The Science Of Sexuality Still Needs Social Science

As a researcher who has spent a good deal of my scientific career studying the sociology of human sexuality, and often of homosexuality, I find the study of the latter at a crossroads. Provocative work on the biological origins of homosexuality by Simon LeVay; J. Michael Bailey and Richard C. Pillard; and Dean H. Hamer has caught the imagination of both the popular and scientific press (S. LeVay, Science, 253:1034-7, 1991; J.M. Bailey, R.C. Pillard, Archives of General Psychiatry, 48:1089-96, 1991; D.H. Hamer et al., Science, 261:321-7, 1993). In particular, the recent work of Hamer has caused some observers to conclude that homosexuality is truly genetic in origin. Even though the researcher himself is offering genetics only as part of the explanation for an unknown percentage of the homosexual population, many scientists and laypersons alike have jumped on the genetic bandwagon as a complete answer to the more cosmic question of sexual orientation. For some, it merely confirms part of a larger belief in the overall power of genetics in determining human behavior; for others, it fits with a political agenda. Many gay activists (and sympathetic supporters) believe that if we can prove sexuality is genetic (or in some way biologically predetermined), homosexuals can be protected legally as a "class," thereby ending legal discrimination against gays much the same way minorities, women, and the disabled have been able to rectify past wrongs. The crux of this brief editorial comment is that genetic immutability not only is not the best way to "justify" or protect homosexual civil rights, but also is scientifically irresponsible, since wholeheartedly embracing a genetic argument ignores some very convincing social and psychological data. However important the evolving information on genetics is, it is also clear that it does not obviate all that we have discovered about the sociology of human sexuality. There is a great deal of information that shows that human sexuality is too cultural, cognitive, situational, and learned to ever be perfectly programmed at birth. Furthermore, while it may well be true that there is a genetic or other biological component to our sexual orientation, it is not at all clear how completely determinative these genetic codes are. It is particularly unclear what will be most influential in a specific case history: the individual's values, social experience, and personal interpretation, or his or her "natural" appetites. For those of us who cannot help thinking in political terms, we should remember that politics should be considered within the long reach of history and not for a short period: What might seem like a good civil liberties strategy at this point -- claiming the protections the court affords to certain "immutable" characteristics like gender, race, and disability--may be a short-run strategy, both because the law changes over time and also because, as some astute legal scholars have argued, immutability can be used both for and against gay rights (J.E. Halley, Stanford Law Review, 46:503-68, 1994). It is hard to imagine how all aspects of our sexual desire -- our patterns of love or our ability to experiment -- could be hard- wired. This would mean that we were invulnerable, intellectually and emotionally, to all the experiences that we had; there is no research on child or adult development that would lead us to this conclusion. But this doesn't mean we are choosing our reactions, our preferences, our interpretations, our attractions. Why do we remember a boy or girl from fourth grade as a heartthrob? What made that individual special? Why did a specific camp counselor enter our dreams? These aren't choices, but neither are they necessarily in DNA. There is something in-between--if you will, an interaction of the social and the biological--but surely not completely one or the other. This short discussion here cannot take on the whole question of sexual orientation, but what I can do is review briefly some of the contribution that data on the social construction of sexuality add to this complex debate. Let me state what I believe are the main arguments that support the importance of a sociological stance on this topic. First, we should remember that sexual identity is often more than sexual fantasy, desire, or behavior. Many people who consider themselves heterosexual have some capacity, however minor, for homosexuality. This does not mean they are truly homosexual any more than a capacity for heterosexuality means a homosexual is able to take on a heterosexual identity or relationship. Studies show that some individuals are able to eroticize both sexes while maintaining strong feelings for only one. Conversely, individuals may never have a same-sex sexual contact and know, in their deepest sense of self, that that is what compels their deepest passions. Yet again, there are those who maintain equally strong affections and attractions to both sexes fluctuating across the life cycle--changing identities as circumstances change. Completely bisexual people are rare, yet their very existence requires at least as much of a social explanation as a biological one (P. Blumstein, P. Schwartz, Journal of Social Issues, 33:30- 45, 1977). The point is that sexual orientation is complex -- not only to the researcher but also to the participant. Interviews indicate that even people who consider themselves completely heterosexual can, under demanding situations such as imprisonment or dramatic conditions (such as war) that promote bonding and love, fall in love or be attracted to someone of the same sex. Women, in particular, seem to have sexuality more tied to love than to almost anything else. A woman who has never had a sexual attraction to another woman in her entire life may find a particular person so emotionally compelling that she falls in love and becomes sexually interested in that woman--and no other (P. Blumstein, P. Schwartz in J. Wiseman, ed., The Social Psychology of Sex, New York, Harper and Row, 1976, pages 154-62). Second, we should assume from the voluminous literature on social interaction that human contact, cognition, and personality are important parts of individual attachment and desire. Even if we are biologically influenced in favor of either heterosexuality or homosexuality, the happenstance of social events and individual interpretation of these events can alter a sexual program. Pat two kids on the head: One will feel rewarded, the other will feel warned. While Bailey and Pillard's data on identical twins (both homosexual males and lesbians) who are more likely to be both homosexual than congenital twins or adopted siblings can be taken as evidence of genetic inheritance, their own discussion admits that any difference between the identical twins indicates that sexual orientation is not entirely genetic (J.M. Bailey et al., Arch. Gen. Psychiat., 50:217-23, 1993). While their more popular writing makes more sweeping claims for genetic origins of sexuality, their scientific writings demur -- and rightly so. Identical twins are not mere replicas of each other, and what is to explain their differences -- nonsexual as well as sexual -- except their human experience of life? Third, not all human beings display the same amount of physical or sexual energy. Some individuals are quite tepid about sex: Whatever possible sexual program they have is weak at best, since their sexual interest is weak in general. This may be complicated by cultural conditioning ("sex is bad"), by unfulfilling or punishing sexual experiences, or by simple unawareness of options--including the same-sex option. We code homosexuals and heterosexuals by their self-identification, yet we have no idea about how many people of low sexual desire might never self- identify "appropriately." Level of desire, the culture of sexuality, and personal history all interact to modify sexual behavior and identity. There is no reason to believe that genetics will be stronger than these other intense impacts on a person's life. To use an analogy we may all have some experience with: Some people have a biological program to be thin, others to be heavy. Most of us are somewhere in the middle. Nonetheless, our weight will be determined not so much by our genes, but by how we learned to eat, what we learned to eat, how our emotions interact with our appetite -- and to what extent we have an appetite -- which may be a combination of biology and learning. Sexuality is not so different. Fourth, we must also take into account that much of our conceptualization and measurement of homosexuality -- especially our sense of its immutability -- is culturally myopic. We code homosexuality into a dominant and continuing force rather than a situational or recurrent possibility merely because we have ghettoized it as such in Western history. Current Western conceptions of sexuality are "essentialist" -- bipolar as opposed to a continuum of sexual behavior and desire and fantasy -- none of which may line up with one another. Many non-Western societies see (or have seen) homosexuality as a phase boys go through on their way to becoming men, as a gift that some men and women have that gives them extra abilities and powers, or as part of the repertoire of human sexuality that is used in some parts of one's life but not in others. We choose to think of it as an essential truth -- an either/or definition of the self -- but there are certainly data to show that is not how it is experienced in other cultures. None of this is well explained by genetic capacity. Fifth, we have to rethink how we have demonized the power of homosexuality so that we assume it to be the greater truth of our sexual self -- as if one drop of homosexuality tells the truth of self while one drop of heterosexuality in a homosexual life means nothing. The political and the scientific are allowed to drift into one another in ways we might not allow on any other topic. Do we believe that any genetic predisposition to homosexuality is so powerful that no other variables will affect sexual and social life? This is not to say that homosexuality any more than heterosexuality is a willful decision. We don't know why we are attracted to blue eyes more than brown eyes--much less why, at an early age some fantasies continue while others extinguish. Surely our sexual self is a complex combination of our social, cultural, and biological inheritance. If ever a subject required a multivariate approach, surely it is this one. Finally, a word of caution: Homosexuality is such a highly personalized subject that even usually objective scientists might take a less than usually objective approach to the question of etiology. We do not have to approve, or disapprove. But we do have to be careful that we actually understand and evaluate the data on this subject, lest we pick a scientific explanation that is merely convenient to our personal and political instincts. I think our first responsibility as scientists should always be to support the best information we have. We do no service to anyone by simplifying sexuality in order to better battle those who oppose our point of view. Those who believe homosexuality is a sin will not be mollified by a genetic explanation. Those who believe homosexuality should be given the rights and respect of heterosexuality do not need a biological explanation to justify that position. What scientists, especially natural scientists, may need to remember is that social and cultural explanations may be messy and inconclusive and politically less potent than biological ones -- but that doesn't mean they can be excluded from the discussion and explanation of things as patently social as human sexual identity and behavior. Pepper Schwartz is a sociologist at the University of Washington, Seattle.

The Science Of Sexuality Still Needs Social Science

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