Biology

I don't have a lot of knowledge of the Levay experiment in which the structure of a hypothalamic nucleus was found to be morphologically distinct in straight men, women, and gays. I only know what I've read, and I have not read the primary sources. They are supposed to be significant for the impact the conclusion has on homosexuality being a choice. Because some believe this topic actually has some merit, I googled some responses, and they sound like a mix of legitimate and stupid concerns, but you can find those as easily as I can.

My impression is that nobody should be surprised if there are brain morphology differences between gays and straights and there should be no surprise if there are genetic contributors to personality and other aspects of human identity. Big fat hairy deal.

All this scientific effort will have shown that people are indeed not "created equal" but that we have to work within our unique set of personal circumstances. It's not fair, true, but a perceptive toddler could conclude as much about life. Hell, make that an UNperceptive toddler. You deal with it the best you can rather than expecting the world to somehow make it up to you by redoing expectations of behavior and morality.

That's not to say that there aren't plenty of non-biological issues related to the morality and social circumstances of gays. But the biological arguments I've never found compelling in the least.

At the same time, the biological experiments wouldn't be as big a deal if it weren't for the monumentally stupid idea that sexual attractions are chosen. But, neither the far right nor the far left feel served by putting the issue in just such precise terms. It's better to discuss the idea that "being gay" is chosen so that both sides can indignantly battle for the broad political implications that follow from affirming or denying that statement, vague as it is.

Misinterpreting the science for a political agenda, most often inadvertently, is the standard practice. The gay rights movement (bless their little hearts) have bought in to the philosophical approach that the end justifies the means, a hair slow in noticing that strong advocacy for aims popular to some gays is harmful to other gays. Much (if not all) of the published scientific data is influenced by bias at some point in the scientific process (largely from advocates--sometimes the scientists themselves), despite all the best efforts to mitigate it (or disguise it).

There's a fair chance I just don't get why all this science has much meaning. But I sort of think the odds are in my favor that it's the scientists and political pundits who just don't get how much the biological science doesn't matter on this topic and other matters of morality.

Fault

We’re not talking about a unique challenge here. We’re talking about a common condition of mortality. We don’t understand exactly the ‘why,’ or the extent to which there are inclinations or susceptibilities and so on. But what we do know is that feelings can be controlled and behavior can be controlled. The line of sin is between the feelings and the behavior. The line of prudence is between the susceptibility and the feelings. We need to lay hold on the feelings and try to control them to keep us from getting into a circumstance that leads to sinful behavior.

-Elder Dallin H. Oaks

There is a great underlying need in the human psyche to avoid blaming oneself. Otherwise rational people can become completely unreasonable after having done something regrettable. To the extent that my current situation is the result of my own poor choices in the past, I am certainly inclined to say "it's not my fault." I'm inclined to justify and explain why the circumstances conspired against me. Why anyone would have done the same. Why I'm still a good person.

Fully convinced that regardless of it all, I am still a good person, God still loves me, and my infinite value has not been compromised, I now want to step back and seek to understand more about myself without pulling any self-inflicted punches. Unfortunately, as I do so, I expect my conclusions to be extrapolated to others who will feel attacked, and I will probably be roundly criticized. But I'll go ahead and risk it.

Elder Oaks has long been one of my favorite speakers. He's articulate, logical, and just plain fascinating. His insight is astounding, and although I don't always understand immediately what he is saying, I'm always better off for having thought about it.

In particular I've struggled to understand his explanation of the distinction between inclinations, feelings, and behaviors and when one is responsible for each. My medical training inclines me to believe there are situations in which behaviors are not chosen (and the doctrine of the innocence of little children and developmentally disabled persons seems to support this), and I think there are certainly cases where negative feelings are fostered leaving the person culpable for them. But I think these are the exceptions and feelings are typically not chosen while behaviors are. Oaks, I think, agrees.

Feelings are another matter. Some kinds of feelings seem to be inborn. Others are traceable to mortal experiences. Still other feelings seem to be acquired from a complex interaction of “nature and nurture.” All of us have some feelings we did not choose, but the gospel of Jesus Christ teaches us that we still have the power to resist and reform our feelings (as needed) and to assure that they do not lead us to entertain inappropriate thoughts or to engage in sinful behavior.

-Elder Dallin H. Oaks

Some have taken this assessment to be a condemnation of gays for not being able to control their feelings. I think this is an unkind interpretation. I, for one, am plagued by continued unwanted feelings of attraction for men around me. It's happened this morning already, actually. It happens all the time.

For example, during this morning's conference meeting I saw a resident physician that I'm particularly attracted to. When I see him or think about him, I'm faced with a choice of what my mind will do. I can imagine making out with him, or touching his chest, or something perhaps more graphic yet, or I can rummage through my brain and try to remember why it is that I chose to be married. To remember why I believe chastity is virtuous. Honestly, I've responded to attractive men both ways. Over time I believe the better response has become more frequent. It's something I've tried to make happen. Unfortunately, in the past the unworthy response has been fostered and entertained. It's something that has nudged me toward relapsing in porn. It's something I've controlled one way or another through effort or laziness... I either consciously direct my feelings and thoughts or I let them slide where they will. To be the man I want to be, I have a long way to go.

I think my response to these thoughts and feelings contributes to the "inclination" issue. If I have a very graphic fantasy, I'm likely to immediately gravitate to such thoughts next time I see a hot guy. My inclination toward homosexuality is increased. And, honestly, I think this is true for me. I think I've done this and it has contributed to my homosexuality. Even now, as I type this, I've had to consciously work to not absolve myself of blame because my mind keeps telling me such a failure reflects on my value as a person. But that's the fallacy I need to avoid, not the oft suggested fallacy that is actually a truth that my thoughts are largely my own.

I have a feeling God is going to bless me with a long life. I'll keep doing my best to eradicate unwanted feelings, and I think that's what Elder Oaks is suggesting I do. I still have those feelings, but I'm not a bad person.

Brokering gays

Here's some logic that's guiding the rules on gays these days.

• If homosexuality is a disease, it is not an intrinsic part of a personal identity and can't or shouldn't be the basis for civil rights discussions.
• If homosexuality can be changed (or "cured" depending on the political spin you choose), then similarly it can't be compared to racial or gender-based civil rights arguments since it is not an intrinsic part of an identity.
• If homosexuality is biologically determined (either genetically or environmentally), it might be comparable to race and gender for civil rights arguments even if it can subsequently be changed.

So, really, whether or not homosexuality is a disease has vast political consequences. And nobody is going to concede as long as a scientific opponent can be eviscerated, a religious group slandered, or a gay-rights activist lambasted for their "agenda". Everybody get those bumper-stickers that say "if you're not outraged, you're not paying attention" and then cluster in groups to strategize how best to vilify your enemies and promote your respective love-motivated agendas. But most of all, don't forget to put your best efforts into amassing your arsenal of gays that exemplify your view.

I feel like a commodity. Here I am trying to live my life in a self-actualized sort of way, making choices that are consistent with my values, working to build a family based on love and commitment, and battling my unique set of personal demons, when along comes medical societies, special interests, and churches trying to define the issues and filter my access to information and resources. They want me and my case to be a piece of evidence that promotes their goals. They want me as one of the cards they can play to trump the other side. I sort of get the feeling that my happiness doesn't interest people as much as how I can be used.

I wish people would acknowledge that it doesn't matter whether homosexuality is a disease or not or whether it is biologically determined or not. What matters is that I, as an individual, would like to make informed decisions about how best to live my own life. But all the finger-pointing, moral superiority, and declarations of an objectively scientifically backed view all conspire to decay my confidence in any information I find. And without good information, it's hard to feel informed. I feel like I have to be a pioneer and figure out everything for myself if I don't hop on some particular ideological bandwagon.

But, I'm trying to stay off the bandwagon regardless. I'd rather not be reduced to a chunk on someone's side of the scale. I'll just walk by myself.

Science

Last night I attended a scientific presentation on GLBT psychology and biology. It was very interesting. I was quite nervous beforehand because I feel like there is such a huge fervor on anything gay related, I wondered if it would end up being a circus freak show of medicine. But it wasn't. It was real science, real medicine, presented by nice and caring people. And that made me glad.

However, ever the skeptic, I paid pretty close attention to what the experts were saying to see how much of it I believed. Turns out, even the experts have some real bias issues. I guess there's nothing surprising there. I just hope they realize it. I hope I'm not going to be the only one to challenge the information they've presented because it will appear to be a sensationalization of the topic--exactly what I feared would be imposed on me before attending!

For example, a brief history of early prejudicial paradigms on the subject showed that research results about gay populations were skewed because the only gays enrolled in the study were those in prison for violating anti-sodomy laws. Not exactly scientifically appropriate selection criteria for a study that seeks to say something externally valid (i.e., have generalizable results). Interesting stuff... scientifically appropriate... all good material presented so far.

And then they showed [fanfare music] the new improved methodology that compared non-clinical homosexuals and heterosexuals, controlled for confounding factors like age and religion and excluded individuals with a psychiatric history. The new results completely defied the old ones: rather than gays always having "global deficits" as was previously scientifically demonstrated, they were now shown to be potentially "as adjusted as heterosexuals". Yeah!

Except... doesn't excluding all the gays with psychiatric issues sort of beg the question? Psychiatric issues are much more prevalent among gays, and hand-picking the population of gays to demonstrate "adjustment" is just as inappropriate as using prison inmates! It's not generalizable. And yet, here was an expert in the field completely ignoring this fact.

Later in the presentation the question was posed: "What causes people to be gay?" The answers offered as representative views included:

• parents
• labeling
• poor peer relations
• biology
• choice
• lack of hetero experience
• same sex seduction

Through the magic of statistics and research, most of these possible causes were disproved in the subsequent discussion. Well... sort of, anyway. A statistically significant correlation to a cold father was discussed, but the magnitude of the relative risk was minimized by the lecturer (unbelievable--if you have a statistically significant result, it is by definition SIGNIFICANT). He asserted, "There is no ONE family situation that produces a gay sexual orientation." Ultimately, the lecturer declared that through "path analysis," an esoteric branch of statistics, tautology had been demonstrated to be the cause of sexual orientation. Tautology meaning that the relation between childhood same-sex feelings and adulthood same-sex feelings are that they are one and the same. People are gay because they're gay.

Thank you, science. For nothing.

There was one other particularly interesting point in this lecture. When "gender nonconformity" was measured, it was significantly related to orientation. So, if you don't do masculine stuff, you are more likely to be gay. Hmmm... now whose theories does that remind me of? A woman stood up during the Q&A and asked why that was the case. Lecturer: we don't know. But after the subsequent presentation when the Q&A was reopened for either presenter, he back-pedaled. Someone in the audience had apparently glared disapprovingly at his academically honest indication that the reason wasn't known. So, he wanted to clarify that his conjecture was that gay boys feel different as children because of society's straight projections, and gender nonconformity follows from that. The fact that reparative theory explains the situation much more plausibly was never even entertained.

The only part of the second lecture that I want to comment on right now was a question from the audience. After a presentation of a wide range of scientific data, the executive head of a special interest in San Francisco wanted to know which of all the studies presented was the most concise and compelling in demonstrating that orientation is immutable. The lecturer offered his opinion that a study of pheromones did the trick. The study showed that male scents stimulate the "smell" part of the brain in straight men and gay women, but stimulate the sexual part of the brain in gay men and straight women. There were analogous results for female scents. He concluded from this that sexuality is biologically based and is therefore immutable. I have no idea why showing that sexuality is physiological rather than merely psychological proves anything about mutability, but that's what he said.

And I suddenly feel more at peace with the science. I can appreciate the good science without being taken for a ride by some of the silliness. I'm a huge advocate of science informing public policy. Huge. But although science is good, I will keep looking for understanding in other places too.

Porn

My immediate goal is to get the porn under control. It's no wonder my mind is divided against itself with that kind of influence in the mix. Alan Medinger wrote, "...sex is one of the most intense experiences most people have, and whatever sex touches becomes more alive. Just as salt enhances the flavor of food, sex intensifies the power of any experience."

For many years now I've been "enhancing" my attraction to men by masturbating to porn. And here I'm using "porn" in the most general sense of the word: Clothed models in health magazines, underwear ads, and of course mainstream movies and TV too. They've all been subjectively pornographic to me. Unfortunately, your full flung porn is in the mix too. Given any privacy whatsoever with an internet connection, I can get porn and get away with it. The problem exploded from G rated to XXX when the Internet became my enabler. Given my history with porn, it shouldn't be a surprise that my mind has been well-conditioned to respond more immediately and completely to men than to women. I'm addicted in the clinical sense of the word--there is physiology involved, not just psychology.

I'm somewhat familiar with addiction medicine. I have several friends in the field, and porn is a formidable addiction. Porn is becoming a huge scourge on society, as Pres. Hinckley has warned. I had medical student classmates disciplined for stupidly using school computers to view and even print porn. I saw my elders' quorum president accessing it in the library once. I know relatives who have problems with it (again, the computer skills), and I'm appalled at the pervasive influence porn has achieved. It's the Turkish Delight of the real world (without Narnia's magic). With a taste you will do just about anything to get more. And in our society it's practically impossible not to get a taste.

Now that I'm trying to achieve greater intimacy with my wife, porn is a greater enemy than ever. I sometimes wonder if the poor results of reparative therapy are attributable largely to porn. It makes sense to me that once some of the developmental issues have been addressed that contributed to homosexuality, the neurological pathways that resulted from them will still remain. Changing neurological pathways is no overnight endeavor, but that's the goal if you're trying to change orientation. You have to wait for certain pathways to grow and others to atrophy from idleness. And that atrophy can never be achieved if the pathways keep firing off every few days. And if I turn to porn when I'm troubled, they will fire off with regularity. And that's what I'm afraid is happening to me more often than I would like.

I'm in way over my head and I'm still working through it all. It will be an uphill battle to overcome, just as I've been warned it would be. I can remember the endless "standards nights," the Sunday School lessons, the firesides, and the youth pamphlets. They all taught that choosing obedience to God's commandments brings freedom while disobedience limits freedom. Or, specifically in my case, indulging in porn has decreased freedom by creating chemical and neurological chains. There are real consequences. And they suck.

Boy I'm stupid. I really could have avoided a lot of troubles by not sampling porn and getting myself addicted. Now, as I've said before, my desires have changed. I want something different than what I want to want.

Causes

Scientific evidence has confirmed that genetic and hormonal factors do not seem to play a determining role in homosexuality (Birke 1981, Perloff 1965, West 1977). However there continue to be attempts to prove that genetics rather than family factors determines homosexuality. These continuing efforts reflect the persistence of gay advocates to formulate a means by which homosexual behavior may be viewed as normal.

Joseph Nicolosi, Ph.D.
in Reparative Therapy of Male Homosexuality

I don't think it's entirely fair to criticize a 10 year old book in terms of today's scientific knowledge, but it certainly underlines why one should cautiously if ever claim that scientific evidence has "confirmed" anything. That's not really how science works. Depending on the skill of the scientist, the structure of the experiment, and the power of the data one can get a very good idea about whether or not some observation is random or not. How you interpret it will weigh in just as heavily (probably more) in how the "scientific" results are reported. In this case, new methods like new genetic technologies have completely changed the playing field.

Regardless, I disagree with the logical progression he reports for gay advocates. Genetic causality alone doesn't make something normal. Huntington's disease is genetically determined, but it's far from normal. In my view, it's usually an ill-conceived effort to try to ascertain whether homosexuality is genetic or developmental in cause. Nicolosi has based his therapy on the developmental hypothesis. Some gay advocates decry anything but an acknowledgment that orientation is innate and immutable. I think these people are grossly oversimplifying. I doubt there is a universally necessary cause for something as complex as sexual orientation (unlike chicken pox, for example, where the pathogen is always the same... and no, I'm not comparing homosexuality to a disease... right now). It's certainly not a matter of choice. At least, not in any definitive sense. Reparative therapy may be one choice that can influence orientation, and I suppose that's one reason many people hate it so vehemently.

When I first began this book, I thought Nicolosi's main flaw was that he believes one-size-fits-all despite his somewhat frequent (but seemingly contradictory) admissions that there are exceptions. Toward the end, though, he finally explicitly acknowledged limitations of his therapy:

Another type of client who does poorly is the one who does not fit the syndrome decribed in this book.... This type of client usually has no particular difficulties with male friendships or self-assertion, shows no evidence of male gender-identity deficit, and has a family history that does not fit our pattern. The treatment issues we address are not relevant to his issues.