Talk:Sexual orientation

Merge causes

I added a link to the article on causes of sexual orientation, which raises the question of whether these two articles are too similar and perhaps should be merged into a single article.

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This article is clear and uncontroversial. The "causes of" article is incomplete. Ed Poor

Coot vs Kinsey

I don't have it before me, but Quentin Crisp says somewhere, I think in The Naked Civil Servant', written well before the complete politicization of the issue, that there are two kinds of male homosexuals, which he calls "coot queer" and "Kinsey queer". The first category,"coot queer", to which Crisp emphatically belonged, is entranced with the male body and its appurtenances, and loves everything about romancing other men, while the "Kinsey queer" is more oriented to multiple partners, anonymous sex, etc. Please excuse me if this is considered rude to mention, but I thought the distinction was most interesting as regards the question of permanent, inborn orientation.

I just found a quote, but I was sure that he said more than this:

" I knew he was Kinsey-Queer rather than coot-queer. He merely associated with homosexuals because they brought their love by the pound."

Ortolan88 19:54 Jul 22, 2002 (PDT)

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This is a very interesting reference. It would be nice if you could, if there is any basis to the Coot portion of your comment other than being something in the British movie—to give further insight into this comment. I’m assuming you are referring to the famous Kinsey that did many studies on homosexuality. I am personally a Coot Queer as you have described it, it would be nice to know if Coot was an Anthropologist or not. Thanks. It is nice to hear of a British movie with Queer content from 1975 winning many awards.

Most vs some

The assertion that "most" bisexuals have only one partner at a time asserts a specific percentage (>50%) of monogamy which may or may not exist for persons of any orientation. The stigma against non-monogamy makes it difficult to tell the actual prevalence of monogamy of any sexual orientation.

NPOV

This is completely one sided. There needs to be more information concerning the environmental influences but I don't have the time to add right now.

Pew Global Attitudes Project

The information in the Wiki article was incorrect, so I edited the section on the Pew Global Attitudes Project after seeing that Canada and the US had (in the wiki article) the same numbers for support of homosexuality. Canada is much more accepting of homosexuality than the United States, and is one of the four countries in the world that allows same-sex marriage. The actual numbers from the Pew Project showed much lower support for homosexuality in the United States. I have edited the Wiki page to show the correct information.

The PDF file for these numbers can be accessed at http://people-press.org/reports/pdf/185.pdf. The homosexuality results table is on page 114.

Cheers! Allison L.

hormonal evidence against social determination of sexual orientation

We recently added to and edited the article for a new study on hormones determining sexual orientation, based on the journal article's abstract. I'm planning to edit that portion of the Wikipedia article, now that I have a copy of the article, not just the abstract, Alicia Garcia-Falgueras & Dick F. Swaab, Sexual Hormones and the Brain: An Essential Alliance for Sexual Identity and Sexual Orientation, in Endocrine Development, vol. 17, pp. 22–35 (2010) (ISSN 1421-7082) (authors of Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, of Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences) (author contact is 2d author) (vol. 17 is Sandro Loche, Marco Cappa, Lucia Ghizzoni, Mohamad Maghnie, & Martin O. Savage, eds., Pediatric Neuroendocrinology).

The study is very interesting. The main caution in understanding it is that it is based on the paradigm of endocrinology, a branch of medicine and a valid field of study. However, the American Psychiatric Association, representing a profession that combines medical sciences with psychology, does not, as far as I know, posit that endocrinology is all that matters for sexual orientation. The APA says sexual orientation is enduring and resistant to change, not that nonmedical psychological factors are irrelevant. Psychological factors include social factors, e.g., as when being antisocial or oppositional is considered bad for one's mental health. It's possible, probably through statistical studies on populations, that a case for hormonal determinism will displace all other arguments, but that has not happened yet. At this time, the journal article is probably good science (I'm speaking from outside the field) for endocrinology but not for nonmedical psychology.

Sketching the argument briefly, it says that sexual organs are differentiated and then the brain is sexually differentiated "under the influence, mainly, of sex hormones such as testosterone, estrogen and progesterone on the developing brain cells and under the presence of different genes as well[15]. The changes brought about in this [p. 24:] stage are permanent. . . . [S]exual differentiation of the brain is not caused by hormones alone, even though they are very important for gender identity and sexual orientation." Id., pp. 23–24 (bracketed endnote reference so in original & referent omitted). ". . . . These fetal and neonatal peaks of testosterone, together with the functional steroid receptor activity, are thought to fix the development of structures and circuits in the brain for the rest of a boy's life (producing 'programming' or 'organizing' effects). Later, the rising hormonal levels that occur during puberty 'activate' circuits and behavioral patterns that were built during development, in a masculinized and de-feminized direction for male brains or in a feminized and de-masculinized direction for female brains." Id., p. 24 (single quotation marks so in original). Because organ differentiation and brain differentiation occur at different times, in "rare" cases transsexualism can result (transsexualism resulting from having organs of one gender and feelings of the other). Ibid. "The brain structure differences that result from the interaction between hormones, genes and developing brain cells are thought to be the basis of sex differences in a wide spectrum of behaviors, such as . . . sexual orientation (heterosexuality, homosexuality, or bisexuality) . . . . Factors that interfere with the interactions between hormones and the developing brain systems during development in the womb may permanently influence later behavior." Ibid.. "In humans, the main mechanism responsible of [sic] sexual identity and orientation involves a direct effect of testosterone on the developing brain." Id., p. 25. Drawing on some transsexualism cases, the authors say, "[f]rom these examples it appears that the direct action of testosterone on the developing brain in boys and the lack of such action on the developing brain in girls are crucial factors in the development of male and female gender identity and sexual orientation . . . ." Id., p. 26. "There are no indications that postnatal social factors could be responsible for the occurrence of transsexuality." Id., p. 28. "With regard to sexual orientation, the most likely outcome of childhood gender identity disorder is homosexuality or bisexuality." Ibid. "The apparent impossibility of getting someone to change their sexual orientation [43] is a major argument against the importance of the social environment in the emergence of homosexuality, as well as against the idea that homosexuality is a lifestyle choice." Id., p. 30 (bracketed endnote reference so in original & referent omitted). "The presence of a genetic component of over 50% in the development of sexual orientation is apparent from family and twin studies." Ibid. "Women with gay sons appeared to have an extreme skewing of X-inactivation [referring to the "X-chromosome"] . . . ." Ibid. "[S]ome two million pregnant women . . . were prescribed diethylstilbestrol (DES)[,] . . . . an estrogen-like substance[,] . . . [and] it [was] . . . found . . . to increase the chance of bisexuality or homosexuality in girls." Id., p. 31. "The . . . . fraternal birth order effect . . . is putatively explained by an immunological response by the mother to a product of the Y chromosome of her sons. The chance of such an immune response to male factors would increase with every pregnancy resulting in the birth of a son." Ibid. "Prenatal exposure to nicotine, amphetamine, or thyroid-gland hormones increases the chances of giving birth to lesbian daughters." Ibid. Stress in pregnancy makes birth of a gay son likelier. Ibid. "Although it has often been postulated that postnatal development is also important for the direction of sexual orientation, there is no solid proof for this." Ibid.

The authors are heavy on the issue but not unequivocal. For example, they say "thought" in two contexts quoted here. That somewhat weakens their argument away from utter certainty. Given that they argue in good faith (I don't doubt that), they allow a measure of doubt on whether testosterone "fix[es] the development . . . in the brain for the rest of a boy's life . . . ." and, especially significantly, on whether "[t]he brain structure differences . . . are . . . the basis of . . . sexual orientation . . . ." (Quotes from above.)

I don't understand why transsexualism is rare in this medical scenario unless what's not being counted are degrees of feeling of gender identity short of feeling of being of the gender other than the genitally defined one.

They classify sexual orientation as a "behavior", which seems to be a misunderstanding, unless calling it a "behavior" was just shorthand. They also identify homosexuality and bisexuality as resulting from a disorder, which is a problematic connection. And they do not include asexuality as a sexual orientation.

Most concerning to me is that they argue that sexual orientation can be determined hormonally except for contemporaneous interference with hormonal influence and therefore — and this is where I think their case is weak — therefore nothing else coming later could affect sexual orientation. But they don't explain why we should believe that one prevents the other. If people go to prison for years (in non-death penalty cases) and have homosexual lives inside when they mostly were heterosexual outside, to deny a social factor determining what is enduring and resistant to change in prison is to suggest that gays and Lesbians are much more often feloniously criminal and sentenced to long prison terms (without solitary confinement) than are heterosexuals. I don't buy that until proven. A substantial minority of people have relationships outside of their respective racial, ethnic, and other birth-determined social groups, including marrying, and, if that doesn't matter, then most people are sexually relating into birth-set groups without biological ground and, if it does matter, then the minority are sexually relating outside of their birth-set groups despite biological ground, and, either way, social factors would seem the likeliest cause (whatever the degree of biological factoring), suggesting that the same principle, of social factoring, applies directly to sexual orientation as an overlay on hormonal determination. The study makes an interesting case for biological determinism, but I don't see how the study disproves supplementation by social causes, at least until large-scale studies of adults do the disproving.

I won't copy the whole journal article into Wikipedia and I've already quoted significantly, but if there's a paragraph or a few sentences more you'd like me to quote I might, depending on what's requested soon. The article copy was provided to me for free via a major public library's Interlibrary Loan (ILL) service, and I assume many other libraries will provide the same service.

Thank you.

Nick Levinson (talk) 21:26, 15 May 2010 (UTC) Corrected minor punctuation: Nick Levinson (talk) 21:39, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

I propose the following rewrite, in the article's Hormones section, of the paragraph beginning "Intrauterine . . . .", the purpose being mainly the replacing of quoting from the abstract with quoting from the study itself, to state the case more extensively:

A 2010 endocrinology study by Garcia-Falgueras and Swaab<ref>Garcia-Falgueras, Alicia, & Swaab, Dick F., Sexual Hormones and the Brain: An Essential Alliance for Sexual Identity and Sexual Orientation, in Endocrine Development, vol. 17, pp. 22-35 (2010) (ISSN 1421-7082) (authors are of Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, of [[Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences]]) (author contact is 2d author) (vol. 17 is Sandro Loche, Marco Cappa, Lucia Ghizzoni, Mohamad Maghnie, & Martin O. Savage, eds., Pediatric Neuroendocrinology).</ref> says that intrauterine exposure to hormones is largely determinative. Sketching the argument briefly here, it says that sexual organs are differentiated and then the brain is sexually differentiated "under the influence, mainly, of sex hormones such as testosterone, estrogen and progesterone on the developing brain cells and under the presence of different genes as well . . . . The changes brought about in this [p. 24:] stage are permanent. . . . [S]exual differentiation of the brain is not caused by hormones alone, even though they are very important for gender identity and sexual orientation."<ref>Garcia-Falgueras, Alicia, & Swaab, Dick F., Sexual Hormones and the Brain, op. cit., pp. 23–24 (reference omitted).</ref> ". . . . These fetal and neonatal peaks of testosterone, together with the functional steroid receptor activity, are thought to fix the development of structures and circuits in the brain for the rest of a boy's life (producing 'programming' or 'organizing' effects). Later, the rising hormonal levels that occur during puberty 'activate' circuits and behavioral patterns that were built during development, in a masculinized and de-feminized direction for male brains or in a feminized and de-masculinized direction for female brains."<ref>Garcia-Falgueras, Alicia, & Swaab, Dick F., Sexual Hormones and the Brain, op. cit., p. 24 (single quotation marks so in original).</ref> Because organ differentiation and brain differentiation occur at different times, in "rare" cases transsexualism can result (transsexualism resulting from having organs of one gender and feelings of the other).<ref name="Garcia-Falgueras-Swaab-SexualHormonesBrain-p24">Garcia-Falgueras, Alicia, & Swaab, Dick F., Sexual Hormones and the Brain, op. cit., p. 24.</ref> "The brain structure differences that result from the interaction between hormones, genes and developing brain cells are thought to be the basis of sex differences in a wide spectrum of behaviors, such as . . . sexual orientation (heterosexuality, homosexuality, or bisexuality) . . . . Factors that interfere with the interactions between hormones and the developing brain systems during development in the womb may permanently influence later behavior."<ref name="Garcia-Falgueras-Swaab-SexualHormonesBrain-p24" /> "In humans, the main mechanism responsible of [sic] sexual identity and orientation involves a direct effect of testosterone on the developing brain."<ref>Garcia-Falgueras, Alicia, & Swaab, Dick F., Sexual Hormones and the Brain, op. cit., p. 25.</ref> Drawing on some transsexualism cases, the authors say, "[f]rom these examples it appears that the direct action of testosterone on the developing brain in boys and the lack of such action on the developing brain in girls are crucial factors in the development of male and female gender identity and sexual orientation . . . ."<ref>Garcia-Falgueras, Alicia, & Swaab, Dick F., Sexual Hormones and the Brain, op. cit., p. 26.</ref> "There are no indications that postnatal social factors could be responsible for the occurrence of transsexuality."<ref name="Garcia-Falgueras-Swaab-SexualHormonesBrain-p28">Garcia-Falgueras, Alicia, & Swaab, Dick F., Sexual Hormones and the Brain, op. cit., p. 28.</ref> "With regard to sexual orientation, the most likely outcome of childhood gender identity disorder is homosexuality or bisexuality."<ref name="Garcia-Falgueras-Swaab-SexualHormonesBrain-p28" /> "The apparent impossibility of getting someone to change their sexual orientation . . . is a major argument against the importance of the social environment in the emergence of homosexuality, as well as against the idea that homosexuality is a lifestyle choice."<ref>Garcia-Falgueras, Alicia, & Swaab, Dick F., Sexual Hormones and the Brain, op. cit., p. 30 (reference omitted).</ref> "The presence of a genetic component of over 50% in the development of sexual orientation is apparent from family and twin studies."<ref name="Garcia-Falgueras-Swaab-SexualHormonesBrain-p30">Garcia-Falgueras, Alicia, & Swaab, Dick F., Sexual Hormones and the Brain, op. cit., p. 30.</ref> "Women with gay sons appeared to have an extreme skewing of X-inactivation [referring to the "X-chromosome"] . . . ."<ref name="Garcia-Falgueras-Swaab-SexualHormonesBrain-p30" /> "[S]ome two million pregnant women . . . were prescribed diethylstilbestrol (DES)[,] . . . . an estrogen-like substance[,] . . . [and] it [was] . . . found . . . to increase the chance of bisexuality or homosexuality in girls."<ref name="Garcia-Falgueras-Swaab-SexualHormonesBrain-p31">Garcia-Falgueras, Alicia, & Swaab, Dick F., Sexual Hormones and the Brain, op. cit., p. 31.</ref> "The . . . . fraternal birth order effect . . . is putatively explained by an immunological response by the mother to a product of the Y chromosome of her sons. The chance of such an immune response to male factors would increase with every pregnancy resulting in the birth of a son."<ref name="Garcia-Falgueras-Swaab-SexualHormonesBrain-p31" /> "Prenatal exposure to nicotine, amphetamine, or thyroid-gland hormones increases the chances of giving birth to lesbian daughters."<ref name="Garcia-Falgueras-Swaab-SexualHormonesBrain-p31" /> Stress in pregnancy makes birth of a gay son likelier.<ref name="Garcia-Falgueras-Swaab-SexualHormonesBrain-p31" /> "Although it has often been postulated that postnatal development is also important for the direction of sexual orientation, there is no solid proof for this."<ref name="Garcia-Falgueras-Swaab-SexualHormonesBrain-p31" />

This includes a wholesale correction to the article title, although the page numbers and the quotations from the abstract correspond and only one article appears on those pages. The source of the titular error is unknown but it appears to date from March 15 8:15p and to be due to a simple error of confusion between two source articles on different issues.

If you'd like to edit this differently, please copy the above paragraph into your answer and edit as you see fit or recommend.

Thank you.

Nick Levinson (talk) 00:50, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

The rewrite is done; I think the only changes I made from the proposal were some italicizing and the format of an en-dash (i.e., as a character reference). Thank you.

I'm also about to copy (verbatim or nearly so) the section into the WP article prenatal hormones and sexual orientation. If it stays there, then the text in this article's section could be shortened (there is a cross-reference template now), but that involves editorial judgments and debates that perhaps should wait a while and that I'd rather leave to someone else, at least for now.

Thanks again.

Nick Levinson (talk) 15:56, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

The copy into the WP article prenatal hormones and sexual orientation was verbatim except for the template at the top and the section title. Nick Levinson (talk) 16:30, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Other sexual orientations must be mention too

Shouldn't other rare sexual orientations be mentioned too? Of course only if there a scientific studies to support them, there are studies supporting that some zoophiles are zoosexuals and that some pedophiles are pedosexuals. There's probably other "sexual orientations" like Asexuality, Objectosexuality and Dendrosexuality (and maybe more) but I'm not aware if they have scientific studies to support the claim they are sexual orientations.
So I'm proposing to mention some where in the sexual orientation page all the new rare sexual orientation and the studies that support them. Since it wouldn't be fair to exclude them as they are also sexual orientations.
Alusky (talk) 02:59, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

There is nothing you asserted. --Destinero (talk) 03:46, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Asexuality is already in Wikipedia and in the sidebar of the sexual orientation article.

The point of something being designated a sexual orientation is that it is or should be socially acceptable. Adults having sexual intercourse with children or animals is necessarily without consent (e.g., in the U.S. a minor's putative consent is void) and therefore properly a crime, therefore not socially acceptable, so it is not known as a sexual orientation. If you want to write those up, add them to the Wikipedia articles on crimes.

Nick Levinson (talk) 06:23, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

"something being designated a sexual orientation is that it is or should be socially acceptable" If this where true homosexuality would have never being a sexual orientation.
This page is about sexual orientations, if some sexual orientation is a crime or disgusting or weird that is irrelevant, it should still be mentioned as they are sexual orientations.
Alusky (talk) 21:32, 26 August 2010 (UTC)