Sex, Time, and Power

by Leonard Shlain

  A well-matched couple represents an organism that is greater than the sum of its parts. Like Aristophanes’ mythical chimeras, they reunite to become a single organism with four legs, four arms, and two heads. When conditions are right, such a union can indeed challenge the hegemony of the gods.

  Gay and lesbian couples are ubiquitous throughout human culture and history.

  Chapter 16

  Gay/Lesbian

  We are the only species where a small proportion of individuals are exclusively and consistently oriented toward the same sex. Biologically this is a profound puzzle.

  —Malcolm Potts and Roger Short1

  Homosexual relations offer a clear window on the desires of each sex. Every heterosexual relationship is a compromise between the wants of a man and the wants of a woman, so differences between the sexes are minimized. But homosexuals do not have to compromise, and their sex lives showcase human sexuality in pure form.

  —Donald Symons2

  The generous portions of anima and animus allotted to both men and women resulted in each sex’s displaying considerable traits of the other. Psychic hermaphroditism, the two sexes in one individual, appeared at the very outset of the human species, resulting from selection pressures that were radically altering human mating patterns. These in turn were necessary because of the sharp division of labor imposed upon the sexes resulting from sapients’ energy-sapping prolonged childhoods. For procreation to proceed and children to survive, men had to be killers and lovers simultaneously. For procreation to proceed and children to survive, women had to be cunning and caring simultaneously. As psychic hermaphroditism became an entrenched feature among humans, it contributed to the emergence of another trait unique in the degree of its ubiquity—homosexuality.

  A species is a group of animals or plants sharing certain characteristics that set them apart from all others. All species, therefore, are unique. Two of the many human traits that fall into this category—in the fulsome degree to which they have manifested—are psychic hermaphroditism and homosexuality. Though ethologists have identified other species in which members exhibit some homosexual behavior, there is no other species that expresses same-sex exclusive preference as often and as unwaveringly as do members of the human one.

  To understand the roots of homosexuality, we must first examine how sex itself is determined. Mammalian embryos pass through a stage during which their sex is indeterminate. Subsequent male and female distinguishing features arise from anatomic precursors that have the potential to develop into either sex. For example, the tissue destined to become the clitoris in the female can become a penis in a male. The labia majora in a female can turn into the scrotal sac in the male. Programmed in humans by X and Y chromosomes, the levels of circulating hormones secreted in the very early weeks of a pregnancy determine which anatomical sexual feature will appear.

  All fetuses will develop into females, regardless of whether they contain XX or XY chromosomes, unless they are exposed to high doses of testosterone in utero in the early weeks. The female is the default mode for all mammalian fetuses.* In normal male embryogenesis,† a male’s budding testes will begin secreting prodigious amounts of testosterone a mere six weeks after conception. (At this time, the future person is thirteen millimeters in length and resembles a plump worm.) Genes on his Y chromosome orchestrate the deluge. The thirty-fold rise in testosterone flooding the interior of the tiny amniotic sac will command the fetal XY’s body to choose a penis instead of a clitoris and a scrotum instead of labia.3 This androgenic hormone (“androgen” literally means “man-maker”) is also responsible for wiring his developing brain so that later he will see, think, and experience life as a man. Contrary to standard male triumphalist teachings that have been around since antiquity, the mammalian male is derived from the female, and not the other way around. The Genesis rib story has it backward. A clitoris is not simply a stunted penis; rather, a penis is a transformed clitoris. Although each is derived from precursor antecedents, the female body plan rules unless the male essence intervenes.

  True hermaphrodites exist in the plant and animal world. Some creatures can literally change sex depending on environmental conditions. The common whip-tailed lizard of the American Southwestern deserts is able to change from male to female and back again. This ability to sex-switch stops at reptiles; birds and mammals are incapable of the feat. The whiptail is an example of sequential hermaphroditism—that is, the creature is a male in one season and a female in the next. The human, in contrast, manifests a simultaneous hermaphroditism, in that each person combines elements of male and female all the time.

  The imperative that each man and woman be fully emotionally and psychically hermaphroditic was an unprecedented evolutionary development. And it led, I propose, to an unusual variation among humans—a persistent tendency to manifest homosexuality in both sexes.

  Historically, homosexuality has been an enduring part of the human condition. Ancient Mesopotamian texts refer to sag-ur-sags, a phrase that linguists have deciphered to mean a person of indeterminate sex or one who is gay. Murals from ancient Egypt depict scenes of gay behavior. Inca ceramic statuettes from Peru, dating from around A.D. 500, show men engaging in anal intercourse. Many Greek and Roman vase paintings depict graphic same-sex acts.

  Despite the many treatises and books that have been written about its root causes, few satisfying theories have emerged to explain why homosexuality effloresced in the human species in so robust a form. Recent research has belatedly begun to identify examples of homosexual behavior in a variety of other species. To date, biologists have identified over two hundred species, from insects to mammals, that engage in homosexual behavior. But these activities are qualitatively different from those that occur between same-sex-preferenced humans.

  Many male dogs, sheep, chimps, and mallards have been sighted mounting one another, but no observer has ever witnessed the sexual act actually being consummated. Animal behaviorists hypothesize that these mounting behaviors denote dominance display rather than pure sexual desire. For example, baboon males often approach each other and gently grasp each other’s penises. Primatologists refer to this behavior as “diddling.” A tension-reducing gesture, akin to the human handshake, it reciprocally assures that neither party has aggressive intentions.4 Similarly, by extending an open palm upon greeting each other, men signal from a respectable distance that their dominant hand does not conceal a weapon.*

  In some of the more complex animal species, both males and females will occasionally use sex to defuse tense social situations, gain advantage, make allies, and barter for food. Bonobo chimps of both sexes engage in behavior that could be construed as homosexual, but the animals involved do not limit their sexual advances to members of the same sex. Bonobos are thoroughly bisexual. Humans, too, may engage in sex for any number of different reasons, but no other single species has yet been identified in which a significant number of its population prefers sexual congress exclusively with the same sex.

  From an evolutionary point of view, homosexuality is a supreme paradox. Assume it is driven by genetics and one would quickly conclude that the gene controlling it guarantees the trait’s extinction. How could a homosexual gene survive if the person possessing it does not desire to reproduce? A nonreplicating “unselfish” gene is an oxymoron. In theory, such a gene should be gleaned from the genome within a few generations.

  Yet researcher Dean Hamer and his co-workers reported in 1993 that they had identified a gene that plays a critical role in determining homosexual behavior.* Research in this field is in its infancy, but increasingly scientists view the predisposition for homosexuality to be in large part genetically determined.

  “Homosexual” literally means “same sex.” The “homo” in the word is Greek for “same,” not, as one might assume, “man.” Because the word “homo-sexuality” is both so confusing and so emotionally freighted for many gays and straights alike, in the following discussion I will replace it whenever possible wi
th the phrase “exclusive same-sex preference,” hereafter designated by the acronym ESSP. I will also use the term “gay” in referring to males, “lesbian” for females, and “straight” in place of “heterosexual.” I should mention that there has been a paucity of scientific studies on lesbianism, compared with what has been learned about gays. In the following discussion, more space will be devoted to gays than lesbians because of this evidential bias.

  Intriguing evidence has emerged that the birth rank among siblings may influence ESSP. Researchers conjecture that the presence of a male child in the uterus somehow alters the uterine environment so that subsequent male fetuses have a higher statistical probability of being gay than firstborn sons.7

  Another unexpected finding is that parents conceive a higher number of gay males in times of great stress—for example, the generation of children born during World War II. During their pregnancies, the mothers of these children would have had higher levels of circulating cortisol, the anxiety hormone.8 Cortisol competes to some extent with the sex hormone testosterone. Researchers hypothesize that somehow this influences the sexual orientation of boys born during these periods, even though there is no difference in the levels of testosterone between male heterosexuals and male homosexuals, or in the levels of estrogen in female homosexuals and female heterosexuals, and both sexes have the correct amounts of pituitary gonadotropic (ovary-and-testes enhancing) hormones regardless of their sexual orientation.*9

  Richard Swaab, a Dutch researcher, believes he has pinpointed a clump of cells (called the BSTc) within the amygdala of the brain that he believes may determine sexual orientation.† Straight men have a larger BSTc than straight women, and this area is half again as large in women as it is in transsexual women (who believe they are women trapped in men’s bodies). Smaller still is this minute portion of the nervous system in gay men.10 Simon LeVay, a gay neuroscientific researcher, has also claimed progress in identifying where in the hypothalamus gayness resides.11 Hamer may provide an answer to the question of how, and Swaab’s and LeVay’s research may give us insight as to the where of gayness, but neither provides a compelling evolutionary theory of why.

  For many years, it was commonly held that psychological factors played the leading role. Many theorized that a disconnected father and an overbearing mother caused boys to become gay. Recently, this Freudian view has been stood on its head. Instead of being the cause for boys’ becoming gay, some have speculated that it may be the result of boys’ expressing their gayness. Many fathers, observing that their sons are less manly than they expect them to be, distance themselves emotionally. The boys’ mothers, to compensate, become more protective. Blaming mothers for deficient nurturing has been a convenient excuse that fathers have often used to deflect from themselves any possible responsibility for their sons’ sexual orientation.

  Many in fundamentalist religions believe homosexuality is a curse visited on gays by a vengeful god who is displeased by what these self-righteous people consider to be a sin against nature. Since fundamentalists claim that their God is omniscient and omnipotent, it is not clear from their arguments why a God who possessed such power and foresight would create mortals who were born to sin against Him. Renaissance humanist Erasmus considered this line of reasoning to represent the direst blasphemy. He believed that such a God would be a monster, unworthy of worship.12 The tortured arguments used by many fundamentalists to justify their intolerant public denunciations of gays and lesbians proves only that the Dark Ages have not entirely dispelled.

  Until very recently, the gay-and-lesbian life-style was considered to be a mental disease in Western societies. Not until 1973 did members of the American Psychiatric Association, in an exceedingly contentious session, vote to remove homosexuality from its list of pathological mental conditions. The nature-nurture debate seesaws back and forth without a clear-cut resolution. The reasons why ESSP evolved so exuberantly in only the human species remain as puzzling as ever.

  Perhaps the installation into each sex’s nervous system of both a robust anima and animus provides the missing clue. Let us revisit the two overlapping bell-shaped curves that graphically plotted each sex’s masculine and feminine aspects. Combining both the male and female curves into one and exaggerating the extremities of both creates a graph as represented below. Both the masculine and feminine sides contain outliers on either end that manifest a skewing of one trait over the other. I believe that it is in these rarefied sections that a partial answer to the puzzle of gays and lesbians resides. Let us examine first the extremes of the male anima-animus distribution curve. At the left-side extreme are those males who possess an anima so well developed that it overshadows their animus.

  The ability of ESSP individuals to form bonds is a function of a further duality existing within this left-sided group. Half of these males possess an assertive animus, while the other half has a diminished sense of masculinity. This additional dichotomy creates a subset that contains complementary antipodes. Sexual attraction in all species depends on the tension generated by polar opposites. Having one half of the male outliers on this edge of the curve combine an exuberant anima with an anemic animus, and the other half combine a still-strong anima that must coexist with a slightly stronger animus, creates the necessary conditions conducive for male-male relationships to come into existence.

  A speculative graph of the edges of the anima-animus curve within a society.

  A gay male possessed of an assertive animus generally bonds with a male who has an excess of anima—and vice versa. This mini-bell-shaped curve within a larger bell-shaped curve provides the fractal layering necessary for gay men to form pair bonds in which lust, sex, love, and caring between two men can thrive. Because we are dealing with the subtle shadings of distribution curves, a continuum forms in which a preference for bisexuality also fits into this scheme.

  The same dichotomy exists on the right-hand edge of the female curve and can be used to explain the attraction between lesbians. Half of the women at this extremity possess an animus stronger than their anima, while the other half’s feminine manages to exceed in expression the woman’s masculine. Within this female dichotomous subset, desire between two women can blossom. In both gay and lesbian relationships (as in straight relationships), it is the rule rather than the exception for one member of the dyad to play the dominant role while the other plays the role of the submissive. The tension necessary to attract opposites would not be possible unless each half of an ESSP population contained disproportionate elements of both anima and animus.

  Located at the other extreme of the male distribution curve in the figure are those few males whose character is all animus, bereft of an anima. These men lack the fundamental social skills sufficient to allow them to interact gracefully with members of the same sex. They are especially ill-at-ease when trying to relate to women. Their lack of empathy and intuition, combined with their unrestrained animus-driven penchant for aggression and violence, results in their disconnecting from society. The community, in turn, ostracizes them for their failure to blend in, and they become outcasts. The ranks of rapists, criminals, and murderers are filled with hyperanimus, antisocial, hypoanima males. Psychiatrists diagnose these right-sided male outliers, positioned at the opposite pole from gay men, as psychopaths and sociopaths. (The woof and warp of human behavior is so textured that psychopathic and sociopathic gays also exist.)

  Schizophrenia, autism, and the latter’s milder form, Asperger syndrome, are psychiatric conditions in which the individual, most commonly a male, seems to be missing the part of his nervous system that promotes healthy human relationships.* Someone afflicted with autism prefers to be alone, lacks empathy, and displays a single-minded pursuit of solitary interests. Men with these conditions can be characterized as having a very weak anima, and they would generally cluster at the opposite end of the curve from gay men. In general, habitual criminals have too much animus, and autistic men and those diagnosed with Asperger syndrome have too little a
nima.

  The male anima-animus distribution curve is flatter and longer than the female one. There are more extremes of male behavior than there are of female behavior.

  Mother Nature’s delicate task of creating a male who could be both a lover and killer was exceedingly difficult. The male bell-shaped animaanimus distribution curve is therefore flatter and wider than the female one, resulting in greater numbers of individuals who exist out at either extreme. There are more gays than lesbians. There are more male psychopaths than female psychopaths. There are more autistic and schizophrenic men than there are autistic and schizophrenic women. Asperger syndrome afflicts approximately one male in three hundred. It is exceedingly rare in females. When the two male extremes are compared with all other species, certain aspects are thrown into sharp relief. The behavior humans attribute to rapists and murderers is exceptionally rare among wild animals. So, too, are behaviors consistent with the symptoms of autism and schizophrenia. Exclusively homosexual males are nearly nonexistent in the wild.

  It seems that the consequence for human culture of Mother Nature’s attempts to create a balanced male is a peculiar pairing of opposites. Whenever the Red Queen introduces a talented Oscar Wilde, She unfortunately also seems to plague culture with a Jack the Ripper.* For every creative, aesthetically inclined, relationship-attuned gay man, there appears, it seems, a nongay inchoate male schizophrenic.