“Brains! Give me gay brains!” So the global media has been moaning this week, arms outstretched and flailing, sightless eyes staring fixedly ahead.
You can hardly have missed this story.
We’ve been here several times before, most recently with the story about ‘gay drivers being as bad as women’, but the press clearly can’t get enough of this kind of ‘gay science’. Especially when it appears to confirm the popular, consoling and time-honoured view of gay men as women’s souls trapped in men’s bodies.
The only intelligent piece I’ve read on this story was by Mark Liberman, kindly forwarded to me by my friend David Halperin. It debunks the headlines about ‘gay brains’ rather, er, brainily.
It’s also worth pointing out that, as is usually with this kind of brain research, these differences – if they exist rather than being an artefact of sampling – have not been shown to be innate. The brain is ‘plastic’ and the differences in size could have been in effect ‘learned’, or be the product of behaviour and not t’other way around. That’s to say, shopping for shoes and salad with gal pals might increase the part of your brain that ‘processes emotion and language’. If this rather important proviso was mentioned in the news reports at all, it was right at the end.
And of course, you only have to think for less than a minute about the claim that gay men and straight women have the ‘same brains’, especially when it comes to the area that ‘processes emotion’, to see a major flaw with this apparently ‘common sense’ finding. I mean, how many hetero women – or lesbians – have the same attitude towards emotion-free sex that gay men have?
Far more significant than the findings of the research was the way it was reported. As Liberman points out, none of the stories headlined with ‘Lesbian brains are the same as straight male brains’. Almost all of them were a variant of ‘Gay male brains the same as heterosexual women’s brains’
To be fair, most of the research in this area isn’t terribly interested in lesbians either. That’s because the problem that needs to be explained from a biological determinist point of view, is human males who don’t impregnate women – which is what ‘male’ means to such people – and instead, in their view, try to impregnate other men, or, worse, be impregnated by them. Women, on the other hand, only exist to be impregnated from a biological determinist point of view, so their ‘orientation’ is largely irrelevant.
Which should tell you all you need to know about biological determinism.
Gays who hope that this kind of research will deliver them from the ‘it’s a choice’ religious right and ‘it’s unnatural’ homophobes are possibly jumping out of the moralist frying pan into the eugenic fire. Of course, they wouldn’t be the first. Magnus Hirschfeld (and also Karl Ulrichs) the ‘father’ of the modern gay rights movement believed that homosexual men were women’s souls trapped inside men’s bodies. Homosexuals should not be persecuted and criminalised, in Hirschfeld’s view, because they couldn’t help themselves, and, more to the point, as women trapped inside men’s bodies, they weren’t really homosexual at all – they were congenitally confused heterosexuals with a hormonal imbalance. When they had sex with another male they were trying, in their own ‘crippled’ way, to be faithful to their heterosexual impulses.
Then along came the Nazis, who largely agreed with Hirschfeld about crippled, congenital homosexuals not being real men, but had a rather different view about what this meant – i.e. degeneracy – and, of course, what to do about this. Which, in additin to concentration camps, included operating on them to find the causes of their heriditary weakness, and injecting them with massive quantities of male hormones (though the latter of course is something many gays pay good money for these days).
Back to the possibly eugenic future: In the real world, as opposed to the one created by psychobiology, gay and straight men are more and more difficult to tell apart, both in terms of appearance, behaviour and even sexual practises. So I look forwards to the research into which part of the brain is responsible for straight men spending most of their sexual lives masturbating to online porn, or why so many of them favour anal or oral sex when confronted with an actual female – predelictions which, from a biological determinist point of view, aren’t really so different from homosexuality.
Human sexuality is far more perverse and cunning and kinky than poor square old biological determinists can ever accept, because for them heterosexuality is necessarilly the same thing as reproduction which is the same thing as sex. When much of human culture has been very energetically and ingeniously devoted to making sure that these things aren’t the same.
In a sense, homosexuality represents one of the crowning (over-) achievements of that energy. And perhaps that’s the very reason there remains such an intense, curious, and sometimes murderous, ambivalence about it. As shown by the countless and continuing attempts to explain it away.
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Three cheers for common sense, Mark!
If only the budgets would be increased for research into most pernicious, anti-social and criminal behaviour that empirically associates with heterosexuality.
[...] months because a) I’ve seen enough Barrowman to last me a lifetime, and b) I’ve written plenty on this subject [...]
As a kid, I never understood peoples over conceptualized take on sex. Which is were the whole ‘gay man = womens brains’ thing comes from. It reeks of a deep fear of homosexuality that has been so common amongst ‘gay’ identified men.
That whole ‘it’s “normal” because gay men are like women’ is so childish.
People are still trying to justify homosexuality based on the false fairy tale concepts of any given God or text.
When will we ever evolve?
The other thing that has always annoyed the shit out of me, is when people say that ‘Gay’ men are more like women because gay men are sensitive. That somehow sensitivity reflects, not our human-ness but is in fact related to how much spoof I can get on my face, or whether someone has tits or not.
From experience, all sentient beings, all forms of life are sensitive – we can’t help it – it’s our very nature.
I think what people are refering to, when they say “sensitive” are really “feelings” and “emotions” which are the conceptual after thoughts of any given experience.
In other words – it’s all the chit chatter in the head which de-sensitizes the actual experience by turning that moment into pure concepts. So, women and gay men are ‘sensitive’ because they destroy the joy of the moment by over conceptualizing a past event, and therefore while being all caught up in ‘an old story’ they are in fact being insensitive by missing the current moment.
Your sense’s are after all, spontaneous. They are not “feelings” which are thought based. And, yes, thoughts are also spontaneous – but the story that they tell are of events gone by – a re-telling if you like – which is mostly bound to be false due to the nature of memory.
Men, being less obsessively conceptual are, in fact, more in tune with thier natural sensitive impulses.
So women and “gay” men think too much so that makes them sensitive?
How backwards!
I found this as I am yet again taking on the biological determinism inherent in contemporary feminism, as demonstrated most eloquently by Bindel et al at a recent feminist conference.
You have put it much more succinctly and forcefully than I ever could or ever have.
The problem with current feminism and other ‘emancipatory’ discourses is they have found a way to mobilise both biological determinist and cultural construction arguments, to reinforce their fucked up views on gender. Natasha Walter’s latest book quite eloquently took apart biological determinism in clinical psychology for example, to argue little girls and little boys should not have to be expected to behave or look a certain way. Then she went on to stereotype and categorise ‘women’ as a class, as victims of the sex industry, male objectification, and sexual violence by ‘men’.
This form of contradictory argument may not be intelligent, but it does the job, especially because it is so difficult to argue with. Also sometimes it is comforting to take the essentialist position as that is where people feel they can gain identity and acknowledgement, even if they also buy into cultural constructionist theories when it suits. Just look at the Gay marriage debate as a recent example.
I wrote a PhD on this subject with regards to gender and I am still none the wiser as to how to get out of the double-bind it puts us in.
The ‘emancipatory’ movements have become part of the ‘Backlash’.
I am not sure why this is the only place (apart from in my own writings and some now very out-of fashion text books about discourse analysis) that I get to read how the double-bind works. I feel like that swotty kid in the class that always has her hand up and hangs round after lessons for extra reading and discussion. Oh I was that kid. But even then I knew I might be a bit annoying.
I have been trying to work this out for years so there is no hurry but if you come up with a solution please let me know.
P.s. Just be thankful I didn’t know you when I WAS doing my Ph.D. That swotty kid might have been REALLY annoying.
In all seriousness, I’m sorry I didn’t know you then.
If you had, I might have asked your feminine side to sort out my feminist gender studies supervisors, Professor Hinge and Doctor Bracket. They were terrifying. It was an education in gendered power all right but not the one I thought I had signed up for.
This has really cheered me up though. Resistance is there, it’s just a question of finding it!:
http://queerkidssaynomarriage.wordpress.com/
Your supervisors do sound rather scary. Did they run the laundry room in Prisoner Cell Block H as well?
Yes, that link is refreshing.
Not quite. But my examiners at my viva could well have done. They were more like Bindel and Bidisha.
this is a classic example of the ‘double-bind’ in action. Is sexuality fluid or fixed? Let’s ask a neurologist to find out…
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129050832
The problem is as you say, the biological logic of reproduction overrides any other factor in this discourse, because it goes without saying that is why sex exists. Any expression of sexuality that isn’t geared towards that end is deemed worthy of examination as a social construction, because really it is known to be ‘unnatural’. As a childless heterosexual woman, I feel as deviant as they come. What is the point of my sexuality, of my body, using this logic?
…and furthermore, where is my minority subculture sexual identity position? Do I just have ‘trollop’ and ‘spinster’ to choose from? Maybe there is a spinster bar and a trollop reading group I could join?
(actually a trollop’s reading group sounds quite cool I might set one up)
I’d join a trollope reading group.
There are quite a few of these pieces about middle-aged women ‘going lesbian’ doing the rounds at the moment. I was asked to contribute some quotes to one – which surprised me a little as lesbianism isn’t exactly my chosen specialist subject. Though I may have been brought in to challenge the double-headed assumption that usually goes with this kind of piece that women are as sexually fluid as men aren’t.
I said that perhaps what we are talking about here isn’t so much sexual fluidity – men have plenty of that, the dirty dogs – as nesting fluidity.
It could add another dimension to the ‘women who have it all’ myth I guess: marriage, children, career, and now later-life lesbianism. I am going for the trollop option it is much less hard work.
I would love to sit-in on a ‘spinster’ group.
I wonder what nuance of tramp, given a choice, would choose to join either the ‘trollope’ group or the ‘harlot’ group…
Could we say that biological logic (sex is for reproduction only) necessitates (in a survival of the fittest species context) the gays? I mean… Imagine your “tribe” trying to find the time to be preoccupied by sex while protecting themselves and hunting at the same time. That just flew out of my ass, but I thought it was worth a post.
Your tramp-loving friend,
Floyd
I was thinking about this very thing, Floyd A. Because in nature, not every single adult of the species reproduces. Natural selection is just that- selection of which of us will reproduce. I don’t really get into this ‘gay animals’ argument though, I find the insistence on ‘gay’ humans troublesome enough sometimes. In the animal kingdom isn’t the selection according to who is too weak, too slow, too unwell, to hunt, copulate, give birth and raise young successfully? The problem with humans is that we have overcome some of those natural selections, so we need some more ‘unnatural’ distinctions between who will continue the species and who will not.
It is not biological determinism which ensures we keep reproducing, but biology itself. The ‘determinism’ I think comes into play as a result of the very fact of our cultural development and conditioning having undermined the over-riding power of nature in human society. We select ourselves in some ways, but this does not fit the ‘laws’ of ‘human nature’ which state that we our destinies are pre-determined by the state of our genitalia.
Spinsters group would only read books by Naomi Woolf and bell hooks.
Trollops would veer towards Anais Nin and Djuna Barnes.
Tramps would drink beer and watch pornos. Take your pick!
This news just in: gender is not biologicially determined! It is now proven – by neuroscientists….
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/15/girls-boys-think-same-way
The title, ‘delusions of gender’ is brilliant. I wish I had thought of that. But the need of scientists to constantly have the final word on matters of sex, sexuality and gender, shows they still have genuine delusions of grandeur.
I saw that piece as well – and I’m reading Lise Eliot’s book, which is excellent, most particularly in the scepticism which it brings to all the ‘grandiose’ claims that have been made by scientists and the journalists they seem to be doing their research for.
I doubt (mostly American) gays who want to be told that God made them that way will welcome the news that there is no such thing as a ‘male brain’ or a ‘female brain’ – at least, not in any sense that actually means very much. If there is no ‘male brain’ and no ‘female brain’ there is most definitely no ‘gay brain’.
It looks as if scientists are now beginning to accept that for most children what happens n the post-natal period is much more important than what happens in the womb. But we already knew that human offspring take much longer than any other animal to reach adulthood and that their brains are very ‘plastic’ even in adulthood.
That’s why humans are so adaptable. And probably why they are so inventive when it comes to kinkiness.
You will need your own ‘geek trollops’ reading group then.
I am reading Nightwood by Djuna Barnes. Someone used to call me ‘Nora’ as a nick-name. I thought it was just because my full name is Eleanor. But Nora is a character in the book, and she is as queer as can be. How very dare he!
I never understood the Gay argument. I mean, if they really want to believe that it’s genetic then, if it actually was genetic (which it obviously isn’t) then we should be able to find a cure for it at some point. Which is not exactly the best argument for a ‘proud rainbow flag waving’ gay man to make.
Fixations are comfortable and safe. It’s much easier to think your ‘fixed’ in a set of paradigms (genetics or other) because the thought that your not ‘secure’ or ‘set’ somehow is just too scary for people lost in that conceptual head space.
Round and round we go : )
I am most definitely ‘lost in space’, Marcelo. And it is most definitely scary. But I think everyone is scared.
And, these things we have called bodies, they ‘fix’ us to a certain degree, to gender and sexual identities.
For me, the idea of complete freedom and fluidity of identity is very alluring, but in practice it is actually almost impossible to achieve. Those people who really really transgress the laws of gender and sexual identity are still rare I think, and very memorable to us. Like Quentin Crisp and Boy George and Della Grace Volcano. And, we know they have paid quite a heavy price for their transgressions.
Now I must return to my spaceship. I have to get home. If only I knew where home was.
I’m not to sure about those guys though – they seem to love some sort of fixed sexual identity. I don’t mean fluid, as in ‘changing’ your identity as you like or how you like’ – that’s just another type of ‘fix’ (not that there is anything all that wrong with doing that – if someone wants to play those games then they can do so, but, they are just games.)
Radiolab did a show on ‘words’ recently which ties in with ‘identity’ obviously, as identity is a ‘tale we tell ourselves’ —-> Oh btw, if you haven’t heard Radiolab before QRG, I think this show is right down your alley http://blogs.wnyc.org/radiolab/2010/08/09/words/
Well it seems I may have spoken too soon about ‘Pink Brain, Blue Brain’. I’ve still not finished it, but the best part of it appears to be at the beginning when Eliot takes a critical review of all the ‘male brain/female brain’ research out there – and pretty much demolishes it. But when discussing homosexuality (so far in asides) she seems to suspend her critical faculties and thrash around for ‘proof’ that it’s ‘hard-wired’ – but doesn’t really provide any, just speculation presented as proof. She repeatedly cites the finding that women exposed to high levels of testosterone in the womb (CAH) are more likely to be homosexual or bisexual, but neglects to mention that it’s such a marginal difference (the overwhelming majority of CAH women are heterosexual) as to effectively undermine the endocrinal argument with faint praise. This is slightly baffling as she cites the way that CAH women are generally ‘normal’ in most other ways (just a bit more ‘active’) as a refutation of the notion that natal development and hormone exposure decides everything when it comes to gender. She even cites Simon LeVay approvingly at one point – the gay scientist determined to prove that he was born not made but whose research in the 90s which claimed to have found that gay men are born with ‘female brains’ has since been discredited. He seems to have made the very mistake she is criticising – confusing brain plasticity with ‘hard-wiring’. Will write more when I finish the book.
Thanks Marcelo I heard about that boy/man that didn’t speak. I will listen to the show with interest. It reminds me of The Wild Boy of Aveyron who was discovered at the end of the 18th century, used as an example of Rousseau’s ‘Noble Savage’. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_of_Aveyron
This Pink Brain, Blue Brain story is turning into a bit of a cliff-hanger. Will she come out on the side of good or align herself with the evil scientists?
I heard the radiolab show it was amazing. Thanks Marcelo you are right it was ‘right up my alley’.
I found it really moving. I loved the idea that as infants we may have been able to have thoughts that did not involve language at all. I wonder what went through our tiny beautiful minds?
Radiolab is great, but ‘thoughts that did not involve language’ is a scientific over reach. Scientists are obsessed with coming to easily defined conclusions, because that’s how they work. They can’t go from A to B without it.
I’ve said it before here – you still are aware of things even if you don’t think about them.
So, here is were I’ll argue with their theory, and I’ll side with one of the guys in the earlier part of the show. That thoughts are language. And without language you can’t have thoughts. But, you still are aware and “understand” and have a type of “natural intelligence”.
Again, if you pause a thought – you still are aware. Everything functions normally. You can still walk, heart beats, blood flows etc etc
If they did have “thoughts” that would still be “sound” which would still be “language” anyway.
When I see a table, I know what it is, without thinking “table”. When you walk down the street – you are aware of everything, and “know” your environment. That, is what I think these particular scientists are talking about. They just don’t want to accept that their is a “knowing” that predates language or thinking.
I like the idea of a moment, however brief, where we perceived the world but did not understand or name it. I am going to hold onto that concept. Maybe people return there via deep meditation. I really think my incessant thinking and writing and talking is a waste of energy in terms of trying to understand myself/others/the world. If only I could shut up and just be.
It does do the head in though doesn’t it Marcelo? If you think about that man/boy aged 27 who had no ‘language’ and yet he still had a sense that he ‘just wasn’t getting it’ and not understanding what people were saying/showing him. How did he articulate that sense of not getting it, to himself, without language? What went on in his head? It is amazing. I am reminded of Caliban in The Tempest:
“You taught me language, and my profit on’t
Is, I know how to curse. The red plague rid you
For learning me your language!”
That’s the thing though QRG – that “moment, however brief, where we perceived the world but did not understand or name it” is happening all the time.
Your doing it right now. In that room that your in right now – you are possibly only naming a few things, but you are completely perceiving everything in that room without naming everything.
This is where our confusion lies. In the belief that “this word based tale” that we tell ourselves or “ego” is who we are. And, in the process of doing that – we’ve seemingly shut off the rest of the “experience”.
This is also what distinguishes a great writer from merely a good writer. The ability to see beyond ones ‘ego’ and perceive the world as is.
Although in reality, we haven’t really shut of the experience – all that’s happened is that we’ve come to believe in a falsehood – “that we are strictly that tale that we tell ourselves”. And we’ve done that because the ‘ego’ is a tyrant.
All this, is really hard to understand if you can’t pause a thought. Because it is in the pause, that the obvious jumps out at you. The obvious being that YOU ARE regardless of whether you have thoughts, or regardless of whether you “understand”. And that, is a ‘knowing’. Not an understanding or a thinking.
I know that someone might say that they have difficulty in pausing a thought, but, again – let me point out a few obvious things. I might not be a smart as yourself or Mark S, but one thing I’m good at, is pointing out the obvious.
Between words, there is a pause. Sound itself, is in fact “sound, silence, sound, silence, sound, silence”. When you are in deep sleep – you pause a thought for a long period. And during that long period of thoughtless state – you still are.
But, I have a question, which if ‘heard’ can cause a ‘pause’.
But, you have to pay very close attention to the question, otherwise it won’t work.
OK?
So here’s the question.
Ready?
WHAT’S WRONG WITH RIGHT NOW, UNLESS YOU THINK ABOUT IT?
Now, I know that your first habitual reaction is to “think about it” – but the question isn’t asking you to think. It’s telling you to do something.
Read it again.
Even if you only pause for a small moment. Note what happened in that pause.
The more one ‘sticks at it’ the more one sees what happens in that pause, and the greater the ease of a pause.
I, myself can pause a thought for long periods (I was a ‘seeker’ for around 7 years though where I looked into things like meditation, Zen although mostly I studied what’s called ‘non-duality’ – there’s a lot of crap on the web about non-duality, especially the Wikipedia entry – if you want, I’ll link you a few trustworthy links).
Don’t get me wrong though. The goal is not to pause a thought – it’s to see what happens when you do.
As far as the 27 year old Mayan – you said it yourself – he had a ‘sense’ of not getting it. Or, as I would say – a “knowing” as in, you “know” your environment without ‘thinking’ about it.
Oh I think you are probably much smarter than me, Marcelo.
There is nothing wrong with the moment. Because the moment is all we have. I did genuinely pause then.
Possibly for the first time in ages.
Thank you. (I do love to be told what to do….And it’s nice when the instruction is not ‘suck my dick’ once in a while)
Poetry helps me get away from rational thought. I love this poem:
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/i-would-like-to-be-a-dot-in-a-painting-by-miro/
But I find poetry very difficult to write, probably because it demands that meditation, the being in the moment and not thinking. It is worth it though. Most of my favourite pieces of writing are poetry.
Another book taking aim at the ‘neurosexists’:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/24/science/24scibks.htm?_r=1
QRG, Don’t worry, I wouldn’t order you to suck my dick.
Mark S on the other hand… ; )
*(self-)censored inappropriate joke removed here*
Looks like I am out of luck on the dick-sucking front. Sigh. But here is a really rather beautiful collection of images, celebrating the multifarious nature of our sexualities. We could probably all benefit from some diversification ourselves…
http://sexisnottheenemy.tumblr.com/
There you go, Marcelo. Suck on this: http://www.viceland.com/int/tidbits.php?id=45
Ahhh… I did once have a fantasy about tiny GI Joe sized men pleasing me. Although that might have something to do with the scene from Guliver’s Travels where they tie him down and do nasty things to him. I might try and find a few of those dolls and recreate that scene.
So I won’t order you to suck my dick, but I might ask you to help tie me down and video tape my ‘Marcelo’s Travels’ miniature GI Joe sextastic experience.
Of, course… once I’m tied down…
Once you’re tied down, there’s not much you can do but wait for the train to come…
http://26.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ksha4rMyO41qzs83zo1_r1_500.jpg
P.s. Marcelo, I hope you aren’t going to assist me in unleashing my inner dominant. I have repressed it so successfully up until now. I think it might be like removing a pin from a grenade.
Oh. but what an explosion that would be eh? Such wonderful colours!
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