| Archive for langcafe2.myfreeforum.org Come in and have your daily cup of languages! |
| Porthos |
The Science of Sexualityhttp://60minutes.yahoo.com/segment/68/gay_or_straight |
||||||||
| Benjamin [inactive] |
I'm afraid I cannot watch this since my internet connection is not fast enough. Can you please give some sort of summary, or at least indicate what you had hoped to discuss regarding those videos? | ||||||||
| Uriel |
Yeah, really!   
|
||||||||
| Porthos |
What are you people on? Dial up?!
|
||||||||
| Benjamin [inactive] |
Yes. One of the reasons for why I'm looking forward to going to university is that I'll have a much faster internet connection — even though I'll be in a small town in Scotland, compared to a large city in England. |
||||||||
| Uriel |
Yes, as a matter of fact I am.
And somewhere I have a rotary phone. And I remember when TV came in VHF and UHF, and you had to turn the little dials to change the channel. Oh, and I walked six miles to school, sonny; uphill -- both ways! |
||||||||
| Porthos |
Well I'm afraid there is far too much to summarize, and I don't remember much of it. But I believe you can see it on 60 minutes. | ||||||||
| Benjamin [inactive] |
Sorry, what does this mean? |
||||||||
| Deborah |
60 Minutes is a long-lived weekly American TV news-magazine show. Each program covers three stories. The bits that I saw of these segments said that there is new evidence (or maybe it's still just theoretical) that sexual orientation is not genetic; rather, it is caused by hormonal influences on the foetus. |
||||||||
| Walker |
And I'm Leslie Staaahhl - tick tack, tick tack...? Well, they show it here and it's pretty good, I think. It's where I first heard of Barack Obama btw. |
||||||||
| Benjamin [inactive] |
Thanks.  Well, it doesn't look like I'm going to be able to see it then.
Sounds plausible to me.
Haha, okay. I essentially never watch American television; I don't know how to or if I'm even able to. |
||||||||
| Uriel |
I'm not surprised; hormones have far more of a practical influence on sexuality than genes do, anyway. Genes are just the suggestion; hormones do the actual moving and shaking, and affect body, brain, and behavior profoundly. Male and female are simply variations on a single basic body plan; they are a difference of degree, not kind. | ||||||||
| Benjamin [inactive] |
Hence why it's not entirely unusual for babies to be born who are something in between, i.e. intersex babies, presumably? |
||||||||
| Porthos |
Are you sure about that? It can be scientifically proven that women think differently from men. We're not wired the same way. |
||||||||
| Benjamin [inactive] |
I think what Uriel means is that gender is more of a continuum, although most people fall at one end or the other. I'm probably further to the centre of this continuum than you are, for example. |
||||||||
| Porthos |
So you would describe yourself as generally being more feminine than me? |
||||||||
| Uriel |
Well, that's true, too, but that's not what I meant here; I meant that genes simply are the blueprints, while hormones are the actual construction workers that actually do the job of molding both body and brain (and behavior) into male or female patterns. It is possible to create those changes with hormones even when they are contrary to the instructions given by the chromosomes; that is how children can be born with the chromosomes for one sex and yet physically resemble the other; they were exposed to too much or too little of the "right" hormones during their fetal development. It's also how transgendered people can change their bodies dramatically through hormonal supplements later in life as well; physically, it's those chemicals, not the actual chromosomes, that influence the development of the genitals, the breasts, body and facial hair, etc. Usually it's the genes that direct the developing fetus to manufacture the appropriate hormonal levels, but your mother also floods the fetus with hormones of her own (both androgens and estrogens) at certain points during pregnancy. If she doesn't do her part, there can be problems. If she's taking medicines that contain hormones or ingests environmental toxins that mimic hormones, the fetus's sexual development can be screwed up as well. As for male and female being variations on a single body plan, that's simple biology. The penis and the clitoris are the same structure; testosterone causes it to enlarge. The testicles and ovaries arise from the same tissue. So do the scrotum and the labia. All of these tissues can be induced to develop either way chemically, because both men and women carry the basic body plan on their X chromosomes. The Y chromosome is a small, degenerate chromosome (meaning it is a remnant of a full-sized ancestor -- not a value judgment!) that only codes for a few modifications to that basic plan; it has no other information on it. Breast development can be induced in men, facial hair and a deep voice can be induced in women. Men can even be hormonally induced to produce milk -- they have the same milk ducts as women; they are just dormant and undeveloped in absence of the proper hormonal stimulation. (Milk ducts themselves are simply modified sweat glands.) Both sexes produce estrogen and testosterone, albeit in differing amounts. Young fetuses are impossible to sex because they are identical until the hormones kick in and the males begin to differentiate one way, the females another. In biological terms, female mammals go through fewer modifications than the males, staying closer to the basic plan; that's why mammals are said to be inherently female, with the male simply being a modified female. Yes, the brain is affected by sex hormones as well, and some of these changes, like those in the body, do happen during fetal development and are irrevocable. Sexual behavior, orientation, and some social behaviors are probably "programmed" in at this point, although there are a lot of psychosocial factors that affect them as well. In other animals, the inherent malleability of gender is even more apparent; many fish and amphibians even start out life as female and become male as they age. Others may switch from female to male if there are no other males around, or the resident male dies, and the highest ranking female literally takes his place. In some reptiles, sex is determined by the temperature of the eggs as they develop -- all those kept at one temperature will turn into females, and all those at another are invariably male. Some invertebrates use environmental cues to become male or female, with the asexual larvae becoming female if they happen to land on a rock and male if they happen to land on another larva (they then remain attached to her as a small, parasitic sperm donor). In insects like bees, fertilized eggs are all female; males result from unfertilized eggs. In birds, the karyotpes are the opposite of mammals: XX denotes a male, while XY's are female. All of this variation is possible because male and female are simply variations on a theme that are primarily chemically induced, and mainly involve overdeveloping one set of traits while suppressing another set. But the suppressed traits are still there, even if they are never expressed. You actually have the capacity to go either way -- under the right conditions. It's a little like carrying one gene for blue eyes and another for brown eyes. Even though it's the brown gene that ends up getting expressed physically, the blue one isn't destroyed or lost; it simply remains dormant. Or like a cancer gene that remains completely harmless (and might have remained so to the grave) until some environmental stimulus like asbestos or a virus happens to flip its switch and turn it on -- they may actually be a closer analogy. |
||||||||
| Porthos |
Very interesting stuff Uriel! I'm enthralled. |
||||||||
| Loic |
An illuminating insight, Uriel. Personally, I'd love to see a woman being primed with male hormones so that she can be exhibited as a Bearded Wonder in a travelling circus.
I am just kidding, of course. |
||||||||
| Uriel |
I've seen one.  We had a transgendered patient who had originally been a woman, but had been taking male hormone supplements for many years, and was in the process of having gender reassignment surgery. He had already had the mastectomies, the hysterectomy, and the beginnings of a surgically-created penile flap (although it had not yet been "sculpted" cosmetically or implanted wth a pump.) He did indeed have typical male hair patterns -- a mustache and beard, hair on the back of his neck, very hairy legs (even up the thighs -- and even women who don't shave their legs usually only have a fine down above the knee, so his legs actually looked masculine). I never saw him unclothed, so I don't know if he had chest hair, but he did seem to have some on his shoulders. Women, like men, are completely covered with hair all over their bodies, so it's perfectly conceivable that hormone supplements would cause it to lengthen and coarsen in the usual male areas. His voice sounded very masculine as well, and had I not read his file, I would never have known he was born female. (He was also very private about going to the bathroom, and independent enough, despite serious injuries from a vehicular accident, to manage on his own.) He was even starting to go bald!
One of the nurses who had him as a patient and had seen him in the altogether did say that you could see some remnants of femininity in his hips and waist and in the smallness of his hands (although he was middle-aged and kind of tubby), but really, it was one of those things where if you didn't know, you probably would never have noticed it. Obviously, hormones taken as an adult can't resculpt bone, so he was always going to be stuck with a wider pelvis and petite fingers. But on the whole, he looked, sounded, and acted like a man -- enough so, that I couldn't even picture him as a woman. Gender dysphoria -- being physically and genetically of one sex while having the mental image of yourself as a member of the opposite sex, is a real phenomenon, and I bet it has to do with "faulty" wiring in the brain -- having certain parts of your brain "masculinized" when they really should have been feminized, or vice versa -- a screw-up of the gender-specific changes in the brain that Porthos mentioned. In the past it was treated as a psychiatric issue, but I suspect it has actual biological components -- although the stress and anxiety of not having your gender identity match your physicality probably creates all kinds of subsequent psychological problems! |
||||||||
| Walker |
I've also seen one. I'm not sure whether to refer to this patient as a man or a woman. However, "she" has a goatee and a mustashe but "she" still has "her" original voice, which makes is kind of hard to think of "her" as a man. |
||||||||
| Benjamin [inactive] |
Very interesting, Uriel!
I don't really know you well enough to judge properly, but yes, I strongly suspect that I would be seen as more 'feminine' than you. Heck, Shouga believes that she's more 'masculine' than me. 
But yes — as a child, I played mainly with dolls and pink Lego, and liked dressing up as a woman, and most of my friends then were girls. However, I don't know whether that has anything to do with the fact that I'm gay. Certain behaviours/attitudes are often stereotypically regarded as either 'masculine' or 'feminine'. I hate that classification, but I probably display more stereotypically 'feminine' characteristics than 'masculine' ones — I have certainly never exhibited any 'macho' tendencies or behaviour. For example, I have absolutely no interest in competitive games, I have no intrinsic desire to accumulate material wealth, I have frequently allowed people to abuse me both physically and verbally and have done nothing in return, and I enjoy knitting. I'm quite small — about 175cm (5'9") tall and I weigh about 55kg (121lbs). I'm also not very interested in sex, and am one of a very very small minority of males to have anorgasmia (inability to orgasm), even though it's relatively common amongst women. |
||||||||
| Didier69 |
It's a little bit sad such a documentary film. It proves that still many people don't accept other people just as they are without to wonder why they are so. | ||||||||
| KSa |
I wouldn't say you are small - 175 cm is a decent height. On the other hand I think you are underweighted: considering your height, 55 kg is something you should worry about. |
||||||||
| Benjamin [inactive] |
I've actually lost weight over the past few months, partly because I walk and cycle a lot more than I used to, and partly because I was quite ill (in hospital) a few months ago. So I'm actually about 53kg now. I was told when I was in hospital that I needed to gain weight, but I've been unable to do it.
About my height... I just find that I'm shorter than the vast majority of males I know around my age. |
||||||||
| André in Zuid-Afrika |
You're taller than me.... though I weigh more...
But serious, you should watch you weight.
|
||||||||
| Elaine |
121 lbs is awfully slight for a guy. You should eat more Wheaties. Of course, I'm one to talk. I'm 5'6" and waver between 105 to 110 lbs.
|
||||||||
| Walker |
Benjamin, my advice to you is to EAT! | ||||||||
| Deborah |
Sounds like a ballet dancer's weight. As for Benjamin, if you're eating well, I think you're probably doing OK. I suppose you have a slender bone structure, and you're still very young. If you have a fast metabolism on top of that, you'd have a very hard time gaining weight. You'd probably have to do a lot of some type of exercise that builds muscle (and that would entail eating more, but the exercise would probably make you want to eat more). |
||||||||
| Rio |
....five years later....
Yes and all humans are born as females in default, hence men having nipples. The fruit fly (Drisophila Melangastor) is the other way around. Apparently a good test to determine if someone is gay is to look at their hands. This is supposed to work most of the time. Gay men follow female hand patterns, that is, the index finger is of equal or longer length than the ring finger. Gay women follow the male pattern and have an index finger shorter than the ring finger. I definitely remember one gay friend having a much longer index finger than ring finger without even asking him |
||||||||
| Deborah |
Hmm...my index finger is shorter than my ring finger. | ||||||||
| Lazar |
No, the contention is that gay people of either sex have relatively shorter - or hypermasculine - index fingers. It says that this applies for lesbians in general, but only for gay men who have older siblings - which is itself one of the factors associated with homosexuality. In my case, the index finger is a bit shorter than the ring finger, but apparently that's true for most males. |
||||||||
| Rio |
You may be right Lazar. Boo to the person who got on TV and got it wrong!
http://www.unl.edu/rhames/courses/readings/homofinger/homo_finger.html But I have heard the multiple brother theory and the gay guys I know seem to fall in that situation (except one). Deborah - finger length really doesn't confirm sexuality:
|
||||||||
| Deborah |
Well, I know that -- I'm evidence to the contrary! |
||||||||
| Uriel |
I think my ring finger is a little longer than my index finger. Definitely hetero, though.
Many of the gay men and women I know have lived the straight life as well, often to the point of being married and having children. I think it's interesting that they have been able to see life from both sides -- in some ways that makes them much more well-rounded than those of us who have always been one way or the other. I find it is often the younger people who have always been gay and never tried the other sex -- there has been less social pressure on them to "fit in". However, I do know some younger people who have started out dating the opposite sex and then gravitated to their own, as well as heterosexual people who have gone through homosexual "phases", where they might have had one actual try at a relationship with a person of the same sex before going back to the opposite sex. So while I think some gays really are genetically biased towards their preference, sometimes there are no genetics at work at all, I suspect, just people living their lives and trying things out at they go. |
||||||||