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Same-Sex Attraction: Research Reveals Evolution's Role

by Tanya on February 09, 2010 at 8:38 AM Research News

While it is still difficult to explain how male homosexuality has risen naturally, as these men are much less likely to produce offspring than heterosexual men, scientists believe they probably convey an indirect benefit by enhancing the survival prospects of close relatives.

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According to the 'kin selection hypothesis', while homosexual individuals do not directly pass on their genes to successive generations by having children, they indirectly spread their genes through their families.

By acting altruistically toward nieces and nephews, homosexual men would perpetuate the family genes, including some of their own.

Lead researchers Paul Vasey and Doug VanderLaan of the University of Lethbridge, Canada tested this idea for the past several years on the Pacific island of Samoa.

They chose Samoa because males who prefer men as sexual partners are widely recognized and accepted there as a distinct gender category-called fa'afafine-neither man nor woman.

Past research has also shown that the fa'afafine are much more altruistically inclined toward their nieces and nephews than either Samoan women or heterosexual men. They are willing to babysit a lot, tutor their nieces and nephews in art and music, and help out financially-paying for medical care and education and so forth.

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Same-Sex Attraction: Research Reveals Evolution's Role

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