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Underground > Laboratory >

Pheromones turn on straight women, gay men.

14:13 / 11.05.05

We've done the the difference between men's brains and women's brains, and we've done the biological basis for male homosexuality and m-t-f transsexuality before.

This seems related, but a little different.

It's a study showing that certain pheromones have the same effect on straight women and gay men.

So there's some sort of shared neurochemistry going on.

The testosterone-derived chemical AND is found in male sweat and is believed to be a pheromone. It activated the anterior hypothalamus and medial preoptic area of gay men and straight women alike.
…
The team observed 36 healthy men and women, who were exposed in turn to AND, the oestrogen-derived compound EST and other odours, including lavender oil, cedar oil, eugenol and butanol.

While the subjects were consciously aware of each unidentified smell as it was presented, Savic does not believe the reactions in the subjects brains were intentional in any way: “The pattern of activation does not suggest cognitive processing,” she says.

PET and MRI scans revealed that the ordinary odours activated parts of the brain associated with smelling in all test subjects. But in addition to that activation, AND excited the brain areas associated with sexual behaviour for female and gay male participants, as did the EST for straight men.

So -- do you think this means there's a sameness to the brain structures? In other words, do you think the reactions to scents would be based on a physiological difference, or do you think being attracted to men changes the way your brain processes scents?

10:23 / 12.05.05

Weeeeelll, there's some evidence for homosexuality in wolves (see Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity), and almost the entirety of lupine romance is determined by scent. That this shows up in humans is, I think, not all that surprising.

As to which comes first, the scent or the *ahem* drive, I think you're going to have a bitch (sorry) of a time determining whether it's behavioural conditioning or learnt reaction. Do you hunt the prey because you like the smell? Or do you like the smell because you like the prey?

I have -no- clue.

18:33 / 12.05.05

Well, I'm also curious as to whether a certain kind of desire can lead to development of brain areas/processes.

Like, OK, the thing with the MtF transsexual brains -- that Dutch researcher with the unfortunate name (Dick Swaart? I can't remember...) who found that there's a part of transexual brains that is as small as it is in women's brains, so Hey! there's the physiological mechanism behind "gender dysphoria" -- except it turns out that gender dysphoria typically starts up in childhood, and this particular brain area only develops in adulthood. So there's something else *about* transsexuality that creates this physiological difference in brains.

It could be, I dunno, some hormonal level or something else on the physical/chemical level... or, maybe, since the brain is the part of the body in charge of things like *recognition* and, presumably, *desire* (or at least recognizing and selecting objects of desire), it might could be that certain desires could change certain small areas of the brain.

Or maybe not. Maybe I've just seen too many Cronenberg movies ("Does the tumor cause the visions? Or do the visions *cause* the tumor?").

I don't have the science to know. Anyone else?

16:58 / 14.05.05

No, not at the moment...

But I'm fascinated by pheromones in general. There's a company called Bodywise that's been selling various mixes for years, and it looks fairly legit... I'm thinking of making a purchase.

(...and I have to wonder, looking at all these studies, if the researchers bothered to go out and find the "gold-star-equivalent" men who'd never had a fleeting moment of lust for a woman and the uber-straight women who'd never even considered the possibility... Seems to me that given the plasticity of the brain, bisexuality might account for some of the less-convincing but still statistically significant results.)

10:14 / 16.05.05

Brings up the question as to whether sexuality is discrete or a sliding scale.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

13:48 / 16.05.05

So, what about bisexuals?

19:47 / 16.05.05

Well, do bisexuals strictly exist chemically speaking, or is it a cultural affiliation drawn from the central portion of the gender scale? Just like 'gay' and 'straight' might be cultural affiliations drawn from either end?

Does this study have the answer to that question in the discrete or sliding nature of pheremonal attraction? Would one or the other even answer that question satisfactorally?

[xfiles] We may never know. [/xfiles]

*

02:49 / 17.05.05

do bisexuals strictly exist chemically speaking

Excuse me for being flippant, but I can round up about a dozen to get samples from if you want. I think you will find we are also made of chemicals, yes.

All that aside, I think one would be likely to find sexual orientation as a set of discrete categories (two, three, many, lots) or as a sliding scale or as a fourth dimensional torus depending on what one was testing for. Perhaps I shouldn't even mention this in The Lab, but there's a certain amount of privileging chemical origins as the defining factor of whether something exists or not, in research of this kind. Something being "just" a cultural affiliation doesn't make it less real, and "cultural affiliations" certainly have an effect on the body and brain chemistry.

15:09 / 17.05.05

Do you think they'd be able to alter brain structure, then?

17:29 / 17.05.05

Which they?

Chemicals? Absolutely.

Bisexuals? Hmmm. It might take repeated exposure, but yeah - I'd lump us in with the changes caused by any learning experience...

Cultural affiliations? Dunno.

I don't know if anybody is asking these sorts of questions when they set up their studies, so I don't know if there's structural/anatomical "proof" that we exist, are different from both straight and gay bodies. As far as physiological response and the chemicals involved in desire - youbetcha - we got first-hand evidence right here. (um. So to speak.)

How much of desire is a cultural construct/result of affiliations is a question that should probably go to the head shop...

17:36 / 17.05.05

cultural affiliation drawn from the central portion of the gender scale

Huh? I think this needs a little unpacking.

It sounds like you're treating bisexuals as the average of straight and gay, either in how they present or what they desire, and I have not found either to be the case...

22:53 / 17.05.05

Relax folks, I'm throwing out an (admittedly far-out) academic possibility rather than impuning anyone's right to sleep with their chosen selection of lifeforms (or not). I'll clarify, say you've got two scales, one which increases to the left and represents attraction to guys, one which increases to the right and represents attraction to girls. One scale above the other, both the same length. You (yes you) occupy a position somewhere between the far left and right with the first being fully attracted to guys and the latter being fully attracted to girls. If you're in the middle you're bisexual.

But where's the middle? where does the middle end and the ends begin? If sexuality is a scale the term 'bisexual' is meaningless because the vast proportion of the population will be bisexual and only the rare few will be completely gay or straight. If chemical attraction is a scale, bisexuality doesn't mean anything. It's like saying you're not albino.

Unless there is some idea, some archetype, of bisexuality to which people can identify, as there are for straight guys and girls, and gay people of either gender. I realise that these archetypes have definite effects on socialisation, but that isn't to say that that archetype is based on cold, hard, chemical fact, because it may not be*.

If chemical attractiveness is continuous, rather than discrete, bisexuality as a useful scientific term ceases to exist. Which I think would be kind of liberating and inclusive. And by the way...

...I'm definitely -not- albino.

ok?

*although we could get into how socialisation enforces behavioral change and how that might effect brain chemistry.