Limited evidence for a biological theory of homosexuality. (Featured Reviews).

Jones, S., & Yarhouse, M. (2000).

Homosexuality: The use of Scientific Research in the Church's Moral Debate. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press. Paper. 183 pp. $12.99 ISBN 0-8308-1567-8.

Stanton Jones, PhD, is provost of Wheaton College and coauthor of Modern Psychotherapies.

Mark Yarhouse, PsyD, is assistant professor psychology at Regent University, Virginia Beach, Virginia.

Jones and Yarhouse carefully review psychological, sociological, and biological data related to various aspects of homosexuality, including the prevalence of homosexuality, whether homosexuality is pathological, whether homosexuals can change, and the causes of homosexuality.

As one who has engaged in empirical psychological and psychotherapy change research for 20 years, I think this a good and fair presentation of the data on homosexuality. Because the question of what we have actually found out via scientific research about homosexuality is often ignored by both sides of the debate, this is an important and indispensable data handbook for anyone interested in this topic from either side of the debate.

Jones and Yarhouse carefully sift through earlier reports that provided a prevalence rate for homosexuality of around 10% of the population and convincingly demonstrate that prevalence estimates based on self-identification of sexual orientation have ranged from 2 to 4%. They raise the important issue that reported incidence really depends upon how homosexuality is defined.

Their summary of research concludes that although many studies do not point to any clear psychological differences between homosexuals and heterosexuals, the former often experience higher levels of stress. They caution that studies probably did not use representative samples and note that research showing higher stress levels among homosexuals is open to many interpretations, including the responses of a hostile culture.

Jones and Yarhouse also address the hotly contested issue of whether homosexuals can change. They review most of the few existent studies on the subject (conducted mainly from the 1950s through the 1970s) and report that the average change in those studies was 30%. However, because most psychotherapy research of that period did not follow the same rigorous standards we hold today, any interpretations of this data can be only suggestive. Nevertheless, any seriously honest examination of that literature reveals that a significant number of people changed their behavior, whereas a larger number did not report a behavioral change. This finding seems to hold true across studies. Because psychotherapeutic change across many clinical syndromes is difficult to obtain or to measure, these studies of homosexual behavior change should not be quickly dismissed. There is a real change phenomenon there. However, evidence of some change in these studies need not be seen as evidence of a constitutional change. Instead, one could see this change as pointing to the fluidity of sexual experience in a relational context-a view held by many in the contemporary relational psychoanalytic community and a view also increasingly held in some parts of the gay and lesbian community.

As a psychoanalyst-in-training, I was particularly interested in the authors' discussion of the more recent report of psychoanalysis that approximately 22% of analytic patients changed orientation through the course of analysis (Macintosh, 1994), even though 97.6% of psychoanalysts did not agree that a homosexual patient "can and should" change to heterosexuality. This was work was published in the very reputable, Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association. Clearly something is afoot with the reported 22% change.

As Jones and Yarhouse suggest, however, the issue regarding the change data becomes how one initially defines homosexuality. An essentialist (one who believes that stable sexual orientation describes a person's self, inner core, or nature) would ask whether participants in the study were initially exclusively homosexual, bisexual, or heterosexual. Social constructionists, on the other hand, would make sexual responsiveness more contingent on the changeable relational context, and changeable social definitions and meanings. The authors briefly allude to the debate (between essentialists and social constructionists) and note that the debate within the Church centers on essentialist definitions of sexuality, whereas researches are mote likely to use a social constructionist definition of sexuality. Jones and Yarhouse, like most in the Church who are involved in this debate, also tend toward an essentialist definition of sexuality in their discussion of the data. I think a social constructionist view of the data might be more elucidating at this point, as well as less contentious.

The best part of the book is Chapter 3: "What Causes Homosexuality?" This chapter makes a very important contribution to the Church's literature on this subject and should be required reading for all Christians interested in this issue. I would give copies of this chapter to anyone as a useful summary of what we actually know and don't know about the causes of homosexuality. After touching briefly on the limited data on the psychological roots of homosexual behavior, Jones and Yarhouse carefully summarize the support for each of the current biological theories of homosexuality. They show that there appears to be no substantial hormonal differences between homosexuals and heterosexuals. This refers both to the adult hormonal hypothesis that finds no hormonal differences in adult populations as well as to the prenatal hypothesis that suggests that gay men have been exposed to certain hormones prenatally that have feminized them. Evidence supporting either hypothesis is very limited at present.

Jones and Yarhouse do an excellent job of pulling out experimental bias that presented in previous studies regarding a genetic link reported in twin studies (genetic concordance). They discuss Bailey and Pillard (1991, 1993) studies that seemed to suggest a genetic basis for homosexuality, and their failed attempt at replication (2000). Their last finding suggests that the actual genetic link may be nonexistent or due to a third common factor. The reader is treated to a careful, well-reasoned analysis of the flaws in the first two studies. Finally, in their discussion of more recent studies of direct chromosomal markers, Jones and Yarhouse conclude that there is currently no evidence of a clear linkage between specific chromosomal patterns and homosexual orientation. If there is any genetic factor at all, it is more likely to be a link to a more generalized psychological temperament that may, given certain environmental influences, increase the likelihood of homosexuality.

Having summarized the data, I want to speak to what the data means. Jones and Yarhouse propose a theory of homosexuality that includes some biological antecedents, childhood and adult experiences, environmental/cultural influences. They state that this theory suggests that we should reject an easy dichotomy between free choice and a determinative causation. They speak to some in the church who say that homosexuality cannot be a sin since it is not chosen but a result of biological factors. Certainly, Jones and Yarhouse's review of the literature convincingly calls the biological theory of homosexuality into question. Despite their very convincing demonstration that the research literature does not currently support a biological cause of homosexuality, Jones and Yarhouse still reserve a small place for some possible biological antecedents of homosexuality (albeit only a generalized emotional temperament) in their actual theory of homosexuality. Questioning any biological basis of homosexuality at all has actu ally been done more forcefully by others, including many lesbian writers in the relational psychoanalytic literature (e.g., Marshall, 1999; Schwartz, 1998; Suchet, 1995).

It is interesting that, just as some in the church seem to be coming to the conclusion that homosexuality is a fixed orientation and is probably biologically caused, the biological hypothesis is beginning to be disconfirmed in the psychiatric research literature. Thus for example, Byrne and Parsons (1993) stated, "... there is no evidence at present to substantiate a biologic theory [for sexual orientation], just as there is no compelling evidence to support any singular psychosocial explanation" (p. 228).

Likewise, just as the psychiatric community is moving away from understanding homosexuality as having a clear biological etiology, some in the gay and lesbian community and the relational psychoanalytic community beginning to see sexuality as perhaps more fluid, more flexible, and more contingent on interpersonal relationships (e.g., Marshall, 1999). If this flexibility hypothesis is true, it certainly could account for the findings of Jones and Yarhouse regarding the absence of clear psychological or pathological differences between homosexuals and heterosexuals, the fact that some gays and lesbians have changed their behavior, and that there are no clear findings of a biological or genetic basis for homosexuality. Although expanding on this view is beyond the scope of the present review, I have alluded to a biblical view of relationality as defining the person and the importance of Christian community in an earlier paper (Propst, 1997). Our personhood (which includes our sexuality) gains its meaning from t he community in which we find ourselves. For the Christian, this is the Body of Christ (the Church,) which is, in turn, defined by Scripture. Given the strong emphasis that Scripture puts on the absolutely central role of community for the Christian, perhaps it is not surprising that science is also increasingly emphasizing just how important the social context is for our definitions of selfhood, including our sexuality.

REFERENCES

Byne, W, & Parsons, B. (1993). Human sexual orientation: The biologic theories reappraised. Archives of General Psychiatry, 50, 228-2,39.

Marshall, K. (1999). Living the unspeakable: A review of lesbian lives. Contemporary Psychoanalysis, 35,536-542.

Propst, L. R. (1997). Therapeutic conflict resolution and the Holy Trinity. In R. Roberts & M. Talbot (Eds.), Limning the psyche: Explorations in Christian psychology. Grand Rapids, MI: Win. B. Eerdmans Publishing.

Schwartz, A. (1988). Lesbians, gender, and psychoanalysis. New York: Routledge Press.

Suchet, M. (1995). Having it both ways: Rethinking female sexuality. In J. Glassgold & S. Iasenza (Eds.), Lesbians and psychoanalysis. New York: The Free Press.

PROPST, L. REBECCA, PhD, worked for 20 years as an academic research psychologist and has held faculty positions at both Ohio University and Lewis and Clark College. She is currently in private practice in Portland, Oregon. She is a senior candidate at the Northwest Center for Psychoanalysis in Seattle, Washington. She is the author of Psychotherapy within a religious framework: Spirituality in the emotional healing process (Human Sciences Press, 1987), several clinical psychotherapy outcome studies on the cognitive psychotherapeutic treatment of depression, and numerous articles on Christian spirituality and mental health.