I guess the whole depressing California-Prop-8 thing has everyone talking about gay sex and how natural it is. There was a great post up at Pleiotropy about how common homosexuality is in other species, much better informed than my earlier post on the subject. He’s also got a follow up post quoting from a short Hufington Post piece. (Did you follow all that?) The Huffington Post piece disputes the common religious argument that God will punish a society that allows gay marriage. The article argues that the contrary is true, more secular societies have higher incomes and are better places to raise a family. It doesn’t look like much of a scientific study, but the broad contours seem like they might be true. More tolerant societies may be more successful in general, however I’m sure you could find some counter-examples. Saudi Arabia vs. India, South Africa vs. Botswana, things like that (though being a dumb American I’m not sure how good my examples are)
Also relevant to my earlier discussion of the prevalence of homosexuality in animals is Bjørn Østman of Pleiotropy’s quote of the following very cute story of the religious right’s favorite movie stars.
Roy and Silo, two male chinstrap penguins at New York’s Central Park Zoo have been inseparable for six years now. They display classic pair-bonding behavior—entwining of necks, mutual preening, flipper flapping, and the rest. They also have sex, while ignoring potential female mates.
This reminds me of the many species previously thought to form high-fidelity pair bonds for life. I picture the paternity-testing-scientists looking confusedly at the labels on their tubes, wondering if they had accidentally mislabeled them or something. I wonder if Roy and Silo ever cheat on each other, and whether it’s with male or female penguins. We need to fund some really patient ethologists with stamina and video cameras to see what’s really going on. Inquiring minds want to know.
I just couldn’t resist this image from Aminopop reporting on an Economist story about a soon to be published paper finding twins with gay siblings report more partners of the opposite sex. The article suggests that more partners is a valid proxy for reproductive fitness, and therefore that there’s something about the gay gene(s) that make strait carriers more fit.
The Economist argues that whatever else the gay genes do they make males more behaviorally feminine and females more behaviorally masculine, and that this could have benefits. In other words the ladies love to marry the sensitive guys, and guys are more likely to marry a good strong masculine woman.
As with a lot of evolutionary psychology it sounds fishy to me. Since it is evolutionary psychology we can’t know any of that. Isn’t it quite possible that straight/bi twins of homosexuals are likely to have more partners simply because the plight of their twin has made them less accepting of conservative sexual mores?
Since homosexuality seems to have a reasonably large genetic component, and since gay sex is so common in the animal kingdom, you’d think there’d be a good strong evolutionary argument for why such a trait is so frequent. I’m not all that up on the gay animal literature, so I’m not sure if there’s just a lot of homosexual relations (ie. bianimals) or if there are really a lot of exclusively homosexual animals. Obviously there’s nothing evolutionarily limiting about a little gay sex if you’re still a breeder. Indeed, if it helps you make friends, a little gay sex could be quite the fitness enhancer.
Which brings me to the question: When is someone going to find a “gay mouse” mutant, and would we recognize one if we saw it? Do you remember the uproars caused by the first fat mouse mutants. Just imagine how many articles would be written about you if you could find the gay mouse. Hopefully someone will find one soon. I can’t wait to see the uproar over that.