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The
Johnson and Malott Dialogue on Sexuality
Kent Johnson
Morningside Academy
Richard W. Malott1
Western Michigan University
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Note: This is based on Kent Johnson’s review of Chapter 26 in Elementary
Principles of Behavior, 4th Edition.
Ok, so you propose a basic, simple behavior analytic model that one’s
sexual orientation is a function of one’s particular social
reinforcement history.
(RWM: Come on,
man, not “simple.”)
Your belief about the ways things unfolded for Bobbie is close to
the psychoanalytic accounts that were prevalent in the 50s and 60s
about how early childhood experiences—perhaps a distant or hateful
dad, or a doting mom—set the pattern in place. You don’t
specify precisely (“concretely” is your term) some examples
of those contingencies, you just allude to them and say that it was
Bobbie’s mom who was responsible for his feelings toward men
and neutrality toward women (e.g., “That was my mother’s
idea. She wanted a girl. Bobbie Brown’s my name.”–EPB,
p. 2). You call him a transsexual. Let me address the components at
hand, one at a time. First, some definitions.
Some
definitions
TG vs. TS.
Let’s start with the transsexual label. Currently, the gay-lesbian-bisexual-transgender/transsexual
(GLBT) community makes a distinction among transsexuals, transgender
individuals, and transvestites.
RWM: For PR purposes,
I am more or less doing my best to comply with GLBT wishes in the
5th edition, but not without a few comments. First, I get a sense
that the GLBT feels they now have ownership of this general area of
terminology. And, if they change it, then anyone who isn’t up
to date is more or less against them. I get the same feeling from
some of my religious, fundamentalist students: They seem to feel that
they have the one and only definition of religion, Christianity, Heaven,
Hell, and God; and not to be up to date with their particular views
is to be against them. I don’t say this to offend either GLBT
or fundamentalist readers, as I have great respect for both groups.
I suspect that
not everyone makes your useful distinction between gay and homosexual, and so this makes our writing task a little more
difficult, if we want to minimize the offense some people will take,
if we don’t use these terms exactly like they do, without devoting
more pages to this important topic than our already over-length book
will allow. In doing a word search, I find I use I gay quite
a bit, thinking it was the more currently acceptable term for the
more traditional term, homosexual¸ where as, I now
have the impression that you’re suggesting someone who is gay
is a person (biological male?) who has come to grips with his own
homosexuality, even if he has not taken it out of the closet, for
Mom and Dad. So in a few places, I’ve replaced gay with gay and homosexual. But that would get too
cumbersome, if I followed that policy throughout the book; so, in
general, I’ve just stuck with gay by itself.
Second, in reading
this very useful exposition of terminology, I get a sense of reification,
as if there is if transgender , for example, is a thing,
a fundamental thing, rather than a mere label that may or may not
be useful or confusing and that may or may not be internally and externally
consistent. And one of my main points is that there is no such thing
as homosexual, heterosexual, transsexual, transgender, or
whatever, just as there is no such thing as autism. Instead, all we’ve
got are ways of behaving and values. The fact that there are some
correlations between some of these behaviors, styles, and values makes
it hard to resist labels, like autistic, heterosexual, and homosexual.
But, I think that,
in all cases, those labels, convenient though they are, do more harm
than good. For one thing, they cause us to ignore or be puzzled by
the rich variety of behaviors and values, the extreme difference among
individuals with a given label. And of another thing those labels,
with their over emphasis on similarities among individuals, cause
people to assume a genetic causation, rather than, what I consider
to be, a more plausible, environmental, contingency causation.
We might call Bobbie a budding transgender guy, at best, but he is
probably none of these 3. Transsexuals (TS’s) are people who
have already had a sex change operation; transgender people (TG’s)
are those who engage in the repertoires of the gender opposite to
their own sexual (physical) morphology: clothing, mannerisms and the
like; they also have a physiological attractions and verbal repertoires
consistent with these other repertoires. TG’s are pre-operation
stage (“pre-ops”) in their social evolution; however,
many never have the operation and remain TG’s. Transvestites
are people who like to dress opposite to their sex or gender, but
who are otherwise gender-conforming in their sexual attractions and
other repertoires. So Bobbie is pre-transgender, not TG or TS.
(RWM: Repaired.
By your definition above, I would, and now do, call Bobbie a transgender person.)
It is not harder today to get a TS operation than it was in the 70s.
You have to go to any one of about 15 or more metro areas to find
them. There’s even an old guy in Wyoming!
(RWM: According
to Peter Rabbit, the old guy is in Trinidad Colorado [not Wyoming],
and Trinidad is full of former lumber jacks and former truck drivers
taking hormone injections and waiting tables in an effort to raise
the beaucoup bucks they need for the old guy to cut it off.
A few years ago,
I read that most of the surgeons had given up on doing sex change
surgery for transsexuals; presumably because they had found that the
transsexuals were no happier after the surgery than they had been
before. Kent, what do you know about this?)
(RWM: Repaired,
in any case.)
Here’s what
I’ve added to Chapter 01:
"Tell me more
about yourself, Bobbie. When did you discover you were gay?”
“I’m
not gay; Mr. Fields; I’m not attracted to gay men,
not at all. I a transgender person; I’m only attracted to straight
heterosexual guys; I’m a woman in a man’s body.”
TG, TS, and
sexual orientation. Further, TG’s and TS’s
may have conforming or nonconforming sexual orientations. In Bobbie’s
case he is a pre-transgender homosexual. He could more comfortably
be called “gay” if he was more “comfortable”
with his “feminine” repertoires and private verbal behavior
(fantasies and the like), and less disturbed by the reactions of the
homophobic verbal communities in which he circulates. Transgender
and transsexual individuals could also have a conforming sexual orientation.
If Bobbie became a TS, he would be heterosexual. If he became TG,
most of the GLBT community would say he was a heterosexual too, although
strictly speaking he would be gay. The GLBT community these days prefers
to call TG’s who are attracted to the gender opposite to the
gender to which they conform “heterosexual,” but there
is no firm agreement on that, and almost always the conversation doesn’t
go here.
RWM: I would suspect
that most of the general community would have trouble with this concept
of a TG heterosexual, as you may be suggesting. They would see it
as a contradiction in terms.
RWM: Repaired,
somewhat. Bobby is not and will not be operated on, so he is pre-op,
only in the sense that he has not had an operation. He does not think
of himself as homosexual, in that he is not attracted to men who identify
themselves as homosexual. Instead, he is attracted to men who prefer
women. Thus he called himself transsexual. However, I’m happy
to update the story line and have him call himself, transgender, especially
to the extent that you identify gender in terms of sexual attraction,
though I’m not sure how consistent you are in that restricted
use of gender; and a lack of consistency should not be surprising,
as I know from my 35 years of constant revisions, clarifications,
and modifications of behavior-analysis terminology, that getting right
terms is really a struggle.
You distinguish between transsexuals and gays and lesbians in a couple
places in your text, but you do not make the distinction clear either
time. You need to nail these concepts down (gay, lesbian, TG, TS).
(RWM: Good point.
I’m trying to clarify things a bit, as I don’t think the
writing will be too confusing to the general reader; but I will rely
on a citation to this dialog we hope to place on the web, for the
more interested reader.)
Homosexual and gay.
The degree to which a homosexual becomes “gay” or a member
of the GLBT community is certainly explained by social reinforcement
and Skinner’s concept of the verbal community. Being gay is
an identity thing; lots of Americans are very identity-oriented in
their politics and lifestyles. In most modern cultural circles, the
notion of America as a “melting pot” has given way to
the notion of a “salad bowl,” filled with lots of distinctive
subgroups intermingling with each other.
RWM: I love your
salad bowl concept.
As such, there is a gay lifestyle and identity that is socially reinforced
behavior, and a homosexual may be more or less gay depending upon
his history and circumstances. That is not to say that sexual orientation
itself is learned behavior. I am saying that becoming gay or lesbian
is a set of repertoires of acting, thinking, speaking, and so on that
are learned.
RWM: Kent, is this
your terminology: Male and female homosexuals, are gay or lesbian
if they have come out of the closet in their own heads, that lesbian
is the female equivalent of gay. That you would not talk about a gay
female?
Sexual orientation vs. gender (romantic) attraction. What’s
the sex of a vibrator? It’s who’s wielding it that counts. Our romantic, socially intimate, attractions are the key features
of “sexual orientation,” not sexual stimulation
(that’s universal and genetic). I prefer to talk about romantic
attraction (orientation).
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, you need to distinguish between
homosexuality/sexual orientation issues AND transgender/transsexual
issues in your Bobbie example. You blur the two features together,
which will be misleading to students who have not had much exposure
to gays and lesbians.
RWM: Yes, I’ll
try to straighten this out. But I need to get straight on it first.
Is this it?
A homosexual is
someone (either male or female) who prefers someone of their same
biological sex as their source of sexual stimulation. A homosexual
may or may not prefer to behave in the style typical of people of
the opposite biological sex.
A transsexual or
transgender person is someone who prefers a heterosexual person of
their same biological sex as their source of sexual stimulation. A
transsexual or transgender person prefers to behave in the style typical
of people of the opposite biological sex.
Nature or Nurture?
The psychoanalysts first put forward the position that sexual orientation
is learned. Behaviorists tend to be among the severest critics of
psychoanalytic theory, but that’s usually about their overuse
of metaphor and mentalistic concepts, and expansive view if the mind,
as opposed to a parsimonious explanation derived from measurement
experimentation. In fact, behaviorists agree with many of the basic
phenomena noticed by psychoanalysts, they just describe them differently.
RWM: I agree 100%.
It is easy to translate psychoanalytic concepts into behavioreese.
When I taught Intro Psych, I used to ask the students to write translations
of Freud’s defense mechanisms, and so on. It was easy because
the overlap between psychoanalysis and behavior analysis is at least
tri-fold: they are motivation based, they do not require awareness
to work, and they are experience-based.
RWM: I agree 100%.
Your notion of “preschool fatality” is very psychoanalytic
in this sense.
RWM: I agree 100%.
However, enlightened behaviorists these days try very hard not to
express their explanations in a pathological context, which is another
way that behaviorists are very different from psychoanalysts. Your
text does very well in this regard.
RWM: Thanks.
Simon LeVay, 1996, distills a lot of the research I review below,
in a book, “Queer Science.” In some cases I have lifted
whole sentences and phrases and put them in here, not in the interests
of plagiary, but to accelerate my writing this review.
The “scientific” (vs. psychoanalytic) position that sexual
orientation is learned was first described in the 60s’s by Wainwright
Churchill (1967) and others. The anthropology of Churchill’s
theory was that a person’s sexual orientation depended on the
sex of the first person with whom he or she first had sexual contact
to orgasm.
RWM: I think that’s
much to simplistic and, in fact, rarely the case.
If that person was heterosexual, then heterosexuality was reinforced;
if of the same sex, then homosexuality was reinforced. Conversely,
an early sexual contact that was painful or frightening would be negatively
reinforced. Of course, the sex of one’s initial partner must
be the most salient characteristic; “otherwise one might end
up always dating taxi drivers or never having sex with people in jeans.”
(LeVay, 1996)
There are many problems with Churchill’s position, i.e., anthropology.
For example, many gays and lesbians end up with a sexual orientation
different from their first encounter. I had 10 years of mediocre sex
with women before I got up the awareness and nerve that I would serve
myself better by having sex with men. Many gay people my age had lots
of sex with women before coming out, although this is far less likely
today, given the rising level of tolerance for homosexuality, and
awareness of the GLBT community. It is also quite common for gays
and lesbians to know that they are homosexual prior to any homosexual
experience or even prior to any sexual experiences of any kind. And
there are many heterosexual men and women whose first sexual contacts,
often pleasurable ones at that, have been with the same sex. For example,
all teenage boys of the Sambia of New Guinea engage in culturally
reinforced homosexual behavior but later they become predominantly
heterosexual. And don’t forget the same-sex behavior among boys
and girls at segregated boarding schools. Boarding school attendance
does not increase the likelihood of a homosexual orientation in adulthood
(Wellings, et al, l994).
RWM: I agree with
your critique of Churchill. I think most of our sexual values and
prejudices are programmed before any direct sexual encounters. We
need a better analysis of how this works.
I could go on about one-trial learning not always working, competing
repertoires whose eventual predominance is based upon relative proportions
of reinforcement, and so on, as did many people who poked holes in
these early behavioral anthropologies. In response to the criticisms
of Churchill’s theory, McGuire and his colleagues (1965) said
that although the initial encounter itself may not fix sexual orientation,
the association is reinforced during subsequent solitary masturbation
because the individual is likely to use the recollection as an aid
to sexual arousal. They reported several case histories to support
their theory. Their suggested treatment plan for homosexuality was
to begin masturbating with homosexual fantasies and switch to a heterosexual
fantasy 5 seconds prior to orgasm, by which time climax is too close
to be derailed. However, McGuire et al. never reported a successful
case of this plan.
RWM: And that’s
compatible with the early behavior therapy work trying to convert
homosexual criminals to heterosexual criminals. But, I’ve always
been a little suspicious of that work, suspecting the researcher-therapists
were confusing temporary compliance with permanent adherence to a
new set of values.
Your anthropology, the social reinforcement of Bobbie’s sexual
orientation began with his mother-child interactions and his mother’s
wishes is not specific, and I don’t blame you for not being
specific. I maintain that any anthropology will be refutable. The
psychoanalyst’s mumbo-jumbo about mother-child interactions
is more specific and therefore full of holes. Different social learning
anthropologies are a dime a dozen in the literature. Both psychoanalytical
and behavioral theories can be manipulated to accommodate
almost any case history. This is the first of 3 main problems I see with your using the Barlow, et al study to support the position
that sexual orientation is learned.
(RWM: Yes, we are
working at a sufficiently lose, speculative level that we can accommodate
almost any scenario; but that’s true, whether we take a nature
or a nurture view. I’m not sure why I was so vague on that one
and have made it a little more specific, in accord with the actual
case study, but I’m going to have to check it out, because I
may be confusing a couple of studies.)
My second main problem is that use of the study is misleading,
since it misrepresents the vast majority of data on the inquiry:
it is one of only 2 or 3 reportedly successful behavioral treatment
plans for sexual orientation in the literature! In my reference section
below I list more than a dozen studies that failed to produce long-term
effects, including 5 by a prolific author who later refuted the methodology
and long-term findings of his previous “successful” research
(McConaghy). {I have taken the liberty of discounting “successful”
research by Feldman, and also by Owensby, on prison “patients”
who were “cured.” I suspect the prisoners simply lied
about becoming heterosexual, with the motivation of avoiding or leaving
incarceration. (It takes a lot for me to be cynical.) This is corroborated
by a second Owensby prison study that showed none of the treated men
becoming heterosexual.
(RWM: I agree.)
I heard you speak of John Money at CalABA 2 years ago. Do you know
that he thought gender was due to imprinting in the first 2 years
of human life? He drew this inference from a study of intersexes babies—babies
who had ambiguous genitalia because of hormone problems during fetal
life. The babies adopted the gender of whatever sex they were treated
as during the first 2 years of life, but became fixed thereafter.
Differential social reinforcement seems a much better “learning”
explanation than imprinting.
(RWM: The fact
that he was confused, as are most non-behaviorists, about the mechanism
of imprinting does not belie his findings re pre-school fatalism.)
Money’s student, Richard Green, wrote a book in 1974, “Sexual
Identity Conflict in Children and Adults.” In it he told parents
how they encourage their sons’ femininity and discourage their
masculinity, and told mothers to get out of the way. Feminine kids
don’t need their mothers around, he said. It was Green who started
the whole idea that feminine boys would become “transsexuals,”
something that happened to only one of them. Undoubtedly, Barlow was
influenced by Green’s idea. Green in fact referred one concerned
parent to a behavioral treatment program at UCLA.
The program was run by a student of Ivar Lovaas’s, George
Rekers. He reported a study involving the boy that Green referred
in JABA in 1974. The boy in the study became the Skinner-behaviorists’
poster boy in the treatment of femininity in boys; later the study
became our nemesis. This study was part of the body of literature
that includes your centerpiece Barlow et al. study.
Specifically, by age 2, “Kyle” was playing with dolls,
and sometimes said he wanted to be a girl and become a mother when
he grew up. “Kyle” was 4 years old when treatment began.
Rekers & Lovaas used task analysis and differential reinforcement
to teach masculine behavior, as Barlow did. They also put him in a
token economy, which reinforced masculine behavior, provided response
cost, time out, and/or punishment (spanking) for feminine behavior.
While we don’t know “whatever happened to Bobbie,”
we do know what happened to “Kyle.” About 13 years after
the start of Kyle’s treatment, Green interviewed Kyle, then
18 y.o. Here is a summary of what Green found out, reported in LeVay,
1996, p. 101:
“But when Green interviewed Kyle himself at age 18, a very
different picture emerged. He complained that he was unable to make
friends because of an overwhelming fear of appearing feminine. Under
lengthy questioning, Kyle conceded that he was predominantly homosexual
but was deeply conflicted about it. In his first and only homosexual
experience, he fellated a stranger in a toilet, apparently through
a “glory hole.” Thus he was not required to reveal himself
as gay even to his sex partner. Soon after his experience he attempted
suicide. He believed homosexuality was sinful and attributed his own
homosexuality mainly to a lack of affection from his father. “Because
when you are a child,” he said, “I think you copy what
you see. And I didn’t have any strong male influence.”
He expressed gratitude that Reker’s treatment had at least saved
him from becoming 100% homosexual. A less charitable interpretation
would be that the treatment did nothing but instill Kyle with an incapacitating
fear of revealing his femininity, a fear that remained with him through
adolescence and also affected his emerging homosexuality.
RWM: I agree with
Kent’s less charitable interpretation. Unfortunately, Reker
left Kyle hanging in no-man’s land. Speculations are cheap,
but that’s all we’ve got. My interpretation would be this:
In spite of Dad’s homophobia, the contingencies that generated
Kyle’s effeminate behavior remained in place, and Kyle did not
acquire a sufficiently strong masculine/hetero repertoire and set
of values to counteract this. Also, there’s no fruit as sweet
as the forbidden fruit, etc.
Furthermore, Lovaas
bailed out of this research area, right after that study, as I understand
it, because of GLBT pressure. If he’d bailed out on autism after
his first study, we’d make an analogous conclusion to the one
LeVay seems to be making, namely that autism is an unchangeable, biologically
programmed characteristic. Fortunately, Lovaas didn’t bail out
on autism.
In fact, according to Green’s figures, 9 out of 12 gender-nonconformist
boys who were subjected to behavior modification treatment became
gay or bisexual adults—no different than what was seen in the
(gender nonconformist) boys who were not subjected to the treatment.”
RWM: Yes, I have
little faith in the power of “traditional” behavior mod
(or psychology, for that matter) to do much of anything of enduring
value, especially in the battle against pre-school fatalism. That
is why I am tentatively impressed with Barlow’s work with Bobbie
and Lovaas’ work with autistic children.
No one—Rekers, Lovaas, Green—reported this follow-up
in JABA or the Journal of Abnormal Child Psychiatry, the 2 places
where this research was published. So how do we know that Bobbie didn’t
turn out similarly? I think the Barlow study—the centerpiece
for your learning theory of sexual orientation—offers very questionable
support for your position.
RWM: Yes, I agree.
I would not be at all surprised if Bobbie didn’t turn out like
Kyle, in the end. I’m impressed that Barlow had as much success
as he did, even though the self-report nature of some of that success
also leave it less convincing than it might be.
One of the things
I like about the Barlow study is that illustrates the need for a painstakingly
thorough analysis of the component repertoires and values and a highly
intense level of intervention, all ala Lovaas, if we are to have any
success at all, and not the one hour a week deal traditional clinical
and behavior-analytic interventions provide.
As for our use
of it in the text, it not only illustrates the need for a multi-facetted
intervention but also raise the issue of biological determinism.
But, I need to
make this clearer in the book. (Think I just did.)
There is also a poster-girl story that John Money reports in his
1972 book with Anke Ehrhardt, Man and Woman, Boy and Girl. The illustration
is as much a support of a hormonal theory as a learning theory, because
as a baby the boy had a sex change operation to become a girl. And
as in the poster-boy story, an interview much later reveals she had
reverted to boy behavior (and anatomy!), married and had children.
If you’d like me to detail this story, let me know. What it
tells me is that even when anatomy, postnatal hormones, and social
reinforcement try to buck prenatal events, they fail.
(RWM: Yes, Money’s
intervention was impressively naïve, and short sighted. He put
much more faith in the power of cutting a guy’s dingy off and
hormone injections than would seem advisable.)
The whole area of learning and homosexuality research seems riddled
with speculative anthropology and hardly any outcomes that are clearly
due to social reinforcement and/or aversive control.
(RWM: Yes, but
I also think hardly any outcomes that are clearly due to biological
determinism.)
Green has since shifted to a more centrist position, as has Money,
both claiming that homosexuality is “possibly genetic and hormonal,
but juvenile sexual rehearsal play is particularly important.”
(RWM: Yes, and
Lovaas is copping out to biological determinism also.)
Incidentally, I learned 2 other irritating things. First, Rekers
was a homophobe who wrote a 1982 book, “Shaping Your Child’s
Sexual Identity,” in which he described homosexuality as a “promiscuous
and perverted sexual behavior,” and he bemoaned the fact that
“homosexuality has been sold to the unwary public as a right
between consenting adults.”
(RWM: At least,
he was consistent.)
Second, the Mormon Church got involved in all this feminine boys
research in the 70’s at Brigham Young University. They used
aversive control in their psychology clinic, treating terrorized students
and doing dissertations (e.g., McBride, below). One student describes
the terrorizing process and treatment plan, including a confession
by one of the clinics professors who saw that the treatments were
not working, but kept it quiet (lied) because he felt compelled to
support the official church position (Harryman). Other unethical practices
are reported in Katz, reference below, but let me not get too worked
up about this or take us off the track of science and into immoral
engineering.
(RWM: At least,
they are consistent. I wonder if they used any of these techniques
to force 15-year-old girls into blissful existence in bigamous harems.)
My third main problem with using the Barlow study
to justify the reinforcement basis of sexual orientation is that demonstration
of behavior modification does not explain the origins of a behavior
being modified, only that it can be modified.
(RWM: Yes, and
almost all the autism behaviorists are taking the same position: Even
though we can successfully “normalize” a reasonable percentage
of autistic kids, we still maintain our culturally-ingrained preference
for blaming it on the gene. My view is that, though successful behavior
modification doesn’t prove a behavioral etiology, it sure as
hell raises that possibility to the forefront, making it something
not to be so lightly dismissed.)
Although not in the category of no possibility, a la the Bailey’s
pigs, I believe the research I reviewed supports the view that “modification”
is probably temporary, and “learning”—a relatively
permanent change in behavior, does not occur. However, the failure
of behavior treatments in adult homosexuality does not prove that
sexual orientation is inborn either.
(RWM: Good. I,
of course, agree. I suspect that for such interventions to be successful,
they will require much more intensity and thoroughness and thoughtfulness
than has occurred. And especially, the intervention needs to be at
least preschool, if not earlier.)
As you might say, it just is.
Lastly, a personal problem, more with your storyline than with the
Barlow study. I dislike doctor interventions such as the suggestion
that Bobbie go through behavior modification (p.2, col.2). It is intrusive
and in this case conservative, “safe” as you called it
(p. 128), heterosexist or at least conventional establishment bound.
If Sid decided not to help, Bobbie may have encountered a verbal
community or 2 that positively reinforced his behavior. The solution
to Bobbie’s problems is a positively reinforcing verbal community,
not behavior modification. To me, this is behavior modification “over
the boundary.” There’s a time and a place and this ain’t
it.
RWM: Well, I consider
sexuality to be a result of the contingencies and not an inherent
quality. So, if Bobbie wants to change the contingencies to change
his sexuality, I think that’s his right. On the other hand,
if he would prefer to change the contingencies to support his current
sexuality, that’s fine too; in which case, the simplest and
most cost-effective solution might have been a bus ticket to San Francisco.
Of course, another way of doing this would be to stay and fight, rather
than to switch, which is what much of the gay community is now doing.
I now address the move to San Francisco option at the end of Chapter
26.
Let’s look at some other learning research. Probably the clearest
body of research on sexual orientation concludes that gays and lesbians
tend to be gender-nonconforming during their childhood. Bailey and
Zucker reviewed 41 retrospective studies that surveyed gay and lesbian
adults. In comparison to heterosexual controls, gays and lesbians
as children reported that they engaged or did not engage in the following
7 areas of gender nonconforming behaviors: participation in rough-and-tumble
play, competitive athletics, or aggression; toy and activity preference;
imagined roles and careers (significant differences for men only);
cross-dressing; preference for same or opposite sex playmates; social
reputation as “sissy” or “tomboy;” and gender
identity.
Richard Green, the student of John Money that I discussed above,
followed gender nonconforming children into adulthood and found that
4/5 of the markedly effeminate boys became rather conventional homosexual
or bisexual men, one boy became a transsexual, and the remainder became
heterosexual. Since they were only 18 y.o. at the time of the final
interview, it’s possible that there was still more “coming
out” around the corner. In the control group, none became homosexual,
and one became bisexual. These data question any assertion that homosexuality
is due to sexual experiences at puberty or later, or to other learning
processes in adulthood.
RWM: Yes, I think
our sexuality is so wired by preschool time that it is almost unchangeable
thereafter, for better or worse. By the way, my notion of preschool
fatalism is an empirical one, not a theoretical one; I’m not
able to predict in advance what classes of values and repertoires
are subject to preschool fatalism and what are not.
And, another by
the way, I would think the GLBT community would be a little uncomfortable
with the notion that it’s almost fairly safe to put homosexual
labels on a preschooler, just because they are either effeminate or
tomboyish. On the other hand, I can imagine them arguing, but not
too loudly that this finding is good, so that we can start at a preschool
level helping the children adjust to there homosexuality, though only
they and the scientists realize that these latents are reliably heading
down or up that path.
In sum, adult homosexuality is indeed often preceded by childhood
gender nonconformity, but it is not as causal chain in the way Money,
Green and Rekers had thought. Rather, childhood gender nonconformity
and adult homosexuality may independently develop from some common
prior cause.
(RWM: Or they may
both result from the same set of preschool contingencies and pairings.)
Behavior analysis can account for the particular repertoires that
we develop to play out our sexual orientation. Our GLBT identity (a
verbal repertoire), particular sexual behaviors, sexual behavior preferences,
and the reinforcing values of stimuli in our lives that are correlated
with our sexual practices are learned through social reinforcement
{with limitations based upon our morphological characteristics (size,
weight, sensory strengths and weaknesses, etc) duly noted}.
(RWM: Cool.)
However, I believe there is substantive research to suggest that
prenatal influences, genes and hormones and their interactions in
particular, largely account for our sexual orientation.
(RWM: Kent, I’m
glad to see you breaking down the various components of “sexuality,”
much as we did in the book and in the slide show. But I’m not
sure I understand what you mean by “sexual orientation.”
Earlier, you said:
“Sexual orientation vs. gender (romantic) attraction. What’s
the sex of a vibrator? It’s who’s wielding it that counts. Our romantic, socially intimate, attractions are the key features
of “sexual orientation,””
From your view,
Kent, is the whole issue (or at least the hormonal/genetic issue)
whose hand is on the vibrator? If so, what defines the sex of the
who whose hand is on the vibrator? Are you saying the heterosexual
male has been hormonally/genetically wired to fall in love with the
hand that’s on the vibrator, if and only if that hand is connected
to a 5’4” blond with, size D breasts, mascara, long red
finger nails, long-dangly earrings, long flowing hair, bright red
lips, and high-heeled shoes?
Here’s my
point: There is an extremely wide range of visual-stimulus configurations
that constitutes an appropriate love object for a male heterosexual.
That range is so wide that I think it must be impossible for our hormonal/genetic
pre-wiring to have prepared us for it. What do you think?
In fact, the only
human form that I can think of that might not be an appropriate love
object for a male heterosexual would be one that had a six-inch appendage
dangling from just below it’s waste. But I would also think
it unlikely that our hormonal/genetic makeup pre-wired male heterosexuals
to find it impossible to romantically love any human who had one.
What do you think?
And, if the male
heterosexual penis phobia is biologically wired, would a little surgery
do the trick? What do you think?
Now, a brief synopses of research in biology and development, and
some thoughts of Iz Goldiamond.
Research on the brain
Different regions in the hypothalamus, which plays an important role
in sexual life, play a role in male-typical and female-typical sexual
behavior. The region that contributes to female-typical behavior,
the ventro-medial nucleus, is developed to a lesser degree in homo
than het men. One hypothalamus nucleus in particular, INAH3, is larger
in men than women, and larger in hets than homo men.
RWM: Well, maybe;
but this sort of research has proven to be so unreliable and difficult
to replicate that I am not too easily persuaded.
Researchers say that these findings strengthen the notion that the
development of sexual orientation, at least in men, is closely tied
with prenatal sexual differentiation.
RWM: On the other
hand, if these brain structures are correlated with physical appearance,
then maybe. But, of course, that would not then rule out a learning
interpretation.
However, since these measurements were taken on adults who had already
been sexually active for a number of years, there is the possibility
that the structural differences are actually the RESULT of differences
in sexual behavior. The use it or lose it principle.
RWM: Well, I’m
equally skeptical that whether a person spends most of their time
in the kitchen cooking meals or in the garage repairing automobiles
will have a significant impact on the size of the ventro-medial nucleus.)
What do you think?
No data available on neuroanatomical differences at birth. Also differences
in hypo, even at birth, might come from genetic differences. The anterior
commisure is larger in women than men, and larger in gay men than
hets. No conclusive evidence can be drawn from these correlations
between morphological differences and sexual orientation.
Research on repertoire correlations and development homo,
het part of a package of sex a-typical or sex-typical repertoires.
This line of research rests conceptually on a gender-shift theory
of sexual orientation. Some sex-typical repertoires: men better than
women on spatial tasks, mathematical reasoning, geometry; men more
aggressive, criminally violent, and desire a greater number of different
sex partners than women. Het/homo differences? Very inconclusive,
one study shows het men better at throwing a ball at a target, even
stat controlling for sports experience. 1 study shows gay men outperforming
het men and women in verbal IQ, although, like reported handedness
differences, results are inconsistent across studies. Gay men are
less physically aggressive than het men, but similar in verbal aggressiveness
and competitiveness. Gay men have more sex partners than het men but
that’s because, unlike het men, they are not constrained by
the unwillingness of women to have sex with them. So, some data support
the idea that homosexuality is part of a package of gender-likely
repertoires, but there’s a lot of sex-typical and sex-atypical
behavioral mixing that give gays and lesbians some claim to be a third
sex, or better, a third gender. This research does not distinguish
between gender repertoires as a function of prenatal programs of brain
differentiation, social reinforcement and learning, and the subtle
interactions between the 2. Also, no cross-cultural validity in this
research. Also, lumping all gay styles together (str8-acting to queeny)
and all lesbian styles together ( butch to femme) is a bit absurd.
(RWM: Yes.)
Research on stress and homosexuality
Some evidence that prenatal stress in mom influences sexual receptivity
and behavior in rats. No evidence in humans. Endocrinological responses
to stress in rats and humans probably not homologous.
Same sex behavior in nonhuman animals (ethology)
I have a book in my house, a sort of “coffee table” book
that intrigues most of the people who pick it up while they are visiting.
It is called “Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and
Natural Diversity,” by Bruce Bagemihl. It is very thick, 750
pages long, and has lots of pictures and descriptions of sexual practices
of a hundred or so species.
Interactions between prenatal and social program contingencies
(Goldiamond)
Do you define one’s “true nature” by the social
program or the induction (physiological pattern) of the organism that
enters the program?
Same social program could produce different outcomes depending upon
entering organism:
2 different inductions given the same social program may result in
different outcomes.
2 same inductions given different programs may result in different
outcomes.
2 same inductions given same program result in same outcome.
2 different inductions given different programs may result in same
outcomes.
See Iz Goldiamond’s paper, “Behavioral Approaches and
Liason Psychiatry” in Psychiatric Clinics of North America,
2, 2, 1979. The reference is so obscure that I’ll send you the
paper if you’d like it. It’s a terrific conceptual paper,
including 4 types of behavior-organic relations, linear vs. nonlinear
analysis and topical vs. systemic interventions.
Who cares about research in homosexuality?
Research in homosexuality is needed to define the specific aspects
of gender attraction (sexual orientation) that account for what gays
and lesbians have generally believed about themselves: that their
particular gender attraction is a central, defining aspect of their
identity/class, a la race, ethnicity, sex, and so on. The research
will also undoubtedly help make progress toward equality.
(RWM: My interest
is a little broader. I am interested in sexuality or gender in general,
not just homosexuality. But, even more general than that, I am interested
in how our early history affects our later behavior and values, not
just with regard to sexual prejudice, but also class, race, and ethnic
prejudices and attractions, though I think prejudice may be the crucial
variable that results in our not being a bisexual species.
Incidentally, or
maybe not incidentally, those defending the status quo frequently
justifying the status quo in terms of biological determinism, in other
words, the status quo is the way God and nature meant it to be (e.g.,
we are biologically programmed not to find people of other races,
especially with other skin colors, romantically attractive, which,
in nature’s wisdom, prevents miscegenation; colored people are
inherently ignorant, lazy and shiftless and should therefore be confined
to menial jobs; and women are inherently, genetically programmed to
serve men and to serve only a cheer-leading function in inter-mural
athletics). Now, ironically, the GLBT community seems to be using
biological determinism to justify the status quo of their own sexual
orientations and with much more emotional commitment to the correctness
of that theoretical view than would seem to be the case if they were
dispassionate seekers of truth. What do you think?)
Some Recommendations
1. Clear up the distinctions among TG, TS, transvestites, and the
issue of orientation as relating to romantic or intimate attraction
to a certain gender, not really sexual stimulation.
(RWM: Kent, again,
I’m not sure I know what you mean by “orientation,”
or “romantic or intimate attraction.” Do you mean the
sex of the person whose hand is on the vibrator determines whether
or not that experience is reinforcing? In any event, I’ve tried
for the 5th edition.
Incidentally, speaking
of whose hand is on the vibrator, a few years ago, there was a passing
fashion in men’s barbershops for the barber to give the customer
a scalp, neck, and shoulder massage, usually with an electric palm-fitting
vibrator, as a precursor to the hair cut. Well, it’s a rarely
admitted scientific fact that the scalp, neck, and shoulders is one
of our erogenous zones. And I always found this stimulation to be
physically reinforcing but spiritually aversive; however, I could
completely abandon myself to physical gratification when a female
barber provided the “innocent” massage.)
2. Present the main point: We are born with the capacity to be reinforced
by sexual stimulation, and when all of our sensory system is at play,
we are reinforced by sexual stimulation from a person of a specific
gender or sex (heterosexuality and homosexuality), or from both sexes
(bisexuality).
(RWM: Yes, that
is a crucial point.)
3. Keep the Barlow study, if you want, but
• express the limitations: no long-term effects, and so on,
as I describe above
(RWM: Yes, good;
I think it’s covered now.)
• use it in a discussion of the distinctions between engineering
(applied behavior analysis) and etiology (origins and history)
(RWM: Yes, good;
I hit on that a little now.)
4. Talk about the GLBT community and its values: a changed culture
that reinforces, or at least does not either punish or poke aversives
at, alternative gender attraction, orientation, and sexual behavior.
This brief but important discussion will at least balance your presentation
that one must change to fit the societal contingencies or certain
doom and gloom will follow, i.e., suicidal-Bobbie’s story.
(RWM: Excellent.
I’m at least giving it a nod, plus a reference to the web listing
of this review, along with my commentary and any more you wish to
add.)
5. Present a brief statement of the state of research knowledge on
sexual orientation, including learning, hormones, and genes, and widespread
occurrence in the animal kingdom.
(RWM: I do a little
of this, but maybe I could do a little more, but probably not in the
5th edition. Again, I will settle for this web reference, for now.)
6. Talk about prenatal and environmental influences in a 2 x 2 matrix,
ala Goldiamond.
(RWM: I think that’s
taking us further than most of my readers are prepared to go. Maybe
not.)
7. Distinguish between homosexuality/sexual orientation issues AND
transgender/transsexual issues in your Bobbie example. You blur the
two features together, which will be misleading to students who have
not had much exposure to gays and lesbians.
(RWM: Not bad,
but I may have to talk with you more about this.)
Coming this week
Hormones and genes review
Final thoughts on pp. 426-9
Final recommendations
References
(RWM: Wonderful.
I look forward to the comings of this week and certainly appreciate
the intelligent, well-informed, open thought you’ve put into
this. Thank you very much.—Dick)
Kent Going for the Last Word
From: Kent Johnson
Date: Thu, Nov 20, 2008 at 7:18 PM
Hi again,
These days i would put it like this. Research is clearly demonstrating that the hormonal mix of a mother's womb is highly correlated with sexual orientation. Those boys with a heavy percentage of female hormones in their wombs have a greater propensity/capacity to be influenced by environmental contingencies that promote LGBT feelings, thoughts and other behavior. Those boys whose moms have a smaller percentage of female hormones are much less likely to be so influenced. (The data is much less clear for females, BTW.) So I disagree with Dick that biology plays no part in sexual orientation. And as Dick knows, it takes 2 to tango, both biology and environment.
It is important to clearly distinguish this debate from the social-political conversation about "choice." To say we choose our sexual orientation, as a 'lifestyle,' is not to say that it is all learned and not inherited, because we don't have a choice about things we have learned, either. So Dick would not line up with those who say people choose their sexual orientation, like a lifestyle, because we don't choose anything in the strict sense of 'choose.' And i agree with that position, too. The study of choice is the study of environmental and biological variables that lead one to select one 'option' among 2 or more presented. For me, the most interesting and practical aspect of sexual orientation 'choice' is about the variables that promote staying in the closet vs. coming out, the orientation itself having already been determined many years prior.
Love, Kent
