Jun 27, 2006

Sexual orientation determined in the womb?

Interesting study out of Canada suggests that sexual orientation develops while in the womb, and that, surprisingly:
[T]he more older brothers a man has, the more likely he is to be gay. But it has not been clear if this is a prenatal effect or a psychosocial effect, related to growing up with older male siblings.
The reason for this, theoretically, is that the more male offspring a woman produces, over time, she'll develop (don't even laugh) antibodies that will try to protect her body against this "foreign" object. So:
"If this immune theory were correct, then the link between the mother's immune reaction and the child's future sexual orientation would probably be some effect of maternal anti-male antibodies on the sexual differentiation of the brain," [Dr. Anthony F. Bogaert] suggests.
Interesting theory, but then, does the same thing happen with women? And is bisexuality a different chemical reaction? Is heterosexuality?

While I do support the idea that people are born with their sexual orientation, I don't know if I'm ready to accept Dr. Bogaert's claim. I mean, I'm an only child, and I'm straight - so does this mean that only children are more likely to be heterosexual? Were the circumstances surrounding my conception "just right" in creating a non-gay daughter? And just how many sons do you have to pop out before you start producing the "anti-boy" antibodies?

Anyway. The whole "a-mother-will-start-to-create-"anti-boy"-antibodies-if-she-bears-enough-sons" idea cracks me up.

2 comments:

Polt said...

I don't know about the theory, but I'm an only child AND gay.

Course, maybe I'm the exception that proves the rule?

Anonymous said...

Aren't ALL only children gay? Wasn't there a study? Here's my rant about studies like this one. There's little hard science in it, and there's a huge margin of error. Second of all, I think we should all stay away from studies that suggest that non-hetero-sexuality is caused by some kind of nightmare moment in Mommy's body where the otherwise perfect hetero fetus mutates in to an abhorrent, mangled assfucking cretin. A few years ago there was the hormonal rush theory -- and I am paraphrasing with bad memory now, but it went something like "women some times pass too many hormones on to their male babies in the end of pregnancy and that's what makes them turn out all nancy."

Until the researchers go genetic and decode all sexuality, they're just wanking. In their defense, getting the funding for such a study is difficult, what with all the fundies, but that's another rant.