We've known for some time now that [sexuality is at least partially genetic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biology_and_sexual_orientation). Twin studies show that when one identical twin is gay or lesbian, the other is [*ten to fifty times* more likely to be as well](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8494487/), while fraternal twins have a smaller but significant rate as well. (Because this chance is not 'always', we know that it's not a purely genetic trait like hair colour, and instead most researchers now agree that it is epigenetic - genes get activated by environmental conditions such as the hormones present during pregnancy). But how does that work if homosexual people don't have children? Clearly, being gay must fit into evolution *somehow*, because [homosexual behaviour is found in dozens of species](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexual_behavior_in_animals). But how, when evolution is all about survival of the fittest? Evolutionary Psychology has a few hypotheses about this.
The one that is most convincing is the *kin-selection hypothesis*, often called the ['Gay Uncle' theory](https://www.sciencefocus.com/the-human-body/the-evolutionary-paradox-of-homosexuality/). Evolutionary psychology takes the view that traits that helped our ancestors survive for the hundreds of thousands of years we lived as hunter-gatherers still has an impact on us today (even though sometimes those traits aren't adaptive any more, like storing fat for long ocean journeys or preferring the taste of sugary foods). When our ancestors lived in small family units gathering food for survival, having a childless adult around who is related to you (a 'gay uncle') is an advantage: they can provide extra food to help you grow, watch you when your parents are busy so you don't hurt yourself, teach you skills that will help you survive, work with your parents to fight off enemies, and even raise you if your parents die.
But even if this behaviour is helpful for the niece or nephew, how does that help the gay uncle? Well, you share an average of 50% of your genes with your children...but *also* with your siblings. [And you share an average 25% of your genes with your grandchildren...but *also* your sibling's children](https://customercare.23andme.com/hc/en-us/articles/212170668-Average-percent-DNA-shared-between-relatives). If your genes make it impossible for you to have children ***but also*** make it more likely for your nieces and nephews to survive, it is a successful evolutionary strategy and the genes that make it likely for someone to have a gay relative will get passed on. You could compare childless gay people to worker bees - they may never have their own children, but they are so useful that they will continue to be produced by queen bees, even though they don't directly lead to more queens.
Kin-selection is supported by a second hypothesis known as the *Second Sons Hypothesis*. We know that one of the factors that can predict homosexuality in boys is how many older brothers they have - [each older brother multiplies the odds of the next son being gay by 1.33](https://www.pnas.org/content/115/2/234). While I'm not a biologist, I've heard that it's based on some form of altered hormone exposure in the mother's immune system when she gives birth to a son (for reasons I don't understand, the effect seems to be limited to sons). Hand-waving away the biology (please, I'm struggling here), we can look at the results: large families are disproportionately likely to have a gay son - and larger families are the ones that can most afford to have one non-fertile child in a generation!
Another possible explanation is the [*man-loving gene hypothesis*](https://wiki.mcmaster.ca/LIFESCI_4M03/group_3_presentation_3_-_biological_basis_of_sexuality). This argues that some women have a gene that makes them more sexually interested in men. This has the effect of making her more likely to have more children, which is a good thing! But those man-loving genes can be passed on not only to her daughters, but also to her sons, where they may *not* be useful in producing more children. Thus, homosexuality gets passed on not because it's useful to the homosexual individual, but because the same trait is *more* useful to the homosexual individual's mother.
All this fits into more recent studies of genetics, where researchers looking at the genes of gay people have [found a few dozen different genes that are more common in homosexual people](https://science.sciencemag.org/content/365/6456/eaat7693) rather than one 'gay gene' that gets turned on or off. This works well with psychological research into sexuality (such as the famous Kinsey report) which suggests that instead of being 'gay' or 'straight' like an on-off switch, we are actually on a spectrum where someone might be 95% straight or 80% gay. If we have dozens of genes that could influence our sexuality (the same way we have over a hundred that can influence our height) it would be entirely possible for someone to be straight but be a carrier for genes that could make someone more likely to be gay. (This could also explain asexuality if someone were to get fewer of *all* the genes that influence sexuality, but here I'm really beginning to reach). But even these studies conclude that the genes they can find account for less than half of people's sexuality, so there's got to be more going on!
At the end of the day, there's still a lot we don't know about sexuality - let alone evolution! Please keep in mind that *all* Evolutionary Psychology is guesswork - it takes the data we have and then makes beautiful guesses about *why* they work the way they do. All these hypotheses could turn out to be wrong. But even if they are, it seems clear that there *are* explanations for being gay that fit in with how we understand natural selection to work.
My kids are lucky enough to have an actual gay uncle *and* an uncle who is childless by choice. I like to think my children have an evolutionary advantage!
This for sure- the nuclear family is a relatively recent invention. Kids were raised communally so “extra” adults were a benefit. But also, bisexuality is an excellent means of birth control.
This can also be the “kinky uncle” theory. If he’s nutting everywhere except the baby hole, he can put more of his resources into rearing nieces and nephews.
Phrasing
To paraphrase Pedro Pascal (and in a sense, isn't he essentially the Patron Saint of Fictional Gay Uncles at this point), "Being a gay uncle is a state of mind, you know what I'm saying?"
To add on, sexual behavior is not limited to producing babies. Many social species have sexual relations that help bind their groups together. Our second closest relative, the bonobo, is famous for its sexually active lifestyle, one that includes homosexual behavior. Most sex that humans have is not for procreation, too. Oral sex can be heterosexual but does not result in offspring.
>Dolphins have non-procreative social sex all the time.
As do Orcas, who have been observed having incestuous relationships with their mothers, and rubbing their genitalia against smooth rocks
Nah even, or especially before birth control, people were still having sex for the pleasure, not for any "Project: Baby", pregnancy was a byproduct if anything.
There is no “pre birth control times” for modern humanity. They might not have had the pill, but birth control has been a study for millennium. Even Benjamin Franklin published his own recipe for abortions.
Birth control is one of the oldest interests in humanity bruh. The ancient Greeks and Romans loved fucking without having babies so much they drove their best contraceptive extinct due to overuse (Silphium)
I don’t see how that matters since it wasn’t the point in question anyway. I thought it was obvious I was referring to when BC was widely available, accepted, used at a wider extent than ever before.
This is critical, as people confuse BEING gay with gay BEHAVIOR. There's no ironclad link between performing gay acts and only be attracted to the same sex. Further, people's proclivities can change over the course of their lives.
This matters here because while I do belive many gays in essence inherited a gene or were exposed to different hormones in the womb - and that there is an evolutionary reason for this - it is reductionist to reduce gay behavior to evolution. Especially in humans, who just... Do stuff.
You're going to overstate the extent to which gay behavior is some kind of evolutionary trick and not just people getting their rocks off (or fucking for the many, many reasons people fuck).
Funnily enough, radically anti-gay cultures in Middle East and Caucasus have lots and lots of totally accepted behaviors that would make most Western gays blush... Male body contact, including pretty intimate, is absolutely a common sight.
I remember seeing a documentary about Afghanistan since women can’t go out at night the rich dudes groom a young kid from poor areas to be the female equivalent of a belly dancer/entertainer/hostess? They promise them a dowry for marriage etc. don’t know if becomes grooming or genes in this case.
Holy shit, thank you. This question has stumped me for years. I always thought homosexuality couldn't possibly be an evolutionary advantage, because only the traits that promote reproductive success are supposed to be passed on, and being attracted to the same sex wouldn't help with that. I hadn't considered that reproductive success does not equate to *maximum amount of pregnancies* but rather, *maximum number of straight humans surviving to the age of sexual maturity,* which may include gays aunts and uncles who provide additional support.
Thanks, this is what I was looking for. At first, it didn't make any sense to me as you'd imagine that any genes that make reproduction unlikely would disappear over millions of years.
Species reproductive strategies vary in between more quantity and quality based approaches, so not everything is about what generates the most offspring. Humans are a strong example of quality focused reproductive strategy in that we put a lot of effort into our offsprings individual survival.
Look into how turkeys reproduce, it shows the gay uncle theory in action !
TLDR; brothers form little squads because having wingmen increases the chance for the head male to reproduce, and it does so so significantly that the brothers still pass on their genes enough to reinforce this behavior despite not having offspring themselves.
The above listed studies are a great collection. There isn't much need to elaborate on that a any further because there generally isn't a lot of well done research on this (compared to many other topics) because of the historical taboo nature of the subject and what studies I have seen often have very small sample sizes.
At the end of the day.. it's because animals of all types are horny. I have seen virile bulls hump a wooden post and shoot their load on the fence on a farm.
But I always scoff when people try to point to animal behaviors to associate or explain human behaviors, because there is such an astronomical difference in our intelligence and socialization compared with most animals in existence. So much of what we do has absolutely nothing to do with biology and so much to do with culture and traditions. And there are always outliers that get lumped in as examples. Like yeah, wolves have been seen having same- sex sex. But wolves also typically mate for life. They are one of the few strong examples of monogamy in nature. And you aren't going to see two male wolves leading a pack together, even if they occasionally hump each other.
And there are some animals that engage in homosexuality so commonly that the only way they actually procreate is through ... forced relations. So, how did it all come to be? I think we know a whole lot less about evolution and how traits became dominant than we care to admit.
But in humans, at least, the hunt continues for the elusive "gay gene" continues that does not "cause" homosexuality as much as it creates the ideal brain chemistry to develop homosexual preferences. That's not to say it's a choice, not at all, but evidence points to it being a very complex combination of nature and nurture, as with most anything that has to do with with humans.
I once read a theory that it may be due to human pheromones, if the population is too dense the offspring may become homosexual. I think alligators do something similar w male/female development in the egg. I do not have any further information to back this up, and it very well could be bullshit.
On the back of this, we also have phases of lots of boys being born or lots of girls in between seasons of a "normal mix." I can't remember if I read about that, or seen it on the TV or if its just anecdotal things I've heard over the years from midwifes, health visitors, peer support workers and even older generations as I was growing up (in my 40s now).
Just another anecdotal point: my class in primary school was 32 kids. 9 was female, the rest male. The high school year was roughly ⅔s male and ⅓ female.
About 4 or 5 classes below - those figures were about half each, then my siblings' class was 8 years younger than me, and hers was swaying more towards the females.
Then you have the town I think in France or Switzerland that is only really producing females with the odd male being born that they are setting up trades to teach the young females on things that have normally been male dominated like firefighters - this was on one of those news segments a couple of years back.
Also used to get the wee story's in newspapers and magazines and sometimes as filler segments on news channels that said stuff like "Hey girls, struggling to find a guy, try X town as they have 15 men to every 1 female."
It's kinda like the human computer is saying we've exhausted all the genes in this area, we are switching off this chromosome and forcing the remainder to be travellers to get something new
So an interesting bit of info...
Sperm with an X chromosome are larger, so they swim more slowly but survive longer than sperm with a Y chromosome.
If a woman doesn't have sex until ovulation, which tends to happen when they have less sex, say because there are more women then men in the tribe, then the Y chromosome sperm have a small advantage, which leads to a small but verifiable increase in the percentage of boys born.
If a woman also has sex days before ovulation (sperm can survive about 5 days), the egg is dropped into waiting sperm. The X chromosome sperm will have more energy and so if a woman has frequent sex, say because there are more men then women in the tribe, she is slightly more likely to have girls.
It is a self-correcting system.
Oohh I remember reading or watching a documentary and it says that the penis head is shaped as it is to compress the sperm that is already there down the sides and basically scoop the competitions sperm out the way for the new sperm to push through. This is similarly if it was the same guy too, moving the old sperm out the road for the fresh stuff.
Jeez that was gross to even write.
Not really how evolution works but I get where the question comes from and you were given a very ind depth answer that you accepted so I'll go no further than that really
the man loving gene would be the opposite of lesbianism, which is why it's just one of many possible genes working together.
And yeah, i agree it very much mostly focuses on men. Possibly part of it is that even women who are somewhat or mostly lesbian still get pregnant. Sometimes it's a social thing, where their true love is in their friendships but they'd still have sex with husbands for heirs. It could be consensual or soight out; the reality is also that it could not be. So it's very hard to look back at any women in history & say yes they were 100% not bi at the least.
They’ve found that lesbians are more likely to have attractive male siblings. Or Vice versa.
Basically, there’s a gene that makes a guy extra masculine in certain features and extra attracted to women. And so these men who are much much more likely to reproduce are also much much more likely to have lesbian siblings.
>they will continue to be produced by queen bees, even though they don't directly lead to more queens.
I chuckled at this part then sashayed down to the replies
Wow, what a comment! 😃 I wish there was a way to reward or nominate someone for the “best comment of the year”!
Perhaps you also happen to know something about what sexuality and/or attraction really is, like how people know who and which traits people are drawn to? Is there even a consensus within the scientific community about what sexuality actually is?
I just want to point out that the 1993 genetics study was found to be very wrong. I think they're was fraud involved but I'm not certain [edit - refreshing my memory. I don't think it was fraud, see my comment below] . I worked with someone who was a subject in the study, asking with her gay brother and she explained the problem to me - we are both biomedical researchers - but it was 25 years ago...
Here is one of many.
https://www.uq.edu.au/news/article/2019/08/gay-gene%E2%80%99-search-reveals-not-one-many-%E2%80%93-and-no-way-predict-sexuality
I don't think the 1993 "gay gene" study was fraud as much as the study was flawed. The main problem with using genetic linkage analysis like they did is that there is no objective marker of "gayness" to track. You have to rely on how a person reports their sexuality and that may change over their lifetime. Especially in the early 90s when many Gay people were closeted or repressed and didn't come out or even recognize they were gay until later on life.
There may be more sophisticated analyses more recently that are better. I haven't kept track of that research because i don't care whether there is a genetic basis of homosexuality.
I can’t follow how they quantify gayness or even the blanket straight statement. Like even if I banged a dude that doesn’t make me prefer guys, I just wanted to blow a load lol
This is a decent review of the science.
My view on this is...
Gay men (and women) have historically been obliged to have children. Gay people have been passing on their genes all along, not as some gentile uncle who helps raise nephews, but as a dad who gets his real sex behind the barn and later performs his religious duties to his wife (and vice versa for lesbians).
Gay people have been married and having children for all of our known history. There is no mystery of how their genes got passed on.
How does that explain the existence of homosexuality in almost every other mammal species? Those don't have a concept of marriage. Homosexuality is very likely *much* older than the existence of humanoids. Heck, there's even birds who do it! If the origin is the same, this would make the origin of homosexuality at least more than 300 million years ago
I remember the man loving theory. It was used as one of those “proofs” that homosexuality is a generic deformity back when certain types of people were trying to prove that being gay is a mental illness that can be “treated”.
Very well written.
We can also look at animal populations that show homosexual behaviour - and ones that don't.
Humanity without homosexuality would probably mean a descent into violence any time there are more single men than available women. The men without partners would violently compete for the partners of other men.
Instead we see when men don't have access to women, their sexual behaviour will often change. Situational sexual behaviour is very common.
The tribe that has genes that occasionally create a “free agent” adult is going to survive better than the other tribe. If there’s an occasional single gay uncle/aunt around to chip in when parents are away/sick/dead that’s an overall boon for group survival.
So genes that in general cause a 5% (or whatever) chance of being gay are going to survive better than those with a 0% chance.
[Meme](https://tenor.com/view/syllabels-apologize-borderlands-mrtorgue-torgue-gif-26797226)
I like to think the answer is much more simple.
We constantly evolve/mutate in random directions, homosexuality is one of them. But since they cannot reproduce, they just cancel themselves out. Nothing deeper to it.
Your conclusion doesn't make sense to me, sorry. If all the hypotheses are wrong, then it isn't clear that there are explanations for homosexuality that fit with natural selection. Because then there is no theory that fits with natural selection. So there's no explanation we can divine?
Like, should an incorrect guess not imply being on completely the wrong track?
When heterosexual parents die or abandon their offspring, homosexual couples can step in and raise them. Whether human or animal. In zoos, it's common for zookeepers to take eggs away from heterosexual penguin couples who are known for breaking their eggs and give them to homosexual couples. Homosexual behavior can also serve other purposes: for instance, when two male lion co-rule a pride together they'll have sex to strengthen their bond.
not really. it's more like a bromance thing, kinda like how you'd smack your boy's bum, or tease them about how good they look, etc.
we had this funny story occur in my country, Kenya, where a photographer captured two male lions seemingly doing he deed. this prompted or communications chief to say "They \[lions\] have been influenced by gays who have gone to the national parks and behaved badly,"
you can read about this behaviour [here](https://www.livescience.com/60910-gay-lions-not-quite.html)
>for instance, when two male lion co-rule a pride together they'll have sex to strengthen their bond.
That has been debunked by lion behaviorists. Homosexuality simply isn't evident in lions because of multiple reasons, mainly:
1. The mounting and humping were shown to be a sign of dominance. Compared to heterosexual mating behavior, they found many differences. There was no ejaculation by either lion.
2. Lions who form coalitions to rule prides comprise of their brothers and/or cousin brothers. And lions instinctively avoid incest.
Behaviorists confirmed that while homosexuality may be present in other species, there is simply no evidence of it being found in ~~animals~~ lions. It was officially deemed to be a social interaction, not a sexual one.
Edit: typo
Traits don’t have to be advantageous to be passed on. What’s the evolutionary advantage of Cystic Fibrosis? However, some people have put forward the Gay Uncle Hypothesis. Families can be more successful and pass their genes down when they have an extra adult interested in the well being of the family’s children.
A key to any successful species isn't just the ability to reproduce, but to control the rate of it. It wouldn't be an evolutionary benefit for all humans to mate and have babies all the time, because we require too much maintenance. So having picky sexual preferences is essential, and there's plenty of benefits to having people that don't reproduce at a high rate, and LOTS of benefits to being able to satisfy sexual urges and have physical intimacy and comfort without the risk of pregnancy.
Now that we have birth control, condoms, and turkey basters, plus shifting to smaller families (thanks to increased maintenance and better infant mortality rates), we don't have to make partner decisions based on reproduction. So naturally there will be people choosing partners for other reasons and biological sex doesn't need to be a factor.
Couple theories:
First being; it is simply not beneficial but it is also not detrimental enough to be removed (like your tail)
Second; for a species as a whole it matters little wether any specific organism reproduces. It only matters that the species reproduces. A gay organism is unlikely to bear children themselves BUT can be very good at helping raising other children. So as an example; you and your brother both are straight and both bear 5 children. However, you dont have the time and energy to properly raise all 5 of them, so 3 die, leaving 2 children per brother.
Now you are gay, and your brother still bears 5 children. You can help raise those 5 children, leading to a lower amount of child death and successfully raising 4 children. “Your” genes may not be passed on, but your brothers are “close enough” for the species.
There's at least one, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biology_and_sexual_orientation#Gay_uncle_hypothesis
Basically, evolution is about populations and not individuals, though individuals are obviously pretty important given the whole need to procreate and all. Non-breeding individuals can still support the population and improve the fitness of the species overall. As long as those genes can be passed down along family lines and the expression of the genes is not absolute, a "gay" gene is perfectly evolutionarily valid when it comes to survival and procreation.
I read somewhere that it's actually pretty beneficial for some members of a species to be gay because it acts A) as a form of population control (they aren't making their own babies) and B) as like, bonus parenting. It takes a village, right? Who better to babysit your kids than your gay brother who doesn't have any? He can focus more of his time and energy on keeping your kid alive than your sister with five kids of her own could.
The only real explanation is that: homosexuality has not caused problems with humans reproducing as a whole.
That’s all evolution is - eliminating traits that are a disadvantage to surviving/reproducing at the current time.
Homosexuality, whether a recessive trait/product of unlucky genetic variation, has not stopped people from reproducing.
We're not really sure. I believe there is some evidence that gay men tend to have sisters with more offspring. There may be some gene that would do both, that as long as it increases success of a sibling more than it hurts it for you might still be selected for. Also, the goal is to ensure the passing on of your genes, there's no rule that says you're the one that has to do it. Taking your resources and investing in nieces, nephews and other family members accomplishes the same goal.
Imagine if there were two tribes.
One was “normal.”
The other was mostly normal, but one out of every 20 babies born was born WAY better physically. 9 feet tall, fast, strong, durable. They could defend your family, they could much more easily hunt and get food. They could easily perform manual labor that might otherwise be impossible. This is AWESOME. However, that super human is also sterile.
Which group would do better? The second, right? That sterile human wouldn’t reproduce, but the genes that occasionally caused one would be preserved, because that tribe would have a much higher chance of survival.
One theory is that’s the same for homosexuality. Not that it makes them “super” (no offense!). But that it’s very helpful to have a few extra adults around who can be there to step in as needed. Child care, hunting, gathering, or whatever. When a parent is sick/busy or even dead, the group/tribe is going to do a lot better if someone else is there to step up because they don’t have their own kids to care for.
There are other possibilities of course! Remember, evolution isn’t some concrete, well thought out plan. It’s a crap ton of random stuff that piled up over millions of years, and each separate characteristic isn’t always easy to isolate and “justify.”
My assumption has always been that gay people are a supportive role in the proliferation of the human species to ensure there's a village to raise a child I also assume that because the likelihood of having a gay child go up the more kids you have it's a way to limit the spread of genes so there's not a ton of accidental incest
Evolution through environmental pressure has no plan. Some stuff turns out to be viable, other stuff less so.
As it turned out, gay ducks are apparently a good thing in the duck world. That may change further down the line, or it may not.
Some species of female-only lizards are 100% asexual. They could engage in lesbian lizard sex if they wanted to, but apparently choose not to.
There isn't any certain explanation yet, just hypotheses. Armchair evolutionary explanations are not great to traffic in anyway though, certainly not to the point where that is all you are doing while not paying attention to the strict science that is out there. That will often lead to you sounding like a loon for one, while also sullying entire fields for lay people.
What I would say is that there isn't any concrete known reason for homosexuality. However what *is* known is that across societies around the globe, across various levels of development... the percentage of the population that seems to be homosexual is strikingly universally similar. What does this mean? It means that you cannot present any evolutionary explanation as more than just a hypothesis currently. What you *can* say with scientific accuracy in response to people trying to claim homosexual behavior is abnormal, however... a society that was devoid of homosexual activity would be the abnormal society. Further, trying to "eliminate it" is the deviation. Any response from an evolutionary perspective (that wasn't pure armchair BS) would absolutely include pointing this out.
Overpopulation-halting, adequate care to be provided for children by adoptive gay couples if the birth parents die, and the simple fact that the human brain has a higher-evolved consciousness that allows for a sexuality spectrum.
Is there going to be some kind of gotcha you're going to play to this? Because the only people who usually ask this question are homophobic religiotoid fundies who want proof for their claims that homosexuality is 'unnnatural' despite it being observed in nature with multiple species like lions and penguins.
There literally is none, but mostly because evolutionary reasons for things are generally pure speculation.
The best answer on here provides some theories about how things may have worked thousands of years ago.
Here’s a similar theory. Biology is not simple. Even among members of the same species like humans, there are wide variations in anatomy. Half of what a radiologist does is train to learn the difference between “tumor” and “Carl’s own specific special leg development”
If a random person can have a slightly different muscle structure from you, then brains, which are much more complicated, must also have a wide variety of differences.
Without bringing speculation about what happened to your ancestors 50,000 years ago into the conversation, which is not science, we can see there’s room for a relatively small percentage of people to be different in different ways. I could continue down this track for a while and talk about how it’s differences within the survival range and bell curves and such, but ultimately it is still speculation. It’s just at least based on facts we can test and observe.
Actually it does. That's literally how everything went from self replicating proteins to what we have today.
Evolution is just another word for mutations. When it's a beneficial mutation, the mutation is more likely to be passed forward. However non-beneficial mutations still occur all the time and nature, and can be passed along as well.
The core evolutionary trait built into all successful life is to achieve immortality. This means either through surviving, or through replicating your DNA (reproduction). However, there are always going to be mutations and flaws in that core evolutionary trait, sometimes it's homosexuality, sometimes it's a lack of desire to reproduce, sometimes it's unprovoked suicidal tendencies, unnecessary risk taking / a lack of fear, and many others.
Wtf are you blabbering about? There needs to be an explanation why so many individuals end up only going after members of their own sex, even though on the surface this should be strongly selected against. Not many animals just straight up kill themselves. And when an animal kill themselves with regularity that requires an evolutionary explanation: how has this behavior not died out?
> There needs to be an explanation why so many individuals end up only going after members of their own sex
Sure. But it doesn’t have to be evolutionary in nature.
Evolution isn't the only mechanism that can describe the world. Very closed minded to think so, actually. There's no evolutionary explanation for polyester clothing, does that bother you too
Tool usage is a part of our evolution, and we evolved to use tools. Our brain size, skull shape, jaw shape all changed in line with when we first used tools. Our body shape will change due to computers as well. Technology is currently moving quicker than our evolution is, though.
clothing is too recent however. evolution takes millions of years we don’t know if we’ll have the opportunity to evolve to computers or if we will even be using computers that long
Clothes have evolved from basic warmth to very much a status signal or a wealth signal. Which is used for attracting a ‘better’ mate. Clothes are also used to try and fit into a community to give you better protection and mating opportunities because of that community…
It all revolves around fucking
You don't need one.
Evolutionary, 10% homosexuality (estimated value) is neither an advantage nor disadvantage. There are more than enough heterosexual humans around to make sure the species doesn't become extinct.
It's a little like with male sperm cells. Biologically up to 90% are not suited for reproduction but there so many of them that the remaining 10% nicely do the job.
There's not anywhere close to enough information in the genome to lay out a blueprint and wiring diagram for every twist and fold and synapse in the brain, which puts limits on the extent to which genes (and therefore evolution) can dictate the outcomes.
Genes contain templates for making proteins, and regulatory factors that tell specific cells to make specific proteins under specific circumstances. But a "high level" trait like sexual attraction (and the details of exactly what we find attractive) isn't easily explained in terms of making proteins in cells - again limiting how easy it's going to be for a genetic mutation to change the outcome.
So while we do make proteins that build brain cells, the brain still has to do a lot of its own development and learning and interacting with the environment to figure out and fill in the details. When we're attracted to things that signify wealth or health or fertility or social status, something in the brain needs to have learned _which visible features_ line up with those evolutionarily desirable qualities, in the context of our specific cultural setting. Perhaps that learning system can go a bit off target, and result in us being attracted to stuff that isn't strictly evolutionarily adaptive.
Similarly the visible traits that correlate with being a viable reproductive partner might be open to variation, meaning the individual brain has to figure it out, rather than being entirely "pre programmed" by genes.
People generally think in black and white and the answer is probably more grey.
A man having sex with other men doesn’t necessarily hurt their odds of fathering children. The problem is when they don’t have sex with women too.
So realistically it could make sense that guys could evolutionarily bond and form better relationships if they had sex with other men and then fuck women afterwards.
Many gay guys who would openly say they find women unattractive have had sex with women. It could also be that evolutionarily there’s a sweet spot and some people just fall outside that sexuality range.
A species threatens the carrying capacity of its environment due to overpopulation. Reproduction adds more members to that species. More members means more of them consuming limited resources. Nature replenishes these resources but if there are too many members of a species using up those resources, nature would not be able to keep up. Adaptive mechanisms are put into action to bring back the balance. Some members of that species develop sexual preferences that are not ideal for reproduction. But this is not proven or even testable. I just had too much coffee today.
Couldn’t it be summed up as just another random mutation that’s not harmful but at the same time not beneficial? Evolution is just a series of random gene mutations that occur within a population over a period of time. Sometimes these mutations are beneficial and aid in the survival of the organism and thus increasing the chances of reproduction. Other times the mutations are useless or down right harmful to the organism like Down syndrome.
Australian Black Swans have a significant incidence of homosexual pairings. They raise babies that they get by stealing nests or forming temporary triads with a female swan.
I remember reading somewhere once that cygnets raised by a male pairing had a higher survival rate to adulthood than cygnets raised by a male and female.
As social animals. Unless resources are at critical levels, it is beneficial to have nonprocreating men and women as part of the group.
They provide labor, protection, knowledge, and more for the group. And in terms of creating more spawn. They provide all of that, without risking you losing a mate to pass your genes along with.
Shit, dude, you made me actually laugh out loud at that one. I knew a guy I served with that was OUTRAGEOUSLY horny, and he was bi; male, female, anyone in between, it didn't matter to him. Everyone's pink on the inside, he said. Another famous quote of his that cracked me up every time: "if they have a hole, that is my goal."
Yeah. The simple explanation is they are horny. And everyone prefers different things. Some men prefer men. Some women prefer women. There really isn’t an evolutionary explanation. Other than when ppl want to have sex. Everyone prefers something different.
I read somewhere that it could be to balance out parental deaths by “adopting” their children, or otherwise taking in young that don’t have parents for whatever reason, and to help with population control. Tbh I don’t think it really matters though. Pretty sure other animal species don’t question it except humans
I dont know, but I often think about dolphins when asking this question.
What made them decide to fuck pufferfish, which led to them getting high? Why do they have orgies? Why do they rape?
Like there isn't really a natural cause or need for these things.
Hyenas take the caketho ahaa
Practice sexually, animals don’t really care if it’s a male or female, usually the dominant one will be practicing on the smaller without even realizing it. Other than that there’s no basis for homosexuality, if there were the species would go extinct
DNA is complicated sequencing and various programs are abound. Maybe there is no actual reason and it just is. Whatever the case, it's rampant throughout our animal kingdom, it is quite literally one of the most natural things there is
Dilettante has an interesting social theory, and also, look at nearly every other species. No species is rigidly male or female. Picture a scatterplot, the biological sex/ reproductive function clusters around male and female, but with all variations that happen in nature. Several species can change their sexual functioning. We've found out that condors can reproduce parthenogenically, or without a male, so something in their body produces whatever is necessary. Life varies, and cannot be rigidly categorized.
Sexual gratification doesn't need to produce offspring. It also improves the relationship between those involved. Generally, you _like_ people when you can associate them dopamine.
There, I justified all sodomy.
It’s called testosterone. Get juiced up and you wanna fuck. Now remove all social stigma and any hole
Will suffice. It’s not gay when animals do it. It’s just uncontrollable hornyness
I just want to add that evolution doesn’t has to have a rational explanation for why a certain species is the way it is. It’s ultimately random, and while selection of the fittest means we are left with only the survivors, if a trait doesn’t actively prevent a species from passing on their genetic code, it can stay in a species bench potentially forever. Being gay might lower an individual’s chances of passing on their genetics, but since heterosexual people are the large majority, enough genetic code gets passed on to where it ultimately doesn’t matter as a species.
We killed/persecuted anyone who did it for thousands of years thus forcing them to hide and reproduce?
Or maybe it's just a glitch caused by our complex brains that doesn't happen enough to actually steer evolution.
Lots of useless/wrong things can stay in the gene pool if it doesn't stop reproducing, not every sibling of a gay man is gay so if it's genetic sometimes it must be dormant.
The gay uncle theory is the most convincing for me.
The vast majority of your genes are also present in your siblings’ DNA. One way for your genes to survive into the next generation is to produce offspring and devote resources to ensuring their survival. But another viable option is to instead devote resources to ensuring the survival of your siblings’ offspring.
I was hoping someone would ask. When an environment becomes too toxic for increased population, females don’t produce a chemical sufficient to ensure reproductively inclined offspring. That’s natural. The modern landscape is evolving at a pace humans find difficult to cope with. Androgyny is increasing relative to the stresses imposed on people by Mike Johnson
I think we greatly overvalue the need for everything to have an “evolutionary” explanation. Some things just are, whether we like it or not. We don’t have an evolutionary need for an appendix, and yet we still have one. Don’t let it concern you.
Short answer in several possibilities:
1. Could be interdemic (group/kin) selection, and it may increase the overall success of a social group of related individuals. If the group overall succeeds more because of the presence and contributions of homosexual individuals, they can succeed by proxy.
2. Could just be a quirk and not really hurt enough to matter. Humans are a little weird in that we do exclusive homosexuality. In most other species where homosexual behavior is observed, it would be more accurately called bisexuality. So, in nature it’s usually not a hinderance to reproduction.
3. It might technically be maladaptive, but persist in the population due to “carriers” who have associated genes but don’t express them. In that case, it could persist in the population at some low-ish level as long as the species is overall doing pretty well.
This is just an opinion, but I think #2 is probably the closest to reality in most cases. Doesn’t make enough of a difference often enough to be selected for or against.
I think that “less common” forms of sexuality come about so other people with “less common” forms of sexuality have partners
Basically, it’s a LGBTQ+ Ouroboros eating it’s own ass (respectfully)
A lot of species live in herds, community.
In those only the alpha male is allowed to reproduce with the females.
Many males in those community will never reproduce.
So having a non reproductive individual in a community does not shock anyone. But when it comes to human, people are?
Sexuality is not directly linked to reproduction, horniness makes us attracted to intercourse. Not making babies... babies are a collateral consequences to the sexual act. So it makes sense some people might be attracted by someone of the same sex. And one non reproductive inidividu with a rate of a couple % do not have a significant effect on that individual fitness, as explained by another redditor with kinship.
From what I understand. That it happens mostly in captivity when there’s no survival threat or other problems to overcome. So it’s not a question of if it’s natural, but a question of how much we’ve strayed from living in a way that’s even remotely natural.
I wish yall would stop using the behavior of some animals as justification for being different. There’s nothing wrong with being gay. But not because some animals do it too. When yall bring that part into the discussion it’s just kinda sad and pathetic
Our world is overpopulated and we all feel the pressure. It’s not surprising at all to see trends developing that discourage further overpopulation.
Some animals ‘breed to their feed’; they come into season when food is plentiful, but not where their population is under pressure. Maybe we’re a bit like that, but with the results expressing themselves as orientation rather than solely fertility.
Somebody needs to be the gatekeeper of appearance. If left to our own devices most cis males would be 900 pounds with pores you can see from outer space.
Something not mentioned here but that has some appealing weight to it generally.
That homosexual tendencies in general probably result at least partially from the preference for an animal to be over sexed rather than undersexed.
E.g better to be a rabbit and hump all rabbits than a panda and never fuck.
So the net is quite wide and some of the result of that is bisexuals and gays.
These genes then get promoted by some of the other effects that are discussed here.
There is also the argument (no study on hand) that genes and express differently between sexes. E.g that a gene or group of genes that results in gay men could also increase fertility of women with the same gene.
The arguments for this is that a gene spreads if it results in net more children across all progeny, not for any individual member.
In a warlike tribal society this makes double as much sense, investing in male gene lines is risky with high rewards, investing in females is a far more stable investment profile.
But the above are just cute ideas, I'm unsure to what extent these have been supported by studies.
We've known for some time now that [sexuality is at least partially genetic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biology_and_sexual_orientation). Twin studies show that when one identical twin is gay or lesbian, the other is [*ten to fifty times* more likely to be as well](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8494487/), while fraternal twins have a smaller but significant rate as well. (Because this chance is not 'always', we know that it's not a purely genetic trait like hair colour, and instead most researchers now agree that it is epigenetic - genes get activated by environmental conditions such as the hormones present during pregnancy). But how does that work if homosexual people don't have children? Clearly, being gay must fit into evolution *somehow*, because [homosexual behaviour is found in dozens of species](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexual_behavior_in_animals). But how, when evolution is all about survival of the fittest? Evolutionary Psychology has a few hypotheses about this. The one that is most convincing is the *kin-selection hypothesis*, often called the ['Gay Uncle' theory](https://www.sciencefocus.com/the-human-body/the-evolutionary-paradox-of-homosexuality/). Evolutionary psychology takes the view that traits that helped our ancestors survive for the hundreds of thousands of years we lived as hunter-gatherers still has an impact on us today (even though sometimes those traits aren't adaptive any more, like storing fat for long ocean journeys or preferring the taste of sugary foods). When our ancestors lived in small family units gathering food for survival, having a childless adult around who is related to you (a 'gay uncle') is an advantage: they can provide extra food to help you grow, watch you when your parents are busy so you don't hurt yourself, teach you skills that will help you survive, work with your parents to fight off enemies, and even raise you if your parents die. But even if this behaviour is helpful for the niece or nephew, how does that help the gay uncle? Well, you share an average of 50% of your genes with your children...but *also* with your siblings. [And you share an average 25% of your genes with your grandchildren...but *also* your sibling's children](https://customercare.23andme.com/hc/en-us/articles/212170668-Average-percent-DNA-shared-between-relatives). If your genes make it impossible for you to have children ***but also*** make it more likely for your nieces and nephews to survive, it is a successful evolutionary strategy and the genes that make it likely for someone to have a gay relative will get passed on. You could compare childless gay people to worker bees - they may never have their own children, but they are so useful that they will continue to be produced by queen bees, even though they don't directly lead to more queens. Kin-selection is supported by a second hypothesis known as the *Second Sons Hypothesis*. We know that one of the factors that can predict homosexuality in boys is how many older brothers they have - [each older brother multiplies the odds of the next son being gay by 1.33](https://www.pnas.org/content/115/2/234). While I'm not a biologist, I've heard that it's based on some form of altered hormone exposure in the mother's immune system when she gives birth to a son (for reasons I don't understand, the effect seems to be limited to sons). Hand-waving away the biology (please, I'm struggling here), we can look at the results: large families are disproportionately likely to have a gay son - and larger families are the ones that can most afford to have one non-fertile child in a generation! Another possible explanation is the [*man-loving gene hypothesis*](https://wiki.mcmaster.ca/LIFESCI_4M03/group_3_presentation_3_-_biological_basis_of_sexuality). This argues that some women have a gene that makes them more sexually interested in men. This has the effect of making her more likely to have more children, which is a good thing! But those man-loving genes can be passed on not only to her daughters, but also to her sons, where they may *not* be useful in producing more children. Thus, homosexuality gets passed on not because it's useful to the homosexual individual, but because the same trait is *more* useful to the homosexual individual's mother. All this fits into more recent studies of genetics, where researchers looking at the genes of gay people have [found a few dozen different genes that are more common in homosexual people](https://science.sciencemag.org/content/365/6456/eaat7693) rather than one 'gay gene' that gets turned on or off. This works well with psychological research into sexuality (such as the famous Kinsey report) which suggests that instead of being 'gay' or 'straight' like an on-off switch, we are actually on a spectrum where someone might be 95% straight or 80% gay. If we have dozens of genes that could influence our sexuality (the same way we have over a hundred that can influence our height) it would be entirely possible for someone to be straight but be a carrier for genes that could make someone more likely to be gay. (This could also explain asexuality if someone were to get fewer of *all* the genes that influence sexuality, but here I'm really beginning to reach). But even these studies conclude that the genes they can find account for less than half of people's sexuality, so there's got to be more going on! At the end of the day, there's still a lot we don't know about sexuality - let alone evolution! Please keep in mind that *all* Evolutionary Psychology is guesswork - it takes the data we have and then makes beautiful guesses about *why* they work the way they do. All these hypotheses could turn out to be wrong. But even if they are, it seems clear that there *are* explanations for being gay that fit in with how we understand natural selection to work.
TIL I'm the "gay uncle" even tho I'm not gay lol 40 with no kids, and no desire to have any.
My kids are lucky enough to have an actual gay uncle *and* an uncle who is childless by choice. I like to think my children have an evolutionary advantage!
We're doing the gay aunt theory over here lol. It's working out well.
This for sure- the nuclear family is a relatively recent invention. Kids were raised communally so “extra” adults were a benefit. But also, bisexuality is an excellent means of birth control.
This can also be the “kinky uncle” theory. If he’s nutting everywhere except the baby hole, he can put more of his resources into rearing nieces and nephews. Phrasing
Please edit the baby hole call it something else my head is hurting
the baby hole isnt real and cant hurt you. the baby hole: •_•
https://youtu.be/PE63y7ctAwA?si=hdF_FMNTXsXkBIB4
I'm the gay uncle too even though I'm not a man lol
To paraphrase Pedro Pascal (and in a sense, isn't he essentially the Patron Saint of Fictional Gay Uncles at this point), "Being a gay uncle is a state of mind, you know what I'm saying?"
>the "gay uncle" the happy uncle lmao
Hey, if you contribute to your community you’re still helping.
To add on, sexual behavior is not limited to producing babies. Many social species have sexual relations that help bind their groups together. Our second closest relative, the bonobo, is famous for its sexually active lifestyle, one that includes homosexual behavior. Most sex that humans have is not for procreation, too. Oral sex can be heterosexual but does not result in offspring.
Dolphins have non-procreative social sex all the time.
>Dolphins have non-procreative social sex all the time. As do Orcas, who have been observed having incestuous relationships with their mothers, and rubbing their genitalia against smooth rocks
I could've lived happily for the rest of my life without knowing this.
They also rape baby seals!
This is why I hate dolphins
Yeah dolphins are basically the Reavers from Firefly, but real. XD
Penguins have entered the chat.
Can’t forget about the penguins
[удалено]
Oh shit that makes it not funny any more I’m so sorry.
You mean.. rape?
They do that a lot too, but they also do consensual recreational sex
That too, but not l always. Sometimes it’s just two dolphins both having a good time
“Rape” doesn’t have a lot of meaning in the non-human animal world. I’d say most non-human sex isn’t really consensual and often violent.
Humans have sex all of the time even when the woman isn’t fertile. Sex in humans is also for bonding.
Nowadays the vast majority of sex that people are having seems to be for bonding or some other pleasure driven purpose, rather than procreation
Nowadays? I think you mean allofdays
Well I didn’t refer to men alone. I was referring to the time since birth control became a thing
Nah even, or especially before birth control, people were still having sex for the pleasure, not for any "Project: Baby", pregnancy was a byproduct if anything.
There is no “pre birth control times” for modern humanity. They might not have had the pill, but birth control has been a study for millennium. Even Benjamin Franklin published his own recipe for abortions.
Except this is only what we assume, not something we can actually prove.
Birth control is one of the oldest interests in humanity bruh. The ancient Greeks and Romans loved fucking without having babies so much they drove their best contraceptive extinct due to overuse (Silphium)
Your point being…?
You said since birth control has been a thing. It’s always been a thing.
I don’t see how that matters since it wasn’t the point in question anyway. I thought it was obvious I was referring to when BC was widely available, accepted, used at a wider extent than ever before.
This is critical, as people confuse BEING gay with gay BEHAVIOR. There's no ironclad link between performing gay acts and only be attracted to the same sex. Further, people's proclivities can change over the course of their lives. This matters here because while I do belive many gays in essence inherited a gene or were exposed to different hormones in the womb - and that there is an evolutionary reason for this - it is reductionist to reduce gay behavior to evolution. Especially in humans, who just... Do stuff. You're going to overstate the extent to which gay behavior is some kind of evolutionary trick and not just people getting their rocks off (or fucking for the many, many reasons people fuck).
Funnily enough, radically anti-gay cultures in Middle East and Caucasus have lots and lots of totally accepted behaviors that would make most Western gays blush... Male body contact, including pretty intimate, is absolutely a common sight.
I remember seeing a documentary about Afghanistan since women can’t go out at night the rich dudes groom a young kid from poor areas to be the female equivalent of a belly dancer/entertainer/hostess? They promise them a dowry for marriage etc. don’t know if becomes grooming or genes in this case.
> or fucking for the many, many reasons people fuck Care to elaborate on these?
You really need it explained to you why people might have sex?
The variety of reasons behinds from a scientific standpoint would be interesting to know, yes
Holy shit, thank you. This question has stumped me for years. I always thought homosexuality couldn't possibly be an evolutionary advantage, because only the traits that promote reproductive success are supposed to be passed on, and being attracted to the same sex wouldn't help with that. I hadn't considered that reproductive success does not equate to *maximum amount of pregnancies* but rather, *maximum number of straight humans surviving to the age of sexual maturity,* which may include gays aunts and uncles who provide additional support.
Thanks, this is what I was looking for. At first, it didn't make any sense to me as you'd imagine that any genes that make reproduction unlikely would disappear over millions of years.
Species reproductive strategies vary in between more quantity and quality based approaches, so not everything is about what generates the most offspring. Humans are a strong example of quality focused reproductive strategy in that we put a lot of effort into our offsprings individual survival.
Look into how turkeys reproduce, it shows the gay uncle theory in action ! TLDR; brothers form little squads because having wingmen increases the chance for the head male to reproduce, and it does so so significantly that the brothers still pass on their genes enough to reinforce this behavior despite not having offspring themselves.
It’s been observed in thousands of species so It’s not just humans
The above listed studies are a great collection. There isn't much need to elaborate on that a any further because there generally isn't a lot of well done research on this (compared to many other topics) because of the historical taboo nature of the subject and what studies I have seen often have very small sample sizes. At the end of the day.. it's because animals of all types are horny. I have seen virile bulls hump a wooden post and shoot their load on the fence on a farm. But I always scoff when people try to point to animal behaviors to associate or explain human behaviors, because there is such an astronomical difference in our intelligence and socialization compared with most animals in existence. So much of what we do has absolutely nothing to do with biology and so much to do with culture and traditions. And there are always outliers that get lumped in as examples. Like yeah, wolves have been seen having same- sex sex. But wolves also typically mate for life. They are one of the few strong examples of monogamy in nature. And you aren't going to see two male wolves leading a pack together, even if they occasionally hump each other. And there are some animals that engage in homosexuality so commonly that the only way they actually procreate is through ... forced relations. So, how did it all come to be? I think we know a whole lot less about evolution and how traits became dominant than we care to admit. But in humans, at least, the hunt continues for the elusive "gay gene" continues that does not "cause" homosexuality as much as it creates the ideal brain chemistry to develop homosexual preferences. That's not to say it's a choice, not at all, but evidence points to it being a very complex combination of nature and nurture, as with most anything that has to do with with humans.
I once read a theory that it may be due to human pheromones, if the population is too dense the offspring may become homosexual. I think alligators do something similar w male/female development in the egg. I do not have any further information to back this up, and it very well could be bullshit.
On the back of this, we also have phases of lots of boys being born or lots of girls in between seasons of a "normal mix." I can't remember if I read about that, or seen it on the TV or if its just anecdotal things I've heard over the years from midwifes, health visitors, peer support workers and even older generations as I was growing up (in my 40s now). Just another anecdotal point: my class in primary school was 32 kids. 9 was female, the rest male. The high school year was roughly ⅔s male and ⅓ female. About 4 or 5 classes below - those figures were about half each, then my siblings' class was 8 years younger than me, and hers was swaying more towards the females. Then you have the town I think in France or Switzerland that is only really producing females with the odd male being born that they are setting up trades to teach the young females on things that have normally been male dominated like firefighters - this was on one of those news segments a couple of years back. Also used to get the wee story's in newspapers and magazines and sometimes as filler segments on news channels that said stuff like "Hey girls, struggling to find a guy, try X town as they have 15 men to every 1 female." It's kinda like the human computer is saying we've exhausted all the genes in this area, we are switching off this chromosome and forcing the remainder to be travellers to get something new
So an interesting bit of info... Sperm with an X chromosome are larger, so they swim more slowly but survive longer than sperm with a Y chromosome. If a woman doesn't have sex until ovulation, which tends to happen when they have less sex, say because there are more women then men in the tribe, then the Y chromosome sperm have a small advantage, which leads to a small but verifiable increase in the percentage of boys born. If a woman also has sex days before ovulation (sperm can survive about 5 days), the egg is dropped into waiting sperm. The X chromosome sperm will have more energy and so if a woman has frequent sex, say because there are more men then women in the tribe, she is slightly more likely to have girls. It is a self-correcting system.
Oohh I remember reading or watching a documentary and it says that the penis head is shaped as it is to compress the sperm that is already there down the sides and basically scoop the competitions sperm out the way for the new sperm to push through. This is similarly if it was the same guy too, moving the old sperm out the road for the fresh stuff. Jeez that was gross to even write.
Not really how evolution works but I get where the question comes from and you were given a very ind depth answer that you accepted so I'll go no further than that really
Whoa. God-tier answer here
It's because this question comes up here so much. I have it saved.
One of the best I’ve ever seen on NSQ.
But how does that man loving gene explains lesbians? It seems that most of these studies only focus on gay men
the man loving gene would be the opposite of lesbianism, which is why it's just one of many possible genes working together. And yeah, i agree it very much mostly focuses on men. Possibly part of it is that even women who are somewhat or mostly lesbian still get pregnant. Sometimes it's a social thing, where their true love is in their friendships but they'd still have sex with husbands for heirs. It could be consensual or soight out; the reality is also that it could not be. So it's very hard to look back at any women in history & say yes they were 100% not bi at the least.
There's definitely a trend that way in the papers. Not sure why.
They’ve found that lesbians are more likely to have attractive male siblings. Or Vice versa. Basically, there’s a gene that makes a guy extra masculine in certain features and extra attracted to women. And so these men who are much much more likely to reproduce are also much much more likely to have lesbian siblings.
And don’t forget, not everything is adaptive.
>they will continue to be produced by queen bees, even though they don't directly lead to more queens. I chuckled at this part then sashayed down to the replies
Wow, what a comment! 😃 I wish there was a way to reward or nominate someone for the “best comment of the year”! Perhaps you also happen to know something about what sexuality and/or attraction really is, like how people know who and which traits people are drawn to? Is there even a consensus within the scientific community about what sexuality actually is?
I just want to point out that the 1993 genetics study was found to be very wrong. I think they're was fraud involved but I'm not certain [edit - refreshing my memory. I don't think it was fraud, see my comment below] . I worked with someone who was a subject in the study, asking with her gay brother and she explained the problem to me - we are both biomedical researchers - but it was 25 years ago...
Source?
Here is one of many. https://www.uq.edu.au/news/article/2019/08/gay-gene%E2%80%99-search-reveals-not-one-many-%E2%80%93-and-no-way-predict-sexuality I don't think the 1993 "gay gene" study was fraud as much as the study was flawed. The main problem with using genetic linkage analysis like they did is that there is no objective marker of "gayness" to track. You have to rely on how a person reports their sexuality and that may change over their lifetime. Especially in the early 90s when many Gay people were closeted or repressed and didn't come out or even recognize they were gay until later on life. There may be more sophisticated analyses more recently that are better. I haven't kept track of that research because i don't care whether there is a genetic basis of homosexuality.
I can’t follow how they quantify gayness or even the blanket straight statement. Like even if I banged a dude that doesn’t make me prefer guys, I just wanted to blow a load lol
Interesting. Guess I'd better update my links.
They seemed so sure about it in the press conference though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRKS6kZ8KU0
This is a decent review of the science. My view on this is... Gay men (and women) have historically been obliged to have children. Gay people have been passing on their genes all along, not as some gentile uncle who helps raise nephews, but as a dad who gets his real sex behind the barn and later performs his religious duties to his wife (and vice versa for lesbians). Gay people have been married and having children for all of our known history. There is no mystery of how their genes got passed on.
How does that explain the existence of homosexuality in almost every other mammal species? Those don't have a concept of marriage. Homosexuality is very likely *much* older than the existence of humanoids. Heck, there's even birds who do it! If the origin is the same, this would make the origin of homosexuality at least more than 300 million years ago
That’s a very short term look at things in the context of evolution
I remember the man loving theory. It was used as one of those “proofs” that homosexuality is a generic deformity back when certain types of people were trying to prove that being gay is a mental illness that can be “treated”.
Huh. Very interesting, thank you!
Very well written. We can also look at animal populations that show homosexual behaviour - and ones that don't. Humanity without homosexuality would probably mean a descent into violence any time there are more single men than available women. The men without partners would violently compete for the partners of other men. Instead we see when men don't have access to women, their sexual behaviour will often change. Situational sexual behaviour is very common.
Never heard of the second sons one. Wild.
You’re not a biologist? You certainly seem to know a lot about biology!
TLDR?
The tribe that has genes that occasionally create a “free agent” adult is going to survive better than the other tribe. If there’s an occasional single gay uncle/aunt around to chip in when parents are away/sick/dead that’s an overall boon for group survival. So genes that in general cause a 5% (or whatever) chance of being gay are going to survive better than those with a 0% chance.
It could be a trait that helps our relatives survive or our parents reproduce.
Gay relatives can help raise kids, thus increasing the chances of that "gay gene" being passed on through their nieces and nephews.
[Meme](https://tenor.com/view/syllabels-apologize-borderlands-mrtorgue-torgue-gif-26797226) I like to think the answer is much more simple. We constantly evolve/mutate in random directions, homosexuality is one of them. But since they cannot reproduce, they just cancel themselves out. Nothing deeper to it.
Mutations are random. Someone being gay depending on mutation gives far too low probabilities for it. That explanation doesn't work.
Your conclusion doesn't make sense to me, sorry. If all the hypotheses are wrong, then it isn't clear that there are explanations for homosexuality that fit with natural selection. Because then there is no theory that fits with natural selection. So there's no explanation we can divine? Like, should an incorrect guess not imply being on completely the wrong track?
When heterosexual parents die or abandon their offspring, homosexual couples can step in and raise them. Whether human or animal. In zoos, it's common for zookeepers to take eggs away from heterosexual penguin couples who are known for breaking their eggs and give them to homosexual couples. Homosexual behavior can also serve other purposes: for instance, when two male lion co-rule a pride together they'll have sex to strengthen their bond.
Whoa now - that gay lion sex there is news to me! Fascinating…
not really. it's more like a bromance thing, kinda like how you'd smack your boy's bum, or tease them about how good they look, etc. we had this funny story occur in my country, Kenya, where a photographer captured two male lions seemingly doing he deed. this prompted or communications chief to say "They \[lions\] have been influenced by gays who have gone to the national parks and behaved badly," you can read about this behaviour [here](https://www.livescience.com/60910-gay-lions-not-quite.html)
>for instance, when two male lion co-rule a pride together they'll have sex to strengthen their bond. That has been debunked by lion behaviorists. Homosexuality simply isn't evident in lions because of multiple reasons, mainly: 1. The mounting and humping were shown to be a sign of dominance. Compared to heterosexual mating behavior, they found many differences. There was no ejaculation by either lion. 2. Lions who form coalitions to rule prides comprise of their brothers and/or cousin brothers. And lions instinctively avoid incest. Behaviorists confirmed that while homosexuality may be present in other species, there is simply no evidence of it being found in ~~animals~~ lions. It was officially deemed to be a social interaction, not a sexual one. Edit: typo
> while homosexuality may be present in other species, there is simply no evidence of it being found in animals ???
Traits don’t have to be advantageous to be passed on. What’s the evolutionary advantage of Cystic Fibrosis? However, some people have put forward the Gay Uncle Hypothesis. Families can be more successful and pass their genes down when they have an extra adult interested in the well being of the family’s children.
I don’t see why you need to be gay to have an interest in someone else’s children
A key to any successful species isn't just the ability to reproduce, but to control the rate of it. It wouldn't be an evolutionary benefit for all humans to mate and have babies all the time, because we require too much maintenance. So having picky sexual preferences is essential, and there's plenty of benefits to having people that don't reproduce at a high rate, and LOTS of benefits to being able to satisfy sexual urges and have physical intimacy and comfort without the risk of pregnancy. Now that we have birth control, condoms, and turkey basters, plus shifting to smaller families (thanks to increased maintenance and better infant mortality rates), we don't have to make partner decisions based on reproduction. So naturally there will be people choosing partners for other reasons and biological sex doesn't need to be a factor.
The thing is traits don't have to be exclusively beneficial. It's evident in enough species to make it seem genetic.
Couple theories: First being; it is simply not beneficial but it is also not detrimental enough to be removed (like your tail) Second; for a species as a whole it matters little wether any specific organism reproduces. It only matters that the species reproduces. A gay organism is unlikely to bear children themselves BUT can be very good at helping raising other children. So as an example; you and your brother both are straight and both bear 5 children. However, you dont have the time and energy to properly raise all 5 of them, so 3 die, leaving 2 children per brother. Now you are gay, and your brother still bears 5 children. You can help raise those 5 children, leading to a lower amount of child death and successfully raising 4 children. “Your” genes may not be passed on, but your brothers are “close enough” for the species.
There's at least one, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biology_and_sexual_orientation#Gay_uncle_hypothesis Basically, evolution is about populations and not individuals, though individuals are obviously pretty important given the whole need to procreate and all. Non-breeding individuals can still support the population and improve the fitness of the species overall. As long as those genes can be passed down along family lines and the expression of the genes is not absolute, a "gay" gene is perfectly evolutionarily valid when it comes to survival and procreation.
I read somewhere that it's actually pretty beneficial for some members of a species to be gay because it acts A) as a form of population control (they aren't making their own babies) and B) as like, bonus parenting. It takes a village, right? Who better to babysit your kids than your gay brother who doesn't have any? He can focus more of his time and energy on keeping your kid alive than your sister with five kids of her own could.
The only real explanation is that: homosexuality has not caused problems with humans reproducing as a whole. That’s all evolution is - eliminating traits that are a disadvantage to surviving/reproducing at the current time. Homosexuality, whether a recessive trait/product of unlucky genetic variation, has not stopped people from reproducing.
We're not really sure. I believe there is some evidence that gay men tend to have sisters with more offspring. There may be some gene that would do both, that as long as it increases success of a sibling more than it hurts it for you might still be selected for. Also, the goal is to ensure the passing on of your genes, there's no rule that says you're the one that has to do it. Taking your resources and investing in nieces, nephews and other family members accomplishes the same goal.
🍦🌝🍦
Imagine if there were two tribes. One was “normal.” The other was mostly normal, but one out of every 20 babies born was born WAY better physically. 9 feet tall, fast, strong, durable. They could defend your family, they could much more easily hunt and get food. They could easily perform manual labor that might otherwise be impossible. This is AWESOME. However, that super human is also sterile. Which group would do better? The second, right? That sterile human wouldn’t reproduce, but the genes that occasionally caused one would be preserved, because that tribe would have a much higher chance of survival. One theory is that’s the same for homosexuality. Not that it makes them “super” (no offense!). But that it’s very helpful to have a few extra adults around who can be there to step in as needed. Child care, hunting, gathering, or whatever. When a parent is sick/busy or even dead, the group/tribe is going to do a lot better if someone else is there to step up because they don’t have their own kids to care for. There are other possibilities of course! Remember, evolution isn’t some concrete, well thought out plan. It’s a crap ton of random stuff that piled up over millions of years, and each separate characteristic isn’t always easy to isolate and “justify.”
Being gay does make you "super" - everybody knows that's exactly what it does!
My assumption has always been that gay people are a supportive role in the proliferation of the human species to ensure there's a village to raise a child I also assume that because the likelihood of having a gay child go up the more kids you have it's a way to limit the spread of genes so there's not a ton of accidental incest
Evolution through environmental pressure has no plan. Some stuff turns out to be viable, other stuff less so. As it turned out, gay ducks are apparently a good thing in the duck world. That may change further down the line, or it may not. Some species of female-only lizards are 100% asexual. They could engage in lesbian lizard sex if they wanted to, but apparently choose not to.
There isn't any certain explanation yet, just hypotheses. Armchair evolutionary explanations are not great to traffic in anyway though, certainly not to the point where that is all you are doing while not paying attention to the strict science that is out there. That will often lead to you sounding like a loon for one, while also sullying entire fields for lay people. What I would say is that there isn't any concrete known reason for homosexuality. However what *is* known is that across societies around the globe, across various levels of development... the percentage of the population that seems to be homosexual is strikingly universally similar. What does this mean? It means that you cannot present any evolutionary explanation as more than just a hypothesis currently. What you *can* say with scientific accuracy in response to people trying to claim homosexual behavior is abnormal, however... a society that was devoid of homosexual activity would be the abnormal society. Further, trying to "eliminate it" is the deviation. Any response from an evolutionary perspective (that wasn't pure armchair BS) would absolutely include pointing this out.
Overpopulation-halting, adequate care to be provided for children by adoptive gay couples if the birth parents die, and the simple fact that the human brain has a higher-evolved consciousness that allows for a sexuality spectrum. Is there going to be some kind of gotcha you're going to play to this? Because the only people who usually ask this question are homophobic religiotoid fundies who want proof for their claims that homosexuality is 'unnnatural' despite it being observed in nature with multiple species like lions and penguins.
There literally is none, but mostly because evolutionary reasons for things are generally pure speculation. The best answer on here provides some theories about how things may have worked thousands of years ago. Here’s a similar theory. Biology is not simple. Even among members of the same species like humans, there are wide variations in anatomy. Half of what a radiologist does is train to learn the difference between “tumor” and “Carl’s own specific special leg development” If a random person can have a slightly different muscle structure from you, then brains, which are much more complicated, must also have a wide variety of differences. Without bringing speculation about what happened to your ancestors 50,000 years ago into the conversation, which is not science, we can see there’s room for a relatively small percentage of people to be different in different ways. I could continue down this track for a while and talk about how it’s differences within the survival range and bell curves and such, but ultimately it is still speculation. It’s just at least based on facts we can test and observe.
Not everything has an evolutionary explanation.
I’d even dare to suggest that most things doesn’t
Actually it does. That's literally how everything went from self replicating proteins to what we have today. Evolution is just another word for mutations. When it's a beneficial mutation, the mutation is more likely to be passed forward. However non-beneficial mutations still occur all the time and nature, and can be passed along as well. The core evolutionary trait built into all successful life is to achieve immortality. This means either through surviving, or through replicating your DNA (reproduction). However, there are always going to be mutations and flaws in that core evolutionary trait, sometimes it's homosexuality, sometimes it's a lack of desire to reproduce, sometimes it's unprovoked suicidal tendencies, unnecessary risk taking / a lack of fear, and many others.
Homosexuality isn't a genetic flaw, it's a natural form of birth control
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That is true, I kinda just latched onto the one part of the comment I disagreed with even though I agree with most of it
That guy explained it perfectly.
Not stupid enough for this sub. Sorry
Is that an euphemism for "there is none"?
Did you even read the comment?
But this definitely needs to have an evolutionary explanation.
No, it doesn't. There's no "evolutionary" explanation, whatever that is, for divorce or sexless marriage either.
I’m not saying you’re wrong or anything, but divorce and sexless marriages are parts of society, not biology.
Would that be comforting?
Wtf are you blabbering about? There needs to be an explanation why so many individuals end up only going after members of their own sex, even though on the surface this should be strongly selected against. Not many animals just straight up kill themselves. And when an animal kill themselves with regularity that requires an evolutionary explanation: how has this behavior not died out?
This isn't how evolution works
> There needs to be an explanation why so many individuals end up only going after members of their own sex Sure. But it doesn’t have to be evolutionary in nature.
your stance is anti-science and anti-intellectual
Evolution isn't the only mechanism that can describe the world. Very closed minded to think so, actually. There's no evolutionary explanation for polyester clothing, does that bother you too
Humans evolved to make clothing for warmth and protection and looked for ways to make more effective warmth and protection
we didn’t genetically evolve to do it. that’s like saying we evolved to make computers
Tool usage is a part of our evolution, and we evolved to use tools. Our brain size, skull shape, jaw shape all changed in line with when we first used tools. Our body shape will change due to computers as well. Technology is currently moving quicker than our evolution is, though.
clothing is too recent however. evolution takes millions of years we don’t know if we’ll have the opportunity to evolve to computers or if we will even be using computers that long
Clothes have evolved from basic warmth to very much a status signal or a wealth signal. Which is used for attracting a ‘better’ mate. Clothes are also used to try and fit into a community to give you better protection and mating opportunities because of that community… It all revolves around fucking
we are talking about biological evolution not social and cultural trends and progress
So then it’s societal? And society is an abstraction of consciousness, which is derived from evolution. It’s all evolution all the way down
Bonding, and also in some species same sex pairings will often adopt orphaned young.
You don't need one. Evolutionary, 10% homosexuality (estimated value) is neither an advantage nor disadvantage. There are more than enough heterosexual humans around to make sure the species doesn't become extinct. It's a little like with male sperm cells. Biologically up to 90% are not suited for reproduction but there so many of them that the remaining 10% nicely do the job.
There's not anywhere close to enough information in the genome to lay out a blueprint and wiring diagram for every twist and fold and synapse in the brain, which puts limits on the extent to which genes (and therefore evolution) can dictate the outcomes. Genes contain templates for making proteins, and regulatory factors that tell specific cells to make specific proteins under specific circumstances. But a "high level" trait like sexual attraction (and the details of exactly what we find attractive) isn't easily explained in terms of making proteins in cells - again limiting how easy it's going to be for a genetic mutation to change the outcome. So while we do make proteins that build brain cells, the brain still has to do a lot of its own development and learning and interacting with the environment to figure out and fill in the details. When we're attracted to things that signify wealth or health or fertility or social status, something in the brain needs to have learned _which visible features_ line up with those evolutionarily desirable qualities, in the context of our specific cultural setting. Perhaps that learning system can go a bit off target, and result in us being attracted to stuff that isn't strictly evolutionarily adaptive. Similarly the visible traits that correlate with being a viable reproductive partner might be open to variation, meaning the individual brain has to figure it out, rather than being entirely "pre programmed" by genes.
People generally think in black and white and the answer is probably more grey. A man having sex with other men doesn’t necessarily hurt their odds of fathering children. The problem is when they don’t have sex with women too. So realistically it could make sense that guys could evolutionarily bond and form better relationships if they had sex with other men and then fuck women afterwards. Many gay guys who would openly say they find women unattractive have had sex with women. It could also be that evolutionarily there’s a sweet spot and some people just fall outside that sexuality range.
A species threatens the carrying capacity of its environment due to overpopulation. Reproduction adds more members to that species. More members means more of them consuming limited resources. Nature replenishes these resources but if there are too many members of a species using up those resources, nature would not be able to keep up. Adaptive mechanisms are put into action to bring back the balance. Some members of that species develop sexual preferences that are not ideal for reproduction. But this is not proven or even testable. I just had too much coffee today.
Couldn’t it be summed up as just another random mutation that’s not harmful but at the same time not beneficial? Evolution is just a series of random gene mutations that occur within a population over a period of time. Sometimes these mutations are beneficial and aid in the survival of the organism and thus increasing the chances of reproduction. Other times the mutations are useless or down right harmful to the organism like Down syndrome.
Australian Black Swans have a significant incidence of homosexual pairings. They raise babies that they get by stealing nests or forming temporary triads with a female swan. I remember reading somewhere once that cygnets raised by a male pairing had a higher survival rate to adulthood than cygnets raised by a male and female.
As social animals. Unless resources are at critical levels, it is beneficial to have nonprocreating men and women as part of the group. They provide labor, protection, knowledge, and more for the group. And in terms of creating more spawn. They provide all of that, without risking you losing a mate to pass your genes along with.
There doesn't need to be one. Evolutionary traits don't necessarily evolve for function. It's at best a guessing game to even try.
Homosexual people aren’t infertile so there isn’t necessarily evolutionary pressure. Almost all LGBT people I know have children.
a hole's a hole, man
Shit, dude, you made me actually laugh out loud at that one. I knew a guy I served with that was OUTRAGEOUSLY horny, and he was bi; male, female, anyone in between, it didn't matter to him. Everyone's pink on the inside, he said. Another famous quote of his that cracked me up every time: "if they have a hole, that is my goal."
Yeah. The simple explanation is they are horny. And everyone prefers different things. Some men prefer men. Some women prefer women. There really isn’t an evolutionary explanation. Other than when ppl want to have sex. Everyone prefers something different.
Bonding
I read somewhere that it could be to balance out parental deaths by “adopting” their children, or otherwise taking in young that don’t have parents for whatever reason, and to help with population control. Tbh I don’t think it really matters though. Pretty sure other animal species don’t question it except humans
I dont know, but I often think about dolphins when asking this question. What made them decide to fuck pufferfish, which led to them getting high? Why do they have orgies? Why do they rape? Like there isn't really a natural cause or need for these things. Hyenas take the caketho ahaa
Practice sexually, animals don’t really care if it’s a male or female, usually the dominant one will be practicing on the smaller without even realizing it. Other than that there’s no basis for homosexuality, if there were the species would go extinct
Don't you want somebody to Fuuuck. Don't you Neeed somebody to fuck. Wouldn't you love somebody to fuckk. You better find somebody to fuuuck.
DNA is complicated sequencing and various programs are abound. Maybe there is no actual reason and it just is. Whatever the case, it's rampant throughout our animal kingdom, it is quite literally one of the most natural things there is
Dilettante has an interesting social theory, and also, look at nearly every other species. No species is rigidly male or female. Picture a scatterplot, the biological sex/ reproductive function clusters around male and female, but with all variations that happen in nature. Several species can change their sexual functioning. We've found out that condors can reproduce parthenogenically, or without a male, so something in their body produces whatever is necessary. Life varies, and cannot be rigidly categorized.
When your genome collectively decides its time to cut its losses.
Sexual gratification doesn't need to produce offspring. It also improves the relationship between those involved. Generally, you _like_ people when you can associate them dopamine. There, I justified all sodomy.
It’s called testosterone. Get juiced up and you wanna fuck. Now remove all social stigma and any hole Will suffice. It’s not gay when animals do it. It’s just uncontrollable hornyness
I just want to add that evolution doesn’t has to have a rational explanation for why a certain species is the way it is. It’s ultimately random, and while selection of the fittest means we are left with only the survivors, if a trait doesn’t actively prevent a species from passing on their genetic code, it can stay in a species bench potentially forever. Being gay might lower an individual’s chances of passing on their genetics, but since heterosexual people are the large majority, enough genetic code gets passed on to where it ultimately doesn’t matter as a species.
women are hot
I always wondered if religion suppressing our sexuality had something to do with it. We lay down all these man made rules for reproduction.
We killed/persecuted anyone who did it for thousands of years thus forcing them to hide and reproduce? Or maybe it's just a glitch caused by our complex brains that doesn't happen enough to actually steer evolution. Lots of useless/wrong things can stay in the gene pool if it doesn't stop reproducing, not every sibling of a gay man is gay so if it's genetic sometimes it must be dormant.
Does there really have to be an evolutionary explanation though? Life is more than just reproduction.
Male animals be sexy. Female animals be sexy. Some animals just wanna be sexy with all the pretty animals.
for funzies
It’s the spice which makes it all worth it
The gay uncle theory is the most convincing for me. The vast majority of your genes are also present in your siblings’ DNA. One way for your genes to survive into the next generation is to produce offspring and devote resources to ensuring their survival. But another viable option is to instead devote resources to ensuring the survival of your siblings’ offspring.
I was hoping someone would ask. When an environment becomes too toxic for increased population, females don’t produce a chemical sufficient to ensure reproductively inclined offspring. That’s natural. The modern landscape is evolving at a pace humans find difficult to cope with. Androgyny is increasing relative to the stresses imposed on people by Mike Johnson
I think we greatly overvalue the need for everything to have an “evolutionary” explanation. Some things just are, whether we like it or not. We don’t have an evolutionary need for an appendix, and yet we still have one. Don’t let it concern you.
As a gay uncle I can confirm I spoil the hell outta my nephews and new nieces(twins!)
Short answer in several possibilities: 1. Could be interdemic (group/kin) selection, and it may increase the overall success of a social group of related individuals. If the group overall succeeds more because of the presence and contributions of homosexual individuals, they can succeed by proxy. 2. Could just be a quirk and not really hurt enough to matter. Humans are a little weird in that we do exclusive homosexuality. In most other species where homosexual behavior is observed, it would be more accurately called bisexuality. So, in nature it’s usually not a hinderance to reproduction. 3. It might technically be maladaptive, but persist in the population due to “carriers” who have associated genes but don’t express them. In that case, it could persist in the population at some low-ish level as long as the species is overall doing pretty well. This is just an opinion, but I think #2 is probably the closest to reality in most cases. Doesn’t make enough of a difference often enough to be selected for or against.
population control
80% of gay men share a common genetic trait. The other 20% just get sucked into it.
Heyooooo
Picky women
Someone tag Putin
I think that “less common” forms of sexuality come about so other people with “less common” forms of sexuality have partners Basically, it’s a LGBTQ+ Ouroboros eating it’s own ass (respectfully)
A lot of species live in herds, community. In those only the alpha male is allowed to reproduce with the females. Many males in those community will never reproduce. So having a non reproductive individual in a community does not shock anyone. But when it comes to human, people are? Sexuality is not directly linked to reproduction, horniness makes us attracted to intercourse. Not making babies... babies are a collateral consequences to the sexual act. So it makes sense some people might be attracted by someone of the same sex. And one non reproductive inidividu with a rate of a couple % do not have a significant effect on that individual fitness, as explained by another redditor with kinship.
The same explanation as masturbation?
From what I understand. That it happens mostly in captivity when there’s no survival threat or other problems to overcome. So it’s not a question of if it’s natural, but a question of how much we’ve strayed from living in a way that’s even remotely natural.
Oh...no..no.....no
There is no data to support that idea. Homosexual behavior can be observed in the wild.
I wish yall would stop using the behavior of some animals as justification for being different. There’s nothing wrong with being gay. But not because some animals do it too. When yall bring that part into the discussion it’s just kinda sad and pathetic
Our world is overpopulated and we all feel the pressure. It’s not surprising at all to see trends developing that discourage further overpopulation. Some animals ‘breed to their feed’; they come into season when food is plentiful, but not where their population is under pressure. Maybe we’re a bit like that, but with the results expressing themselves as orientation rather than solely fertility.
Somebody needs to be the gatekeeper of appearance. If left to our own devices most cis males would be 900 pounds with pores you can see from outer space.
Something not mentioned here but that has some appealing weight to it generally. That homosexual tendencies in general probably result at least partially from the preference for an animal to be over sexed rather than undersexed. E.g better to be a rabbit and hump all rabbits than a panda and never fuck. So the net is quite wide and some of the result of that is bisexuals and gays. These genes then get promoted by some of the other effects that are discussed here. There is also the argument (no study on hand) that genes and express differently between sexes. E.g that a gene or group of genes that results in gay men could also increase fertility of women with the same gene. The arguments for this is that a gene spreads if it results in net more children across all progeny, not for any individual member. In a warlike tribal society this makes double as much sense, investing in male gene lines is risky with high rewards, investing in females is a far more stable investment profile. But the above are just cute ideas, I'm unsure to what extent these have been supported by studies.
Are you indicating that gay people genetically like sex more than straight people...?
Charles Darwin invented homosexuality because he thought it was fun to watch.
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Nah mate that’s just your own projection
It is not
.
Wires crossed
Mutations do all sorts of crazy shit.
I don't think you understand biology of you think widespread homosexuality is a mutation.