There are a number of other animals, including dolphins, insects, bonobos, giraffes, elephants, etc, that are known to engage in homosexual behavior- though I am not sure to what extent they will forego opportunities for heterosexual reproduction.

What it MEANS (when you look at all of these things in the aggregate) is that prenatal hormone exposure is strongly involved in sexual orientation. Left-handedness, finger length, INAH-3 size, hair swirl patterns, The Older Brother Effect, and just about every other important finding regarding sexual orientation can be directly connected (in a predictable pattern) to the amount of masculinizing hormone the developing child is exposed to prenatally. Like millions of other topics in the sciences, there’s a relatively small effect size (probably due to other variations in biology that leave some of us more sensitive to this hormone exposure than others), but the patterns are undeniable. I’m not sure why you’re soft pedaling so much on this topic, but it’s uncharacteristic considering the other podcasts I’ve listened to on your site.

Your comment about his “subjects” might have been in regard to the fact that many of the brains of gay males had been from people who died from complications due to AIDS. That is true, and was trumpeted as a major flaw since the HIV virus can affect brain structure (although it’s never been shown to affect the hypothalamus in that way); however, LeVay also compare those measurements to the brains of the heterosexuals in the study who also had died from AIDS, and, although that left him with an extremely small sample size, he found the SAME results. Critics never seem to mention that.

The saddest part of this is that this is such a hot-button topic (after all, gays are the last group that religious groups can openly denigrate and support disenfranchisement of) that researchers in psychology and related sciences are reluctant to get involved. Even those who do often show themselves to be affected by homophobia. Michael Bailey, for instance, recently confirmed for me via email that he would support a couple’s decision to abort a child known to be homosexual if such a screening test ever became available. This is a horrific statement, and something I think most people would be shocked by if we were discussing something like eye color, handedness, or another equally non-controversial aspect of human variation. I lost a hero in that conversation.

Again, you’ve done a wonderful job of addressing a potentially controversial topic (not that I consider it as such, personally). I really appreciate you addressing some of these topics that rest a little closer to home for most of us. I think it’s really important that research is done on not only what’s not controversial but also on stuff that can be considered taboo by some.

Out of interest, will you be considering an episode on gender and libido in the future? Although potentially controversial again, I think a lot of people might get a lot of benefit from it.

As an aside, an entertaining book on sex research I found was called “Bonk” by Mary Roach (though I think the title might be different in America, but I can’t remember what it was called). Very interesting and very amusingly written.