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November 9, 2005
Does society affect homosexual urges on the margin?
A new paper investigates if having a relative with AIDS effects sexual decision making and urges. Because of the vastly higher potential costs in higher STD incidence, we can estimate the cost of unprotected sex between men and men, men and women, and women and women. Mr. Francis finds that the expected cost of a man having unprotected sex with another man at about 2,000 times the prices of unprotected sex with a woman. He also finds that men who have a relative with AIDS are significantly less likely to have "... a male sexual partner in the last year..." or to "...say they are sexually attracted to men...". Which, if you assume that his statistics have controlled for causality and spurious correlation, suggests that on the margin the high cost of male homosexual sex can discourage men from engaging in homosexual relations.
Marginal Revolution points out that because lesbians don't have to worry about accidental pregnancy, nor do they have a higher rate of disease transmission, their marginal costs of sex are lower than that of straight couples. An lo, having a relative with aids actually increases the likelihood of a woman reporting the homosexual urges and behaviors that were discouraged in men.
This also seems to be borne out by historical evidence. We know that variations in the manifestations of human sexuality are great, but pretty much the same genetic human beings have existed in all societies. That suggests that environmental forces can encourage or discourage homosexual behavior at the margin.
Posted by OneEyedMan at November 9, 2005 12:51 PM
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