Customer Reviews

Born Gay: The Psychobiology of Sex Orientation

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This is a review of all significant research into the causes of homosexuality, both male and female.

The writers objectively review the scientific studies of gay people and present the findings clearly and in a readable style.
Many interesting questions are asked: What might cause someone to be gay? Does homosexuality run in families? Does childhood behaviour predict adult sexuality?

I recommend this book particularly to gay people. It explains causes of homosexuality and every gay person should have knowledge of this area.

I also recommend this book to anyone who wants to be informed about gay people and sexuality in general. This is an important book that deserves attention and a wide audience.

Born Gay is an excellent overview to the amazing body of research that is now available concerning the biology behind homosexuality. As the author of Dynamic Duos: The Alpha/Beta Key to Unlocking Success in Gay Relationships I found this book to be a valuable guide and resource in my own research. I highly recommend it to anyone who has ever questioned the biological basis for sexual and affectional differences.

Born Gay: The Psychobiology of Sexual Orientation is an impressive analysis of numerous studies that explore the etiology of sexual orientation. Wilson and Rahman investigate a multitude of variables that are suspected to cause, reveal, or predict a non-heterosexual sexual orientation among men and women. Born Gay is an excellent reader-friendly resource for anyone who wishes to understand the scientific works surrounding sexual orientation. This book will inform, educate and empower you.

The authors of this text are so heavily persuaded that sexual orientation is determined by biology that they often don't seem to be able to see contradictory information they themselves bring to the table. Often contradictory data and assertions are found within a page or two of strong, certain conclusions. While the authors tend to be balanced in their summary of other scholars' work, their summaries of larger fields of study tend to eliminate most of the original author's qualifications. This is most frequently apparent in the introductions and conclusions of each chapter which the reader is cautioned to take with a grain of salt. When pushed, most scientists working in this area readily admit to the limits of their findings and the likelihood that multiple factors are at work in sexual orientation. Most also acknowledge that they cannot tell if their physical observations are a CAUSE of sexual orientation or an EFFECT. In other words, are observable brain differences what causes one's sexual orientation or an effect of a particular orientation?

Those having familiarity with sociological and psychological work on these questions will laugh out loud (or yell and scream--I did all this!) at its treatment in this text, which grossly misrepresents a rich and complicated body of work then dismisses it as if it doesn't matter. I was especially irked by the likening of Freud's work to a cheap parlor trick. Admittedly Freud's work has been superseded but he introduced words into our lexicon that have had a lasting legacy: neurotic, ego, anal retentive, etc. Have a little respect, please!

Most frustrating was the uncritical acceptance (that seems to have swept modern psychology) that the truth of sexual orientation lies in the body and, therefore, by measuring the body we can ascertain someone's sexual orientation. Anthropometry much? This is most apparent in the citation of some of Northwestern psychologist Michael Bailey's work in which he "measured" the sexual orientation of his subjects by wiring up their genitals and showing them porn flicks. The "truth" of their orientation was determined by their genital arousal--not that the presence of the technology, the white-walled lab, specific tastes in porn, overall porn competence, etc. were ever (or ever considered) a factor. Never are the good doctor's ethical lapses brought into the discussion of his work. Read with caution!

Those looking for a more balanced presentation are encouraged to read Olive Skene Johnson's The Sexual Spectrum alongside Anne Fausto-Sterling's magisterial Sexing the Body. Though Johnson is also a biological determinist, her bias is less egregious than in the text under review. Fausto-Sterling offers a way of thinking about this question that moves beyond the tedious impasse of "nature or nurture?" to help us think how bodies and sexualities emerge simultaneously, in a dynamic, reciprocal relationship.