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