Chapter 17 Have a little base?

"Are you gay or straight? Are you tall or short?" I saw these two questions on a questionnaire for a certain study, and they were not connected at the time, so I temporarily put them together of.You may be thinking that these are two different types of questions.Because the answer to the first question is either black or white, either this or that.The second question leaves a lot of room, from very short to very tall.This example shows well that the way we usually study things is too simple, and we always think of right and wrong too quickly.Take the example of homosexuality.If I took out this questionnaire, most of you would clearly answer the first question with "of course straight", while a small number of you would label yourself "gay".Well, let me give you a prediction that in the future, the distinction between homosexuality and heterosexuality will be greatly refined, such as "I am 70% straight and 30% gay".Of course there will be a lot of people who say, "I'm largely straight!" It's the same as someone saying they're tall.More often than not, though, one's conclusions are much more granular.

Is this prophecy something I came up with out of thin air?No, I was inspired during a meeting.At the meeting, an American psychologist introduced his research on sexual orientation.In his research, he pointed out that in terms of sexual orientation, the answer of yes and no can no longer meet the requirements, because, from heterosexuality to homosexuality, sexual orientation is a continuous process, and there are many intermediate states. The same continuum from tall to tall, stupid to smart, rich to poor. The researcher came to this conclusion through online investigation.He asked a series of questions related to a person's sexual orientation.For example, "How often do you dream of sexual contact with the opposite sex?" "Have you ever thought about having sex with a certain opposite sex?" and similar questions.This is a very exciting experiment, so the researchers predict that many people will participate.As a result, 18,000 people took the test, and the amount of information to be processed was extremely large.In the end, the researchers gave thirteen sexual orientation ratings, with the far left representing absolute heterosexuality and the far right representing absolute homosexuality.

You, like me, must have expected the following results: Most of the people who took the test were piled up in the leftmost zero, a small number were in the rightmost thirteenth level, and there was a large blank space in between.Wrong!The result is that there are the most people at the first level, and then the number of heterosexuals begins to decline, gradually transitioning to homosexuality.The number of homosexuals starts to rise here at seven, with a small peak between eleven and twelve.Between the seven and the little peaks are some bisexuals.It appears that no maximum occurs at levels zero and thirteen.It appears from this experiment that most people's sexual orientation is mixed. "Are you gay or straight?" "Well, well, I'm on a four, I mean my sexual orientation." "Well, I got a ten, so I won't invite you to coffee." Some people clearly It now seems easy to explain the situation of saying one's heterosexuality but sometimes behaving homosexually, and vice versa.Another interesting conclusion to be drawn from this information is that women are right-biased, or that women exhibit homosexual traits more frequently than men.The findings were not limited to one country, with twelve countries showing similar results.

Could this graph be loaded into a psychology manual again?Of course, but its significance is not limited to this, and several interesting conclusions can be drawn from it.First, those who thought in the Middle Ages that homosexuality was a disease should know by now that most of us are sick, but some are mildly ill and some are very sick.This is simply nonsense. Second, the experiments clearly show that we should think less in black and white when it comes to human problems.Just like being tall, short, fat, and thin, people are not absolutely homosexual or heterosexual, because physical characteristics are continuous.For example, autism, as a characteristic of men, also changes gradually from mild to severe.Others even argue that the male-female gender dichotomy should not be thought of in black-and-white terms either.

The third point is very interesting in terms of the evolutionary approach I use.Through this research, people can have a better understanding of the evolution of homosexuality.I have already said in "Darwin's Spectacles" written in 2009 that homosexuality is an expansion of human sexual life.This can be explained by the fact that the ancestors of bonobos and humans were not necessarily linked to sex and reproduction.However, it is difficult to explain how the homosexual gene is preserved by natural selection, because organisms that do not reproduce do not inherit their genes.We know that a gene that underlies homosexual behavior "creates" a body that is undoubtedly "sterile".Carriers of this gene will be on the right side of the sexual orientation scale.But he (she) can still reproduce and pass on the gene.It's just that this hasn't explained the benefits of this gene—that is, why natural selection gave it a chance to survive. However, the existence of this gene and the reason for heritability are clearly explained.

I'm not too surprised that the test shows that you are largely heterosexual.However, the results of this test are closely related to the questions asked in the test.Changing the question may affect the final score.For example, "Have you ever dreamed of having sex with someone of your own gender?"Whether it's comfortable or not, and maybe even a nightmare, as soon as you answer "yes", the score will move to the right.Therefore, you don't have to hang on to the test score, you already know whether it is high or low, and you can take the test slowly as to whether you are gay or straight.However, don't be discouraged if you find yourself scoring in the middle of the pack.In that case, you can profit from both ends, and evolution will not think this is a problem.