SEE THE LIGHT IN YOUR RELATIONSHIPS

Thinking about Gay Male Brains.

(Tony Ford)

There is one brain part, called the anterior commisure, that's bigger in gay men's brains than in those of heterosexual males. Most of my thoughts here are about looking at what that might mean, and how it might appear.

So, what's it do?

It connects two structures together. The amygdala on each side of the brain.

So, what does the amygdala do?

Its a very, very emotional structure. And it's fast. If you suddenly notice a bus heading toward you, and you feel a 'burst' of fear, that's your amygdala; the one on the right. If you feel a burst of elation when someone looks at you with attraction in their eyes, that's your amygdala, too; the one on the left.

A gay man's brain has more connections between the opposite emotional centers than other brains.

The amygdala does an important kind of recognition, too. It recognizes other people, or more importantly, how they're feeling. It responds to facial expressions, tones of voice, and, I'd guess, body language as well.

My guess is that its important in seeing potential mates, and so, its the part that knows who you're attracted to, gay, straight, transsexual, bisexual or whatever.

The gay male brain uses the same parts to be attracted to a man that I use to be attracted to a woman.

I cannot help but wonder if the extra connections might allow extra recognition skills, and a wider sense of what a person's meaning might be. When a male brain selects people of the same gender as the focus for sexual feelings, it gives its owner a set of concerns and needs in common with women. Men become the people they want to be with, forcing them to pay attention to men's needs, and women become the object of identification, at least in some ways. At the same time they ARE men, so they still have to identify there, too. As a straight man, an attractive woman 'means' something very different to me than she does to a gay man. And guess what? The amygdala mediates our experience of 'meaningfulness'.

Such a person would be able to empathize with a very large portion of the total population; larger than heterosexuals of either gender.

Most evolutionary biologists will agree that if a species preserves a trait, its because that trait helps that species survive, or at least did so when it first emerged.

One of the traits of the human species is that close 10 percent (the number changes according to who does the counting) of our populations are gay. If Darwin (and some others) are right, the our species needed gay males when we first appeared, and we might need them now.

What for?

Well, gay men do not compete with straight men for one thing, but they understand many, if not most, uniquely male concerns, because they are men.

And they share enough in common with women that they understand women's concerns, too. Many lesbians are a bit taken aback by how indifferent many gay men are to feminist political concerns, but those aren't the women's concerns I mean. I'm talking about such