The Curse of an Attractn to Olr Gay Men | Psychology Today

Contents:

• THE CURSE OF AN ATTRACTN TO OLR GAY MEN
• ALL STEREOTYP ARE TE, EXCEPT ... V: 'ALL EXTREMELY HANDSOME MEN ARE GAY'
• WHY STRAIGHT WOMEN ARE ATTRACTED TO GAY MEN
• WHEN GAY IS PRETTY: PHYSIL ATTRACTIVENS AND LOW HOMOPHOBIA
• WHY ARE THERE GAY MEN?

THE CURSE OF AN ATTRACTN TO OLR GAY MEN

Homosexualy shows a reasonably high herabily.

Rearchers repeatedly fd that homosexual men are most attracted to men their late teens and early twenti, prrizg looks over stat. Although neher of our fantasi was fulfilled by the enunter, we end up havg an tertg nversatn about homosexualy, a topic the fellow was studyg graduate school, wh an obv personal vtment, and the topic of a paper I’d wrten my unrgraduate psychology class. At the time, the psychologil acunts of homosexualy’s foced on the relatnships between homosexual men and their parents, pecially their mothers.

ALL STEREOTYP ARE TE, EXCEPT ... V: 'ALL EXTREMELY HANDSOME MEN ARE GAY'

For one thg, homosexualy shows a reasonably high herabily—if you are homosexual, and you have a tw brother, there is a very good chance he is homosexual as well. Three queer thgs about homosexualy. The first odd thg about homosexualy is the fact that has such high herabily—how n a proclivy toward havg non-reproductive sex be passed on geilly?

WHY STRAIGHT WOMEN ARE ATTRACTED TO GAY MEN

Another odd thg about homosexualy is the shape of homosexual men’s preferenc: Although gay men share women’s attractn to humans wh penis, that’s about as far as the siary go. But studi by Michael Bailey, my own lleagu, and other rearchers repeatedly fd that homosexual men are most attracted to men their late teens and early twenti, and they don’t re much about stat, stead prrizg physil attractivens. All this suggts that the old “social learng” theori don’t apply well to homosexual preferenc—if so, gay guys would learn om media and the social environment what mak for an attractive man, and go after the same featur that women fd attractive.

WHEN GAY IS PRETTY: PHYSIL ATTRACTIVENS AND LOW HOMOPHOBIA

The third odd thg about homosexualy is the quanty of homosexual men’s preferenc, as pared to those of homosexual women. Homosexual men are famoly promiscuo, a fact that beme well-known wh the onset of AIDS, when studi of gay men who were HIV-posive revealed average numbers of partners the hundreds (and even though gay men who were HIV negative had much lower numbers, the average for them was still dramatilly higher than the average numbers for heterosexual men).

Ksey and his lleagu found that over a third of men and 13% of the women their sample had had at least one homosexual experience to asm. 6% of the women were exclively homosexual, a much larger percentage—13% of men and 11% of women—had at least some sexual experience wh, or attractn toward, the same sex.

Given that natural selectn works to promote succsful reproductn, why is a substantial portn of the populatn homosexual?

WHY ARE THERE GAY MEN?

One possibily is that homosexuals tradnally helped their relativ raise their offsprg.

In a study of homosexual men a tradnal society (Samoa), Vasey and VanrLaan found some support for this hypothis.

This explanatn is also nsistent wh fdgs that homosexuals are more likely to be later-born children large fai. But studi morn urban ntexts do not support this k-support hypothis, perhaps bee homosexuals morn societi tend to move away om fay members. Another possibily is that whatever gen predispose homosexualy rry benefs their nonhomosexual relativ.