Study finds no gay gene. Was there one to find?
When you take a guided tour in a museum, you walk from highlight to highlight listening to a few fascinating details and anecdotes about each. The critical questions often come later, after the tour.
The new article on the genetics of same-sex sexual behavior reads like a guided tour. The authors take us along the highlights of their diverse body of work that shines a light on the genetics of same-sex sexual behavior from various perspectives. They didn’t find a gay gene but do find evidence that genetics do play a role in sexual behavior.
Let me guide your tour.
It’s about sex.
The article opens with an introduction about same-sex sexual behavior, sexual preference, and sexual orientation, but we need to get straight from the beginning that the main analyses were based on the single question ‘Did you ever have sex with someone of the same sex? Yes/No”.
Most people who ever had sex with someone from the same sex mostly engage in opposite-sex behavior (Figure). If you had a same-sex experience only once, you are considered “nonheterosexual” in this study. The “nonheterosexuals” seem to be two distinct groups: women who (now?) mostly have sex with men and men who mostly have sex with men only.
