Thulsa Doom
New Member
Gato_Solo said:
well... coincidentally enough i JUST answered a question like this on another message board earlier today so instead of writing it all out again Im just gonna be lazy and copy and paste here if you dont mind:
The first thing we need to remember is that homosexual behavior occurs in nature among many many animals. Its not simply a human phenomenon. And there seem to be a bunch of different reasons for its occurrence in nature ranging from male-male bonding to pecking order establishment to gene inhibiting mimicry behavior (pretending to be a female so as to limit other males of their mating success) to a bunch of other things.
In humans we need to keep in mind that for a huge amount of our existence we lived in nomadic tribes in which males spent a LOT of the season together in cooperation apart from the females and the females spent a lot of time together in cooperation apart from the males. There was no job at the mill back then so the concept of living in a “traditional” nuclear family where you all lived happily under one roof and called your kid “beaver” didn’t exist. So it would certainly make sense that extremely close knit kin connections were very important to the survival of the whole group. Those males who had more of a natural propensity to bond closely with other males might do better in the long run in a world where relying on each other and working closely and comfortably with each other could mean the difference between life and death. Same deal with the womens. Close bonding with other females could mean better pooling of resources in child rearing and food gathering. We know that a male-female sexual bonding is to the benefit of the group since emotional attachment can foster care taking and protection instincts so in the absence of year round male-female sexual bonding its certainly conceivable that female-female sexual bonding could be of a benefit in the same way. So those tribes who had individuals with these genes would be at a benefit and you would see homosexuals again and again in the population. Which you do.
Furthermore, there are those individuals in a population who because they aren’t dominant don’t get to pass on their genes because they never get in a position to breed successfully so it would be to their benefit to help with the offspring of their tribe at least by playing the role of a “non traditional nurterer” if you will. In that way it would be better to be gay then to be a heterosexual with no chance of passing on your genes. Thus another possibility for a reoccurring percentage of homosexuals in human populations.
There is a more controversial notion that perhaps being gay is physiologically intrinsic with other positive survival aspects that humans in a tribe need to better survive (in other words, we really need a lot of home decorators and hair stylests to compliment the macho guys out catching mammoths and mastadons. this combination makes for a highly succesful tribe). Don’t know so much about this last one but its interesting to think about.
