>From: "Michael S. Lorrey" <retroman@turbont.net>
>Reply-To: extropians@extropy.org
>To: extropians@extropy.org
>Subject: Re: Gay Extropians!!!
>Date: Fri, 06 Oct 2000 15:49:43 -0400
>
>
>I have often wondered if maybe there is some genetic switch, much like
>those
>found in Swamp Eels and some frogs with the ability to change gender
>whenever
>there are too many of one gender in the population, where in human
>populations
>that reach some level of social/population stress will tend to produce more
>gay/lesbian members in order to reduce population growth....
It doesn't make sense, from the point of view of an individual collection of
genes (person) to have this switch. There's no evolutionary benefit to do
what is best for society at large in exchange for what is best for himself
(I use "best" here in the purely evolutionary sense). In finding a genetic
benefit, ask what is the genetic benefit for a mother or father of having
offspring who are homosexual. This is the general route taken by
anthropologists/ psychologists, and the explanation centers around the fact
that a childless individual is going to have more free time to do whatever,
which, in a close-knit-family type of society, this means that having a gay
child will lead to less work the other heterosexual offspring, which in
theory leads to more grandchildren then if all your children were
heterosexual.
I guess that a gay individual in a close-knit-family society will in fact be
contributing to the propogation of his own genes because he shares 50% of
his genes with his siblings, if this theory is correct. But I suspect that
it is not.. I guess it could be answered empirically by taking a survey of
gays and heterosexuals as a control group, and finding out how many nieces
and nephews each one has. Of course, the difference would have to be more
then double for it to work out to the gay's evolutionary benefit.
Beginning of a better theory: I've read that women who identify themselves
as lesbians (not bisexual, but lesbians) have actually had more sex with
more men then women who identify themselves as heterosexual. This is
paradoxical, I don't know why it would be like this. I have not read the
equivalent stat for gay males, but I think it wouldn't surprise me to learn
that men who consider themselves gay have had sex with more women then have
men who consider themselves straight, but (obviously) the number of sexual
encounters with the opposite sex would be much less. So if this were true,
the evolutionary benefit is easier to figure out, but why would it be like
this? Can anyone think of reasons why a homosexual would actually lead to
more heterosexual partners then a heterosexual?
There is the factor that women, generally, have a lot of gay friends, but
this as a response is begging the question.
---------------------------------------------------
Zeb Haradon (zebharadon@hotmail.com)
My personal webpage:
http://www.inconnect.com/~zharadon/ubunix
A movie I'm directing:
http://www.elevatormovie.com
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