Why We're Gay?

Just in time for Christmas dinner and all the attendant, "I don't think you're really gay," bickering across the table (just my family?), I came across this long article from August on the possible causes of homosexuality. Clip it, save it, choose your favorite passages for holiday ammunition. Some highlights:

In May, Swedish researchers reported finding important differences in how the brains of straight men and gay men responded to two compounds suspected of being pheromones - those scent-related chemicals that are key to sexual arousal in animals. The first compound came from women's urine, the second from male sweat. Brain scans showed that when straight men smelled the female urine compound, their hypothalamus lit up. That didn't happen with gay men. Instead, their hypothalamus lit up when they smelled the male-sweat compound, which was the same way straight women had responded. [...]

They found that while straight men were aroused by film clips of two women having sex, and gay men were aroused by clips of two men having sex, most of the men who identified themselves as bisexual showed gay arousal patterns.

Typical.

The entire article is very much worth reading.

h/t Ace

Comments

[Essem]

Out of the blue last summer, my mother, to whom I have been out for 20 years and who has met my two LTRs and who lived a long time in Chelsea NY and knows tons of queers, said to me that she didn't think I was really gay. I was so stunned I didn't know what to say. When I asked her about it the next day, she said she didn't want to talk about it.

I told my ex when I got back to town. He offered to visit Mummy and explain it to her in detail from his privileged perspective, but we decided that a maternal heart attack at this time was not a good idea.

What is this stuff about? Is it because I voted for Bush? I thought I was the only one whose family indulged in this kind of fantasy. I can see it as a denial response on the day you come out to them, but all this time time later? I have changed a great deal in my life, but once I "got it" that I was a homo, that has been as clear to me as sunshine.

[john]

Gotta love those Swedes, God knows I've smelled more than one sweaty t-shirt.

[Downtown Lad]

Well someone should tell Ace that he's a little behind the times. That article is from August and it was all over the blogosphere back then.

Yawn.