances Kunreuther, the executive director of the Hetrick-Martin Institute in New York, a social service and education agency for lesbian and gay youths. "And that reaction leads to suicides. It causes gay people to be beaten up, to be thrown out of their homes, to be in incredible isolation." She described one young man who came to the institute. "He told his mother when he was 12 that he was gay, and she sent him to a psychiatric hospital. They couldn't do anything for him, so she sent him to a foster home.
"If this work could be a magic bullet to make people accept lesbians and gays, I'd say terrific. But I don't believe that's going to happen. I don't believe that mother is going to read about how it's all in the brain and therefore think her son is O.K."
