Evolutionary Theory suggests that animals, including humans, develop characteristics that aid the survival of the species. I was aware of the theory, but never applied it to me as a gay man, or really thought about what that theory would mean for gay men, lesbian women and bisexual people.
Prevalence of Gay Men, Lesbian Women and Bisexual People
In humans, it’s estimated that 1 in 10 people could be gay, lesbian or bisexual. In studied animals, homosexuality has been found in 1,500 species (see my 10 Gay Animals post if you’re interested in learning more).
Why do Gay Men, Lesbian Woman and Bisexual People Exist?
This was my initial question. But the more I thought about it, the more questions I developed including:
- How do gay men and lesbian women contribute to the survival of the species when they very unlikely to procreate and produce children?
- What are the survival advantages or benefits that gay, lesbian or bisexual people create?
- If there are no survival advantages that gay, lesbian or bisexual people bring, why are they still being born today? Evolutionary Theory suggests that characteristics that don’t aid in survival of the species would disappear through natural selection or genetic mutations over time.
What Triggered My Curiosity
This TED Talk triggered my curiosity and caused me to ask the above questions:
Theories Introduction
I decided to go to scientific theories to answer the questions I had. Below are just some (five) theories to explain possible evolutionary reasons, why gay, lesbian and bisexual people exist and what survival advantages they might bring:
Theory 1 – It Takes A Whole Tribe To Raise Children
There’s a famous saying:
It takes a village to raise a child.
What this saying means, is that parents need help. They can’t raise a child or a number of children without support. If we think back to tribal times, men would be hunting and gathering (possibly with some women), whereas the majority of women would be looking after children and/or be pregnant.
Gay men, lesbian women and bisexual people could provide safety and care for both the children and women while the men were away. This would increase the odds of more children surviving to adulthood to continue the cycle of procreation – survival and raising the next generation.
Tribes with gay men, lesbian women and bisexual people would likey have massively increased odds of survival versus tribes without.
Theory 2 – Increases Tribal Cooperation & Reduces Tribal Conflict
A number of studies have shown that gay men have a high level of emotional intelligence and pick up on subtle social cues better than straight men. High emotional intelligence can be used to increase cooperation in groups and picking up on social cues early can prevent conflict (verbal, physical or both) or esculation of conflict.
This means that tribes with gay men are likely to have increased cooperation, and a reduced frequency of and less severe escalation of conflict than tribes without gay men. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any research done with lesbians or bisexual people around this theory.
Theory 3 – Increases Human Resources For Activities Not Related To Sex
In past tribal times straight men and women would be having regular sex to produce the next generation, which takes time, effort and energy. Theory 3 suggests tribes that had gay men, lesbian women and bisexual people may increase the human resources (time, effort and energy) within the tribe for non-sexual activities such as: building shelter, building defences for safety, creating or maintaining fires for warmth/light, hunting, gathering, childcare, etc.
This theory does make some sense, but forgets that gay, lesbian and bisexual people will still have the same drive and desire for sex as straight people. So this theory appears a bit implausible to me.
Theory 4 – Increase in Safety for Girls & Women
Now this is a theory I like. Males are generally a lot stronger than females. Males are generally more likely to harm girls and women than other females. Theory 4 suggests that gay, lesbian and bisexual people could have increased the safety of girls & women in a tribal setting through preventing conflicts from escalating and if necessary providing physical protection to females within the tribe.
This would definitely promote species survival, as if a girl or woman has been harmed/injured she may not be able to produce offspring or fullfil care needs for any children she has.
In a worse case scenario, in tribal times there were no laws and no consequences for aggressive or violent behaviour. This meant that tribe members could muder other tribe members, with girls/women at a higher risk of this outcome. This could limit gentic diversity and the numbers of available women able to produce children.
Theory 5 – More Babies
There are a few research studies that indicate that siblings of gay men tend to have more children than those with all straight siblings. However none of these research studies looked a lesbian women or bisexual people. None of these research studied indentified why this was the case. It could just be a correlational link, rather than a cause and effect.
I don’t give this theory much weight based on no direct cause and effect link being established.
Theory Idea – Increased Adaptability to Change & Flexibility During Adversity
This wasn’t a theory I came across, but an idea I had. For survival, a tribe needs people who are able to adapt to change and be flexible during adversity. These are both characteristics that I see in a lot of gay, lesbian and bisexual people I know. These same people report either that they always had these characteristics, or developing them very quickly during early childhood. Both of these skills would definitely increase a tribe’s liklihood of survival, back in human’s tribal past. Just an idea.
Conclusion
Theories 1, 2, 4 and my theory idea all seem the most plausible. It could be one, all or jany combination of them. There’s really no way to know.
Clearly much more research is needed to explore the current role of gay men, lesbian women and bisexual people in all their tribes/communities today. If we explore and examine roles today, it might shed some light on past roles that made gay, lesbian and bisexual people evolutionally essential for the survival of the species.
Any future research should take into consideration:
- The inclusion of lesbian women and bisexual people.
- That species survival is now not always the primary goal for all people.
- Improved healthcare, much less physical danger, but increasing mental pressures/illnesses and difficulties some people may have with knowing their emotions and how regulate them, should all be explored.
- That all people are part of many communities now, rather than being part of 1 or 2 small tribes, like in the past.
- That often people now are not restricted by geograhpical locations and don’t always need proximitiy to be part of a community.
- That people’s brains haven’t significantly changed or evolved since tribal times.
- That we may never fully explain the existence of gay, lesbian and bisexual people and their roles in contibuting to the survival of our species.
- Researchers need to aware of issues that disproportionately effect gay, lesbian and bisexual people and how these issue could impact their research. Issues such as hate crimes, mental illnesses, alcohol/substance use, internalised homophobia and rejection or astrangement from some communities due to sexuality, etc.
I hope you found this post interesting. If you want to share your thoughts leave a comment below. You can subscribe to my newsletter here.
Other Content
If you liked this post, you might like:
- Article: Influential UK Gay Men
- Article: The History of Gay Marriage in the UK
- Short Story: Soulmates
- All Love, Relationships & Gay Community Content page
Write soon,
Antony
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