DRD4 Long Form Variant (7r) – A Genetic Correlate Between Liberalism and Homosexuality – The Extreme r-Hypothesis of Homosexuality

This post requires a detailed understanding of r/K Selection Theory in Evolutionary Biology, and it’s relation to our political ideologies. For a quick rundown of this, please see our main page here.

In a previous post we posited that homosexuality may be an extreme form of the reversal in sex specific behaviors which is seen in r-selected populations, where females become more “masculine,” so as to better protect and provision the young they raise alone, while males become more effete, so as to avoid the conflict which is dangerous and disadvantageous under conditions of r-selection.

In that post, we examined the similarities in the neurobiological correlates of gays and Liberals. We then postulated that in gays, the changes which occur in the amygdala as one goes from a K-selected neurobiological structuring to an r-selected neurobiological structuring accidentally go too far, and begin affecting sexual preferences, accidentally turning a merely effete Barack Obama into a full-on Little Richard.

If this was the case, one would expect to see the long form DRD4 polymorphisms, which are one genetic foundation of a Liberal predisposition, to also be associated with homosexual behavior. Of most interest would be the 7r allele of the DRD4 gene, which has been associated with a neurobiology predisposed to Liberalism. Enter the research on the DRD4 7r long form gene:

“About half of the subjects with the long gene had ever had a male sexual partner…” (among self-identified male heterosexuals)

(See: Hamer, D. (2002). Genetics of sexual behavior. In J. Benjamin, R. P. Ebstein, R. H. Belmaker (Eds.), Molecular genetics and the human personality (pp. 257–272). Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Publishing. p266.)

Yes, you read that right. Half of the male DRD4 7r carriers who claimed to be heterosexual, in the sample Hamer used, had engaged in sexual relations with another man.

So long form DRD4 polymorphisms, such as the one associated with Liberalism are associated with infidelity, promiscuity, and homosexuality. The brain structures associated with Liberalism are eerily similar to those associated with homosexuality, and as the researcher in this article discusses, even research into the reversal of sex-specific behaviors and sexual dimorphism matches as well.

Interestingly, Hamer concluded the DRD4 7r allele was mainly about promoting “novelty” in sexual behavior, and not homosexuality, per se. He maintained that he felt DRD4-7r-mediated homosexuality was merely an outgrowth of the individual’s drive to find a novel form of sexual partner. This is interesting, as it further supports our contention that Liberalism is an r-strategy.

K-selection is marked by an environment where resources are insufficient, and someone will have to go without. Here, individuals are very discriminating regarding mate fitness. The fitter one’s mate, the fitter one’s offspring, and the more likely such offspring are to succeed in the fierce competition for the extremely limited resources which are available. This is why on finding the fittest mate possible, the K-selected individual will monopolize that mate’s fitness through monogamy, seeking to prevent others from benefiting from mixing their genes with this high level of fitness, to produce offspring. Those within a K-selective environment who do not focus solely on producing fitness in offspring see their offspring starve, and their genes culled from the population. Obviously all of these K-selected urges manifest clearly in the Conservative psychology, which favors careful mate selection and monogamy, and which is focused on giving children every opportunity through high-investment rearing.

By contrast, the excess of resources which marks the r-selective environment eliminates the need for offspring to compete for resources to survive. As a result, every offspring, no matter how unfit, will be able to survive and reproduce, since resources are everywhere. In the r-selective environment, since offspring need not be fit, individuals will focus on producing more offspring, instead of fitter offspring, in an attempt to out-reproduce peers.

To this end, the r-selected organism will seize every mating opportunity, no matter how unfit the mate. Since mate fitness is unimportant, extremely r-selected individuals will not bother with monogamy or mate guarding, instead following a strategy of mating as often as possible. This will result in individuals investing as little as possible in each offspring, through low-investment rearing strategies such as single parenting.

Here, what a researcher would term sexual novelty seeking among those who carry the Liberal gene is really the absence of sexual discrimination, combined with a drive to mate with any mate, regardless of fitness, or even suitability to reproduction (when accidentally over-expressed). Under the Extreme r-Hypothesis of Homosexuality, when carried to an accidental extreme, the r-selected psychology will produce a male individual willing to mate with anything – even another male individual.

Notice also, we maintain the r-strategy of Liberalism is produced by the diminished amygdala development which Kanai et al. identified. In Kluver Bucy syndrome, amygdala dysfunction produces an individual which is prone to mating with inappropriate partners and objects. Such a grossly indiscriminate mating strategy is only favorable under conditions of r-selection.

In summary, here we see a gene which reduces the individual’s ability to perform a fitness discrimination in a prospective mate, while simultaneously programming them to follow an aggressively promiscuous mating strategy. That this gene is the only gene presently associated with the Liberal political ideology only strengthens the case for Liberalism as an r-selected reproductive strategy, as identified in r/K Selection Theory in Evolutionary Biology. That homosexuality correlates with all of this would offer an interesting case that homosexuality may, in fact, arise from a periodic accidental over-expression of Liberal neurobiology. In such a case, males become inordinately effeminate, and the neurological reversal of sex specific behaviors and urges so commonly seen in r-selected individuals bleeds over into mate selection criteria. That homosexuals tend to support Liberalism overwhelmingly, and that Liberals tend to support homosexuals overwhelmingly only further cements their linkage.

Again, I would urge Liberals to quash those feelings of homophobia which would lead them to denigrate Gay America by trying to deny the scientific correlates between between gays and Liberals (as if gays were somehow unfit to be associated with the modern Liberal). To Liberals, I say you should embrace your homosexual brethren (and honestly acknowledge your own bi-curious urges). Having honestly examined ourselves, then we can all move forward, together, towards a better understanding of political ideology and it’s biological purposes.

Absent an understanding of how r/K Selection Theory in Evolutionary Biology has produced our modern political ideologies, we are all fighting blindly in a battle we do not understand. With an understanding of r/K Selection Theory, we see not only the purposes behind each ideological position, but we see how Conservatism embodies all that is good, by our species’ K-selected mores and virtues.

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derf
derf
11 years ago

You do know that evo-psych is basically pseudoscience, right? Tacking the word “evolutionary” onto, say, phrenology, won’t make phrenology any less false.

Spoos in August
11 years ago

This paper notes that the 7r allele has been associated most replicably with ADHD (which, based on both conversations with physicians and observation of students using Adderall as a study aid, I am not convinced is an actual disease). Too, it is worth noting that the original J. Politics study which documented the association between the 7r allele and liberalism found the association was slight and dependent on friends.

The most conservative interpretation of the data would be that DRD4 7R may interact with at least one other gene (moderating friendship and large-group socializing) to produce liberal behavior (more accurately, self-identity). Alternatively, a dose effect caused by differential transcription of the DRD4 locus in response to environmental cues.

With regards to the paper by Garcia, et al., self-reporting and a relatively small and homogenous sample (college students) make their conclusions much more tenuous than is implied here.

As a final note, I’ve seen it mentioned several times (though I can’t chase down the original reference) that the 7R allele may have been introduced to modern H. sapiens by Neanderthal admixture. The idea may come from this paper, which notes that the allele is five to ten times younger than the other common alleles (2R through 6R). It would be strange for the 7R allele to have come from a relatively more K-selected hominid population and have it nonetheless underlie r-strategy behavior. Independent of that, the allele’s increasing abundance among early modern human émigrés further away from Africa is also inconsistent with the 7R allele mediating r-strategy. The frontier was then, presumably, a rough place necessitating high levels of parental investment.

Spoos in August
11 years ago

Agreed on most your points; I just wanted to note that DRD4 7R doesn’t seem to always be sufficient to cause r-strategy behavior. In particular, if you were to look at previous generations who were reared in more stable environments, I think it’s even money that the association with liberalism, and quite probably promiscuity also, would disappear.

With regards to migration, I very much doubt that much of Eurasia was unpopulated by other hominids by the time H. sapiens got there. Neanderthal man in Europe, Denisovan man in Asia, and even a couple hominins in Africa. There is also no guarantee that the K-selective competition won’t follow you to the frontier; I would think r-selected people would have an easier time in a more settled and consequently less lethal environment (post-Neolithic Revolution).

trackback
9 years ago

[…] As estimativas de auto declaração sexual-identitária não parece refletir a realidade quanto à real demografia de homossexuais, partindo da ideia que a sexualidade seja em parte genética e biológica e em outra parte cultural […]

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9 years ago

[…] mas que já teve ao menos um parceiro do mesmo sexo de acordo com uma pesquisa. Parece haver uma relação simbiótica entre homossexualismo e liberalismo.    As populações bio-neurologicamente predispostas ao comportamento liberal e às crenças […]