The Biology of Homosexuality & Subversive Semiotics of a Marginalized Group

Title & Abstract:

The Biological Presence of Homosexuality & Subversive Semiotics in a Marginalized Group

The research on homosexuality is varied, contradicting and, tends to skew to social issues and implied consequences of the results. The fact is, research in this field has been used to mistreat individuals and also to prop up political and social platforms throughout different periods. This is the wrong way to go about science and we want to bring a more sensible tone to the dialogue. We intend to separate the socio-political agenda form the hard science while also showing a new paradigm with which to view homosexuality. We reject the prevailing notions that homosexuality needs to be justified through either viewpoint, one of pathologizing it and employing “treatment” for the “disorder”, or through the perspective of it having an adaptive or “useful” function. The first one has been, for all intents and purposes, scientifically dismissed by homosexuality being dropped from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual and the American Medical Association calling for “support [of] the dignity of the individual, human rights and the sanctity of human life, and [...] to oppose any discrimination based on an individual's sex, sexual orientation, gender identity …] and any other such reprehensible policies.” [6] The second viewpoint may present itself eventually but giving the conflicting science and the contradictory results, we can say that homosexuality is influenced by many factors and has evidence of nature and nurture causations. Our proposed take on homosexuality is that it best falls under the theory of neutral variation and that the prevalence of it in a given population is due to random drift. This best explains it’s presence given the data we have, and it removes it from the moral debate that surrounds the issue and the research.

            We were also interested in looking at the specifics of the semiotics of this population and how this marginalization affected their communication. How do these individuals come together to create communities? Particularly because of the long history of queer people being criminalized, there has been a necessity to communicate and band together - but in secrecy. While homosexuality is still very much a stigma to some now, it was much less accepted in the recent past. This pressure led queer people to generate coded languages (extending from words to physical objects) in order to communicate with one another, while remaining undetected to those not privy to the code (thereby remaining safe).

            Some older coded objects include statuettes of David, lesbian pulp books, and the hankie code. While the first two were objects that people would have in their homes, in order to “test” the sexuality of their visitors, the hankie code is much more mobile - each color, as well as the placement of the hankie, denotes a sexual interest of the wearer. These helped to facilitate cruising (meeting up with other gay men to have sex), therefore mobilizing the sexuality of the gay male. These coded objects were inconspicuous for those who don’t know about the hidden language, but speak volumes to those who do.

           The advent of the internet allowed queer people an incomparable level of more intense concealment. Now, queer individuals didn’t have to run the risk of entering the physical world with their coded objects. The internet allowed queer people to engage with one another safely from the comfort of their homes through forums, chat sites, groups, and so on. They allowed queer individuals to connect from the safety and comfort of their own homes. These virtual spaces, similar to the statuettes of David, were accessed in fixed locations (someplace with a desktop computer); however, unlike the statuettes, you are able to communicate with countless people at once.

            The other distinction between online spaces and offline objects is that these spaces are not “real” - they are not physically manifested in our world. These virtual spaces are removed from the body. And these spaces have evolved over time as well: Grindr is a popular app used by men who have sex with men (MSM) to find potential partners. With over 6 million members, it is the largest location-based all-male social network. But to call Grindr just a social network would be an understatement; it’s a phenomenon that is not easily understood by most people, and a radically different coded object than it may seem at first. The reason for this being is that Grindr and other applications are able to separate men from their sexuality.

We are presenting this as a performative lecture for two main reasons. One is that it fits well with in our practice and is an effective tool to communicate information and make a lasting impression through humor and entertainment. The second reason we are presenting in this mode is that it relates to our subject matter. We are illustrating the clinical approach to a politically and emotionally charged issue, and we are positioning that against an image of the actualities of being within the marginalized group. Also, the semiotics we will be discussing are very performative and it makes sense to have an active, performative component to the presentation, illustrating these ideas.

If funded it would be interesting to do a large scale survey on the semiotics of homosexual hook-up culture and to extrapolate about the significance of the difference between face-to-face interactions of the past and virtual ones now. Also studying “back-room” semiotics, where men still meet in person to flirt and have sex would be an interesting bridge to study between the old and new was of communicating. The first step in this study would be to observe and decode the semiotics of these locations. There would be an interview component with men have used these areas to connect, and there would also be an observational component identifying and recording semiotic behavior and communication.

Annotated Bibliography:

Duff’s Sources:

[6] [1] Rosario, Vernon A. Homoseuality and Science: A Guide to the Debates, 2002 ABC-CLIO, Inc. Santa Barbara, California

(This is a very easily read book and discusses the history of theories explaining and studying homosexuality. It is very informative and covers a great deal of ground. It does lean a bit politically but it doesn’t seem distracting for the science and discussion at hand.)

[2] [2] Corvino, John editor. Same Sex: Debating the Ethics, Science, and Culture of Homosexuality, 1997 Article “The Origins of Sexual Orientation: Possible Biological Contributions” Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. Lanham, Boulder, New York, Oxford

            (This article was useful in thinking about the need for a theory to explain why queer folks deserve rights. It also discussed 3 models to think about sexuality, Permissive Biological Effects, Indirect Biological Effect, and Direct Biological Effect. These 3 ideas helped me wrap my mind around the relationship of the components of different theories being proposed or discussed in my research.)

[5] [3] Poiani, Aldo Animal Homosexuality: a Biological Perspective, Chapter 3: “Genetics of Homosexuality”, chapter 9: “Homosexual Behavior in Primates” 2010 Cambridge University Press, New York

            (This is a technically written book that has a lot of information about studies, both biologic and semiotic, about sexual behavior in the animal kingdom, with a focus on homosexual behavior. I found it useful to learn about some of the theories and research around Homosexuality. The chapter on Primate sexual behavior is quite good and helped my understanding of the semiotics of homosexual displays in primates.)

[3] [4] Gould, James L. & Marler, Peter “Learning by Instinct”, 1986 Scientific American, Inc.

(Some ideas were mentioned in Same Sex about how there may be a component of imprinting type features to developing homosexuality.  It made me think of the discussion in this article of how birds have an innate song (innate sense of sexuality that later develops into homosexuality) but it gets jacked up if the bird doesn’t learn their song in the window of learning (person doesn’t learn “typical” sexuality during critical period, thus causing homosexuality). This article also explains classical and operant conditioning and we can see evidence of classical condition reasoning in the hypothesis that homosexuality is learned through negative reinforcement from a “bad mother”.)

[4] [5] Harlow, Harry F. “Love in Infant Monkeys”, 1959 Scientific America, Inc

(This is related to ideas about causing homosexuality in humans. I thought about this article in connection to the baby monkey being so effected by the “treatment” of the cloth mother vs the wire mother. I wonder what other “disorders” the monkeys have after having a neglectful mother, similarly to how some of opinions blame bad mothers to cause homosexuality.)

[7] [6] Talbot, Margaret. “The Baby Lab”, 2006 New Yorker Vol. 82 Issue 27, pg 90-101

(this article was relevant to thinking about possibly “learning homosexuality” and how that could still be innate possibly. Spelke’s distinction between innate knowledge and learned knowledge seemed really relevant here. I think it would be fascinating to devise a Spelke type experiment to test the innate knowable of sexuality from the start.)

[8] [7] http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/about-ama/our-people/member-groups-sections/glbt-advisory-committee/ama-policy-regarding-sexual-orientation.page?

(This is simply the American Medical Association’s website where they state their general policies on LGBT issues.)

[1] [8] Callahan, Gerald N. Ph.D. Between XX and XY: Intersexuality and the Myth of Two Sexes, 2009 Chicago Review Press, Inc

(This is a very nicely written book on Intersexuality and the genetic variation that happens. It is related to this research through the conundrum as follows: If you can’t easily define woman or man, or in other words, if genetically we have many more genetic variations beyond XX & XY, then what exactly becomes homosexuality?

[11] [9] Steiner, Ulrich Karl and Tuljapurkar, Shirpad. “Neutral Theory for Life Histories and Individual Variability and Fitness Components”, 2012 Department of Biology, Stanford University, Stanford California

Found on Jstor

This article is a dense scientific paper about the unpredictability of a single life story and how successful an individual will be, even when taking into account adaptive fitness. An example would be the most adaptively fit individual being stepped on and killed ever before getting to breed and pass on their genes. This helped me think about neutral variation and random drift and concepts with in natural selection.)

[10] [9] http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/evo101/IIIE5bNeutraltheory.shtml

            (This is a very short article that nicely explains neutral variation and Random drift.)

Luis’ Sources:

[1] Andrews, Vincent L., Corwin, and Blake Stephens. The Leatherboy Handbook. Las

Vegas, NV: Nazca Plains, 2008. Print.

(This source helped me get an understanding of the origin and different codes

used in the cruising community with respect to the hankie code. It included information

on what colors meant what fetish, as well as among which queer subcultures the hankie

code was most popular in.


[2] Fejes, Fred. Gay Rights and Moral Panic: The Origins of America's Debate on

Homosexuality. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. Print.

(Overall, this helps you locate what the behaviors toward homosexuality are at a

given time period. It’s focus is particularly on the late 1970’s.)


[3] Keller, Yvonne. "Was it Right to Love Her Brother's Wife So Passionately? Lesbian

Pulp Novels and U.S. Lesbian Identity, 1950–1965." American Quarterly, 2005

(A short read on the history of lesbian pulps, and what it meant to lesbian women

to be reading them. These often were the only mode of representation that lesbian women


[4] Kincaid, Jason. "Gay Dating Makes Its Way To The IPhone | TechCrunch."

TechCrunch. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Apr. 2015.

(This article talks about what Grindr and similar dating sites are. I utilized this

article in order to shape my theory of out-of-body sexuality, in that it also speaks to the

anxiety of discreet men who utilize the app.)


[5] Raj, Senthorun. "How Grindr Has Transformed Users' Experience of Intimacy."

Theguardian.com. Guardian News and Media, 01 Aug. 2013. Web. 23 Apr. 2015.

(Again, another article on Grindr, though this one goes into a bit more of a

theoretical line of thinking, beginning to question the repercussions of the app. Grindr has

infinitely “simplified” relationships among gay men, but has also changed the playing

field as far as how these men interact with one another outside of their sexualities.)


[6] Stryker, Susan, and Jim Van Buskirk. Gay by the Bay: A History of Queer Culture in

the San Francisco Bay Area. San Francisco,: Chronicle, 1996. Print.

(This book introduced me to this idea of “David” as a cultural signifier for

homosexuality. Fascinating read in terms of the possibilities of other lore surrounding

queer codes.)

Our Evolving Consciousness (Tannaz, Taylor, Sharon, Katie)

Abstract

Technology is growing at exponential rates and is creating a new environment that the human species must learn to navigate. The power of current technologies may be even greater than we imagine on a day-to-day basis. By looking at the ways in which technology can affect childhood development, we can begin to understand or at least make more conclusive

inferences as to how our technological world could potentially shape us biologically.

Though we are looking specifically at new technologies, this conversation is not new. The same conversation was speculated during the introduction of the television and plausibly the introduction of all other technologies to the basis of human life. Even going back to the beginning of human life in the stone ages, anthropologist Sally McBrearty and Alison Brooks have managed to uncover a more plausible timeline of how human brain has become what it is today. By looking at technology and technological structures from archaeological remains it’s clear that human cognitive and social development is always affected and marked by technological progress.

However, these new technologies, from handheld devices such as smartphones to virtual reality, are interfaces unlike any others we’ve seen - they are extremely fast and immersive. Many studies are coming out to understand the evolution of these interfaces and how they affect our ways of processing and storing information. For some reason, as technology has advanced our main preoccupation is understanding how we think, as though the computer is a certain amount of threat to our intellectual capability as beings, both now and the future. A lot of where this fear comes from is through the invisibility and seamless development of these new and immersive experiences with technology. The internet is used every single day at crazy amounts and yet, not many people think about how much space the hardware that the internet takes up.

The fear of technology’s power is especially furthered when we see how it changes our children. Simply by the use of iPads and other day-to-day devices, it has become clear that the child umwelten is potentially pretty different from all older human beings. Unfortunately technology changes so quickly now that we are mostly left in a state of speculation. And yet, there seem to be more studies out there trying to tackle specific scenarios within this topic.

In 1998, Robert Kraut led a study called Internet Paradox: A Social Technology That Reduces Social Involvement and Psychological Well-Being? at Carnegie Mellon University. This study found that more Internet use was associated with an increase in loneliness/depression and a decrease in social support/social involvement. This was unexpected as the participants’ major use of the Internet was social. The study warned that until the Internet evolved to be more beneficial, people should moderate their use.

Drew P. Cingel and Marina Krcmar’s 2014 study, Understanding the Experience of Imaginary Audience in a Social Media Environment: Implications for Adolescent Development, suggests that behavior rehearsal through social networking sites could have serious implications for adolescent development, and plays a role in teens experimenting with identities. While research done by Patti Valkenburg and Peter Jochen of the University of Amsterdam in 2005 examined how development is related to media use (adolescents with social anxiety would turn to social technology for support), Cingel and Krcmar warn there is not enough research examining how media use is related to development.

In 2012, Roy Pea at Stanford University led a study, Media Use, Face-to-Face Communication Media Multitasking and Social Well-Being Among 8-to-12-Year-Old Girls. Pea, et al concluded that even media created to facilitate interaction is associated with negative measures of social well-being, while face-to-face interaction still gave tweens better feelings of social success. Their study also showed that heavy media multitasking in children during this developmental stage had trouble with 3 major cognitive functions: information filtering, memory management, and task switching.

If given time and funding to continue researching this topic, it would be beneficial to look more closely at how children in their early childhood stages interact or overuse technology. There has been a lot of speculative research on this particular subject and single case studies and testimonials but very few formal scientific experiments. For example, it would be fascinating to survey the cognitive, social and emotional capabilities of children whom have been diagnosed “addicted” to technology compared with other children their age who have been limited in their technology usage. Overall, the field is lacking solid research on technology's effect on early childhood development, and leans towards teens and adolescents for study.

It would be interesting to do more of an anthropological study at a children’s museum as a starting point. It would be smart to set up an exhibit on an unrelated topic to technology (ie. an art historical exhibit, dinosaurs, the 1950’s etc.) and split the exhibit into two parts: one side with wall text, images and physical artifacts and one side with screens and ipads that educate on the topic. The researchers could use large randomly selected groups of young children and test the children from the two sides to see what children better respond to.  There are many more research paths and this particular experiment only would answer a few particular questions.

Our decision to make a talk show that is on screen via screens illustrates the varying and layered means of social interaction we have now due to technological advances. We also decided on the talk show as our mode of communicating these ideas because talk shows have room for open ended conversation. We present an evolving video talk show called Our Evolving Consciousness, where we sit together to (try and) discuss our thoughts as well as bring in segments from outside the studio. The presence of the segments and the segmented segments illustrates a nonlinearity in communication, a push for immediacy, and heightened interaction with different stimuli.

The four of us explore different facets of this digital age phenomena and speculate how our growing interaction with the digital interface affects development and potentially long-term change. Our recurring disinterest and lack of attention for each other demonstrates a growing isolation between bodies in meatspace, while life through digital means is teeming. If there are portions where we are talking live in the studio, all the pauses and “ums” are cut out for efficiency, and the dialogue is sped up to keep up with the modern pace of information flow.  The disjointed connections throughout also illustrate a mode of communication based on “stacking” information rather than “synthesis” of ideas to create conversation. This is one area where we can speculate that younger generations may be growing up with a completely different umwelt, from which we can try and discover potential evolutionary trends as a result.

Visualization

Annotated Bibliography

Baird, Catherine and Maureen Henninger. “Serious Play, Serious Problem: issues with eBook applications.” University of Technology, Sydney. Cosmopolitan Civil Societies Journal, Vol. 3, No. 2, 2011. This paper both advocates for tablet devices as modes of helping children learn. However, this paper’s goal is to unpack an illusion created by the device that technology gives universal access - in fact devices are far less usable for individuals with disabilities such as blindness and deafness resulting in the technologies purpose becoming a fallacy.

Barrett, Deirdre. “Supernormal Stimuli.” TAM 2012. Lecture. Barrett lectures on supernormal

stimuli, orientation reactions (in relation to Ivan Pavlov’s dogs), and how looking at a screen is to be in a state of fixed orientation reactions.

Beschorner, Beth and Amy Hutchinson. “iPads as a Literacy Teaching Tool in Early Childhood.” International Journal of Education in Mathematics, Science, and Technology (IJEMST): 2013, 16-24. Findings of multiple studies used to prove the iPads effects on literacy and learning in early childhood. Findings suggest that not only are interfaces and devices like the iPad helpful when a child is learning to read, but also that cognitive literacy is expanding and means more that just understanding language.

Best, Steven and Douglas Kellner. “Contemporary Youth and the Postmodern Adventure.” The Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies, 2003: 75-93. Through reflections of postmodern discourse, this article explains how technology and technological aspect is drastically changing the cultural landscape to be more exciting than ever.

Biocca, Frank Ph.D. “New Media Technology and Youth: Trends in the Evolution of New Media.” Journal of Adolescent Health, 2000: 22-29. A study on how current trends in technological development, from transmission systems to interfaces, change the way youth access and process information.  

Cingel, Drew P., and Marina Krcmar. "Understanding the Experience of Imaginary Audience in

a Social Media Environment: Implications for Adolescent Development." Journal of Media Psychology: Theories, Methods, and   Applications 26.4 (2014): 155-60. ProQuest. Web. 6 Apr. 2015. A study on the childhood use of Facebook/social networking sites and the phenomenon of the “imaginary audience”. This is a thought, mainly felt during adolescence,  that people are looking at and thinking about you at all times. Ties to narcissism arising out of the digital age?

Huesmann, L. Rowell, Jessica Moise-Titus,  Cheryl-Lynn Podolski, and Leonard D. Eron. “Longitudinal Relations Between Children’s Exposure to TV Violence and Their Aggressive and Violent Behavior in Young Adulthood: 1977-1992” Developmental Psychology 2003, Vol. 30, No. 2, 201-221. This article unpacks the psychological effects of violence in television programs from early child exposure to the TV to how those images have manifested within the person’s psyche.

Kraut, Robert, et al. "Internet Paradox: A Social Technology that Reduces Social     

Involvement and Psychological Well-being?" American Psychologist 53.9   (1998): 1017-31. ProQuest. Web. 6 Apr. 2015. A study of 169 people during their first 1-2 years of internet usage. Looks at stress, depression, and other elements of psychological well-being.

Krug, Jamie. "If We Can't Have 'Face Time,' At Least We Have FaceTime." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, n.d. Web. 14 Apr. 2015. This is a personal narrative about the positive impact FaceTime is having on families. It talks about the fact that technology is almost always talked about as ruining face-to-face relationships, but how Skype and FaceTime are allowing children to have relationships with far-away relatives and parents who travel.

McLeod, S. A. "B.F. Skinner | Operant Conditioning | Simply Psychology." B.F. Skinner |

Operant Conditioning | Simply Psychology. N.p., 2007. Web. 19 April 2015. General overview of Thorndike Law of Effect, B.F. Skinner’s contribution to Law of Effect, reinforcement, operant conditioning, puzzle box experiment.

Muse, Maude B. "Stimulus-Response Bonds And Study Habits." AJN, American Journal of

Nursing 23.4 (1923): 271-75. Web. Reflex arcs (motor) = pre-formed circuits in nervous system, i.e. tap on patellar tendon produces knee-jerk. Result of stimulus-response bonds = human behavior. “Knowledge” is “stored” in S-R bonds. Helpful page:

McBrearty, Sally and Alison S. Brooks. “The Revolution That Wasn’t: A New Interpretation of the Origin of Modern Human Behavior.” Journal of Human Evolution, 2000: 453-563. Anthropologists Sally McBrearty and Alison Brooks rethink what the historical trajectory of modern human behavior might have really been by examining archaeological sites and artifacts of the early human. From these examinations we get a clear understanding of what physical markers or traces say about early human evolution and how we became who we are now both cognitively and socially.

"Our Technology and Our Children." Psychology Today. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Apr. 2015. This article talks about how technology is affecting the way children think and feel. The argument in this essay is that children's brains are being wired differently because of technology and the internet, in different ways than previous generations.

Pea, Roy, et al. "Media use, Face-to-Face Communication, Media Multitasking, and Social

Well-being among 8- to 12-Year-Old Girls." Developmental psychology 48.2 (2012): 327-36. ProQuest. Web. 6 Apr. 2015. Studies of North American girls, aged 8-12, and the relationship between social well-being and different types of interaction with media and technology. Study shows that there are correlations between negative measures of well-being and social technology use.

Plowman, Lydia; Joanna McPake; and Christine Stephen. “The technologisation of childhood? Young children and technology in the home.” University of Stirling (2010.) Children and Society 24 (1) 63-74.  An eighteen month study observing 3-4 year old children and how they interact with technology in their homes. Resulting show a varying and disparate amount of responses from parents as to how to handle and control the exposure of advanced technology from children while at home.

Rosen, Dr. Larry. "How Much Technology Should You Let Your Child Use?" The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, n.d. Web. 14 Apr. 2015. In this article, Doctor Larry Rosen who has been studying the “psychology of technology” since the 1980’s explores the limits to which parents should allow children to use technology. He talks about technology being used as a bribery tool to dictate children’s behavior, and about children's overuse of technology that leads to addiction. He describes technology as an “interesting double-edged sword”.

Rosas, Ricardo, Miguel Nussbaum, Patricio Cumsille, Vladimir Marianov, Monica Correa, Patricia Flores, Valeska Grau, Francisca Lagos, Ximena Lopez, Veronica Lopez, Patricio Rodriguez, and Marcela Salinas. “Beyond Nintendo: design and assessment of educational video games for first and second grade students.” Computers & Education 40 (2003) 71-94. A study looking at how educational video game integration in poorer Chilean schools effects, classroom dynamics, learning, motivation, and attention. Teachers give the results that there is an improvement in a motivation to learn despite the fear of video game integration with the classroom.

Rowan, Cris. "The Impact of Technology on the Developing Child." The Huffington Post.

TheHuffingtonPost.com, 29 May 2013. Web. 05 Apr. 2015. Speculative journalism on the effects of children using technology. Discusses how children are possibly not developmentally ready to deal with the sensory stimulation of new tools.

Taylor, Jim, PhD. "How Technology Is Changing the Way Children Think and Focus."

Psychology Today. Psychology Today, 4 Dec. 2012. Web. 06 Apr. 2015. Taylor discusses how child development changes with the advent of new technology. This particular piece focuses on attention. Taylor compares kid's attention spans through time and its development through reading,  television, and the Internet. He argues that although these advances are changing children, they aren't making children stupid, just different.

Turkle, Sherry. "Connected, but Alone?" TED2012. Long Beach Performing Arts Center, Long

Beach. 5 Apr. 2015. Lecture. Turkle, who previously was an advocate for the internet, talks about our use of social technology. She makes the claim that learning from other people through conversation is the foundation for self-reflection, which is the foundation of childhood development. Turkle also claims that while we are more connected than ever, that connection is too shallow, and does not stand-in for real understanding. Children who don’t learn how to be alone will only ever be lonely.

Valkenburg, Patti, and Jochen Peter. "Social Consequences of the Internet for Adolescents: A

Decade of Research." Current Directions in Psychological Science 18 (2009): 1-5. SAGE Journals. Web. 19 Apr. 2015. Discussion of the early Internet effects vs. later studies on the effects of the Internet. Focus on how adolescents use the internet and how their development affects their use.

Valkenburg, Patti, Alexander Schouten, and Jochen Peter. "Adolescents' Identity Experiments on

the Internet." New Media and Society 7.3 (2005): 383-402. SAGE Journals. Web. 19 Apr. 2015. Discusses how adolescents experiment with their identities on the internet and why. Findings show that their could be positive effects of adolescents overcoming shyness, etc through this practice.

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