Homosexuality! What causes it?

Hi. I’m Lone Candle.

Homosexuality! What causes it? What does the best available science tell us? Can we conclude things from this about it being a choice?

First, let’s be clear about what we mean. Homosexuality is being sexually attracted to those of the same sex and not the opposite sex. Having same sex sexual relations isn’t the exact same as being a homosexual. Identifying as a homosexual isn’t the same either. What matters is if you see an attractive specimen of the same sex, and desire them, while not having this desire for similar specimens of the opposite sex.

Now, it’s more complicated because some people are attracted to both sexes — they are bisexual. Some people aren’t attracted to either sex — they’re asexual. And some people are mostly attracted to one sex, but a little attracted to the other — they are mostly gay or straight, but a liiiiiiiiiiiittle bi. My focus here is on full-on homosexuality, or at least those that are mostly gay.

Some Gay Stats

When studies determine sexual orientation, they tend to use self-reported measures, which aren’t perfect, but generally should be correct. Some studies also measure genital arousal, I assume that’s quite awkward for the study participants. Within both of these, researchers have a variety of sexual orientation scales, or categories, or measures of sexual arousal. They’ve also used scans of participants’ neural activity, measured their viewing time looking at images of attractive men compared to…