I’m afraid that [journal title deleted] is going to fail that courage test when it comes to your article, “An Open Secret.” I strongly suspect that you are right about one of the causes of homosexuality, although I have to add that my suspicion isn’t based on extensive knowledge of the research. It is based on the observations of everyday life, which is famously an imperfect guide, though perhaps more reliable that advocacy-influenced “studies.”
As you know, [journal title deleted] has waded fearlessly into many contentious issues in higher education. But we are not totally reckless. Some matters that can be and perhaps should be put forward as academic questions are so vigilantly patrolled by the stalwarts of orthodoxy that our publishing on them might well bring a level of opprobrium that even we could not endure.
This isn’t an instance of my saying no to an article because I think the author has veered outside the lines of reasoned argument or good use of evidence, or has advanced a hypothesis that doesn’t warrant attention. I am, rather, acting on the view that we are at a historical moment at which reasoned debate on this particular issue has been shut down by forces too powerful to be opposed by one small journal. I wish it were otherwise.
Thursday, July 23, 2015
It's 1935 Germany
A couple of weeks back, I mentioned an article I had wriiten that provided a persuasive body of evidence that homosexuality, at least for some, is likely a traumatic response to childhood sexual abuse. I sent it to several law professors and bloggers I knew. Most simply ignored it; one (a supporter of SSM) was surprised that the left hadn't already burned down my house. One journal I tried to interest in it gave me one of those depressing responses that makes me think we are past the Reichstag fire:
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The editor is right. There will be no scholarly debate on this subject. The journal would be foolish to publish the article.
ReplyDeleteWhat a tragic turn of events. I appreciate the editor's honesty, but deplore the fact that so many of our institutions and citizens have been bullied into silence by thugs. America sure has been fundamentally transformed since I was a kid.
ReplyDeleteI think this post has less to do with homosexuality than with the destruction of our scientific institutions. If there are no scientific venues where a legitimate, properly argued and formed paper can be published, no matter the subject, then we are truly in trouble.
ReplyDeleteStudies of identical twins suggest that when one twin is gay there is a 5%-to-8% that the other twin is gay.
ReplyDeleteBiological predestination (I was born that way)is the basis for anti-bias legislation. While 5%-to-8% is twice the national norm, biological predestination demands that 100% of "other" twins be gay.
Like you, researchers tend to support the traumatic youth theory. It is reasonable to suppose that a childhood that is traumatic for one of the twins increases the odds of the childhood being traumatic for the other...thus explaining the "twice national norm".
I believe that the current politically correct view is that all homosexuals were "born that way" and cannot change (although this begs the question of heterosexuals who leave their wives for a homosexual relationship).
ReplyDeleteBut be of good cheer... this is starting to change, because now that homosexuals have won, they don't want to be victims. They want to have chosen their lifestyle.
The truth is in between. It would be surprising if all homosexuality was predetermined. It would be surprising if some of it was not predetermined. I also think that some of it is literally an addiction, started in youth who are just a bit confused.
History has few exclusive homosexuals. It has a number of heterosexuals (demonstrable by the fact that they fathered children) who also engaged in homosexuality. And, we have the evidence of prisons, where people engage in homosexuality while there, but revert to exclusive heterosexuality the moment they get out.
This would all be quite interesting to study, but good research is unlikely to be doable or publishable without substantial risk, as your journal rejection suggests.
As an aside... The APA removed homosexuality from its list of mental disorders at a convention decades ago in San Francisco - by majority vote. After the vote, members were polled privately and over 70% believed it was a mental disorder, but they didn't want to label people with it. So much for scientific honesty.
And that the journal would put this in writing, too!
ReplyDeleteI think it is a mistake to see one cause for homosexuality.
ReplyDeleteThere are a number of congenital traits which may be caused by several different factors. For instance, Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, which results in the person being intersexed, is caused by several different genetic defects.
I think that when this phenomemon is completely understood, it will be found to have several different causative mechanisms. Some of these mechanisms will be very chancy.
For instance - a particular form of some gene in a male child, which makes the developing embryo vulnerable to the effect of a particular form of an unrelated gene in the mother, which makes the embryo vulnerable to a uterine environmental condition, which creates a potential in the born child that can be triggered by an environmental condition. All four of the elements are required. None are extremely rare, appearing say 20% of the time each. The occurrence of all four would be about 0.16%, accounting for about 10% of observed male homosexuality.
Other mechanisms might include only three or two of such elements, but with rarer occurrence.
JoeMama said... "...biological predestination demands that 100% of "other" twins be gay."
Not at all. The genetic exposure may create a window during fetal development during which some other factor triggers the development. And even identical twins in the same womb may have different exposures.
The report that such ideas is considered crimethink is distressing. Today I saw an essay (linked by the great David Thompson) about a flaming lesbian feminist leftist radical British woman denounced for "transphobia" by the British National Union of Students.
My article was careful to only suggest that this was one cause, and not the only cause possible. I do not find it impossible to believe that some combinations of genetic defects might cause or encourage homosexuality. The refusal to even consider something this obvious is disturbing.
DeleteIf you haven't already read it, this story by Moira Greyland of her upbringing by two gay parents (male and female) will likely be of interest, despite being disgusting. (via Glenn Reynolds).
ReplyDelete