Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site ptsfa.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!sdcsvax!sdcrdcf!hplabs!hpda!fortune!amdcad!amd!dual!ptsfa!rob
From: rob@ptsfa.UUCP (Rob Bernardo)
Newsgroups: net.motss
Subject: Re: Biological basis for homosexuality?
Message-ID: <390@ptsfa.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 7-Dec-84 00:05:38 EST
Article-I.D.: ptsfa.390
Posted: Fri Dec  7 00:05:38 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 10-Dec-84 02:32:25 EST
References: <2159@randvax.UUCP> <1184@bbncca.ARPA> <663@amdahl.UUCP> <1187@bbncca.ARPA> <677@amdahl.UUCP>
Organization: Pacific Bell, San Francisco
Lines: 56

I have trouble with the notion of a biological basis of sexual orientation.
It stems from my belief that our concepts of gender and of homosexuality
are culture bound.

There is a difference between biological maleness/femaleness and cultural
maleness/femaleness. To be a biological male is to have a certain biological
characteristics: certain sexual organs, certain genetic material, etc.
To be "culturally" male is to have those characteristics a particular culture
considers appropriate to males, i.e.  MASCULINE characteristics.

When I think of my own sexual orientation, it's not biological gender
but rather cultural gender that is a major factor in my sexual taste.
I am not attracted to all males (despite the rumors :-) ).
And then there are physical characteristics unrelated to biological and
cultural gender that are part of my sexual taste, e.g. hair color, height,
ability to carry on a conversation, intelligence, etc.
Furthermore, just because someone is attracted mainly/exclusively to say,
males, doesn't mean s/he is attracted to what s/he considers masculine.
Someone may be attracted to hairless males with slight builds but consider
burliness to be masculine (and not sexually attractive).

Sexual orientation involves a lot more than biological or even cultural gender.
But I think we categorize our sexual taste on the basis of gender
because our culture encourages us to categorize people on the basis of
gender.  Gender is one of the first things we notice about a person,
and in fact, we have a hard time ignoring gender.

Our culture (it seems to me) considers males and females more different than
they are biologically.
Our culture overemphasizes and exaggerates the differences between males
and females. In another culture where maleness and femaleness were not
exaggerated beyond the biological, I would suspect that
gender would play less of a role in one's sexual orientation.
And sexual tastes would not be so simply categorized on the basis
of the gender of the sex object.

So my first suspicion of claims of a biological basis of sexual orientation
is that sexual orientation seems to me to be mostly culturally based.

Secondly, different cultures seem to have different notions of homosexuality.
In many Mediterranean cultures,  I am told, one is considered to be homosexual
if one is a male who is sexually "passive" with other males. A male who
inserts his penis in another male is NOT considered to be homosexual.
The category of homosexuality seems to be a cultural category.

So before we start entertaining the possibility of a biological basis
of sexual orientation, we'd better make sure that we are not looking for
a biological basis for a category created by/in our culture. Permit me to
exaggerate: looking for a biological basis for homosexuality is like
looking for a biological basis for preferring a rural lifestyle to
an urban one.
-- 


Rob Bernardo, Pacific Bell, San Francisco, California
{ihnp4,ucbvax,cbosgd,decwrl,amd70,fortune,zehntel}!dual!ptsfa!pbauae!rob