Mindgasms: Can homosexuality and Darwin be in one boat?

How does evolution make sense of seemingly anti-evolution behavior like homosexuality?

In his book, “The Descent of Man, and Selection in relation to Sex”, Darwin proposed a bombastic idea. Known as the theory of sexual selection, it could explain several traits and characteristics of a specie, in terms of their role in reproductive success. It famously includes the bright and decorative feathers of a peacock, which it uses to attract the female mate which is bland and dull. And it led to the now popular conclusion, that probably, art, poetry and music, were the tools of sexual selection to attract women, ending up in hot encounter in bed. Nevertheless, Darwin was right as far as the peacocks, and the pheasants and the guppies, and species who only have sex for reproduction were concerned.

But much has changed in our understanding of sexual behaviors in humans and other animals. Humans, as we know today, are hypersexual mammals who possess far more sexual capacity than is needed for reproduction. The human male has the biggest gonads in all primates, and the human female can have sex in non-ovulation periods and during pregnancy. Apart from this, humans engage in all sorts of non-reproductive sexual practices, including sodomy, oral sex, self-pleasure, genital rubbing and homosexuality. This should raise an important “Why?”

But before that, let’s ask another question “What went wrong?” Well, the answer lies in the cultural context of the Victorian era, whose “straight, monogamous, puritanical sex” picture had impacted Darwin’s judgement about human sexuality. Also, we happened to meet the chimpanzees first, who are not only aggressive, but non-cooperative in their social arrangements and usually have sex for reproduction. It was later, that primatologists and ethologists came across other primates, whose social dynamics were starkly different than that of chimpanzees. And soon we begun to find other mammals, both primates and non-primates who engage in similar sexual behaviors.

So, how can evolution explain that?

The mammals wasting their time in sex with no reproductive outcome, and which should seemingly reduce their chances of survival because it does not leave them offspring. Right?

Well, wrong. This arises out of a heinous misconception about evolution that the individuals have to struggle for survival and carry their lineage. It’s the genes, not the individuals, which need to survive and get carried on. And the seeming “paradox of homosexuality” does not really exist, because the homosexuals are still reproductively fit and can produce offspring. But this takes us back to discussion above, why do humans, like bonobos and other primates, engage in non-reproductive sex?

According to E.O Wilson, human sexuality and that of other primates, can be well described as a bonding mechanism in interdependent bands. Humans, which are highly social beings, sexually promiscuous and who engage in sex for pleasure. The bonding maintains cooperation and mutuality between the groups, and increases the chances of gene propagation. The gene is still selfish, even though the individuals can form cooperative arrangements, and hold remarkable qualities of altruism.

Homosexuality did not serve any specific evolutionary function, as some in evolutionary psychology propose, in that men used to cuddle in winter and that is why you have gays, or that gays were better guardians of women and children when the men used to go out for hunt. These musings are based on questionable assumptions about human sexuality, mostly the Victorian ones, which simply compresses the staggering diversity of sexual practices in human cultures into one tiny gob, on which many of the hypothesis and theories in the social sciences and humanities today stand upon. Instead, homosexuality and other non-reproductive forms of sex can be seen as an evolutionary result of our high drive and social inclinations, as species, who enjoy sex for pleasure rather than reproduction. It reminds me of the female orgasm, which does not make any sense from a reproductive standpoint, even though many researchers had attempted to find an evolutionary reason, they failed miserably. Except that we know, that the orgasm is also an expression of pleasure which strengthens bond making and mutuality.

Before any plausible theory on this is to take birth, it is important to re-examine, and accordingly re-shape our picture of human sexuality. You cannot simply ignore, the “odd” sexual behaviors, and the supposedly rare practices of different cultures and arrangements. Once we have an accurate and representative picture of human sexuality and that of other primates, the puzzle joints should neatly fit in.