Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site bbnccv.UUCP
Path: utzoo!decvax!genrad!panda!talcott!harvard!bbnccv!sdyer
From: sdyer@bbnccv.UUCP (Steve Dyer)
Newsgroups: net.motss,net.sci
Subject: Re: Data: Homosexuality may not be learned (or inherited, or...)
Message-ID: <457@bbnccv.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 13-May-85 22:28:21 EDT
Article-I.D.: bbnccv.457
Posted: Mon May 13 22:28:21 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 15-May-85 01:40:29 EDT
References: <368@bbnccv.UUCP> <1499@amdahl.UUCP> <39@gatech.CSNET>
Distribution: na
Organization: Bolt Beranek and Newman, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 27

> 
> 	What happened to the idea that homosexuality was related to population
> 	density stress?
> -- 
> Carter Bullard

Probably thrown out once the sociological evidence began to be considered.
Though there are a great many gay people to be found in urban settings,
many have moved to the city from suburban or rural areas as a consequence
the greater opportunities and illusion of tolerance (q.v. Ron Rizzo's
article.)  Simply put, there don't seem to be more gay people born per
capita in, say, New York City than in all of New York state.

This "population density stress" theory comes, if I'm not mistaken, from
the experimental studies made with rats and overcrowding, where one
observed lordosis and copulative behavior between same-sex pairs of
rats.  Of course, one also noticed cannibalism and other aberrations;
why one would choose to link these highly artificial results with
the behavior of gay people is an interesting study in the sociology
of scientific research.

It's worth asking one more time what attitudes lie behind the question
"What causes homosexuality?"
-- 
/Steve Dyer
{decvax,linus,ima,ihnp4}!bbncca!sdyer
sdyer@bbnccv.ARPA