SexualPreferenceGenetics

From: laura@hoptoad.uucp (Laura Creighton)
Newsgroups: soc.motss,alt.discrimination,talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: Biology as sexual destiny
Date: 1991-08-17 13:14:27 GMT
Organization: Nebula Consultants in San Francisco

Once again I go into the fallacy of beanbag genetics and stupid Darwinism. You all on soc.motss can kill this now. You've heard it all before.

Okay. Let us say that you have an exact twin brother/sister and that sibling has children. How are those children genetically related to you? They have got exactly 50% of your genes, for sure, maybe more. You are as much genetic parent to your identical twin's children as your twin is.

That is what genetic basis for identical twins is all about. Please remember this.

Okay, now look at your non-twin siblings. Do they share genetic heritage with you? Yep. A lot.

Now there is no "one gene" that causes homosexuality. (Assuming that the genetic determinist theory for homosexuality is true. We are going to assume that it is true here, but before you flame me for this let me tell you that I am perfectly willing to believe that it takes a combination of factors, some genetic and some environmental. I just believe that there is some genetic component.)

In looking for "homosexual genes" you are likely to find that there are a hundred or more loci to look at, any 54 or so will make you so homosexual that you never, ever, ever, ever, can stand the idea of sex with the opposite sex.

That is to say, historically, homosexuals have never had any problem creating children. Gay men ocassionally had sex with their wives "for the duty of the house" and lesbians were married and had children. The social problems of this belong in another post, but it is clear that inability to engender children is not what makes one homosexual.

It is lack of desire to do so.

So how come the homosexual genes were not bred out of the population? Easy. Assuming that you are homosexual, your siblings carry many of the genes necessary for genetic homosexuality.

Clearly not all of them, or they would choose not to reproduce as you do, but a good chunk.

After all, they got their genes from the same place you did ... your parents.

So their children stand a good chance of being homosexual. Your sibling's mate may bring the right combination of genes to the match.

Okay, all we have to do is demonstate that, from a set of genes "point of view" it is better to have a Gay uncle or Lesbian Aunt than to not have one. And this one can clearly see, if one reads zoological literature. It is seen in Lions, Wolves, and "primitive" human societies -- and no doubt more which I am unaware of.

What do homosexual wolves do. (Lions and Lionesses work in prides. The math is still there, but more complicated.) What they do is hunt and bring prey to their siblings, in general (most wolf packs are related that way), or their more distant relatives, and their cubs.

And in the wolf world, for a cub to survive to maturity it makes an enormous amount of difference if 2 wolves are hunting for you or if 3 are. If you have a homosexual aunt or uncle, you win big time in the harsh world where most wolf cubs do not survive.

So you continue the set of genes, some of which will produce homosexual wolves. If the wolf mortality rate for cubs with 2 feeders is 80%, and the wolf mortality rate for wolves with 3 feeders is only 50%, then this change is extremely adaptive.

(We are only talking about feeding, here. Homosexual wolves also share in guarding the cubs from predators, another big win which is harder to measure.)

So what happens?

More wolves who have homosexual aunts and uncles survive, compared to those that do not. Those homosexual genes get propegated... and how! In the future, these surviving cubs are likely to have a homosexual member, but if they do not, then their cubs are likely to. And every time a homosexual member is produced, his or her siblings, for whom he hunts and protects, will find having a "Queer Uncle or Auntie" a huge Darwinian advantage.

To propogate genes into the future, requires sex.