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.)