Why Are People Gay?
Unfortunately, most attempts at answering the question, why are people gay, include ideologues making diatribes about three topics: 1) nature vs. nurture; 2) normal vs. abnormal; and 3) reproduction being sexual orientation’s purpose.
Rest assure, I am no ideologue and I will be making no diatribes about these three topics.
However, I am a scientist, who will be making empirically based expositions about these topics.
Besides being mean, diatribes about these topics are fundamentally flawed when initiated by the naïve question, why are people gay?
For these topics to make sense, they must be initiated by the relatively sophisticated question: Why do people have a sexual orientation?
Whether a person’s orientation is homosexual, heterosexual, bisexual or otherwise, is beside the point. The point is this, the answer to the question of why are people gay, is the same answer to the question of why are people heterosexual; or bisexual; or otherwise?
So, let’s find out why people have any sexual orientation.
Is sexual orientation by nature or nurture?
Interestingly, for almost 30 years, grant-funding agencies have spent tens of millions of dollars; and scientists have spent hundreds of thousands of hours, trying to prove homosexuality is by nature by searching for the “gay gene.”
And all this money and time have led to the conclusion that…
There. Is. No. Gay. Gene.
These are not my words, but the words of Andrea Ganna, a research fellow with the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Harvard Medical School in Boston.
Andrea Ganna and his colleagues performed the most recent genetic studies searching for the gay gene; these studies examined and reported data from hundreds of thousands of people who provided DNA and behavioral information to two large genetic surveys, the UK Biobank study and the private genetics firm, 23andMe.
Ganna found people who reported at least one same-sex experience, had variations in DNA on chromosomes seven, 11, 12, and 15.
However, Ganna concluded, these four genetic variants cannot reliably predict someone’s sexual orientation.
As Ganna states:
“There’s really no predictive power (with these genetic variations). These findings reinforce the idea that human sexual behavior is complex and can’t be pinned on any simple constellation of DNA.”
“…there is no gay gene. Rather, ‘nonheterosexuality’ is in part influenced by many tiny genetic effects.”
Andrea Ganna, October 20, 2018, Biology Brain & Behavior
Ganna’s conclusions should come as no surprise because not only has science not found a gay gene; it has also not found a heterosexual or bisexual gene either.
In fact, with all the money and time invested in the search for the gay gene, no one has systematically asked the question:
Where’s the heterosexual gene?
And why has no one systematically asked this question? Because it has long-been assumed there must be a gene associated with heterosexuality because heterosexuality is normal.
Remind me again what happens when we ass-u-me?
To be clear: There is no definitive scientific evidence for a gay gene; nor is there definitive scientific evidence for a heterosexual gene; nor a bisexual gene.
But this is not to say sexual orientation is by nurture. Beyond genetics, there are other methods scientists use to determine whether sexual orientation is due to nature or nurture.
For example, one of these methods uses a sexual orientation concordance rate. A sexual orientation concordance rate is the probability a pair of individuals has the same sexual orientation.
Sexual orientation concordance rates are calculated and compared among three groups of people: 1) People who share the same genetics, like monozygotic twins, who are about 99% genetically alike; 2) people who share some of the same genetics, like dizygotic twins and siblings, who are about 50% genetically alike; and 3) People who share a non-related, randomly selected from the population, percentage of genetics.
If sexual orientation is by nature, then sexual orientation concordance rates — meaning the percentage of people whose sexual orientations coincide with one another, should be highest for people who are most genetically alike, and lowest for people who are most genetically different.
If sexual orientation is by nurture, then sexual orientation concordance rates should not significantly differ, based upon how genetically alike people are.
More than 50 years of research studies have revealed, sexual orientation concordance rates are highest for monozygotic twins; followed by dizygotic twins and siblings; and lowest for randomly selected pairs of individuals.
These findings from sexual orientation concordance rate studies, support the notion of a person’s sexual orientation — whether it be homosexual, heterosexual, bisexual, or otherwise, has some fluidity to it; that is, it may change due to life circumstances — but it is otherwise stable over a person’s lifespan, and rooted by nature.
As with most human behavior, nature sets our sexual orientation’s range and nurture puts us at some point within this range.
What is normal — or abnormal for that matter, when it comes to sexual orientation?
Before answering this question, let’s make sure we know the definition of normal.
Normal can be defined in a variety of ways, including:
Statistically — if an individual behaves like most of the population, then the behavior is normal, and if an individual behaves like the minority of the population, then the behavior is abnormal.
Psychologically — if the individual’s behavior is bringing them happiness, then the behavior is normal; and if the individual’s behavior is bringing them anxiety, then the behavior is abnormal.
Sociologically — if an individual’s behavior is increasing their potential for more relationships, then the behavior is normal; if an individual’s behavior is decreasing their potential for more relationships, then the behavior is abnormal.
Phylogenetically — if the behavior can be found in the animal kingdom, outside of humans, then the behavior is normal; if the behavior cannot be found within the animal kingdom, outside of humans, then the behavior is abnormal.
Legally — if there is no law against the behavior, then it is normal; if there is a law against the behavior, then it is abnormal.
Life’s purpose — if an individual’s behavior is consistent with life’s purpose, then it is normal; if an individual’s behavior is inconsistent with life’s purpose, then it is abnormal.
Because any one of these ways of defining normal has its upsides and downsides, the truest and most authentic way to define normal is to use all six of these ways.
So, let’s use all six of these ways to find out if homosexuality, heterosexuality, and bisexuality are normal or abnormal.
Since most people identify their sexual orientations as being heterosexual and a smaller number of people identify their sexual orientations as being homosexual or bisexual, from a statistical perspective, heterosexuality is normal, and homosexuality and bisexuality are abnormal.
Homosexuality, heterosexuality, and bisexuality are normal from a psychological perspective because sexual orientation is not negatively correlated with happiness.
Homosexuality, heterosexuality, and bisexuality are normal from a sociological perspective because sexual orientation is not negatively correlated with the number of relationships or friends a person has.
Homosexuality, heterosexuality, and bisexuality are normal from a phylogenetic perspective because animals outside of humans are heterosexual, homosexual, and bisexual. In fact, more than 500 animal species are scientifically known to have homosexual or bisexual orientations.
Homosexuality, heterosexuality, and bisexuality are normal from a legal perspective in the United States because there are no laws against a person being a particular sexual orientation. However, this definition of normal is relative to where you are in the world; unfortunately, today, countries like Egypt, Jamaica, Lebanon, Singapore, and Uganda have laws against people being homosexual or bisexual.
Lastly, whether homosexuality, heterosexuality, and bisexuality are normal from a life’s purpose perspective — is obviously based on one’s definition of the purpose of life. But whether this definition is rooted in god, happiness, self-preservation or reproduction; bear in mind this: people who identify their sexual orientations as being heterosexual are by far more likely to be violent to others, and homicidal, and perpetrate sexual assaults against adults, children, and their own family members than people who identify their sexual orientations as being homosexual or bisexual.
With these acts of violence in mind, heterosexuality is abnormal from a life’s purpose perspective while homosexuality and bisexuality are normal.
So, who’s normal? People who identify their sexual orientations as being homosexual, heterosexual, and bisexual are normal on five of the six shared definitions of normality, which means, to have a sexual orientation, is to be normal.
Reproduction is sexual orientation’s purpose.
Often the topic of reproduction being the purpose of sexual orientation is included in discussions about why people are gay to show the homosexual orientation is abnormal because it does not lead to reproduction.
Indeed, homosexual behaviors do not lead to reproduction. But reproduction is not the purpose of sexual orientation. Instead, pleasure is the purpose of sexual orientation.
You can easily demonstrate pleasure is sexual orientation’s purpose by simply asking your friends, family, and strangers, why they have sex. No matter what biological sexes or sexual orientations your friends, family, and strangers are, you can expect their most frequent responses to be related to pleasure.
Cindy Meston and David Buss of the University of Texas published results of a study using this exact method. They found no differences between men’s and women’s responses to this question, with their replies consistently being about pleasure, feelings, and happiness.
You can also demonstrate pleasure is sexual orientation’s purpose by doing a simple thought-experiment. Add the number of times you’ve had and hope to have sex during your lifetime. With this number in mind, consider how many times the goal was (or will be) for reproduction versus how many it was (or will be) for pleasure. Which number is higher? The number of times for reproduction or the number of times for pleasure? Or should I reframe this question to: which number is WAY-WAY-WAY higher!?
Why are people gay? The same reasons why people are heterosexual, bisexual, pansexual and otherwise.
We are programmed by nature, and a little-bit by nurture, to have sexual orientations, so we can seek our own and facilitate others’ happiness, despite the barriers, we ourselves, put up to deny pleasure.
References
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Jan Chaiken, Marcia Chaiken, and William Rhodes. (1994). Predicting Violent Behavior and Classifying Violent Offenders. In Understanding and Preventing Violence, Volume 4: Consequences and Control. The National Academies Press.
Copen, C., Chandra, A., & Febo-Vazquez, I. (2016). Sexual behavior, sexual attraction, and sexual orientation among adults aged 18–44 in the United States: Data from the 2011–2013 National Survey of Family Growth. National Health Statistics Reports, 88, 1–13.
Diamond, L. M. (2009). Sexual Fluidity: Understanding Women’s Love and Desire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
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A. Ganna et al. Large genome-wide analysis of sexual orientation identifies for the first time variants associated with non-heterosexual behavior and reveals overlap with heterosexual reproductive traits. American Society of Human Genetics annual meeting, October 19, 2018, San Diego.
Gates, G. (2011). How Many People are Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender? Williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu.
Gillespie, B. J., Frederick, D., Harari, L., & Grov, C. (2015). Homophily, Close Friendship, and Life Satisfaction among Gay, Lesbian, Heterosexual, and Bisexual Men and Women. CUNY Academic Works.
Hamer, D., Hu, S., Magnuson, V., Hu, N., and Pattatucci, A. (1993). A linkage between DNA markers on the X chromosome and male orientation. Science, 261, 321–327.
Herdt, G., & McClintock, M. (2000). The magical age of 10. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 29, 587–606.
Kendler, K. S., Thornton, L. M., Gilman, S. E., & Kessler, R. C. (2000). Sexual orientation in a U.S. national sample of twin and nontwin sibling pairs. American Journal of Psychiatry, 157, 1843–1846.
Långström, N., Rahman, Q., Carlström, E., & Lichtenstein, P. (2010). Genetic and environmental effects on same-sex sexual behavior: A population study of twins in Sweden. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 39, 75–80.
Lehrer, J. (2006). The effeminate sheep and other problems with Darwinian sexual selection. Seed Magazine, June/July.
Meston, C. M., & Buss, D. M. (2007). Why humans have sex. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 36, 477–507.
Nguyen, C. (1993). A Linkage Between DNA Markers on the X Chromosome and Male Sexual Orientation, by Dean H. Hamer and Charles A. Thomas, Embryo Project Encyclopedia (2017–04–13). ISSN: 1940–5030
Rice, G., Anderson, C., Risch, N., and Ebers, G. (1999). Male Homosexuality: Absence of Linkage to Microsatellite Markers at Xq28. Science, 284, 665–67.
Thomeer, M. B., & Reczek, C. (2016). Happiness and sexual minority status. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 45(7), 1745–1758.
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Don Lucas is a Professor of Psychology and head of the Psychology Department at Northwest Vista College in San Antonio Texas. He loves psychology, teaching, and research.
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