Sexual identity and sexual orientation are more fragile in the male sex − Rakyat Biologi

About 8 to 10% of the population is gay or bisexual. About 79% of male gays are exclusively homosexual and 21% are bisexual. About 88% of lesbians are exclusively homosexual and 12% are bisexual. The American Psychiatric Association declared long ago that homosexuality is not a disease. This is a position that I agree with -simply because it is possible for homosexuals to have a perfectly healthy life from the medical point of view. However, I do not agree that any sexual preference is healthy or normal. Rape, extreme sadomasochism, exploitative paedophilia, gross compulsive illegal exhibitionism or voyeurism, compulsive and exclusivistic paraphilias such as bestialistic preference, fetishistic preference, etc., are not healthy. Sexual obsessiveness or compulsiveness (ex: satyrism or nymphomania) are also rather unhealthy. And even though there is some hope for operated (sex-changed) transsexuals for a serene life, there is not much. After all, a fully transsexual individual can only hope to achieve satisfaction with a major surgery and life-long hormone therapy. And even this difficult adaptation does not always result in success. So what is my point ? My point is that men are much more at risk (around four times as much overall) for all the sexual “deviations” I have mentioned above than are women. Biologically, the basic prototype of the human species is female. It is by addition of the male gonad during fetal life that the male sex comes to be. Short of this, the genotypic male basically never departs from the female developmental trajectory. One does not need a female gonad to develop a female body, a female sexual identity and a female-typical sexual orientation. This is the case of people who have the full Turner syndrome (only one X chromosome): their gonads are only thin shreds of tissue making these women completely sterile and requiring that they be treated with feminizing hormones.

Paraphilia (sexual deviation) is so much more common in men that sexologists have dismissed its existence in the female sex. However, paraphilia seems to be on the increase in the female sex, and this suggests that such behavior is not entirely biologically determined. Take paedophilia for example. A new unit to treat female paedophiles in the U.S. prison service is to open its first treatment programme for female paedophiles following research which shows an increase in the number of women abusing children. The problem was highlighted by a study of 836 victims of female sexual abusers, which showed that in more than 70 per cent of cases the women acted alone Previously it had been thought almost all women involved in child sex abuse were acting under the influence of a male partner. A Home Office spokeswoman said: "This rise is partly due to the changing climate and more children feeling able to come forward about these sorts of crimes." There are 20 women in prison for the sexual abuse of children in the U.S.. Figures show 38 women were prosecuted in the U.S. for such offences in 1996, although it is believed many cases are dropped because of awidespread reluctance to accept that such crimes occur. In July an English teacher, Lucy Hayward, 30, was jailed for two years after sex with a 15-year-old boy she had invited to her house and "plied with drugs". Tina Purser, a nurse, was given two years' probation in 1996 after admitting she had sex with a boy of 12 when she was 26. Purser, who plied him with sweets and money, pursued the affair for two years. The family of the boy claimed he had been "raped of his innocence". But most cases of female sex abuse never come to court. Michelle Elliott, of the charity Kidscape, which did the research, said many attackers were mothers, step-mothers and grandmothers. "Because of this the victims are some of the most damaged people that I have ever seen. They experience lifelong difficulties with relationships." It was almost unheard of for children to be snatched off the street by a female abuser and most stranger attacks were usually by baby-sitters or teachers. About 70 per cent of male sex offenders were abused as children, research has shown, although the majority of those abused do not go on to abuse children themselves. Four different studies have placed the proportion of female paedophiles who abused at between 50 and 100 per cent.

Is anything known about possible brain abnormalities underlying paraphilias ? Apparently, neurotransmitter disturbances might be involved. In a recent review article Martin Kafka made a case for involvement of the monoamine class of neurotransmitters, particularly serotonin. Some of Kafka’s arguments are the following: 1) depleting brain serotonin in rats causes them to exhibit « compulsive » sexual behavior; 2) the sexual behavior of castrated male rats can be restored with a combination of low-dose testosterone and a serotonion-reducing drug, while low doses of testosterone alone fail to restore sexual activity; 3) yohimbine idozoxan, a drug that enhances norepinephrine’s activity, facilitates the sexual behavior of rats, while drugs that reduce norepinephrine’s activity have the opposite effect; 4) drugs that blockade dopamine receptors can abolish all sexual behavior in male rats, while drugs that increase dopamine’s effects enhance copulatory behavior in male rats; 5) the drug prozac, a serotonin agonist, is known to reduce sexual desire and to impair copulatory function in the human male; 6) antidopaminergics such as neuroleptic (antipsychotic) medication decrease sexual function while dopamine agonists, such as the Parkinson’s disease medication L-DOPA, increase sexual function; 7) several technically sophisticated investigations of the efficacy of monoamine-based treatment of paraphilias have started to show very promising results.

Are there any sexual “ deviations ” which affect women more than men ? Sexual anhedonia (absence of sexual pleasure, and of orgasm in particular) is more frequent in women, as are pain during copulation and severe lack of sexual desire.