On the humanitarian and natural science approach to an explosive topic: discussing the causes of homosexual behavior. Column for Kompyuterra #108

Dmytro Shabanov The Gates of Senses: What the Relationship Between Our Archaic Olfaction and Evolutionarily Advanced Vision Tells Us On the Humanitarian and Natural-Scientific Approaches to an Explosive Topic: Discussing the Causes of Homosexual Behavior Social Utopia: How an Unbiased Society Free from Ideologies Should Regard the Diversity of Human Sexual Expression Column for Kompyutera #107 Column for Kompyutera #108 Column for Kompyutera #109 This column of mine (which even interrupted the development of the conversation about olfaction) is a response to Yulia Latynina's vivid article on the causes of homosexuality. Yulia Leonidovna delighted me by bringing a significant number of biological arguments to the discussion of this topic. Imagine: she is a humanitarian by education, and this did not prevent her from examining the evolutionary-biological roots of the phenomenon observed in humans! Rare good sense... Of course, a significant portion of the readers and commenters of Latynina's article did not share this good sense. When I am writing this column, her text had gathered about six hundred comments (sadly, mostly characterizing their authors). While sharing Yulia Leonidovna's approach in general, I disagree with her on several points. I hope their discussion will present interest even for those who have not read her article (and for those who have — doubly so). But before discussing homosexuality, I will explain what I see as the key difference between humanitarian and natural-scientific thinking. The study of humans has been handed over to humanitarian scholars — to whom else, if even in the name of the humanitarian sciences (French humanitaire, from Latin humanitas — human nature, education) their focus on human nature is recorded! The problem is that humanitarian scholars are not interested in what the subject they discuss actually is, how it developed, what mechanisms govern its functioning. The main thing, in their opinion (as far as I can understand them), is what it should be according to the principles they accept as truth. The humanitarian researcher is substantially identified with the subject of his study and begins to evaluate it using morally, valuably colored criteria. The natural-scientific view is not like this. Its key elements are an attempt at an adequate assessment of the actual state of the object of study, its examination as unbiased as possible, analysis of the mechanisms of functioning and the prehistory of its formation. In the article that served as the impetus for these reflections, Yulia Latynina focuses primarily on the evolutionary prehistory of the phenomenon under consideration, and, to a somewhat lesser extent, on the analysis of its mechanisms. Many of the reader-commenters, on the contrary, evaluate the discussed subject from the standpoint of its permissibility or impermissibility. It is completely natural that they are even unable to understand the author's logic. If homosexual connections are an abomination or, conversely, a reflection of the highest freedom of the human spirit, what does the sexual life of bonobos have to do with it, which Latynina for some reason discusses? What significance does it have when we are talking about fundamental principles! For the view from the other side of the barricades, the situation is different. What are you waving your principles about — let's first understand what we are talking about and where it comes from... Yes, I consider the divide between people reasoning natural-scientifically or humanitarianly to be a more significant boundary than the front line between opponents of homosexual connections or their admirers. It seems to me that regarding this divide, I am on the same side as Latynina — I am more interested in understanding than in evaluating. Now I will proceed to discuss the disagreements. Yulia Leonidovna references a great many studies in which the presence of homosexual connections was recorded in the most diverse animal species. It is unknown whether there are species in which such activity is completely absent. Well, if we are talking about recorded facts, we should not approach them with "good-bad" criteria. This is a given. As the next step, Yulia Latynina draws a parallel between the presence of homosexual connections in other animal species and homosexuality (or what is called by this word) in humans. "In a certain sense, there are no homosexuals at all. Just as there are no heterosexuals. There is human sexuality, which is in complex feedback with social norms." Nevertheless, in modern society there are people who evaluate themselves as "pure," true homosexuals. Can we explain their existence by citing examples of bisexuality in our relatives? I will not dare to assert that cases of true homosexuality are unknown in other animal species — that is, sexual activity directed exclusively at individuals of one's own sex, recorded in individuals who developed under normal conditions and acted under conditions of free choice. If such cases have been recorded, they are rare. At the same time, as far as I know, they occur frequently enough in humans. An important boundary lies between bisexuality and homosexuality. Genes promoting bisexuality can well be transmitted to the next generation from a bisexual individual. However, if an individual's genes ensured their truly homosexual behavior, this individual will never transmit them to anyone. Here we must pause and discuss the concept of norm, which is used differently in different cases. A humanitarian will declare that the norm is compliance with guiding principles. Another point of view explains the norm as the state that is observed most often. This point of view is also unsatisfactory. Imagine a worker-defective-producer who produces... well, for example, nuts. Even if the majority of his nuts go to waste, waste does not become the norm. A humanitarian who says that the norm is a nut corresponding to the designer's intention will be closer to the truth. And how to act in those cases where there is no "correct blueprint" — as in the case of the result of an individual human's development? I proceed from the fact that the norm is what is maintained by selection. Normal nuts are those that meet the requirements of the technological process. Normal organisms are those that survive and reproduce in a given environment. Yes, the norm is not constant. What is maintained by selection today may already tomorrow, with a change in the external environment or even just the situation in the population itself, cease to be the norm. Microevolution in a population is the replacement of outdated norms with new ones. So, homosexuality is a trait that cannot be maintained by selection in its classical, individual form! Perhaps homosexuality of some individuals can be advantageous for the population, but it is inevitably disadvantageous from the standpoint of reproduction (and gene spread) of the homosexual individual himself. I am even ready to admit that populations having a certain proportion of homosexuals (or, more precisely, bisexuals realizing homo-connections) are more viable than exclusively heterosexual ones. In that case, the problem of the origin of homosexuality becomes part of the problem of the origin of altruism. Latynina writes, referring to those biochemical mechanisms that trigger the development of homosexuality: "But these biochemical triggers exist precisely because they launch a behavioral reaction that increases the chances of the species' survival under given conditions. This is not a glitch in the program; this is a subprogram that reduces the population size but increases the amount of food for the survivors and improves their mutual assistance." We are talking about a trait that is advantageous for the group but disadvantageous for the individual. This explanation lacks the main point: what mechanism forces an individual to sacrifice its offspring for the group's prosperity? We have already written about the complexities that attempts to explain certain adaptations by the action of group selection encounter. Thus, in my opinion, there is no complete explanation of the phenomenon of homosexuality in humans in Latynina's article. I agree with many of the article's key thoughts. The original state for both humans and other animals is bisexuality. The functions of sex for us and our closest relatives are not only reproduction but also the maintenance of social bonds. The development of human sexuality is under serious influence of culture. Homophobes and gay activists are smeared with the same brush. In some cases, homosexual connections spread in rigidly hierarchical societies, especially those representing unequal access of men to women. And yet, it remains unclear to me why, from generation to generation, there appear in humans individuals who remove themselves from population reproduction? Let us single out four categories of mechanisms that could contribute to the development of true homosexuality. Genetic mechanisms: — (1) kin selection (homosexuals do not leave offspring, but their relatives, carrying part of the set of "homosexuality genes," leave an increased number of offspring); — (2) group selection (groups in which the concentration of "homosexuality genes" is high develop and grow more successfully than competing groups); Non-genetic mechanisms: — (3) environmental change (in those conditions of the external environment for the population in which "homosexuality genes" were maintained by selection, they did not lead to their carriers refusing reproduction, who developed as bisexuals, but in the modern environment — they do, inducing the development of homosexuals); — (4) intrapopulation interactions (for example, culture transmitted within the population leads to homosexual development of genetically bisexual individuals). And what are "homosexuality genes"? It is not clear yet. At least, they are not insurmountable causes, but factors that, when acting together, increase the probability of such a developmental outcome. In connection with the theme of the previous column, I will note that among them, there apparently are genes that make the smell of sweat of individuals of one's own sex attractive. As we once wrote, in the development of the overwhelming majority of behavioral traits there are genetic and non-genetic components; proceeding from this, it can be assumed that more than one category of causes leads to the formation of homosexuals. I, in fact, assume that all four categories work. Let us go through them. (1). It has been shown that women — close relatives of homosexuals — leave more offspring than women on average in the population. (2). Homosexual connections can be a mechanism uniting the dominant male team in a group (as Latynina writes about this). Some of these men can be bisexuals, some — homosexuals, but in any case, victories of these groups over competitors will ensure accelerated growth of the population gene pool enriched with "homosexuality genes" and, due to Simpson's paradox — evolution in the direction of the spread of these genes. (3). It seems that hormonal balance during embryonic development strongly influences sexual orientation. We really develop under conditions very different from those during which our evolution took place. Did you think about GMOs? The danger of GMOs is a completely or almost completely myth, and, for example, the change in lighting regime is a much more serious danger. (4). The contribution of culture to the formation of sexual behavior can probably no longer be denied. Can a cultural tradition (and the social environment conditioned by it) push bisexuals toward homosexuality? I think yes. And here there can be a whole bouquet of mechanisms. A young person feeling that his sexuality does not fit into the frames that his humanitarian teachers draw for him is stigmatized and, in the end, falls into the gay community. A sexually preoccupied young man more easily finds sex with homosexuals (whose desires are expressed in a clearly masculine way) than with girls (who, of course, also want, but pretend they are not like that, playing a game where sex is a means, not a goal). The first sexual experience obtained in a closed same-sex community forms a stereotype for further life... Note: all three of the named possible causes (as well as many others that I did not mention) are connected with the fact that normal sexual life turns out to be inaccessible for young people (more precisely, for some part of them, possibly even a relatively more cultured one). ...So, and I did not have time to develop this theme to the end. A short announcement of the continuation (which, I may never write). Homosexuality, as a social problem — an artificially inflated topic. I am ready to believe that it is galvanized in order to distract the layperson from really important problems. Homosexuality is interesting to me as a population-biological phenomenon, the mechanism of the spread of which remains not entirely clear. But the natural-scientific analysis of this topic turns out to be useful also from the standpoint of finding optimal solutions to socio-political problems. No, neither repressive laws nor noisy events are needed. It is simply necessary to take away the formation of the agenda from ideologized humanitarian scholars. Believe me, calm natural-scientific reasoning will allow finding the optimal course of action! ...perhaps we will discuss it further...