Gays’ Brains
An interesting little finding:
Scientists investigating human sexuality have found that the brains of homosexuals have structural and functional differences from those of “straight†people.
Lesbians appear to have a lower proportion of grey matter in their brains than straight women, giving their brains a more “male-like†structure.
The brains of gay men appear to have structural similarities to those of heterosexual women. They also exhibit the same powerful response as straight women to the sex hormones released in male sweat.
The research comes amid growing interest in how variations in brain structure are linked to human behaviour.
This of course speaks directly to the theory behind our own EQSQ personality tests. We are, essentially, making the same assumption. That there’s a spectrum of brain types, from systemizing to empathic, and that these map pretty well to the stereotypes of male and female. Any individual, whether XX or XY, can have the “male” or “female” brain but as a matter of probability we find more XYs with the male and XXes with the female.
We also think that the mechanism by which said male or female brains are produced is the exposure to testosterone by the fetus while in the amniotic fluid. We don’t of course know whether this finding about sexuality has the same cause or not.
In fact, we don’t as yet know whether those two sets of brain differences are indeed the same or not: certainly, there’s no research as yet to even hint at the idea that male empathizers, or female systemizers, are more or less likely to be either gay or heterosexual.
Be interesting to find out though, eh?
June 24th, 2008 at 1:19 am
I found an interesting blast from the past on the topic, Time’s “The Homosexual in America,” from Jan. 21, 1966: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,835069-1,00.html. According to the article, these are the things that set gay men apart from straight men:
• he sees life in pieces, not as a whole
• he lacks “the deep seriousness over certain things that normal men take seriously”
• he has “vitality, brilliance, but seldom strength
• he will eventually attack things that straight men take seriously
• he carries inner depression and guilt, irrational jealousy, and “a megalomaniac conviction that homosexual trends are universal”
• he has “chronic dissatisfaction,” which leads to a constant search for new partners
Also, the article concludes that homosexuality is caused by psychological factors, through “a disabling fear of the opposite sex,” a mother who forces the son to be a substitute for the father, either because she is “domineering and contemptuous of the father, or feeling rejected by him.” In either way, the son is “demasculinized.” The father can also reinforce the behavior, by being “weakly submissive to his wife or aloof and unconsciously competitive with his son.”
“To attain normal sexual development…a boy should be able to identify with his father’s masculine role.”
And they say about the same for gay females, and that both, gay males and gay females, represent “a case of arrested development, a failure of learning, a refusal to accept the full responsibilities of life.”
(They sure had it all figured out then, huh?)
July 26th, 2008 at 10:42 am
That’s a hilarious list. Good to see that things do in fact get better over time as we leave these more ridiculous beliefs behind.