WHY ARE YOU GAY?

Here is the book that brings you the science, in easy language, that your sexual orientation is decided before you can walk. It also contains many juicy facts. If you want to be the expert at the dinner party or just know more, click the headline for details.

This book 'Gay, Straight and the Reason Why – the Science of Sexual Orientation' by Simon LeVay tells you why and how you were born gay. Ten years ago Simon LeVay stunned the world when he discovered that there are clear differences between gay and straight men's brains.

His findings were subsequently confirmed. He is now a teacher and author and the book reviews the last ten years of progress in the field.

Apart from discussions of wombs awash with hormones and more serious stuff, the book includes such delightful facts as:

• 10% of rams are gay.
• How rats fuck (and their spectrum of gender behaviour).
• Gender differences are not only from cultural influences. Cuttlefish, which abandon their spawn, have different navigation strategies depending on gender.
• In humans, there are many gender aligned behaviours (for instance, ability to park a car). Individual males and females may fall anywhere on the spectrum of those traits.
• Childhood gender traits are linked to adult sexual orientation.
• Gay men bitch better than straight men.
• The identical twins who were separated at birth. Both were gay, met each other in a New York bar and became lovers.
• Gay men have smaller INAH3 region of brain than straight men.
• Gay men have bigger cocks than straight men.
• If you have an older brother, you are more likely to be gay than your average bloke. And it's to do with those chemicals in your mum's womb.
• And much much more.

I had difficulty reading the book because my friends kept borrowing it off me. You can buy it here.

Comments

[David Bourne]

LeVay's research into the hypothesised existence of a "gay gene" was, predictably hyped, distorted and simplified by the media when first published a decade ago.
In fact, LeVay never has claimed that such a gene exists: rather he presents statistical "evidence" of the role of genes in determining gender identification in childhood and subsequent adult sexual orientation.
Readers should bear in mind the remark attributed to Mark Twain "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
Statistics are notoriously susceptible to interpretation (i.e. "spin") and research results are determined by the stringency of their methodological co-ordinates.
In fairness to LeVay: he acknowledges that research into genes does NOT prove that they determine sexual identity. At best, it seems likely that genes are one factor among others that account for same-sex attraction.
However, he gives short shrift to theories that foreground other factors such as familial environment (i.e. nurture) and is cavalier in dismissing Freud's theories in a few glib lines. LeVay also skates over the issue of genes being subject to switching mechanisms not yet understood. (We know that people can carry genes that are never activated but we don't know why or how in other people these genes get switched on).
In short, skepticism - a much under-rated philosophy - seems in order here. Caveat emptor.

[otis]

It's time heterosexuals to start explaining why they are str8. Enough.

[otis]

if the question of why is raised, the issue of why not is raised, therefore this is beyond scary and dangerous to any self respecting homosexual (the kind who does not seek explanations for his sexuality, since there should be no authority to judge such a subjective issue).

i am disgusted, to say the least, for this latest attempt by a "scientists" to "explain away" homosexuality. what next? a scientifically proven theory that explains masturbation techniques? how extremely insulting and fascist, in the worst violation of medical ethics way. the fact that you are promoting this abominable book only shows how ignorant you are about the horrible witch hunts that have been unleashed on gay people based exactly on such "scientific" "explanations" (which are thinly disguised apologies to heteronormativity and fascism). please take a stand, as this issue is of extremely serious political importance and i need to know if the leaders of my community are as naive as Magnus Hirschfeld and his disastrous Center for Sexuality was. Do you know how many people were assasinated only because mr. Hirschfeld was interested in the "whys" and "hows" of homosexuality? To say the least two, himself and his lover, both of whom died in exile, tha latter by suicide. This was because they could not bear the conscience that their "scientific" research was used only as alibii for genocide of homosexuals by you-know-who.

I mean, really, superficiality and sex clubs are all fun and ok, but this is playing with our very own lives.