Results tagged “Homosexuality” from A Swede in SF

Today's the day - will the proposition 8 pass, or not..? I do hope it isn't! The so-called Prop 8 "eliminates right of same-sex couples to marry", and adding the definition of marriage as between man and woman in California.

I spent a few hours at noon today on the corner of 19th Ave and Noriega St with signs that said "Vote NO on PROP 8!". I volunteered with the No on 8 campaign. It was great funk have the cars driving by honking at or waving to us.

We also had people shouting less pleasant stuff; "Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve", faggots etc. The most charming though, was an older Asian woman that was supporting a yes for this initiative and used the argument that there wouldn't be any babies - and no sex (sic!) - if same-sex couples were allowed to marry.

"Gene in men decides if they are faithful" is the headline in the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have discovered that males with the gene variant "allel 334" are more likely to be infidel/have problems in their marriages. And, if the men had the variance on both chromosomes they were twice as likely to have a "crisis" in their marriages.

The comparison is between men and two species of voles, where the voles made them look for the vasopressin. Good that one can blame ones genes for more and more things! If one wants to feel like a vole, that is!

It is fascinating that a socially non-acceptable behavior is construed as a problem that one needs to find biological correlates to it. No one seems to think about what the construct is beneath this research: the nuclear family, and where other family constructs must be wrong. And what is the hip thing now? Yes, genetics.

Sigh, this is the second time this summer there have been some odd research on human sexuality from KI published in PNAS. The last time it was a brain structures that were similar between gay men and heterosexual women [PNAS][PubMed].

I am not against studies being done about biological correlates to sexual orientation or behavior, but I think it is time that both researchers and journalists start to think about what they are stating as facts. What are the certainties and uncertainties? The article by the Swedish psychologists Kurt Ernulf and Sune Innala still has its importance: "Rats are hardly sexually oriented! Generalizations on animal behavior is too far-fetched"
 

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• Is fidelity in our genes?

In an article in the SF Chronicle there is a critique of the "gawking" tourists, looking at the people living in the are like they were at animals in a zoo.

It is interesting when the gay life becomes the exciting and adventurous to come and see... What will be the next: safaris to the Folsom Street Fair?



On the other hand, gay marriages have become so mainstream in San Francisco that my local grocery store sells cards with same-sex couples in their wedding section.