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Notes -
Could someone explain to me the likely causes of homosexuality? What do we know about what makes someone gay? Which theories do you trust?
We don't even have a really good theory of what homosexuality is let alone what causes it. Defining what we mean when we say homosexuality alone is maddeningly difficult, enthusiasts of history and anthropology can easily point to evidence that the past was incredibly gay and homosexual behavior is normal (and impliedly normative) or to evidence that homosexuality is an unusual deviation from normal human cultural standards.
From a class I took a decade ago*: A Greek poet tells us "Men who are enslaved to women are no better than beasts, but we who are endowed with reason have invented homosexuality." Or is that a mistranslation, because the term homosexuality (or other translations that are commonly inserted such as "gay love" "butt sex" "man love" "male intimacy" etc.) are freighted with associations for modern Americans that aren't in the original Greek. One probably can't read that poem and get the original meaning without being thoroughly drenched in Greek culture contemporary to the author to get the original associations. The best a non-specialist can do is read an annotated translation which tries to give multiple interpretations, but that doesn't seem like an answer at all.
Competing definitions of Homosexuality in our culture alone:
-- Act vs Identity. Is homosexuality a thing you do (He has sex with men) or is it a thing you are (She is a lesbian)?
-- Obligate vs preferential. Is one a homosexual if one merely prefers having sex with the same sex, or only if one must have sex with the same sex? If one is capable of sex with a woman under duress but not by preference? In turn:
-- One drop rule. Is one homosexual if one would ever have sex with a man, even once, or only if one only has sex with men? Does a single act or desire across the aisle require that one be qualified as bisexual? Generally, the view of this varies on whether one is trying to claim a high social status (lesbians shooing away bisexual women) or trying to avoid a low social status (teenage boys circa 2005 accusing one another of being fags).
-- Bisexuality. We have no idea what to do with these. Especially what might be called "market bisexuality;" the observed tendency of bisexuals to end up taking the path of least resistance (typically sleeping with men) in any situation.
So that's a lot of different behaviors under the same umbrella. Are they all caused by the same gene/hormone/behavioral history? Different ones?
*From memory so I could be very wrong on the exact wording, and I've lost the author.
I had always figured the "bi guys are actually just gay, bi girls are actually just straight" idea was due to same sex experimentation being considered more normal for women (i.e "college lesbians" being more of a thing than "college gays"), and that could certainly also be a factor, but the "market explanation" makes a lot of sense to me and is somehow one I've not heard before.
I think the proper equivalent to a college LUG (Lesbian Until Graduation) at a female heavy school is prison gay. Both are responding to market forces (more available same sex partners) to act on a desire that is probably quite mild under normal circumstances. But it still seems silly to say there is nothing there, that all straight men or women would respond similarly under similar circumstances. Generally explanations that are contingent on anything other than deep personal identities are disfavored, as they leave open the possibility of punishment to "straighten" people out.
That equivalency makes sense, but to be clear the LUGs I have met were all at colleges with roughly equal gender distributions (though I've also known "Catholic school lesbians" that were closer to the prison situation).
To clarify, I mostly meant the idea of "bisexual man = basically gay and bisexual woman = basically straight" could stem from both:
One seeing bisexual-identifying women often having a lower Kinsey # than bisexual-identifying men due to same-sex physical intimacy and sexual experimentation being more acceptable for women
Even people who are true 3's on the Kinsey scale are likely to have their partners weighted towards men due to it being easier to hook up with men
And that I hadn't considered 2. before, only 1.
Although 1. might be changing with Gen Z based on the fact that the increase in % LGBT of Gen Z seems to be primarily from an increase in the "B".
(using Kinsey scale for ease of discussion rather than as an endorsement of its accuracy)
There's... also a representation thing. It's a lot easier to be closeted or just not visible if you're a bi dude in a relationship with a monogamous woman.
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