Tuesday, June 8, 2010

No biological reason for lgb people? Not from my viewpoint.


The religious say that lgb "chose" to be attracted to same sex partners....  That G_d doesn't make mistakes.  And when scientists began saying we think it's genetic to be lgb, they again spoke up, saying that making around 10% of the population non-reproductive makes no sense at all.  Well no, not from a current view of life.  However if you look at humanity through the lens of how we lived for thousands of years, in small tribal communities, things make much more sense.


Bisexual men have the largest brain size of all men.  It's estimated that around 40% of men claim to be at least somewhat bisexual.  In modern society where each person is more or less an island, this has no effect on their social standing.  In a tribal setting it all makes perfect sense.


The ancient Greeks felt that having your battle partner be a loved sexual partner gave them extra incentive
to fight harder.
     Phaedrus, in Plato's Symposium, on the power of male sexual relationships to improve bravery in the military:

... he would prefer to die many deaths: while as for leaving the one he loves in a lurch, or not succoring him in peril, no man is such a craven that the influence of Love cannot inspire him with a courage that makes him equal to the bravest born
But if you go back even further into our dim past, the genetic role of a bisexual male, in my mind at least, becomes even more important.  So, how does having many of the men be bisexual help?  Sex, pure and simple.  If these men were engaging with sex with other men in their troop then it would draw them closer together.  Your hunting group, your defense group bound by the ties of sexual feelings and love will provide a closer knit team.  If at the same time they are in a sexual relationship with a female that is also based on love and sex, they are providing for the future in the form of many children.  These multiple bonds would provide a closer more cohesive tribal unit.  


There are three main groupings of people in a tribe.  The children, who while at the end of their childhood are starting to produce for the tribe, for the most part only absorb materials brought into the tribe.  Materials being of course, food, clothing, and heat. The producers, who bring into the tribe materials.  And lastly the makers, these are the elders, the heavily pregnant, the ill and the crippled members.  This group takes what is brought into the tribe and turns it into food, clothing, and processing food in some way to preserve it for tomorrow.


This is where I feel that gay and lesbians had a genetic job to follow.  Gays would be another body to hunt, trap and fish and to fight off enemies.  Since he is not producing offspring, his extra would provide a cushion of security for the tribe.  Lesbians would also bring in more materials than they would be using.  Allowing gay and lesbians to have partners would also provide parents to children who had lost theirs.  If you add up 10% of calories over the course of a season, that quickly becomes a vast storehouse of reserve, which in a time of famine could be the difference between survival and death.


Narrowing down the acceptable sexual partners to only allowing m/f combinations, could in theory have caused some major problems for a tribal form of life.  Each time you put limits on sexual combinations, a bond is snipped, often forever weakening our connection with our fellow tribesmen.  We have all heard of older cultures that accept gay and lesbian people.  Before westerners came to Japan, they didn't have a word to describe homosexuality, it was just a normal part of human sexuality to them.


And as for trans people?  If you noticed I didn't add the t onto lgbt earlier on.  I can not find a biological reason for being trans.  To be honest, I feel that it is a birth defect due to improper hormone flooding the fetus.  But hey, this is all my own musings, feel free to contradict me!

1 comment:

Aek said...

Hmm, I took a different "genetic view" than you have. You can read my post below (Parts I and II are linked at the beginning in there):

http://tmww.blogspot.com/2009/05/gay-gene-part-iii.html

Evolution is an interesting/tricky thing. Some caution should be exercised where evolution is concerned, not everything is seemingly "designed." Sometimes things - good, neutral, bad - arise from "flaws."