Beyond Gender

When we look at the question of honesty and being true to ourselves and others the question goes beyond bisexuality, beyond gender.  The question boils right down to what we really are as human beings. In his look at animal sexuality,The Natural History of Sex, Adrian Forsyth reduces human sexuality to the animal level.  Are we human animals with ingrained patterns of sexual behavior? Yes, I think so, but I think we are more than that.

According to Forsyth, bisexuality performs a function in the preservation of the species. Bisexual garter snakes  accept male attention to distract other males from propagating with the females while they gain the advantage of proximity to get the job done themselves.  In the case of bedbugs the aggressive males plant their genes into a host male who later adds them to his own genes and passes them on while mating.  There is also data that shows how aggressive male mammals shut out less aggressive males from the mating process thereby gaining the advantage of impregnating more females so that their genes will dominate the new generations. So what does that mean?  Are we just weak members of society who lack aggressiveness and the genetic qualities to benefit the race?  Are we being marginalized by more aggressive males so that their genes will pass on to the next generation and our genes will disappear out of the gene pool?

Hardly. There then must be other factors at play that are beyond the survival and therefore the biological animal reasons for bisexuality.  In other words, gay and bisexual men do not fit the biological patterns.  Which seems to suggest that we operate more on the mental-emotional level than on the purely biological/physical. In other words we create the changes in the brain through neural plasticity rather that the brain creates changes in us. And how do we do this?  Through the power of the mind.  In other words we are gay or bisexual because of our desires.  No not “choice” – that desire was created by our interaction with the environment during infancy or perhaps right back into the womb.

There has been some fascinating research lately about the role of particles within the cell that affect the role of recessive genes.  Apparently these particles react to environmental changes and influence the genes so that the recessive gene becomes dominant or perhaps even co-dominant.  This can result in changes in the brain patterns or even the hormonal capacity such as reaction to pheromones or hundreds of other possibilities. that can combine to create a biological predisposition towards same-sex attraction.  It would appear that the human mind, influenced particularly by the more powerful mind of the mother during pregnancy and infancy creates changes to the genetic structure of fetus and child.  Can these patterns be changed?  Maybe, but not without a lot of traumatic effect.   The questions then is “Why change?” It is much easier to learn to live with the genetic patters we already have.