Why Homosexual Behavior Is More like
Consensual Incest and Polyamory than Race or Gender
A Reasoned and Reasonable Case for Secular
Society
Part 2: What
Disproportionately High Rates of Harm Mean
by Robert A. J. Gagnon,
Ph.D.
May 19, 2009
To
print a clean copy with proper formatting and pagination go to the pdf
version here.
At the very end of Part 1 I noted that homosexual intercourse, like
incest, is problematic because of the excessive embodied (formal,
structural) sameness of the participants; moreover, that problems with
procreation for both incest and homosexual behavior are merely symptoms of
this root problem of excessive structural identity.
We need
to go further; for problems with homosexual activity are not limited to a
structural inability to procreate. Homosexual relationships also
exhibit a disproportionately high rate of scientifically
measurable harms. These measurable harms cannot be explained away as
merely a product of societal “homophobia” but are instead largely
attributable to the lack of true sexual compatibility (or complementary
symmetry) between persons of the same sex.
If the
disproportionately high rates of measurable harm manifested by homosexual
relationships were attributable exclusively or even primarily to societal
“homophobia,” then we would expect male-homosexual relationships and
female-homosexual relationships to exhibit the same high rates for the
same types of measurable harm. However, this is exactly what we do not
find.
Homosexual males experience disproportionately high numbers of sex
partners over the course of life and of sexually transmitted infections,
not only in relation to heterosexual males but also in relation to
homosexual females. The reason for this is not difficult to imagine. On
average men have 7 to 8 times the main sex hormone, testosterone, than do
women. That has an obvious impact on male sexuality, relative to female
sexuality, such that bringing together two men in a sexual union is not
exactly a recipe for monogamy. Incidentally, the polysexual character of
male sexuality has been shown scientifically to be not only a
cross-cultural phenomenon but also, to a large extent, a cross-species
phenomenon.
As
regards lesbian relationships, the limited studies that we have to date
suggest that homosexual females experience on average disproportionately
high rates of measurable harm as regards shorter-term sexual relationships
and higher instances of mental health problems, relative not only to
heterosexual females but even to homosexual males.
The
issues around lesbian mental health are not surprising in view of the fact
that on average women have, relative to men, higher rates of mental health
issues and higher expectations of sexual relationships for meeting needs
of self-esteem and intimacy. Simply put, failed sexual relationships place
greater stress on women’s mental health than on men’s. I trust that most
people recognize that women on average have much higher intimacy
expectations for sexual relationships than do men. This is why, almost
invariably, in a marriage between a man and a woman it is the wife who
complains that her spouse doesn’t share his innermost feelings often
enough. “Men are from Mars, women are from Venus,” as one marital
counselor has famously put it.
The
matter of shorter-term unions on average at first seems counterintuitive
since women generally do better in being monogamous than do men (this is
true also of lesbian women in relation to homosexual men). However, the
fact that women have higher expectations for sexual relationships as
regards meeting personal needs for security, affirmation, and intimacy
places greater stresses on such relationships. When two women are put
together in a sexual union, each making great demands of the other, stress
is heightened and the likelihood of relational failure increases.
In
short, the disproportionately high rates of measurable harm attending
homosexual relationships strike homosexual males and homosexual females
differently and do so in ways that correspond to basic sexual differences
between men and women. When two persons of the same sex are brought
together in a sexual union, the extremes of a given sex are not
moderated and the gaps in a given sex are not filled. On the level of
anatomy, physiology, and psychology a man’s appropriate sexual complement
is a woman and a woman’s true sexual complement is a man.
Like
homosexual practice, both incest and polyamory exhibit disproportionately
high rates of scientifically measurable harm, not intrinsic, measurable
harm. Because of close family structures incest often occurs between
an adult and child, though it does not always, and need not, manifest
itself in this form. In addition, if procreation arises from an
incestuous bond, there is the additional problem of a higher risk of birth
defects. Neither problem constitutes an intrinsic harm stemming
from incestuous bonds but each involves increased risks attending societal
affirmation of close-kin sexual relationships.
Polyamory increases the risks of promiscuity (if by promiscuity one means
something like “one-night stands” rather than long-term relationships),
domestic jealousy and discord owing to multiple spouses, and (in
traditional polygamous relationships where only the man is allowed
multiple spouses) overbearing patriarchy. As with incest, we are dealing
with increased risks, not inherent harms. There undoubtedly are some
polygamous relationships that “work” better than some monogamous
relationships. As with homosexual relationships, the disproportionately
high rates of measurable harm are not the problem per se (as if the
absence of measurable harm would justify the relationship’s existence) but
rather symptoms of the root problem.
For Part 3:
The Illogic of Homosexual Unions go
here.
For Part 4:
Responses to Counterarguments go
here.
For Part 1:
The Initial Case go here.
Robert A. J.
Gagnon, Ph.D. is associate professor of New Testament at Pittsburgh
Theological Seminary, author of The Bible and Homosexual Practice:
Texts and Hermeneutics (Abingdon Press) and co-author of
Homosexuality and the Bible: Two Views (Fortress Press).