tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/heterosexuality-48691/articlesHeterosexuality – The Conversation2023-02-09T09:05:11Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1994242023-02-09T09:05:11Z2023-02-09T09:05:11ZWhat does the Bible say about homosexuality? For starters, Jesus wasn’t a homophobe<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508641/original/file-20230207-21-ed2xy3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Pope Francis was recently asked about his views on homosexuality. He <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/pope-francis-says-laws-criminalising-lgbt-people-are-sin-an-injustice-2023-02-05/">reportedly replied</a>:</p>
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<p>This (laws around the world criminalising LGBTI people) is not right. Persons with homosexual tendencies are children of God. God loves them. God accompanies them … condemning a person like this is a sin. Criminalising people with homosexual tendencies is an injustice.</p>
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<p>This isn’t the first time Pope Francis has shown himself to be a <a href="https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_20131124_evangelii-gaudium.html">progressive leader</a> when it comes to, among other things, gay Catholics. </p>
<p>It’s a stance that has <a href="https://theconversation.com/pope-francis-visit-to-africa-comes-at-a-defining-moment-for-the-catholic-church-197633">drawn the ire</a> of some high-ranking bishops and ordinary Catholics, both on the African continent and elsewhere in the world.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/pope-francis-visit-to-africa-comes-at-a-defining-moment-for-the-catholic-church-197633">Pope Francis' visit to Africa comes at a defining moment for the Catholic church</a>
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<p>Some of these Catholics may argue that Pope Francis’s approach to LGBTI matters is a misinterpretation of Scripture (or the Bible). But is it? </p>
<p>Scripture is particularly important for Christians. When church leaders refer to “the Bible” or “the Scriptures”, they usually mean “the Bible as we understand it through our theological doctrines”. The Bible is always interpreted by our churches through their particular theological lenses. </p>
<p>As a biblical scholar, I would suggest that church leaders who use their cultures and theology to exclude homosexuals don’t read Scripture carefully. Instead, they allow their patriarchal fears to distort it, seeking to find in the Bible proof-texts that will support attitudes of exclusion. </p>
<p>There are several instances in the Bible that underscore my point.</p>
<h2>Love of God and neighbour</h2>
<p>Mark’s Gospel, found in the New Testament, records that Jesus entered the Jerusalem temple on three occasions. First, he visited briefly, and “looked around at everything” (<a href="https://www.bible.com/en-GB/bible/111/mrk.11.11">11:11</a>). </p>
<p>On the second visit he acted, driving “out those who were buying and selling in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves” (<a href="https://www.bible.com/en-GB/bible/111/mrk.11.15">11:15</a>). Jesus specifically targeted those who exploited the poorest of the people coming to the temple. </p>
<p>On his third visit, Jesus spent considerable time in the temple itself (<a href="https://www.bible.com/en-GB/bible/111/MRK.11.NIV">11:27-13:2</a>). He met the full array of temple leadership, including chief priests, teachers of the law and elders. Each of these leadership sectors used their interpretation of Scripture to exclude rather than to include. </p>
<p>The “ordinary people” (<a href="https://www.bible.com/en-GB/bible/111/mrk.11.32">11:32</a> and <a href="https://www.bible.com/en-GB/bible/111/mrk.12.12">12:12</a>) recognised that Jesus proclaimed a gospel of inclusion. They eagerly embraced him as he walked through the temple. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.bible.com/bible/100/MRK.12.24.NASB1995">Mark 12:24</a>, Jesus addresses the Sadducees, who were the traditional high priests of ancient Israel and played an important role in the temple. Among those who confronted Jesus, they represented the group that held to a conservative theological position and used their interpretation of the Scripture to exclude. Jesus said to them:</p>
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<p>Is this not the reason you are mistaken, that you do not understand the Scriptures or the power of God?</p>
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<p>Jesus recognised that they chose to interpret Scripture in a way that prevented it from being understood in non-traditional ways. Thus they limited God’s power to be different from traditional understandings of him. Jesus was saying God refused to be the exclusive property of the Sadducees. The ordinary people who followed Jesus understood that he represented a different understanding of God.</p>
<p>This message of inclusion becomes even clearer when Jesus is later confronted by a single scribe (<a href="https://www.bible.com/en-GB/bible/100/mrk.12.28">12:28</a>). In answer to the scribe’s question on the most important laws, Jesus summarised the theological ethic of his gospel: love of God and love of neighbour (<a href="https://www.bible.com/en-GB/bible/111/MRK.12.NIV">12:29-31</a>).</p>
<h2>Inclusion, not exclusion</h2>
<p>Those who would exclude homosexuals from God’s kingdom choose to ignore Jesus, turning instead to the Old Testament – most particularly to <a href="https://www.bible.com/en-GB/bible/111/GEN.19.NIV">Genesis 19</a>, the destruction of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Their interpretation of the story is that it is about homosexuality. It isn’t. It relates to hospitality.</p>
<p>The story begins in <a href="https://www.bible.com/en-GB/bible/111/GEN.18.NIV">Genesis 18</a> when three visitors (God and two angels, appearing as “men”) came before <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Abraham">Abraham</a>, a Hebrew patriarch. What did Abraham and his wife Sarah do? They offered hospitality. </p>
<p>The two angels then left Abraham and the Lord and travelled into <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%2019%3A1-29&version=NIV">Sodom (19:1)</a> where they met Lot, Abraham’s nephew. What did Lot do? He offered hospitality. The two incidents of hospitality are explained in exactly the same language. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%2019%3A1-29&version=NIV">“men of Sodom” (19:4)</a>, as the Bible describes them, didn’t offer the same hospitality to these angels in disguise. Instead they sought to humiliate them (<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%2019%3A1-29&version=NIV">and Lot (19:9)</a>) by threatening to rape them. We know they were heterosexual because Lot, in attempting to protect himself and his guests, offered his virgin daughters to them <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%2019%3A1-29&version=NIV">(19:8)</a>. </p>
<p>Heterosexual rape of men by men is a common act of humiliation. This is an extreme form of inhospitality. The story contrasts extreme hospitality (Abraham and Lot) with the extreme inhospitality of the men of Sodom. It is a story of inclusion, not exclusion. Abraham and Lot included the strangers; the men of Sodom excluded them.</p>
<h2>Clothed in Christ</h2>
<p>When confronted by the inclusive gospel of Jesus and a careful reading of the story of Sodom as one about hospitality, those who disavow Pope Francis’s approach will likely jump to other Scriptures. Why? Because they have a patriarchal agenda and are looking for any Scripture that might support their position.</p>
<p>But the other Scriptures they use also require careful reading. <a href="https://www.bible.com/en-GB/bible/111/lev.18.22">Leviticus 18:22</a> and <a href="https://www.bible.com/en-GB/bible/111/lev.20.13">20:13</a>, for example, are not about “homosexuality” as we now understand it – as the caring, loving and sexual relationship between people of the same sex. These texts are about relationships that cross boundaries of purity (between clean and unclean) and ethnicity (Israelite and Canaanite). </p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Galatians%203%3A28&version=NRSVUE">Galatians 3:28</a> in the New Testament, Paul the apostle yearns for a Christian community where:</p>
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<p>There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. </p>
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<p>Paul built his theological argument on the Jew-Greek distinction, but then extended it to the slave-free distinction and the male-female distinction. Christians – no matter which church they belong to – should follow Paul and extend it to the heterosexual-homosexual distinction. </p>
<p>We are all “clothed in Christ” (<a href="https://www.bible.com/en-GB/bible/111/gal.3.27">3:27</a>): God only sees Christ, not our different sexualities.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199424/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gerald West does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Those who exclude any groups of people from God’s kingdom choose to ignore the teaching of Jesus.Gerald West, Senior Professor of Biblical Studies, University of KwaZulu-NatalLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1822882022-06-28T19:59:00Z2022-06-28T19:59:00ZWhat is ‘heteropessimism’, and why do men and women suffer from it?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/471037/original/file-20220627-13-o20jxa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5843%2C3883&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A friend introduces their partner as “my current husband”. Another jokes about marriage as a life sentence. Everyone laughs, no one is surprised. </p>
<p>The sentiments at the heart of these asides are pervasive and familiar to many people in (or who have had) heterosexual relationships. There is now a term for this negativity: “heteropessimism”. </p>
<p>Heteropessimism is a new word for an intuitive, possibly very old, concept in white Western culture. Coined in 2019 by writer <a href="https://thenewinquiry.com/on-heteropessimism/">Asa Seresin</a>, heteropessimism is an attitude of disappointment, embarrassment or despair at the state of heterosexual relations – specifically about being in one. </p>
<p>Seresin’s definition is useful because this pessimism is accompanied by the paradoxical practice of sticking with heterosexuality in its current forms, even as it is judged to be “irredeemable”. </p>
<p>Seresin now uses the term “heterofatalism” to emphasise how dire, hopeless, and lacking in visions for an alternative, this attitude is. </p>
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<h2>So what is heteropessimism?</h2>
<p>Heteropessimism describes a negative attitude that pervades heterosexual culture, within many of the men and women who co-create it.</p>
<p>Heteropessimism does not necessarily imply violent or harmful relationships, overt sexism, abuse or even a hierarchy. In fact, many heteropessimistic relationships likely start with real desire for romantic, sexual and intimate connection.</p>
<p>Heteropessimism describes something more mundane. It’s a pervasive disappointment, ambivalence, if not doubt, about the quality of the lived heterosexual experience. </p>
<p>It is either unhappily ever after, or living with compromises that are fundamentally unsatisfactory. While life can be a little disappointing at times, the problem with heteropessimism is the negativity stifles thinking about how things could be different. </p>
<p>It is easy to find examples of heteropessimism in culture. Stories that highlight the power of female friendship or sisterly love (from Sex and the City to Frozen), often do so by comparing it to the disappointments of heterosexual romance. </p>
<p>Out of a sense of anger and frustration about the monotony and violence of it all, the queer internet has turned heteropessimistic culture into jokes. The Instagram account <a href="https://www.instagram.com/hets_explain_yourselves/?hl=en">Hets Explain Yourselves</a> is a growing archive of heteropessimism memes (on clothing, greeting cards, masks, mugs, bumper stickers) without a compelling vision for change. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, writer <a href="https://thedigradio.com/podcast/bad-objects-with-andrea-long-chu-and-marissa-brostoff/">Andrea Long Chu claims</a> heterosexuality is on the verge of collapse, held together with “sticky tape and crossed fingers”.</p>
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<p>The persistent desire to keep it together is clearest in a show like Married at First Sight. In MAFS, there is no space for exploring or developing a new kind of heterosexual relation. There is only time for a man and a woman to say hello and be stuck together with matrimonial glue.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/471268/original/file-20220628-12-q9s8tu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/471268/original/file-20220628-12-q9s8tu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/471268/original/file-20220628-12-q9s8tu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471268/original/file-20220628-12-q9s8tu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471268/original/file-20220628-12-q9s8tu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471268/original/file-20220628-12-q9s8tu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471268/original/file-20220628-12-q9s8tu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471268/original/file-20220628-12-q9s8tu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Married at First Sight is a reality TV show following Australian ‘couples’ as they meet for the first time at their wedding, then honeymoon, meet the in-laws and set up home, all the while getting to know one another more deeply, in what’s billed as a ‘social experiment’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nine</span></span>
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<h2>So, why are heterosexuals so pessimistic about heterosexuality?</h2>
<p>Many couples feel resentful in relationships with unequal caring responsibilities. This imbalance was given a new clarity <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/media-centre/media-releases/women-spent-more-time-men-unpaid-work-may">during COVID</a>. </p>
<p>Rising living costs also compel compromises. One partners’ career is prioritised over the other’s, work hours increase and it takes multiple jobs to sustain a household. All this increases relationship pressure. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/married-at-first-sight-a-social-experiment-all-but-guaranteeing-relationship-failure-114070">Married at First Sight - a 'social experiment' all but guaranteeing relationship failure</a>
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<p>Even if some couples negotiate happier and more equitable relationships, we can’t ignore the ubiquity of <a href="https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports-data/behaviours-risk-factors/domestic-violence/overview">intimate partner violence and sexual assault</a>. This is the darkest and far too often fatal expression of dissatisfaction with the heterosexual ideal. </p>
<p>Although heteropessimism might manifest as a personal or private feeling, Asa Seresin says “heterosexuality is nobody’s personal problem”.</p>
<p>On one hand, pessimism works like cynicism. It thwarts an examination of the other forces shaping intimate relations – misogyny and normative gender roles, economic stresses and the moral and emotional pressures of monogamy. </p>
<p>On the other, pessimism diverts attention from the lack of cultural encouragement to imagine alternatives beyond the nuclear family household. </p>
<p>For an interview as part of our research, author Sophie Lewis identifies this fatalism as especially acute amongst straight women in heterosexual relationships. Lewis observes many women seem to see “no alternative to their trajectory” within heterosexuality. This kind of dissatisfaction is “unaccompanied by political experimentation and response”. </p>
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<h2>Where do we go from here?</h2>
<p>There are established alternative ways of living and loving in other cultures and LGBTQAI+ communities. These include expanded kinship arrangements with friends or family, platonic or romantic polyamorous relationships, or even just good relationship therapy. </p>
<p>But a feature of heteropessimistic culture is that proponents are uninterested in, even hostile to, such possibilities. </p>
<p>Although heteropessimism as a concept is useful in raising awareness of an enduring cultural problem, pessimism can’t help solve it. We need other visions for heterosexuality that are neither straightforward, nor particularly straight. </p>
<p>We hope for <a href="https://www.theheteropessimists.com/">new forms of liberation</a> that don’t rely on the binary opposition of heterosexual versus LGBTQAI+. We want them to recognise all kinds of desire and breathe optimism into relationships by emphasising equality, freedom, consent, creativity, kindness and respect.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/182288/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Transmedia consultant, Daz Chandler, from the Parallel Effect <a href="https://www.paralleleffect.com/">https://www.paralleleffect.com/</a> worked on the podcast project and also assisted with the writing of this piece. The authors of this article received funding from the Freilich Project for the Study of Bigotry to seed their research. <a href="https://freilich.anu.edu.au/">https://freilich.anu.edu.au/</a> </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christina Kenny, Felicity Joseph, and Matt Allen do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Heteropessimism is an attitude of disappointment, embarrassment or despair at the state of heterosexual relations – specifically about being in one.Jennifer Hamilton, Senior Lecturer, School of Humanities Arts and Social Sciences, University of New EnglandChristina Kenny, Lecturer, University of New EnglandFelicity Joseph, Casual lecturer in Philosophy, University of New EnglandMatt Allen, Lecturer in Historical Crimininology, University of New EnglandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1447822020-08-27T12:21:09Z2020-08-27T12:21:09ZThe white supremacist origins of modern marriage advice<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/354954/original/file-20200826-7049-bqapqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C10%2C3532%2C3152&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">At the turn of the 20th century, marriage was assumed to be an exercise in mutual misery.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/mother-and-father-pose-with-their-baby-early-in-the-20th-news-photo/526305960?adppopup=true">Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When I was conducting research for my <a href="https://nyupress.org/9781479851553/the-tragedy-of-heterosexuality/">new book</a> on the destructive aspects of modern heterosexual relationships, I started looking into the archives of early 20th-century books about courtship and marriage written by physicians and sexologists. </p>
<p>In the process, I made a discovery that would radically alter my understanding of why so many parts of heterosexual culture remain mired in violence and inequality. </p>
<p>Almost all of the original self-help books for couples were written by proponents of <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/column-the-false-racist-theory-of-eugenics-once-ruled-science-lets-never-let-that-happen-again">the eugenics movement</a>, an ostensibly scientific project that aimed to encourage reproduction among the white middle class, while discouraging or preventing population growth among people of color and the poor. </p>
<p>These early marriage manuals revealed that the project of defining healthy heterosexual marriage in the United States was also a white supremacist campaign designed to help white families flourish. As the marriage counseling industry evolved in the 20th century, some of the key assumptions made in these original manuals would persist, even influencing marriage advice aimed at Black families. </p>
<h2>Far from perfect unions</h2>
<p>By the early 20th century, many prominent eugenicists were concerned about the state of marriage. White women, cowed by abusive husbands, were unwilling to have sex, and marriage increasingly seemed to be an exercise in mutual misery. </p>
<p>This, in their view, could limit the ability of the best elements of the human gene pool to propagate. So, with the support of the <a href="https://seriesofseries.owu.edu/book-collectors-association-personal-books/">Eugenics Publishing Company</a>, they set out to educate white readers with tips for how to achieve a friendly and harmonious marriage. </p>
<p>These texts reveal some common assumptions made about early 20th-century marriage. Women were not expected to feel an easy or instinctive attraction to men, nor were men expected to concern themselves with women’s emotional or physical well-being. One point nearly all sexologists agreed upon: Women needed to understand that men were naturally inclined toward aggression and sexual selfishness, so they should cut their husbands a little slack.</p>
<p>William Robinson, an early 20th-century sexologist, <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Married_Life_and_Happiness.html?id=0NQ0AQAAMAAJ">hoped that his marriage advice manuals</a> would address the “disgust,” “deep hatred” and “desire for injury and revenge” that heterosexual couples felt for one another.</p>
<p>Marie Stopes, a British eugenicist, wrote <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2018/feb/14/what-can-we-learn-from-marie-stopess-1918-book-married-love">at length</a> about how most new brides were repulsed by the revelation of their husbands’ naked bodies, and were “driven to suicide and insanity” by men’s violence during “the first night of marriage.” Harland William Long, another eugenicist writer, agreed, <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13161/13161-h/13161-h.htm">observing</a> that “many a newlywed couple have wrecked the possibility of happiness of a life time” because “the great majority of brides are practically raped on entrance into the married relation.” </p>
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<span class="caption">Havelock Ellis was a prominent physician who served as president of the Eugenics Society.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/henry-havelock-ellis-the-english-physician-and-author-of-news-photo/613514012?adppopup=true">Hulton Deutsch via Getty Images.</a></span>
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<p>The British sexologist and <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13612">eugenicist Havelock Ellis argued</a> that this violence was natural, and explained that a husband took “a certain pleasure in manifesting his power over a woman by inflicting pain upon her.” </p>
<p>But Ellis also insisted that “the pain he inflicts, or desires to inflict, is really part of his love,” and that, with proper training, a man could be taught to express this “love” with more gentleness, and mitigate the “repulsion and passivity” that seemed to be a normal part of women’s experience of sex. </p>
<p>Eugenicists were well-aware that white men regularly raped white women, so it’s striking that this period coincided with the widespread lynching of Black boys and men <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/22/us/with-last-3-pardons-alabama-hopes-to-put-infamous-scottsboro-boys-case-to-rest.html">falsely accused of raping white women</a>. </p>
<p>Yet eugenicists described white men’s rape of women not as criminal, but as an inherent masculine impulse in need of suppression. Of course, they didn’t advocate for the lynching of these men. Instead, education and good hygiene would do. <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Married_Life_and_Happiness.html?id=0NQ0AQAAMAAJ">Sexologists promoted</a> soaps, perfumes, makeup, douches and corsetry as the key to marital happiness. If women and men smelled better, maybe, the thinking went, men wouldn’t need to force their wives to have sex with them. </p>
<h2>Old ideas live on</h2>
<p>Some of the core tenets of those first self-help books written by eugenicists – incompatibility and deference to men – persist in modern marriage advice. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Transnational_Popular_Psychology_and_the/HaXtCwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0">With the rise of the self-help industry</a>, late 20th-century marriage advice shifted from men’s and women’s repellent bodies to their incompatible personalities. </p>
<p>Relationship counselor John Gray’s “<a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Men_Are_from_Mars_Women_Are_from_Venus/W9_UECpgmQ8C?hl=en&gbpv=0">Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus</a>” sold over 50 million copies and was the <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/books/2013/10/30/men-are-from-mars-women-are-from-venus/3297375/">best-selling</a> nonfiction book of the 1990s. The book’s central message is that men and women do not naturally like or respect one another, and need to learn to accept and accommodate their innate gender differences for the sake of their relationships.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man holds a copy of 'Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus.'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/354949/original/file-20200826-7352-fit87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/354949/original/file-20200826-7352-fit87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354949/original/file-20200826-7352-fit87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354949/original/file-20200826-7352-fit87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354949/original/file-20200826-7352-fit87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354949/original/file-20200826-7352-fit87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354949/original/file-20200826-7352-fit87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">‘Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus’ sold the most copies of any book in the 1990s.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/author-of-men-are-from-mars-women-are-from-venus-john-gray-news-photo/457321314?adppopup=true">Lisa Lake via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>The central themes found in these self-help books are now marketed to straight Black readers, too. For instance, Steve Harvey’s 2009 New York Times bestseller, “<a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Act_Like_a_Lady_Think_Like_a_Man_LP/DJFxdhNc49IC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=steve+harvey+act+like+a+lady+think+like+a+man&printsec=frontcover">Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man</a>,” sold over 3 million copies and repackaged many well-worn marriage tropes for Black women readers. In it, Harvey argues that men and women are fundamentally at odds, that straight couples must work to be attractive to each other and that Black women need to accept men’s limitations for the good of Black families and communities. </p>
<p>Men, Harvey writes, have “got to feel like we’re king, even if we don’t act kingly.” A man, he continues, “needs that from his woman” so that he can have “the strength to keep on doing right by you and the family.” Because Black men suffer the burden of anti-Black racism, it is in their homes and relationships, according to Harvey, that they must be treated like royalty. </p>
<p>[<em>You’re too busy to read everything. We get it. That’s why we’ve got a weekly newsletter.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/weekly-highlights-61?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=weeklybusy">Sign up for good Sunday reading.</a> ]</p>
<p>Omitted from all of this, of course, is Black women’s experience of anti-Black racism, and the various ways it is compounded by the unique forms of misogyny that Black women endure – what queer Black feminist Moya Bailey has termed <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/oct/05/what-is-misogynoir">misogynoir</a>.</p>
<p>Much has been written about the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/12/19/anti-lgbt-discrimination-has-huge-human-toll-research-proves-it/">hardships</a> endured by queer people. Almost all of us are familiar with queer suffering. Yet we tend to overlook the miseries of straight culture, <a href="https://nyupress.org/9781479851553/the-tragedy-of-heterosexuality/">despite overwhelming evidence</a>.</p>
<p>Relatively honest accounts of these miseries exist in the past and present world of self-help books, or what I call the “heterosexual repair industry.” </p>
<p>Inside the volumes of marriage advice for straight couples, one message has been clear: forging modern heterosexuality is a difficult accomplishment, one undeniably shaped by the intersections of white supremacy and misogyny.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/144782/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jane Ward does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Concerned about the state of marriage – and thus the ability of whites to procreate – eugenicists were behind some of the earliest modern marriage manuals.Jane Ward, Professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies, University of California, RiversideLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1281232020-01-16T19:01:11Z2020-01-16T19:01:11ZHomosexuality may have evolved for social, not sexual reasons<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307834/original/file-20191219-11939-s5zoa8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=34%2C0%2C4558%2C3050&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">We propose same-sex attraction evolved to allow greater social integration and stronger same-sex social bonds. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/young-male-couple-holding-hands-standing-287829986">SHUTTERSTOCK</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>How did homosexuality in humans evolve? </p>
<p>Typically, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19539396">this question</a> is posed as <a href="https://www.amazon.com.au/Goodness-Paradox-Evolution-Made-Violent/dp/1781255830">a paradox</a>. </p>
<p>The argument is this: gay sex alone can’t produce children, and for traits to evolve, they have to be passed onto children, who get some form of competitive advantage from them. </p>
<p>From this perspective, some argue homosexuality should not have evolved.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02955/full?utm_source=F-NTF&utm_medium=EMLX&utm_campaign=PRD_FEOPS_20170000_ARTICLE">In a paper published yesterday</a> by myself and Duke University professor Brian Hare, we propose human sexuality (including homosexuality) evolved as an outcome of the evolution of increased sociability in humans. </p>
<p>We argue many of the evolutionary forces that shaped human sexuality were social, rather than based on reproductive ability. </p>
<p>This is our “sociosexual hypothesis” for the evolution of gay sex and attraction. </p>
<h2>Sex for bonding</h2>
<p>For humans, and many other animals, sex is not just about reproduction. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310400/original/file-20200116-181608-16veogf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310400/original/file-20200116-181608-16veogf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310400/original/file-20200116-181608-16veogf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310400/original/file-20200116-181608-16veogf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310400/original/file-20200116-181608-16veogf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310400/original/file-20200116-181608-16veogf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1133&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310400/original/file-20200116-181608-16veogf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1133&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310400/original/file-20200116-181608-16veogf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1133&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Bonobos and chimpanzees share about 99.6% of their DNA with humans.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/bonobo-green-tropical-jungle-natural-background-1596689767">shutterstock</a></span>
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<p><a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/primate-sexuality-9780199544646?cc=au&lang=en&">In our closest primate relative</a>, the bonobo, <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10329-010-0229-z">straight and gay sex have vital roles</a> in play, social transactions, barter of food, same-sex social bonding and bonding between mating pairs.</p>
<p>We shouldn’t limit our thinking about the evolution of sex to its reproductive functions. We must also consider its social functions.</p>
<p>Based on the social behaviour of primates (and other social mammals), we argue our species’ recent cognitive and behavioural evolution was driven by natural selection favouring traits that allowed better social integration. This is called prosociality.</p>
<p>Early humans that could quickly and easily access the benefits of group living had a strong selective advantage. We believe this led to the evolution of a whole range of traits including reduced aggression, increased communication, understanding, social play and affiliation.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/gay-gene-search-reveals-not-one-but-many-and-no-way-to-predict-sexuality-122459">'Gay gene' search reveals not one but many – and no way to predict sexuality</a>
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<p>Species such as the bonobo, that evolved for high prosociality, evolved to use sexual behaviour in many social contexts. This results in an increase of sex in general, greater diversity in the contexts of sex, and an increase in gay sex.</p>
<p>We believe something similar happened in recent human evolution. Gay sex and attraction may have evolved because individuals with a degree of same-sex attraction benefited from greater social mobility, integration and stronger same-sex social bonds. </p>
<p>This may sound counterintuitive, given <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1529100616637616?url_ver=Z39.88-2003&rfr_id=ori%3Arid%3Acrossref.org&rfr_dat=cr_pub%3Dpubmed">gay people are socially marginalised, ostracised and even criminalised in many societies.</a> </p>
<p>However, our argument addresses the early evolution of human sexuality, not how relatively recent phenomena like religion and religion-based legal structures have responded to sexual minorities.</p>
<h2>Supporting facts</h2>
<p>Many studies since the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt173zmgn">pioneering</a> <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1447861/">research</a> of Alfred Kinsey and colleagues have emphasised that <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1529100616637616?url_ver=Z39.88-2003&rfr_id=ori%3Arid%3Acrossref.org&rfr_dat=cr_pub%3Dpubmed">sexual minorities occur across all cultures</a>, and the levels of gay and bisexual people in populations have been quite stable over time.</p>
<p>Our hypothesis predicts that bisexuality and people who identify as “mostly straight” should be more common than people who identify as exclusively gay, <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1529100616637616?url_ver=Z39.88-2003&rfr_id=ori%3Arid%3Acrossref.org&rfr_dat=cr_pub%3Dpubmed">and this is the case</a>. </p>
<p>Recent genetic analyses confirm <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/365/6456/eaat7693">hundreds of genes influence sexuality</a> in complex ways. </p>
<p>We quite randomly inherit half our genes from each parent. Each person’s genetic makeup is unique, so it would be highly unlikely to find two people with exactly the same set of genes influencing their sexuality. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/born-this-way-an-evolutionary-view-of-gay-genes-26051">Born this way? An evolutionary view of 'gay genes'</a>
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<p>Thus, variation is expected, and individuals fall along a spectrum ranging from a majority who are straight, to a minority who identify as gay.</p>
<p>Our hypothesis for the evolution of homosexuality would predict this kind of variation in human sexuality, and can help explain why it is generally stable across cultures. </p>
<p>We believe sexuality is a highly complex trait, interwoven with sociality. Attraction, sexual behaviour, social bonds and desire all contribute to its complexity.</p>
<h2>Asking the right questions</h2>
<p>Height is another feature influenced by hundreds of genes, many of which interact with our external environments in complex ways. </p>
<p>We see a continuous variation in human height – some very tall and very short people exist. </p>
<p>We might draw on nutritional ecology to explore the evolution of human height, but would not feel the need to introduce special evolutionary arguments to explain the existence of tall or short people. </p>
<p>No special explanation is necessary. They are simply exhibiting natural, genetically influenced variations in height.</p>
<p>Similarly, we think asking how gay sex and attraction evolved is the wrong question. </p>
<p>A more useful question to ask is: how did human sexuality evolve in all its forms?</p>
<p>In doing do, we acknowledge homosexuality does not present a paradox needing a special explanation. It is simply a result of our species’ recent sociosexual evolution.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/gay-gene-testing-apps-arent-just-misleading-theyre-dangerous-126522">'Gay gene' testing apps aren't just misleading – they're dangerous</a>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Barron currently receives funding from Macquarie University, The Australian Research Council and the Templeton World Charity Foundation</span></em></p>Scientists don’t ask how some people evolved to be tall. In the same way, asking how homosexuality evolved is the wrong question. We need to ask how human sexuality evolved in all its forms.Andrew Barron, Professor, Macquarie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1227642019-09-03T13:40:36Z2019-09-03T13:40:36ZStop calling it a choice: Biological factors drive homosexuality<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290563/original/file-20190902-175705-15kuqu2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Biological factors shape sexual preference.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/lgbt-lesbian-couple-moments-happiness-concept-575079754?src=-1-53">Rawpixel.com/SHutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aat7693">Across cultures, 2% to 10% of people report having same-sex relations</a>. In the U.S., <a href="https://www.statista.com/topics/1249/homosexuality/">1% to 2.2% of women and men</a>, respectively, identify as gay. Despite these numbers, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2013/06/04/the-global-divide-on-homosexuality/">many people still consider homosexual behavior to be an anomalous choice</a>. However, biologists have <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780312253776">documented homosexual behavior in more than 450 species</a>, arguing that same-sex behavior is not an unnatural choice, and may in fact play a vital role within populations.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aat7693">a 2019 issue of Science magazine</a>, geneticist Andrea Ganna at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, and colleagues, described the largest survey to date for genes associated with same-sex behavior. By analyzing the DNA of nearly half a million people from the U.S. and the U.K., they concluded that genes account for between 8% and 25% of same-sex behavior. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.nature.com/news/sex-redefined-1.16943">Numerous studies have established that sex is not just male or female</a>. Rather, it is a continuum that emerges from a person’s genetic makeup. Nonetheless, misconceptions persist that same-sex attraction is a choice that warrants condemnation or <a href="https://www.apa.org/pi/lgbt/resources/just-the-facts">conversion</a>, and leads to discrimination and persecution.</p>
<p><a href="https://wjsulliv.wixsite.com/sullivanlab">I am a molecular biologist</a> and am interested in this new study as it further illuminates the genetic contribution to human behavior. As the author of the book, <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/608709/pleased-to-meet-me-by-bill-sullivan/9781426220555/">“Pleased to Meet Me: Genes, Germs, and the Curious Forces That Make Us Who We Are,”</a> I have done extensive research into the biological forces that conspire to shape human personality and behavior, including the factors influencing sexual attraction.</p>
<h2>The hunt for ‘gay genes’</h2>
<p>The new finding is consistent with multiple earlier studies of twins that indicated same-sex attraction is a heritable trait.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290580/original/file-20190902-175663-baya3w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290580/original/file-20190902-175663-baya3w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1200&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290580/original/file-20190902-175663-baya3w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1200&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290580/original/file-20190902-175663-baya3w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1200&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290580/original/file-20190902-175663-baya3w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1508&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290580/original/file-20190902-175663-baya3w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1508&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290580/original/file-20190902-175663-baya3w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1508&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A new study suggests that genes are responsible for between 8% and 25% of same-sex preference.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/dna-multi-color-isolated-on-white-717211195?src=-1-47">Guru 3D</a></span>
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<p>The 2019 study is the latest in a hunt for “gay genes” that began in 1993, when Dean Hamer <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.8332896">linked male homosexuality to a section of the X chromosome</a>. As the ease and affordability of genome sequencing increased, additional gene candidates have emerged with potential links to homosexual behavior. So-called <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-15736-4">genome-wide association studies identified a gene called <em>SLITRK6</em></a>, which is active in a brain region called the diencephalon that differs in size between people who are homosexual or heterosexual.</p>
<p>Genetic studies in mice have uncovered additional gene candidates that could influence sexual preference. A 2010 study <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2156-11-62">linked sexual preference to a gene called fucose mutarotase</a>. When the gene was deleted in female mice, they were attracted to female odors and preferred to mount females rather than males. </p>
<p>Other studies have shown that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/nature06089">disruption of a gene called <em>TRPC2</em></a> can cause female mice to act like males. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1069259">Male mice lacking <em>TRPC2</em></a> no longer display male-male aggression, and they initiate sexual behaviors toward both males and females. Expressed in the brain, <em>TRPC2</em> functions in the recognition of pheromones, chemicals that are released by one member of a species to elicit a response in another.</p>
<p>With multiple gene candidates being linked to homosexuality, it seemed highly unlikely that a single “gay” gene exists. This idea is further supported by <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aat7693">the new study</a>, which identified five new genetic loci (fixed positions on chromosomes) correlating with same-sex activity: two that appeared in men and women, two only in men, and one only in women.</p>
<h2>How might these genes influence same-sex behavior?</h2>
<p>I find it intriguing that some of the genes from men identified in Ganna’s study are associated with olfactory systems, a finding that has parallels to the work in mice. Ganna’s group found other gene variants that may be linked with sex hormone regulation, which other scientists have previously suggested plays a large role in shaping the brain in ways that influence sexual behavior. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290575/original/file-20190902-175691-1l5i9pk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290575/original/file-20190902-175691-1l5i9pk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=846&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290575/original/file-20190902-175691-1l5i9pk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=846&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290575/original/file-20190902-175691-1l5i9pk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=846&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290575/original/file-20190902-175691-1l5i9pk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1063&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290575/original/file-20190902-175691-1l5i9pk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1063&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290575/original/file-20190902-175691-1l5i9pk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1063&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Conditions in the uterus during pregnancy are thought to influence the sexual preferences of the child.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/beautiful-pregnant-woman-shopping-bags-outdoors-503149633?src=-1-18">Anna Om/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
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<p>Males with a genetic condition called <a href="https://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/condition/androgen-insensitivity-syndrome">androgen insensitivity syndrome</a> can develop female genitalia and are usually brought up as girls, despite being genetically male – with an X and Y chromosome – and they are attracted to men. This suggests that testosterone is needed to “masculinize” a prenatal brain; if that doesn’t happen, the child will grow up to desire men. </p>
<p>Similarly, girls who have a genetic condition called <a href="https://www.nichd.nih.gov/health/topics/cah">congenital adrenal hyperplasia</a> are exposed to unusually high levels of male hormones like testosterone while in the womb, which may masculinize their brain and increase the odds of lesbianism. </p>
<p>It’s also possible that hormonal shifts during pregnancy could affect how a fetus’ brain is configured. In rats, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1210/en.2011-0277">manipulation of hormones during pregnancy</a> produces offspring that exhibit homosexual behavior.</p>
<h2>Why does homosexual behavior exist?</h2>
<p>Several hypotheses have been advanced to explain how homosexuality can be beneficial in perpetuating familial genes. One idea involves the concept of kin selection, whereby people work to ensure the passage of their family’s genes into subsequent generations. Gay uncles and aunts, for example, are “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797609359623">helpers in the nest</a>” that help raise other family members’ children to nurture the family tree.</p>
<p>Another idea suggests that homosexuality is a “trade-off trait.” For example, certain genes in women help increase their fertility, but <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1743-6109.2008.00944.x">if these genes are expressed in a male</a>, they predispose him toward homosexuality.</p>
<p>Sexual behavior is widely diverse and governed by sophisticated mechanisms throughout the animal kingdom. As with other complex behaviors, it is not possible to predict sexuality by gazing into a DNA sequence as if it were a crystal ball. Such behaviors emerge from constellations of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of genes, and how they are regulated by the environment.</p>
<p>While there is no single “gay gene,” there is overwhelming evidence of a biological basis for sexual orientation that is programmed into the brain before birth based on a mix of genetics and prenatal conditions, none of which the fetus chooses.</p>
<p>[ <em>You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=youresmart">You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/122764/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bill Sullivan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A new study of nearly 500,000 individuals finds that many genes affect same-sex behavior, including newly identified candidates that may regulate smell and sex hormones.Bill Sullivan, Professor of Pharmacology & Toxicology, Indiana University School of MedicineLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1171102019-05-31T13:48:09Z2019-05-31T13:48:09ZIf your sexual orientation is accepted by society you will be happier and more satisfied with your life<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277425/original/file-20190531-69095-1ehye98.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Homosexual women are mostly happier with their lives than heterosexual women.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/couple-gay-woman-having-breakfast-together-1267928482?src=L0n4kDoC1Oy2okptAAucNQ-1-18">engagestock/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In recent years LGBT+ rights have improved dramatically. Same-sex marriage is now legally performed and recognised <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/05/17/global-snapshot-sex-marriage/">in 28 countries</a>. Equality laws protect LGBT+ people <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/contents">at work</a> and increased media coverage is improving knowledge and awareness of sexual orientations. More to be done, however, to ensure equality for all, and researchers have been looking into how different factors like these contribute to the happiness and life satisfaction of people with minority sexual identities.</p>
<p>Studies have shown that, on average, homosexuals and bisexuals report <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176519301466">lower levels of life satisfaction</a> than heterosexuals. This has been linked to homosexuals and bisexuals experiencing heteronormativity (the assumption that heterosexual orientation and binary gender identity are “normal”, which has led to the world being built to cater to the needs and desires of heterosexual life), <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2072932/">which leads to stigmatisation</a>. For our <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176519301466">new study</a> we looked deeper into the links between sexuality and life satisfaction, and found that people with an “other” sexual identity – such as pansexual, demisexual, or asexual – also experience lower levels of life satisfaction than heterosexuals.</p>
<h2>Well-being differences</h2>
<p>Using 150,000 responses collected over five years as part of the <a href="https://www.understandingsociety.ac.uk/">Understanding Society survey</a>, we analysed whether the happiest heterosexuals are happier than the happiest sexual minorities, and if the least happy sexual minorities are less happy than the least happy heterosexuals. When looking at the data, we controlled for a number of things – such as age, employment, personality, and location – to make sure our results focused solely on sexual identity.</p>
<p>While other studies have looked at the “average” effect of sexual identity on happiness (where it has been shown that sexual minorities report lower levels of life satisfaction), my colleagues and I considered the whole well-being distribution. That is, we looked at the differences between heterosexuals and sexual minorities at the lowest, average, and highest levels of self-reported life satisfaction.</p>
<p>Our results are clear that sexual identity is correlated with life satisfaction, but it is a nuanced picture. We found that homosexual males are less happy with their lives than heterosexual males, except for at the very top of the well-being distribution (where they are happiest). We also saw that homosexual females are happier with their lives than heterosexual females. Although interestingly that is except for at the lowest levels of well-being. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277202/original/file-20190530-69091-z9xgeo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277202/original/file-20190530-69091-z9xgeo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277202/original/file-20190530-69091-z9xgeo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277202/original/file-20190530-69091-z9xgeo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277202/original/file-20190530-69091-z9xgeo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277202/original/file-20190530-69091-z9xgeo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277202/original/file-20190530-69091-z9xgeo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Facing ostracisation on the basis of your sexual identity has a large negative impact on how satisfied you are with your life.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/hands-holding-rainbow-paper-hearts-lgbt-245541811">Yulia Grigoryeva/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Bisexuals – irrespective of gender – report the lowest levels of life satisfaction, and the loss to well-being associated with being bisexual (rather than heterosexual) is at least comparable to the effect of being unemployed or having ill-health. In fact, out of all the sexual identities analysed we found that bisexuals are the least satisfied with their lives. </p>
<p>“Other” sexual identities are associated with lower levels of life satisfaction in the bottom half of the distribution, but higher life satisfaction in the top half. This means that the least happy people with an other sexual identity are less happy than their heterosexual counterparts. But the happiest people with an other sex identity are actually happier than their heterosexual counterparts. </p>
<p>While our findings highlight the importance of gender (or more precisely its interaction with sexual identity), this is only relevant for homosexuals. As noted above, the results for homosexual males and homosexual females are drastically different This makes sense considering that other research has highlighted that societal attitudes towards lesbians are <a href="https://academic.oup.com/poq/article-abstract/66/1/40/1866690">more preferential</a> than to gay males. So it is likely that the higher life satisfaction reported by lesbians (compared to heterosexual women) is associated with these more positive societal attitudes. </p>
<h2>Identity and acceptance</h2>
<p>Looking to our findings for other sexual identities, we believe that growing awareness (for example due to <a href="https://www.glaad.org/whereweareontv18">increased representation</a> on television) is likely to have reduced the need for some people to “explain” their identity to others. This will have made reaffirming the validity of their sexuality to themselves easier too. If we couple this with increasing self-awareness of an identity that gives meaning to attractions (or lack thereof), the positive well-being identified for this group is understandable.</p>
<p>While it could be argued that the same should be true of bisexuals, there is a significant difference between bisexuality and “other” identities. Bisexuality is an identity that has existed significantly longer and was part of the original LGBT movement. And yet the greater minority stress experienced by bisexuals is likely a reflection of how they <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4283842/">experience stigmatisation</a> from both heterosexual and homosexual communities through <a href="https://www.bustle.com/p/5-myths-about-bisexuality-that-contribute-to-bi-erasure-2418689">bi-erasure</a> and lack of acceptance of bisexuality.</p>
<p>Overall our research shows that people with a minority sexual identity are on average less satisfied with their lives, but across the distribution of well-being a more positive picture emerges. If we look at other research into the different societal attitudes and growing acceptance towards certain sexual identities, it is clear that being accepted is important. Facing ostracisation on the basis of your sexual identity has a large negative impact on how satisfied you are with your life.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/117110/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Samuel Mann receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). Samuel Mann is a PhD Student at Swansea University affiliated with the Wales Institute of Social & Economic Research, Data & Methods. </span></em></p>Minority sexual identities are on average less satisfied with their lives — but being accepted is crucial to this.Samuel Mann, PhD Researcher in Sexual Orientation and Well-being, Swansea UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/921842018-03-11T09:02:16Z2018-03-11T09:02:16ZSex: birds do it, bees do it - and fungi do it too. Here’s how, and why it matters<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/209695/original/file-20180309-30958-1w7hmly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The sweet-smelling, fluffy white fungus, _Huntiella moniliformis_, engaging in sexual reproduction in the lab.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author supplied</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Sex is an essential part of life. You, me and almost every other living organism on this planet are only here because two individuals got together at some point in the past to have their genes represented in the next generation. </p>
<p>For many species on earth – especially humans – that’s a pretty inflexible process. There are strict requirements: for instance, having two partners of the opposite sex tends to be indispensable for the production of offspring. </p>
<p>But there are a number of exceptions to this rigidity. Some of the most beautiful and interesting are exemplified by certain species of fungi.</p>
<p>Fungi play a variety of roles in our lives. Some are food sources, like button mushrooms; some are used in the production of cheese, wine, beer and bread. Others have provided humans with antibiotics for almost a century. And still others can cause great harm, wiping out trees by the hectare – or even killing humans.</p>
<p>And of course, like most species, fungi have sex lives. I study the sexual behaviour of <em>Huntiella moniliformis</em>, a sweet-smelling and fluffy white fungus that’s found in plantations all over the world. It’s fairly unique in that it’s unisexual – able to reproduce completely alone. </p>
<p>This makes it potentially very dangerous: even if it’s the only fungus in, say, an entire forest, it can keep mating and reproducing. It gets all the evolutionary benefits of sex, without having to go through all the trouble of finding a mating partner. </p>
<p>If we understand its sex life, we can come up with ways to control, manage or even stop it. That’s important in the case of species like <em>Huntiella moniliformis</em>, because they can infect damaged trees and cause disease. </p>
<h2>Fungal mating strategies</h2>
<p>In humans and most other mammals there is only one way to produce sexual offspring: sexual intercourse between a male and a female. Reptiles and birds often also reproduce heterosexually. </p>
<p>Fungi, meanwhile, can utilise one or more of six different sexual strategies. These range from the fungal equivalent of heterosexuality to changing their mating type as necessary.</p>
<p><strong><a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1469-185X.1949.tb00582.x/pdf">Heterothallism</a></strong>: is like heterosexuality in humans and requires two partners. In humans, having two X chromosomes makes you female; having an X and a Y chromosome makes you male. Some fungi use a similar system but instead of a whole chromosome they use single genes. A fungus with the <em>MAT1</em> gene is of the MAT1 mating type; having the <em>MAT2</em> gene means its mating type is MAT2. </p>
<p>For sex to take place, MAT1 and MAT2 partners need to get together. This means that out of everyone you meet, only half are sexually compatible with you. This severely limits the number of successful partners a fungus can meet in its search for a mate.</p>
<p>So how do they find each other? Smell. Or, at least, something similar: pheromones. These are small molecules that let a MAT1 individual know that a MAT2 individual is close, and vice versa. This ensures that no one wastes time and energy slowly growing towards an incompatible partner. </p>
<p><strong>Primary homothallism:</strong> is when a single fungus has sex completely alone. Instead of having either the <em>MAT1</em> or the <em>MAT2</em> gene, they have both. In this way a single individual can make both pheromones and recognise itself as a partner. There are other forms of self-sex too. Two of these include the ability to change mating type. These systems mimic those of some fish that can switch between male and female, depending on what partners are available. The third relies on having two genomes and is functionally very similar to heterothallism. </p>
<p>The fourth lonely sexual strategy completely changed the way we think about sex in fungi. <strong>Unisexuality</strong> occurs in individuals we would classically have thought to be either MAT1 or MAT2. We would have expected them to need a partner, but they don’t.</p>
<p>My PhD research at the <a href="https://www.fabinet.up.ac.za/">Forestry and Agricultural Biotechnology Institute</a> in South Africa has revealed that unisexual reproduction is possible in <em>H. moniliformis</em>. My supervisors and I have recently <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0192517">shown</a> that MAT2 individuals are able to secrete both pheromones, despite the absence of the <em>MAT1</em> gene. </p>
<p>This means that a single mating type can recognise itself as a compatible partner and respond appropriately. We are currently working on understanding how this system evolved and whether related species could be manipulated to employ the same strategy.</p>
<h2>Why does this matter?</h2>
<p>There are obvious evolutionary benefits to species having sex. The most obvious is because it ensures a species’ longevity. But there are downsides – not for <em>H. moniliformis</em>, in this case, but for forestry plantations. </p>
<p>Sex combines genes from different individuals and produces genetically unique offspring. In disease causing fungi this has been shown to enable host jumping – the movement from a susceptible host species such as a Pine tree in a plantation, to a previously resistant species, like an indigenous tree in a natural forest. </p>
<p>This means that hosts previously thought to be immune to infection could get infected in the future, and can cause serious disease outbreaks that are difficult to control. </p>
<p>The other downside to sex in fungi like <em>H. moniliformis</em> is that it produces easily dispersible spores. These are often the agent that enhances fungal spread and infection. </p>
<p>Understanding these processes, and the sex lives of fungi like <em>H. moniliformis</em>, can help us find answers to how to control the spread of diseases. This will ultimately mean keeping plantations – and humans – safer.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/92184/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andi Wilson receives funding from the National Research Foundation (NRF). </span></em></p>Understanding the sex lives of fungi can help in finding answers about disease control.Andi Wilson, PhD: Genetics Candidate, University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/901272018-02-05T11:12:04Z2018-02-05T11:12:04ZWhat medieval artists teach us about animal sex<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/204802/original/file-20180205-19952-1aq6tob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/frog-sex-animal-mating-113047891?src=k_e5EX9xZX31WhersYJh0g-1-8">CRS PHOTO/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The prevailing view is that animals mainly have sex to reproduce. Until recently, therefore, scientists assumed that animals were relentlessly heterosexual. This is the message conveyed by countless zoos, wildlife documentaries, books and films. Think <a href="http://www.lurj.org/issues/volume-1-number-2/penguins">March of the Penguins</a> or 2014’s controversial <a href="http://www.bilerico.com/2014/04/no_gay_animals_on_noahs_ark.php">Noah</a>. Such representations perpetuate the belief that animals are best seen through the lens of human “norms” of gender, sex and family.</p>
<p>The presumed “heterosexuality” of animals has also traditionally provided a backhanded justification for regulating human sexual activity. Acts of homoeroticism or gender bending get cast as “unnatural” insofar as such things aren’t perceived as being clearly observable in other species.</p>
<p>But arguing against these viewpoints, biologists such as <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Biological_exuberance.html?id=5EzaKnlxLLgC">Bruce Bagemihl</a> and <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Evolution_s_Rainbow.html?id=6O9Wj8E_PZkC&redir_esc=y">Joan Roughgarden</a> have begun putting forward evidence that animal sexuality comprises an array of behaviours, gender expressions and body types. In fact, reproduction is marginal to many species. Scientists impose human categories on animals at their peril. And increasingly, popular culture is also getting behind these moves. The web is inundated with articles and blog posts on such topics as <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/the-25-gayest-animals#.dlV88Yxzx">The 25 Gayest Animals</a> or <a href="http://www.transsexual.org/anec1.html">Our Transsexual Pets</a>. A search on YouTube turns up a wealth of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYRIO4tz2gA">related footage</a>.</p>
<figure>
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</figure>
<p>Yet a historical perspective on these issues is often lacking. Categories such as “gay” or “trans” are not ageless absolutes, after all. The word “heterosexuality” itself only began being used around 1900, initially in medical circles: a <a href="http://outhistory.org/exhibits/show/heterohomobi/merriam2">1923 dictionary</a> defines it as a “morbid” sexual passion for the opposite sex.</p>
<p>And what seems on the surface to be a relatively recent development – the discovery of expressions of queerness in the animal kingdom – turns out to have a long and dynamic history. It’s important to take a long view on the issue.</p>
<h2>Animal sex in the Middle Ages</h2>
<p>During the Middle Ages, discussions of animal sex proliferated in <a href="http://bestiary.ca/">bestiary</a> manuscripts. Designed to present a Christianised interpretation of the natural world, these volumes perpetuated a traditional Noah’s ark view of biology. But they also often featured creatures that don’t seem to fit the “heterosexual” mould.</p>
<p>For example, the <a href="http://bestiary.ca/beasts/beast153.htm">hyena</a>, which medieval scholars thought possessed male and female sexual organs that the animal used indiscriminately, is depicted in <a href="http://www.abdn.ac.uk/bestiary/translat/11v.hti">some illustrations</a> with enlarged humanoid genitals. Medieval Christian commentators interpreted the beast’s gender-switching behaviour as a figure for “Jewish” duplicity as well as sodomy.</p>
<p>Conversely, the male <a href="http://bestiary.ca/beasts/beast152.htm">beaver</a>, believed to castrate itself to escape human hunters, was likened to a chaste man of God. Others whose sexual habits were turned into spiritual lessons included <a href="http://bestiary.ca/beasts/beast267.htm">vipers</a> (presented as serial adulterers with a taste for fellatio) and <a href="http://bestiary.ca/beasts/beast233.htm">vultures</a> (which allegedly bred without sexual union).</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/204803/original/file-20180205-19956-1ujmmnp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/204803/original/file-20180205-19956-1ujmmnp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204803/original/file-20180205-19956-1ujmmnp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204803/original/file-20180205-19956-1ujmmnp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204803/original/file-20180205-19956-1ujmmnp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=761&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204803/original/file-20180205-19956-1ujmmnp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=761&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204803/original/file-20180205-19956-1ujmmnp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=761&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Depiction of a black vulture, 1893.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_royal_natural_history_(1893)_(14784868845).jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<p>Animals allowed medieval audiences to contemplate taboos such as oral sex or promiscuity, while casting the religious ideal of chastity as a “natural” human activity. Bestiaries were therefore preoccupied less with “heterosexuality” as such than with the need for all humans, regardless of gender, to channel their desires towards the man upstairs.</p>
<p>Medieval bestiaries set the stage for a lively debate on sex and gender among humans. Arguably, a similar conversation is playing out today. The presumed heterosexuality of animals is giving way to glimpses of gender and sexuality that exceed our human-centred grids.</p>
<h2>The medieval science of sex</h2>
<p>Books translating and commenting on the biological works of the ancient philosopher <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle/">Aristotle</a> also sometimes adopted such perspectives. Like some of the images circulating in the bestiaries, these illustrations presented a kaleidoscopic view of creaturely coitus.</p>
<p>For instance, in the 13th century, <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/albert-great/">Albert the Great</a> wrote an influential commentary on Aristotle’s <em>De Animalibus</em>. A <a href="http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b85409542.r=latin+16169.langFR">student copy of Albert’s text</a>, owned by scholars at the Sorbonne in Paris, contains a series of images depicting copulating creatures.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/204804/original/file-20180205-19944-icoein.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/204804/original/file-20180205-19944-icoein.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204804/original/file-20180205-19944-icoein.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204804/original/file-20180205-19944-icoein.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204804/original/file-20180205-19944-icoein.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204804/original/file-20180205-19944-icoein.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204804/original/file-20180205-19944-icoein.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A copy of Albert the Great’s De Animalibus.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Firenze,_alberto_magno,_de_animalibus,_1450-1500_ca._cod_fiesolano_67,_01.JPG">Sailko/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>One page illustrates a section of the text where Albert is discussing what he calls the great “diversity” of nature. In the margins viewers are afforded a glimpse of the sexual dimension to this diversity. Fish mate belly-to-belly. Birds mount or touch beak-to-beak. A donkey gets astride a whinnying mare. Serpents get themselves into a real tangle.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, in the centre of the same page, a pair of naked humans, framed in a gold initial, are represented locked in an intimate embrace, the lower halves of their bodies chastely obscured by the decoration. This seemingly corresponds to Albert’s argument that whereas non-humans mate noisily and without shame, humans do it silently and in private.</p>
<p>Diversity, then, is crucial to visions of animal sex in medieval art. Not only do humans differ from other animals in the way they copulate, but artists also imagined a spectrum of possibilities among nonhuman animals.</p>
<h2>Monstrosities</h2>
<p>Another scene in the same book, focusing on generation and sex difference, shows how even within the human animal there exists sexual variety. In the accompanying text Albert asserts that what he terms “monstrosities” usually result from acts of intercourse between animals of different species but with similar natures. But some “monsters” result from a multiplication of members, as in those humans who are born possessing both sexes.</p>
<p>A page at the beginning of the relevant section features an image of a naked male touching the stomach of a heavily pregnant female – a conventional image of the end to which reproductive sex leads. </p>
<p>Corresponding to Albert’s description of the “monstrosity” he calls “hermaphrodite”, however, the illustrator has also included a rare medieval depiction of an intersex person possessing both male and female genitalia.</p>
<p>What’s more, the same margins also feature other examples of monstrous births, depicted as human-animal hybrids, including a lion-man with a bearded human head. Such imagery suggests that even within the sphere of reproduction there is potential for variety and multiplicity.</p>
<p>Such images in medieval art draw attention to the fact that we humans, too, are stranger and more complicated than we sometimes suppose. It’s a lesson from which those who persist in finding reflections in “nature” of human categories of gender and sexuality today can surely learn.</p>
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<p><em>The next edition of our podcast The Anthill is on sex. Subscribe <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/podcasts/the-anthill">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/90127/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert Mills does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>How do different species have sex? Medieval illuminated manuscripts contain some surprisingly varied depictions.Robert Mills, Professor of Medieval Studies, UCLLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/901752018-01-18T19:16:36Z2018-01-18T19:16:36ZThe term ‘LGBTI’ confuses desire, behaviour and identity – it’s time for a rethink<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202229/original/file-20180117-53289-18e4nv4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Desire, behaviour and identity are distinct, and do not always overlap.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/David Moir</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The rise of sexually transmissible diseases made <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/back-to-the-80s-gonorrhoea-and-syphilis-are-resurging-in-melbourne-20180115-h0ih75.html">front-page news</a> in The Age, which tried to make sense of the rise among “gay men” and “heterosexual people”.</p>
<p>This illustrates the increasingly common confusion between behaviour and identity. What is involved is sexual contact, or to use the expression common in the early days of the AIDS epidemic, “the exchange of bodily fluids”. Whether people involved have a particular identity, as the words used in the report suggest, is irrelevant.</p>
<p>Desire, behaviour and identity are distinct, and they do not always overlap. Someone who is celibate may also have strong sexual desires or even a particular sexual identity; someone may identify as heterosexual but have homosexual experiences; most people will have sexual desires that are not necessarily acted out in practice.</p>
<p>Freud knew this, even as he constructed elaborate explanations for how our sexual beings are created. Alfred Kinsey shocked Americans 60 years ago when <a href="https://www.kinseyinstitute.org/research/publications/kinsey-scale.php">he revealed the extent</a> of homosexual behaviour among men who would have denied any homosexual identity.</p>
<p>Contemporary research – for example, the <a href="http://www.ashr.edu.au/">Australian Study of Health and Relationships</a> – suggests that behaviour, desire and identity overlap in complex ways.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australia-has-finally-achieved-marriage-equality-but-theres-a-lot-more-to-be-done-on-lgbti-rights-88488">Australia has finally achieved marriage equality, but there's a lot more to be done on LGBTI rights</a>
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<p>Yet contemporary usage, with its emphasis on identities, ignores these complexities. The term “LGBTI” combines sexuality (lesbian, gay, bisexual) with gender identity (trans) and gender characteristics (intersex).</p>
<p>At a recent conference, one speaker declared himself “a proud LGBTI person”. A moment’s reflection suggests this is very unlikely.</p>
<p>Being trans – that is, to question whether one’s biological characteristics determine one’s sense of gender – implies neither heterosexual nor homosexual desires. Indeed, if we accept that gender is fluid, it makes nonsense of a binary division between hetero- and homosexual. This may be why social conservatives feel so threatened by “gender ideology”.</p>
<p>Sexual and gender fluidity are common themes in most cultures, and novels, opera and film are rich in their exploration of this fluidity. As Patrick White wrote in his memoir <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/9164126">Flaws in the Glass</a>: </p>
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<p>Ambivalence has given me insights into human nature, denied, I believe, to those who are unequivocally male or female.</p>
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<p>The recent film <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5726616/">Call Me By Your Name</a> tells the story of two young men who have a brief relationship one summer in Italy. Neither identifies as “gay”, and the elder seems largely heterosexual in his subsequent life. Yet some critics complained at the absence of identity politics – one even complained that openly gay men had not played the leading roles – ignoring the basic premise that desire does not equal identity.</p>
<p>The use of the acronym “LGBTI”, sometimes with added letters to indicate “queer”, “asexuals” or “allies”, is a direct product of American identity politics, and one increasingly used in debates about human rights. But there is a far neater alternative language, which is the term “SOGI”: sexual orientation and gender identity, the preferred usage in international human rights discourses.</p>
<p>There are three good reasons to prefer this term. </p>
<p>First, it avoids the neat categorisation of people according to assumptions about fixed identities, allowing for the realities that how people experience sexuality and gender is often messy and changes over a lifetime.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/michael-kirby-the-rainbow-in-asia-and-the-fight-for-gay-rights-in-our-region-89165">Michael Kirby: the rainbow in Asia and the fight for gay rights in our region</a>
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<p>It is also less linked to liberal Western notions of identity politics, and therefore less likely to be attacked as part of neo-imperial attempts to destroy traditional cultures. This week saw a <a href="http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/first-tunisia-queer-film-festival-celebrates-lgbt-community-228533662">film festival in Tunisia</a> addressing “issues of gender identity and non-normative sexualities” – a deliberate choice of terminology in a deeply hostile environment.</p>
<p>But perhaps most important, everyone has some sense of their experience of sexuality and gender, and the term serves to remind us that we are not speaking of discrete minorities, rather of the complexities of human experience.</p>
<p>Yes, there are times when particular identities are important. Same-sex marriage was only an issue precisely because lesbian and gay relations lacked full legal and social acceptance without it. People who feel discordance between their bodies and their gender expression need recognition and protection from widespread discrimination.</p>
<p>But there is an equal danger in assuming that everyone will be comfortable with labels that define them through increasingly arcane acronyms. In <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/desire-a-memoir-9781350023147/">his recent memoir</a>, the British scholar Jonathan Dollimore wrote: </p>
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<p>It’s one of the delusions of identity politics to think that our desire comfortably coexists with our identity, a belief which has more to do with consumerism than desire. I’ve come to feel that sexuality might at different times express different aspects of one’s self, a situation further complicated by the fact that the self changes. </p>
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<p>The current <a href="https://midsumma.org.au/">Melbourne Midsumma Festival</a> program refers to “LGBTQIA+” in an attempt to incorporate everyone with “diverse gender and sexuality”. But there is a risk of becoming so inclusive that the term loses all meaning. Adding letters to the acronym simply hides the complex interconnections of desire, behaviour and identity in everyday life.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/90175/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dennis Altman is a patron of the Australian Lesbian and Gay Archives and the Gay and Lesbian Foundation of Australia.
</span></em></p>‘LGBTIQA+’ is a term often employed to be inclusive – but it runs the risk of being so inclusive it loses all meaning.Dennis Altman, Professorial Fellow in Human Security, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.