How does exclusive homosexuality persist, despite evolution? An evolutionary biology professor of mine during undergrad suggested that a hint might be found in the cultural trope of the "rich gay uncle." It's true that gay men tend to have somewhat more financial success than straight men, and it's also... true that gay men tend to have more brothers (i.e., gay men are actually more likely to become rich uncles). Further, since the 1970s, evolutionary biologists have hypothesized that maybe homosexuality could persist via kin selection: instead of investing in a child with 50% of your genes, you invest more in your siblings' children, who have 25% of your genes. So, perhaps, in some cases, men might benefit from forgoing their own reproduction and obtaining resources to maximize investment in nieces and nephews. An unusual strategy sure, but, in principle, feasible...show more

"a hint might be found in the cultural trope of the "rich gay uncle."" What cultural trope of the "rich gay uncle?" How is your gay uncle with the interior decorating business in Provincetown going to help you have more kids in Peoria compared to your straight uncle in Peoria?

Your professor was innumerate.

If there is any heritable component to homosexuality, it persisted because social mores meant even men with obvious and strong homosexual preferences still married a woman and gave her kids

Simple. It doesn’t. Sexuality does not exist. It is a social construct and a relatively new one at that.

He missed the obvious point: non child bearing people stop overpopulation and contribute to social well-being by being net producers.

This is a good start, but the true evolutionary psychology of homosexuality remains an important unsolved problem

It is easily explained. There’s a bunch of gay traits, and if one inherits a preponderance of them, then one is gay. If one inherits just a few of them, one is attracted to and actually more attractive to the opposite sex, so off they go into the next generation.

This would have to result in brothers of a gay man having 2+ more surviving children on average, which isn’t plausible.

I'm going to propose something more radical: you can't explain homosexuality by the theory of evolution.

What an obviously ridiculous hypothesis that flies in the face of established evolutionary understanding.

The math doesn't work. A gay uncle would need to benefit the offspring MORE than the mother and father

You can completely destroy the argument about the “gay gene” by this one fact; boys raised by single mothers are significantly more likely to be gay than boys raised by single fathers or a nuclear family.

This makes zero sense. A male’s development cannot know what their siblings do or don’t do. Whether they have kids or not cannot be known by a male’s brain and therefore deciding sexuality. And besides, gays come out during teen years mostly, and their siblings are usually the same age with no kids.

This discussion never includes the obvious opportunity cost: this strategy must be compared to the heterosexual one.

That's one of the hypotheses mentioned in this book. One piece of research suggests that gays have as many offspring as normies. They do this by starting early and gaining advantageous experience. That maintains their numbers in the gene pool. I'm skeptical. Still a bit of unresolved science it seems.

Not true

Open homosexuality is only tolerated in tolerant (ie. dying) societies. Closeted grandpa who did his marital duty is a more effective transmission route.

Ffs, for that to work out gay men would have to be more invested in their niece and nephews than the actual parents. This sort of effect would be WILDLY noticable irl and there's nothing like it. This is incredibly stupid and everybody who entertained it should be ashamed.

The gay gene is linked to more fertility in straight people. The gay gene itself doesn't need to be adaptive. Just like the gene for sickle cell is maladaptive but linked to a gene that protects against malaria in people who don't carry the sickle cell gene.

you're overthinking it. variation explains it. there's 8 billion people. not everyone is going to be the same

It's like when a certain species male bird -- whose female counterpart have red tail feathers -- humps the hell out of a red feather duster. Sexual impulsivity run amok.

My understanding is that they don't have higher incomes, on average Nor, as Greg Cochran has pointed out, are they especially devoted to their younger relatives like ants or wolves.

Bit a stretch. The child-molesting uncle is more of a trope than the rich gay uncle.

I’m sorry, but this isn’t serious. This is such sloppy pop Darwinism that it can be readily dismissed.

Couldn't this just be passed through women as they dont need to be aroused to get pregnant and have children? Why does it have to be an adaptive trait?

gay stuff persists because it's really fun. Also, in 2022 a study was reported to find gay men earn on average 11% less than straight men and bisexual men even less. I agree, rich gay uncle theory isn't right...

Thats the hypothesis why major affective disorder survives, siblings get the creativity and drive witouth the mania. The hypomanic phase mimics the creative phase.

The data doesn't support this and the maths doesn't work. It's probably largely environmental - including in utero hormone levels. The birth order effect would suggest this.

I thought the helper at the nest theory was disfavored today?

Wouldn't this still get bred out of the family pretty quick? The rich gay uncle improves the family's fitness, but not everyone in the family has the chance-to-be-gay gene, and the siblings with the gene have less offspring than the ones without? I guess the number of individuals with the gene could go up while the portion of the family with the gene goes down... i think this theory could explain the number of homosexuals persisting but not the portion of the population.

Ahh yes, my gay uncle tried very hard to get me to have more kids. All these years later I still dont have have the heart to tell him that there is no way I could have gotten pregnant and thats not really the way it works either and why couldn't we tell anyone

OMG americans are even more stupid then we thought, both sides of the mic by the way 😂

@wrongthinkmcgee Children will look like their uncle rather than their dad, even they only share 25% of them And I’m a gay men. So when my brother has children, he will look like me. And I will support him like an extra dad. Win-win

This is a load of tosh if you think about it for two seconds.