Why Are There Gay Men? | Male Homosexualy | Live Science

Contents:

• WHAT DO IT MEAN TO BE A GAY MAN?
• SCIENTISTS MAY HAVE FALLY UNLOCKED PUZZLE OF WHY PEOPLE ARE GAY
• GAY STEREOTYP: ARE THEY TE?
• WHY DO GAY MEN WALK SO FAST?
• WHY ARE THERE GAY MEN?
• GAY
• GAY CULTURE HAS GROWN TOXIC WH UNCHECKED PRIVILEGE. IT'S TIME FOR TO RET
• WHY ARE PEOPLE GAY? GAY BY CHOICE OR IS BEG GAY GEIC?

WHAT DO IT MEAN TO BE A GAY MAN?

As every gay man knows who has been sulted or asslted for his actual or perceived sexual orientatn, there are steep penalti for vlatg the Boy Co as there are for anyone who is “different” om the prumed (typilly whe, heterosexual, middle-class) standard.

How do a gay kid survive the trma he suffers for beg different a culture that still nmns his difference as somethg bad or “ls-than” and wants to mold him to the same shape tri to mold every boy?

SCIENTISTS MAY HAVE FALLY UNLOCKED PUZZLE OF WHY PEOPLE ARE GAY

Robert Pollack says the most important thg a fay n do to support their gay son is to keep lovg him, “to nvey to him, as soon as he shar his feelgs, that he is still loved through and through, that his sexual orientatn will not any way dimish how much he is admired and rpected.

Fortunately there is a long history of gay men who bucked the accepted fns of masculy and created liv that exprsed their unrstandg of themselv and how they choose to exprs their inty as men who don’t necsarily f tradnal molds. The late Harry Hay often lled "the father of the morn gay movement, " found the Mattache Society Los Angel the fall of 1950 for gay men to gather and ponr the qutns Hay had long been askg: Who are gay people? Hay didn’t tend the Mattach to be a polil anizatn per se, but a group that would e together to enhance their self-unrstandg and explore the ntributns gay people had ma to the human race through the ag.

In a 1987 say tled “A Separate People Whose Time Has Come, ” Hay scribed homosexuals as “spir people, ” who, throughout the ag, had served society their rol as “msengers and tercers, shamans of both genrs, prits and prits, imagemakers and prophets, mim and rhapsos, poets and playwrights, healers and nurturers, teachers and preachers, tkers and tkerers, searchers and rearchers.

GAY STEREOTYP: ARE THEY TE?

A group of scientists suggted Tuday that homosexuals get that tra om their oppose-sex parents: A lbian will almost always get the tra om her father, while a gay man will get the tra om his heredary lk of homosexualy has long been tablished, but scientists knew was not a strictly geic lk, bee there are many pairs of intil tws who have differg sexuali. Scientists om the Natnal Instute for Mathematil and Blogil Synthis say homosexualy seems to have an epigeic, not a geic thought to have some sort of heredary lk, a group of scientists suggted Tuday that homosexualy is lked to epi-marks — extra layers of rmatn that ntrol how certa gen are exprsed. In homosexuals, the epi-marks aren't erased — they're passed om father-to-dghter or mother-to-son, explas William Rice, an evolutnary blogist at the Universy of California Santa Barbara and lead thor of the study.

"There is pellg evince that epi-marks ntribute to both the siary and dissiary of fay members, and n therefore feasibly ntribute to the observed faial herance of homosexualy and s low nrdance between [intil] tws, " Rice and his team created a mathematil mol that explas why homosexualy is passed through epi-marks, not geics.

WHY DO GAY MEN WALK SO FAST?

But bee the epi-marks provi an evolutnary advantage for the parents of homosexuals: They protect fathers of homosexuals om unrexposure to ttosterone and mothers of homosexuals om overexposure to ttosterone while they are gtatn. "The epi-marks protect fathers and mothers om excs or unrexposure to ttosterone — when they rry over to oppose-sex offsprg, n e the masculizatn of femal or the femizatn of mal, " Rice says, which n lead to a child beg gay.

Rice not that the markers are "highly variable" and that only strong epi-marks will rult a homosexual scientists have long spected some sort of geic lk, Rice says studi attemptg to expla why people are gay have been few and far between. " Homosexual behavr has been observed black swans, pengus, sheep, and other animals, he 's mol still needs to be tted on real-life parent-offsprg pairs, but he says this epigeic lk mak more sense than any other explanatn, and that his team has mapped out a way for other scientists to tt their work. Not all straight men are bad drsers, " he is rearch that suggts gay men do prefer certa profsns, like fashn, terr sign and hair lorg, and that lbians are more likely to prefer sports and the ary.

WHY ARE THERE GAY MEN?

Rearchers say 's bee lbians, on average, are attracted to more mascule occupatns, and gay men tend to prefer more feme is te that hostily toward gay people drove many away om some other profsns.

"Whether you work, you know, as an artist or a sger or a dancer, those are all really creative plac where gay people are embraced, " Krsley saidIncreasgly gay people are visible every profsn. You n tell far better than chance who's a gay man om jt listeng to him say four sentenc, " Bailey Bailey's help, "20/20" ran a tt 2004 to see if people uld tell who was gay and who was straight. ” Others joke that gays n halve the journey time timate on most travel apps, or suggt that gay men walk fast “to flee the straights” bee “they learned to walk to the beat of ‘Womanizer’ by Brney Spears.

To create “gay walkg lan” bee gay men supposedly walk so a fast walker, I’ve fely been there: that moment when you’re walkg through a public place, listeng to “Jump” by Madonna, and the (prumably heterosexual) public n’t seen to hurry up and get out of your way. ”MacRae tells me that walkg fast might be a method for gay men to give a “visual cue” of their physil fns and attractivens, and that there’s a genred element to how we perceive sexualy that may fluence walkg speed. ”Gammerl explas that is no cince that someone like me feels reprented by the stereotyp and helps to spread them, bee young, urban-dwellg gay men are central to society’s mappg of what gay men are like.

GAY

For example, “sissy that walk”—a drag term meang “to stt the most feme way possible”—was turned to a pop banger by drag superstar Twter—or more precisely “Gay Twter, ” on which I spend far too much time —appearg to be “booked and by” will w you pliments. Quickly graspg the “ joke” that others might not unrstand ( this se, that gay men are lerally fast movers) adds a further dimensn to the perceived rrelatn between quickns and many of the “new” gay stereotyp, “gays walk fast” helps accs a shared muny wh humor and togetherns.

But while might seem like a fairly superficial stereotype, the potential reasons why gay men might be keen to embody velocy are anythg but if you’ll exce me, I’ve got iced ffee to drk, rs not to drive, straight people to barge past, [redacted] pics to take and vios of Christe Baranski sayg “gay rights! But nsirg that the tra disurag the type of sex that leads to procreatn — that is, sex wh women — and would therefore seem to thwart s own chanc of beg geilly passed on to the next generatn, why are there gay men at all? For several years, studi led by Andrea Camper Ciani at the Universy of Padova Italy and others have found that mothers and maternal nts of gay men tend to have signifintly more offsprg than the maternal relativ of straight men.

The rults show strong support for the "balancg selectn hypothis, " which is fast beg the accepted theory of the geic basis of male theory holds that the same geic factors that duce gayns mal also promote fecundy (high reproductive succs) those mal' female maternal relativ. Through this tra-off, the maternal relativ' "gay man gen, " though they aren't exprsed as such, tend to get passed to future generatns spe of their tenncy to make their male herors no one knows which gen, exactly, the might be, at least one of them appears to be loted on the X chromosome, acrdg to geic molg by Camper Ciani and his lleagu. Mal her only one X chromosome — the one om their mother — and if clus the gene that promot gayns mal and fecundy femal, he is likely to be gay while his mom and her female relativ are likely to have lots of kids.

GAY CULTURE HAS GROWN TOXIC WH UNCHECKED PRIVILEGE. IT'S TIME FOR TO RET

Prevly, the Italian rearchers suggted that the "gay man gene" might simply crease androphilia, or attractn to men, thereby makg the mal who posss the gene homosexual and the femal who posss more promiscuo.

The androphilic pattern that we found is about femal who crease their reproductive value to attract the bt mal, " Camper Ciani told Life's Ltle out, the moms and nts of gay men have an advantage over the moms and nts of straight men for several reasons: They are more fertile, displayg fewer gynelogil disorrs or plitns durg pregnancy; they are more extroverted, as well as funnier, happier and more relaxed; and they have fewer fay problems and social anxieti. Public opn studi over the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s routely showed that, among large segments of the public, lbian, gay, and bisexual people were the target of strongly held negative attus.

The associatn of HIV/AIDS wh gay and bisexual men and the accurate belief that some people held that all gay and bisexual men were fected served to further stigmatize lbian, gay, and bisexual people. Dpe the persistence of stereotyp that portray lbian, gay, and bisexual people as disturbed, several s of rearch and clil experience have led all mastream medil and mental health anizatns this untry to nclu that the orientatns reprent normal forms of human experience.

WHY ARE PEOPLE GAY? GAY BY CHOICE OR IS BEG GAY GEIC?

Helpful rpons of a therapist treatg an dividual who is troubled about her or his same sex attractns clu helpg that person actively pe wh social prejudic agast homosexualy, succsfully rolve issu associated wh and rultg om ternal nflicts, and actively lead a happy and satisfyg life. The phrase “g out” is ed to refer to several aspects of lbian, gay, and bisexual persons’ experienc: self-awarens of same-sex attractns; the tellg of one or a few people about the attractns; wispread disclosure of same-sex attractns; and intifitn wh the lbian, gay, and bisexual muny. Th, is not surprisg that lbians and gay men who feel they mt nceal their sexual orientatn report more equent mental health ncerns than do lbians and gay men who are more open; they may even have more physil health problems.

Lbian, gay, and bisexual youth who do well spe strs—like all adolcents who do well spe strs—tend to be those who are socially petent, who have good problem-solvg skills, who have a sense of tonomy and purpose, and who look forward to the future. If they are a heterosexual relatnship, their experienc may be que siar to those of people who intify as heterosexual unls they choose to e out as bisexual; that se, they will likely face some of the same prejudice and discrimatn that lbian and gay dividuals enunter. The picture that emerg om this rearch shows that children of gay and lbian parents enjoy a social life that is typil of their age group terms of volvement wh peers, parents, fay members, and iends.

In summary, social science has shown that the ncerns often raised about children of lbian and gay parents, ncerns that are generally ground prejudice agast and stereotyp about gay people, are unfound. When lbians, gay men, and bisexual people feel ee to make public their sexual orientatn, heterosexuals are given an opportuny to have personal ntact wh openly gay people and to perceive them as dividuals.

Antigay attus are far ls mon among members of the populatn who have a close iend or fay member who is lbian or gay, pecially if the gay person has directly e out to the heterosexual person. The term gay is equently ed as a synonym for homosexual; female homosexualy is often referred to as different tim and different cultur, homosexual behavur has been varly approved of, tolerated, punished, and banned.