(no subject)

[sciatrix]

"how has homosexual orientation evolved, given that, on average, homosexual individuals produce fewer children than do heterosexual individuals (this relative fitness relation between homosexuals and heterosexuals is considered an assumption for the purposes of this paper, given that the empirical evidence in the literature from Alfred Kinsey and others is weak)"

sir

do you hear yourself

do you hear yourself

I am not entirely sure if I can review this literature sober. The first thing I tackled was a piece purporting to be a review about proposed mechanisms for the evolution of female homosexuality; it spent three or four paragraphs explaining the possibility that bisexuality in women evolved for the purpose of attracting and interesting heterosexual men.

I cannot even.

Comments

[wellthisisnice]

I... hate biologist approaches to queerness... so much...

I know it's entrenched on human curiosity, so it exists because a frick ton of people are and will be interested in knowing if there is a biological explanation for queerness of any kind. I just... cannot even.

In the end, could you even?

[sciatrix]

Honestly? No, I read about six papers, got frustrated, drafted the point I was trying to make, and then we cut it from the manuscript almost entirely anyway because we felt it was a distraction from the point about animal sexual behavior and evolutionary biology that we're collectively trying to accomplish with this particular manuscript and we were pretty sure that the field was going to be fighty enough about it.

I can certainly write up a discussion of what I happen to think is probably going on--mind you, I tend to be a neutralist, so it's not necessarily a satisfying explanation--but a scholarly one that would be satisfying to me is something I think would take up a whole lot of time and effort and, y'know, trying to graduate so I can move my career in an interesting new direction.