Soul Searcher Posted September 21, 2019 Share Posted September 21, 2019 Or sexuality for that matter? Why does it all happen? From a pure biological and physiological point of view? Why are people attracted or not-attracted to other people? I am not a fan of biology nor did I study it after what was required, I am thinking about this thing. I could attribute attraction to the desire to attract viable mates to reproduce in stone times but that would be a narrow-minded view of stating that only straight people are normal. It's not. Anything other than heterosexuality does not fit the idea of reproduction, so what? Are our brains wired differently? Maybe that is the reason. But I want to know why does that happen? What made it happen so? I have a couple of theories but none of them fit to the model of sexuality. The answer is something deeper but quite possibly very simpler than we think. What are your theories regarding that? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Posted September 21, 2019 Share Posted September 21, 2019 who tf knows anymore. we can't even figure out why the hell people are gay. let alone ace. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
matt_lock Posted September 21, 2019 Share Posted September 21, 2019 We know of stuff that correlates with asexuality and being non-cishet, but no clear cut causes that I know of. We know that the fraternal birth order effect exists - The more older brothers a male has, the more likely it is that he's homosexual. We know that not being right-handed is correlated with being non-cishet. (and a bunch of other stuff). This study abstract states that asexuals are ~2.5 times more likely to be lefties than heterosexuals. Unfortunately, the article is not open access, and I can't be bothered to pay 35 euro for the full thing. I personally get the feeling there isn't a simple answer. I suspect there's millions or even billions of factors flying around that affect sexuality, handedness, neurodivergence, etc. , some of which reinforce each other, cancel each other out, all throughout genetics and epigenics. Sure, we do find factors that correlate, and some factors may increase the likelihood of asexuality or whatever, but anyone who claims they have the reason is either wrong or trying to sell something. (side note: I'm not just talking about (a)sexuality here) 4 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Liana Posted September 23, 2019 Share Posted September 23, 2019 The human brain is a lovely and yet confusing cluster of countless neurons sending signals left and right. Evolution and natural selection would only select for the norm of people being attracted to the opposite gender because there really isn’t a way in humans for our genes to pass on otherwise. It could be a recessive gene, which would make it possible to have survived this long, but I still don’t view this as likely. So if it isn’t genetic, what other factors impact the brain and could possible cause someone to not be sexually attracted to others? Many sex hormones are also hunger hormones, as hunger and sex are closely tied together within the brain (don’t ask me how that works in practice since I have a decent appetite but a more dead libido than Harambe and all harambe memes combined) so that’s out of the picture becuase if someone doesn’t eat, they aren’t going to last. Could it be the way that the brain is structured? Studies have shown that the hypothalamus is a different size in people that are attracted to the same gender compared to people that are attracted to the opposite gender both in humans and in other animals (I don’t have access to that study anymore since it was in my psych textbook from last year, which I don’t have access to anymore). Could it be the situation in which a person is raised? The most religious girl in my school, who saw premarital sex as a sin that would forever damn someone to Hell, couldn’t tell me that the idea of porn was disgusting (she went on a rant when she heard that I had never looked at it and was trying to persuade me from looking at it when I had no interest in it in the first place) and talked about that fact that sex is a difficult temptation for her. Besides her, I don’t know anyone that was raised in an environment that would make that be what someone could become because I don’t know of anyone else in a situation like that. It could be plenty of different things, probably even things that we aren’t even aware of, we really have no idea right now. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Soul Searcher Posted September 23, 2019 Author Share Posted September 23, 2019 13 minutes ago, Darth Plagueis the Wise said: The human brain is a lovely and yet confusing cluster of countless neurons sending signals left and right. Evolution and natural selection would only select for the norm of people being attracted to the opposite gender because there really isn’t a way in humans for our genes to pass on otherwise. It could be a recessive gene, which would make it possible to have survived this long, but I still don’t view this as likely. So if it isn’t genetic, what other factors impact the brain and could possible cause someone to not be sexually attracted to others? Many sex hormones are also hunger hormones, as hunger and sex are closely tied together within the brain (don’t ask me how that works in practice since I have a decent appetite but a more dead libido than Harambe and all harambe memes combined) so that’s out of the picture becuase if someone doesn’t eat, they aren’t going to last. Could it be the way that the brain is structured? Studies have shown that the hypothalamus is a different size in people that are attracted to the same gender compared to people that are attracted to the opposite gender both in humans and in other animals (I don’t have access to that study anymore since it was in my psych textbook from last year, which I don’t have access to anymore). Could it be the situation in which a person is raised? The most religious girl in my school, who saw premarital sex as a sin that would forever damn someone to Hell, couldn’t tell me that the idea of porn was disgusting (she went on a rant when she heard that I had never looked at it and was trying to persuade me from looking at it when I had no interest in it in the first place) and talked about that fact that sex is a difficult temptation for her. Besides her, I don’t know anyone that was raised in an environment that would make that be what someone could become because I don’t know of anyone else in a situation like that. It could be plenty of different things, probably even things that we aren’t even aware of, we really have no idea right now. Just like computers, our body, our working, our entire self is nothing more than source code. A,T,G&C the way they are arranged makes up for everything. So I am sure that were somebody to take this to extreme and unravel our entire being, one molecule at a time, we would be able to understand what makes us who we are. After all, we are made of of genes that control everything. But it's also possible that something else is at play here. The place we live in? The way we are raised? Hypothetically, if you were raised in such a condition where you were not taught anything about sex, did not even know what it was, could not ask anybody what you feel, could you identify sexual attraction were you to feel it? I don't think so. it would be some weird craving to be near somebody else and to do things that you could not even understand. Could in that scenario, you think sexual attraction as hunger or some sort of illness? It's possible. Also, that girl in your school, she was definitely a sexual- she just chose to be celibate. Not indulging in sexual activities does not make you asexual anymore than not eating bacon makes you a vegetarian. Would she indulge in those activities after marriage- most definitely. Does that make her asexual? No. All I know that it's deeply complicated and unless we have appropriate tools we don't know if we will ever know. However, even if we can't determine what makes we who we are. let's take pride in the fact that we are somebody and let's be ourselves. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Firefly8 Posted September 23, 2019 Share Posted September 23, 2019 If anybody remembers these QI segments... 2 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
DarkStormyKnight Posted September 23, 2019 Share Posted September 23, 2019 On 9/21/2019 at 1:18 AM, matt_lock said: We know of stuff that correlates with asexuality and being non-cishet, but no clear cut causes that I know of. We know that the fraternal birth order effect exists - The more older brothers a male has, the more likely it is that he's homosexual. We know that not being right-handed is correlated with being non-cishet. (and a bunch of other stuff). This study abstract states that asexuals are ~2.5 times more likely to be lefties than heterosexuals. Unfortunately, the article is not open access, and I can't be bothered to pay 35 euro for the full thing. I personally get the feeling there isn't a simple answer. I suspect there's millions or even billions of factors flying around that affect sexuality, handedness, neurodivergence, etc. , some of which reinforce each other, cancel each other out, all throughout genetics and epigenics. Sure, we do find factors that correlate, and some factors may increase the likelihood of asexuality or whatever, but anyone who claims they have the reason is either wrong or trying to sell something. (side note: I'm not just talking about (a)sexuality here) Seconding all this, I did a deep dive into the scientific literature on asexuality recently and these are all good resources! Having said that, human sexuality is incredibly complicated and tbh I wouldn't really want it to be reduced to a simple gene or process as that would certainly be an oversimplification of the actual process taking place. I prefer the mystery, just let people identify as they would like. 2 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
R_1 Posted September 23, 2019 Share Posted September 23, 2019 Until we understand sexuality from the neurological POV entirely, we don't know. There's brain injuries cases which seem to show altered sexual preferences, and most people seem to be born within a sexual preference. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Acing It Posted September 23, 2019 Share Posted September 23, 2019 There you go: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=5&ved=2ahUKEwi4sP-6v-fkAhVHQUEAHUYdDsAQFjAEegQIAhAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Fmed-fom-brotto.sites.olt.ubc.ca%2Ffiles%2F2014%2F12%2FYule-Brotto-Gorzalka-2014-Biological-Markers-1.pdf&usg=AOvVaw1P9lzpqBZRPqp8MguOzWAe Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Soul Searcher Posted September 24, 2019 Author Share Posted September 24, 2019 10 hours ago, R_1 said: Until we understand sexuality from the neurological POV entirely, we don't know. There's brain injuries cases which seem to show altered sexual preferences, and most people seem to be born within a sexual preference. I did not know brain injury could cause altered sexual preference. Can that really happen? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
R_1 Posted September 24, 2019 Share Posted September 24, 2019 51 minutes ago, Brainiac said: I did not know brain injury could cause altered sexual preference. Can that really happen? Yes, it can. The evidences are provided below : 1) Altered Sexual Orientation Following Dominant Hemisphere Infract - https://neuro.psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/jnp.2009.21.3.353 - Journal of Neuropsychiatrics and Clinical Neuroscience 2) Hypersexuality or altered sexual preference following brain injury. - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1028946/ - J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry - NCBI 3) https://www.iflscience.com/brain/sexual-preference-rats-influenced-oxytocin-and-dopamine/ - IFL Science (Not as academic as the other sources, but still published in Nature, so this can be added) All of this supports that sexuality is mostly has to do with however your brain ends up as. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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