From the New York Times May 10th.
"Using a brain imaging technique, Swedish researchers have shown that homosexual and heterosexual men respond differently to two odors that may be involved in sexual arousal, and that the gay men respond in the same way as women."
"The new research may open the way to studying human pheromones, as well as the biological basis of sexual preference. Pheromones, chemicals emitted by one individual to evoke some behavior in another of the same species, are known to govern sexual activity in animals, but experts differ as to what role, if any, they play in making humans sexually attractive to one another.
"The two chemicals in the study were a testosterone derivative produced in men's sweat and an estrogen-like compound in women's urine, both of which have long been suspected of being pheromones.
"Most odors cause specific smell-related regions of the human brain to light up when visualized by a form of brain imaging that tracks blood flow in the brain and therefore, by inference, sites where neurons are active. Several years ago, Dr. Savic and colleagues showed that the two chemicals activated the brain in a quite different way from ordinary scents.
"The estrogen-like compound, though it activated the usual smell-related regions in women, lighted up the hypothalamus in men. This is a region in the central base of the brain that governs sexual behavior and, through its control of the pituitary gland lying just beneath it, the hormonal state of the body.
"The male sweat chemical, on the other hand, did just the opposite; it activated mostly the hypothalamus in women and the smell-related regions in men. The two chemicals seemed to be leading a double life, playing the role of odor with one sex and of pheromone with another.
"The Swedish researchers have now repeated the experiment but with the addition of gay men as a third group. The gay men responded to the two chemicals in the same way as did women, Dr. Savic reports, as if the hypothalamus's response is determined not by biological sex but by the owner's sexual orientation.
"Dr. Savic said that she had also studied gay women, but that the data were "somewhat complicated" and not yet ready for publication. "
The journal report is found at Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Online (Subscription required)
My opinion.
The rest of the article is also interesting. The existence of human pheromes has not previously been proven, and this seems to go a long way to proving them. This study does NOT prove that homosexuality is genetic, since there are alternative possible explanations that involve how the brain develops in the womb as a result of hormones it is bathed in. The alternative explanations have not been disproven yet. But everything the article discusses leans very strongly towards homosexuality as being established before birth.
Somehow, even if the Xtians are correct in their assertions that a fetus is a human being from the moment of conception, I still don't think they mean to argue that homosexuals are choosing their sexual identity as fetuses.
Though with Robertson, Falwell, Peterson and Dobson you never know. They hold and express ideas that are weirder than that.
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