Rev. Erudite Redneck, B.S., B.S., M.A., M.Div.

First, refresh your memory.

Lesbians' brains.

Lesbian brain redux.

Lesbian brains clarification.

Now -- and sorry it took so long ...

--ER


By Dr. ER

These data support our previous results about differentiated processing of pheromone-like stimuli in humans and further strengthen the notion of a coupling between hypothalamic neuronal circuits and sexual preferences.

The above line I take straight from the end of the abstract in the original article. Here’s what I take from this and the overall article:

1. Humans process pheromone-like stimuli differently;

2. These researchers have found similar results in previous studies;

3. These results strengthen the idea of a relationship (which they call “coupling,” which almost seems like a loaded phrase, if you know what I mean) between hypothalamic neuronal circuits and sexual preferences.

Here is what the article does NOT say:

1. The hypothalamus is the place in the brain where sexual preference can be found. No, there’s no big light that turns on in the hypothalamus when a gay man’s being turned on by another man.

2. That you can smell a gay man or woman if you’re gay.

3. That pheromones alone determine sexual preference.

People like to take things, even science writers, and cut them down into basic pieces of readable information. I’m not surprised that when, confronted with some of the questions, Dr. Slavic said that, no, that’s not what their study indicated. But it’s not as simple as Dr. Throckmorton wants to make it, either.

By the way, I love the use of Butanol as a control; I used to use that as a control scent in insect species back when I got my hands dirty in the lab.

Here’s my point: Neither The AP science writer nor Dr. Throckmorton were correct in their assertions about the findings. The AP writer didn’t show an “agenda” either, his was just what happens when you try to take something complicated and make it simple. There was nothing wrong, per se, in what he said; it just wasn’t complete with all the caveats and wheretofores and disclaimers that would have come with a longer piece.

Dr. Throckmorton didn’t ask his questions in both formats; his questions of the researcher could only end up with one answer. It would be like me asking the researcher, “so, old so and so says that your research proves that lesbian women smell different than straight women.” The researcher’s answer would be, “no, that is not what our research says (nor does it say that they smell “differently,” by the way). It is always easy to ask someone what a particular study does NOT say than it is to ask what a study does say. Think about the steps involved in the scientific method and how few and far between actual theories are.

And now, let me posit my own thoughts about pheromonal control of behavior --informed only in part by the reading of the article. My own experience goes beyond mammalian behavior to the insect world as well, where plant pheromones (called kairomones) play a large role in stimulating certain behavior from certain species of insects).

To put it simply, pheromones cause behavior, suppress behavior or have no impact on behavior. In some cases, pheromones cause a synergistic behavioral reaction -- they impact the smeller and the smellee in ways that would never occur had this particular smeller and smellee not have come together. They behavior that emerges (or does not) is in the nose of the smeller and the smellee, to put it simply.

There’s obviously some relationship that women have to other women where pheromonal influence of behavior is concerned (take the alignment of menses, or, to make ER happy estrus). [Meaning, I just prefer the term "estrus"; might be a farm thing. --ER.] Menses alignment IS a behavior, though its alignment isn’t under voluntary control.

It’s more interesting to me that plants and insects have developed this symbiotic relationship -- kairomones that call out to certain insects “pollinate me!” and then certain insects have a receptor that allow them to sense the kairomone and say, “hey, baby, I’m a-comin’ to pollinate you!”

If such a relationship, so elegantly construed, happens in the plant and insect world, why not believe it happens in the mammalian world?

END