So Why Are We Gay?

I have written about this in my book “Sex and the Subconscious”. I realize how little I knew back then. There was evidence that trauma during womb-life altered the stress hormone cortisol, which in turn altered the sex hormones, which, when given certain family constellations, could turn the offspring to homosexuality. It turns out that new research is important in this regard. Researchers in China have found that when they blocked serotonin production in mice the females preferred other females. They wanted to mount them. (See http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2332771/Does-brains-happy-chemical-influence-sexuality-Researchers-blocking-serotonin-reverse-preferences.html?ito=feeds-newsxml)As we know, serotonin is an inhibitory neuro-transmitter which helps in the repression of pain, inter alia. But it is not just the serotonin that is critical, it is the reason for its production—trauma and pain, which upsets the apple cart and changes the hormone structure. Trauma distorts serotonin production so that there is either too much of it or not enough. But trauma means an ensemble of hormones acting together so that serotonin affects the sex hormones as well as cortisol, and vice versa, cortisol also affects sex hormones. When there is an intrusion of pain and trauma the whole system takes a detour and the system is askew. One of the effects among many is a change in the sexual chemical base.

That is not the whole story. Now we need a specific constellation of family life to make the sex base turn into homosexuality or hypersexuality.  And that all devolves down to need. Whatever the unfulfilled need is, there will be a militating force toward fulfillment. So the groundwork may be chemical but it will not expand into homosexuality without other key factors apparent. And even here we still need much more data. But when there is a father missing for a young boy, there can be a need for a father; even if he is there but emotionally absent, there still is the need. Or a tyrannical cold mother can leave a young girl with that need; or she can be sweet and interested in her daughter but she never touches her, and that is enough. How it all plays out is myriad and there is no specific family constellation that accounts for it. The one key enduring fact is need, however. However the child is deprived is where he or she will go. Of course there can be seduction by an older man in the park as one of my homosexual patients reported, that tipped the scales.

If there is no altered chemical base then even when the need is there in a child, it just produces pain without a change in sexual orientation. It is always a complexity of circumstances, and never one single item. A priest who seduced one of my patients over years left him homosexual. It was the only “love” he ever got and he was seduced by it. That is, all of us get seduced by our need. It twists and turns us toward fulfillment all of our lives, and it is the very early need that is most important. Beginning in the womb where we need comfort and safety, not a mother who smokes and drinks. She is already unloving and it just continues throughout her life; the mother’s needs supersede the offspring’s. And why does the mother’s needs override the baby’s? Because the mother was also very deprived and must seek out her own suppressor of pain. The most loving of parents have to be those with very little pain. They can then attend to all of her child’s needs. The baby comes first, as it must.

I needed love and was never going to get it from the two stones I had as parents. So who did I fall in love with?....my dog.  And that love affair is lifelong. I didn’t turn to men for many reasons but I latched onto the first possible love object and I clung to it. And what did my parents do? They gave my dog away as too much trouble. To this day I give much of my money to dog shelters.