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

Contents:

• WHY ARE THERE GAY MEN?
• SCIENTISTS MAY HAVE FALLY UNLOCKED PUZZLE OF WHY PEOPLE ARE GAY
• GAY STEREOTYP: ARE THEY TE?

WHY ARE THERE GAY MEN?

While female sexualy appears to be more fluid, rearch suggts that male gayns is an born, unalterable, strongly geilly fluenced tra. 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? Put differently, why haven't gay man gen driven themselv extct?

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.

SCIENTISTS MAY HAVE FALLY UNLOCKED PUZZLE OF WHY PEOPLE ARE GAY

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. If a dghter hers that same X-lked gene, she herself may not be gay, but she n pass on to her sons.

[Why Are There Gay Women? ]But how might the "gay man gene" make femal more reproductively succsful? 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.

GAY STEREOTYP: ARE THEY TE?

But after vtigatg the characteristics of 161 female maternal relativ of homosexual and heterosexual men, the rearchers have adjted their hypothis. Rather than makg women more attracted to men, the "gay man gene" appears to make the women more attractive to men. 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.

"It is que possible that there are several fluenc on formg a homosexual orientatn, " said Gelf Rieger, a sexual orientatn rearcher at Cornell Universy.

But as for why geic factors would exist that make men gay, appears that the gen make women, as well as gay men, allurg to other men.