What is the biological purpose of Homosexuality?

[Masrybrah]

Always wondered why homosexuality exists? wouldnt that defeat the purpose of mating? Usually gay men are quite handsome (no homer) so wouldnt that take away from our gene pool? Now a majority of lesbians i could see why we wouldnt want to have offspring with them... but what is the biological role of homosexuality? Thanks (no hate)

[Masrybrah]

bump

[Sublime82]

To be fabulous?

[jason2014]

To be fabulous?

lmfao

[Saintzfan]

Humans' goal is to populate the earth, but since the earth is way overpopulated in theory it's a mechanism that kicks in that should correct the problem over time (since "it's a gene and not a choice"). Monkeys and other animals have displayed this behavior as well apparently.

[iewed]

So there are people for OP to make love to

[andishehhank]

homosexuality is a hoax (yes i said it)

mods delete my post if you want

[C-Winger]

Because it feels so good.







Wait, wut?

[Nick817]

To be the OP of threads

[Tubulin]

Increase indirect evolutionary fitness.

[Copperplate]

Evolution is not perfect. Not everything that exists or happens has an evolutionary end-goal

[CrustyLoaf]

It's probably just a misfiring of evolutionary instincts.

Mutations happen all the time, they're not all necessarily beneficial.

But it's the 21st century, and we can create children in test tubes, so it doesn't really matter anymore.

[aWellDressedApe]

pleasure of gliding in and out of another man's anus. with the help of lube of course

[Goosah]

For the purpose of recieving passive aggressive negs

[Whyusomad]

The biological purpose of homosexuality is to spread STD's

[Achilles87]

Can't remember where i read it but some guy's theory was that back in the hunter gatherer days when the men would go out on long hunting trips they would leave the homos behind to guard the women and children and they didn't have to worry about them banging their women.

[lightsarefallin]

Another way for nature to control the overpopulation of the human species, that's the theory I developed last year.

Think about it:

Why does disease altogether exist? To kill us off before we die of old age.
Why does Cancer exist? To wipe us off before we die of old age.
Why does aids exist? We're one of the only species to engage in intercourse for pleasure. Why not develop a disease to kill us off that we can contract engaging in our favorite pass-time?
Why does homosexuality exist? Humans (theoretically) mate for life. If a human forms a same-sex couple, they can not reproduce. Think about the amount of homosexuals in the world that are not creating offspring.

Now, consider this. What if Cancer and Aids were cured? What if homosexuality ceased to exist?

We would face overpopulation and die out within 100 years easily. Think about the amount of people that die from disease every year. Now try and calculate the planet's population in a century if disease did not exist, controlling for the average worldwide death toll per year. We would be schit out of luck and jolly well phucked.

[Caxoo]

Increase indirect evolutionary fitness.

Possibly this, but also very possibly non-beneficial/harmful mutation

[Tubulin]

Homosexuality is not just seen in humans, also seen in nature. The purpose for these animals is to increase their indirect evolutionary fitness, help raise their sisters kids for example. Although decreasing their fitness, it still has an advantage for the generation.

[WhenTheLastTime]

to make insecure heterosexual betas feel even more beta and give the rest of us lulz

[VabaX]

you do realise that not every trait necessarily serves an evolutionary purpose?

for instance, a genetic feature does not need to be beneficial to be carried on.
natural selection is not a 'hurdle' that genetic traits must pass in order to become widespread, it simply makes it more likely for beneficial ones to do so over detrimental ones

[Kavliari]

To be fabulous?

Best first response in gay thread ever.

[Fiyero]

Always wondered why homosexuality exists? wouldnt that defeat the purpose of mating? Usually gay men are quite handsome (no homer) so wouldnt that take away from our gene pool? Now a majority of lesbians i could see why we wouldnt want to have offspring with them... but what is the biological role of homosexuality? Thanks (no hate)

Epi-genes that trigger homosexuality in opposite sex offspring always increase the fitness of the parents and rarely reduce the fitness of the offspring. In other species, extra caretakers, social bonding, etc. play a role.

[Caxoo]

Another way for nature to control the overpopulation of the human species, that's the theory I developed last year.

Think about it:

Why does disease altogether exist? To kill us off before we die of old age.
Why does Cancer exist? To wipe us off before we die of old age.
Why does aids exist? We're one of the only species to engage in intercourse for pleasure. Why not develop a disease to kill us off that we can contract engaging in our favorite pass-time?
Why does homosexuality exist? Humans (theoretically) mate for life. If a human forms a same-sex couple, they can not reproduce. Think about the amount of homosexuals in the world that are not creating offspring.

Now, consider this. What if Cancer and Aids were cured? What if homosexuality ceased to exist?

We would face overpopulation and die out within 100 years easily. Think about the amount of people that die from disease every year. Now try and calculate the planet's population in a century if disease did not exist, controlling for the average worldwide death toll per year. We would be schit out of luck and jolly well phucked.

The problem with this theory is that in order for overpopulation to be an evolutionary pressure, we'd have to be facing it now. Evolution doesn't look into the future and see potential overpopulation and plan ahead, it deals with the very current moment and that moment only. Also I may be wrong but I'm pretty sure not being able to spread your genes at all would provide a net benefit for fitness overall (i.e. I don't buy that it's a beneficial mutation that confers a net benefit via indirect selection, true it may provide a minimal benefit via kin selection or whatever it was called)...it would most assuredly not increase fitness for the individual

EDIT: furthermore for the other examples, the reason disease and AIDS exist doesn't mean they confer an evolutionary advantage to us...I'm certain the diseases and viruses benefit at our expense. Cancer is just chit that happens cause life's imperfect like that

[lightsarefallin]

you do realise that not every trait necessarily serves an evolutionary purpose?

for instance, a genetic feature does not need to be beneficial to be carried on.
natural selection is not a 'hurdle' that genetic traits must pass in order to become widespread, it simply makes it more likely for beneficial ones to do so over detrimental ones

This is true, there are traits certain animals possess that really do not serve any survival or evolutionary purpose. However, I thought about this critically last year and developed a theory concerning homosexuality. I thought long and hard about why, from an evolutionary perspective, members of a certain species would be homosexual. What I came up with is typed above.

[Drufeus]

Population Control.

[FunkDaddy]

Somebody has to run antique shops

[lightsarefallin]

The problem with this theory is that in order for overpopulation to be an evolutionary pressure, we'd have to be facing it now. Evolution doesn't look into the future and see potential overpopulation and plan ahead, it deals with the very current moment and that moment only. Also I may be wrong but I'm pretty sure not being able to spread your genes at all would provide a net benefit for fitness overall...it would most assuredly not increase fitness for the individual

The way I see it is that nature, as a whole, is an all-encompassing adapting organism. While I do believe some proverbial 'super-virus' could be born out of current danger of overpopulation, I also believe that there are safeguards in effect already to prevent such a disaster. I don't think that nature would kick in just as things are getting really hectic.

[FeFocus]

Homosexuality is a mutation which serves no beneficial purpose but it also doesn't increase chance of death except perhaps AIDS and extreme bigotry. As such, the mutation doesn't get weeded out.

[ThomasBlake]

Homosexuality does not serve a "purpose"; it is an anomaly of nature.