Homosexuality as Nature or Nurture

As it relates to human sexuality, Herbert (1997) calls these clashing claims the nature vs. nurture models of human behavior. Essentially, the question associated with these two perspectives is: Are people born gay or are psychological and social factors more influential than biogenetic factors in determining whether a person is homosexual? A good deal of the early research attempting to answer this question focused on either looking for support for biogenetic influences as the primary determinants of sexuality or on looking for psychosocial and environmental factors as the primary determinants (Money, 1999).

However, current research and theory no longer attempts to separate the two models (Bermant, 1995). Rather, current scientists agree that human sexuality (like other human behaviors) are due to the influence of a combination of so

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owney (2002) as well as sociologist Goldberg (1994), all of whom point out that biogenetics alone and/or social and psychological factors alone do not stand as the sole determinants of sexual orientation. Thus, the current status of the debate is that the it is neither nature or nurture but both types of factors that must be taken into account in the development of models of human sexuality. Specifically, most current views hold that while genetic factors play a predisposing role, it is psychosocial and environmental factors that will operate to trigger this predisposition or fail to trigger it (Friedman & Downey, 2002). In order to fully understand the current scientific views of the roles of nature and nurture in shaping homosexual behavior, it is helpful to look at some of the integrative models that have been proposed in the current literature. Integrated Models As noted previously, even a cursory review of the current medical and biological work on homosexuality clearly indicates that neither the nature or nurture model is supported by the data over the other. Thus, the frameworks that have currently been proposed to better understand homosexuality are integrative combinations of both types of factors. For example, in o
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Approximate Word count = 1640
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)