a bit of bonhomie

John Barrowman, the song and dance man who shot to fame as bisexual matinee idol Captain Jack in Doctor Who and Torchwood, took part in a recent BBC documentary The Making of Me, in which he bravely allowed himself to explore the scientific origins of his sexuality. The trouble with research into homosexuality is that it has an unhappy history; we’ve been seen as sick and immoral and criminal for so long, the motives behind investigation have been, in the past, curative, diagnostic, punitive, indeed sadistic, rather than merely explorative.

Given that, the programme was a decent presentation of the latest research, and the subject himself was as genial and anodyne as one might expect from his teatime TV persona, complete with his equally dashing long-term partner Scott.

He checks himself in to a Chicago research establishment, where he undergoes a test while viewing all sorts of erotica, a sort of lie detector. A natty little piece of equipment is tethered to Barrowman’s own equipment, a plethysmograph. The penis doesn’t lie, apparently: it twitches. Then he underwent a 90 minute MRI scan, studying blood flow in the brain, again while viewing various pornographic images. The slightest arousal could be seen, in real-time, his brain flashing red when he’s turned on.

Afterwards, the researcher gives him the results, but teases Barrowman first by informing him  deadpan that the results prove he’s straight – and he fell for it, in great confusion, the big girl’s blouse. But, whew, to much relief, the tests “prove” what Barrowman always knew.

Tests only prove what they set out to prove: in this case, that a man who says that he finds men attractive is telling the truth. However, the converse is not proven – a man whose brain and dick registers arousal on viewing male images may not identify as gay, or even bisexual. And, a man who, for example, likes getting blowjobs (and it’s top of the list of favourite sexual practices among men) may not need to open his eyes to enjoy the experience. Sex is not only about visual stimulation; sexual expression is not the same as conscious orientation, nor gay identity.

The next question is when did his homosexuality start – what “caused” his feelings to be this way.  We’re on rockier ground here – because of course human consciousness is not merely causal, it’s fluid, elastic, responsive. He explores the hoary old chestnut that gay men are the “result” of overbearing mothers and absent fathers. He goes to see his Scottish parents, who now live in the American midwest, and asks them what they think about that theory – but of course they deny it. It’s an impossible one to prove or disprove in a TV programme, because its origin is psychoanalytic, and therefore a matter of Barrowman’s subjective experience, not whether or not his mother is a harridan or his father is a shrinking violet. Neither of course was evident, they both seemed pleasant, ordinary people.

Barrowman’s boyhood room was revealed to be still preserved neatly, in a slightly disturbing way – his entire Barbie collection was still in storage, in his closet. In its original, immaculate packaging. Oh dear. The shrink in me suddenly became extremely interested in his mother; but, alas, it was not that kind of programme.

The research switches to “gender non-conforming children”. There’s a study now under way which is examining old home movies of children. In one, a little girl plays with a truck and gleefully breaks things. Then, we see the woman as she is today – a cross-legged dyke with a boyish haircut and glasses. In another, a teenage boy dances camply to New Romantic music, a queen in the making. Of the boys in home movies who were judged to be extremely “feminine”, 75% of them grew up to be gay, and even then that figure, we hear, is viewed as conservative. However, the corollary is not explored: what proportion of gay people exhibited “gender non-conforming” behaviour when they were children? And is identifying as gay the same thing as having sex with members of the same sex?

We are introduced to two 12-year old brothers, twins.  In Jared’s room, there are cars, planes, footballs, typical boys’ stuff. In Adam’s room, far pinker, he happily shows off his My Little Pony, cuddly bears, Barbies, and unicorns. Their mother Danielle comments on the two boys – Adam was always into the pink pyjamas, the “feminine” stuff. She insists he was born this way, and said that she was never a girly woman herself in any case. Happily, the two brothers are content in their differences and in their family.

As for the theory, espoused by the likes of Iris Robinson et al in our very own Bible Belt in Northern Ireland, is being gay is a choice? Barrowman found it hard to get any ex-gay to talk on camera – thirty turned him down. But one man came forward. Ron Wolseley was once a gym-bunny gay, with sultry pics of his semi-naked body to prove it. He is now a frumpy married man with 2 kids. What was the turning point? “My life was hurting people, my parents were weeping. If I wanted to be Christian, I could set that part of me aside. It was a matter of retraining my mind.” He equates it with liking cigarettes and chocolate – he still desires them but doesn’t consume them. I don’t doubt him. People can do all sorts of impossible things.

“Gay” and “straight” brains seem to be different, we hear. Barrowman’s spacial abilities are tested – and a test to see how good he is with words. According to this research, there are recognisably “gay” brains – gay men perform in these tests like heterosexual women. Barrowman snorts – he doesn’t want to be like a “big woman”. (There’s an element of misogyny in so many gay men; I often wonder why). The tests show that gay men are more verbose and expressive, and perform in a “female-typical” way. Barrowman’s own results were so “female” they were off the scale.

When do these brain differences arise? Symmetry in the brain is organized in the middle of pregnancy. It is hard-wired before birth, Barrowman is told, and he greets the news with emotion: relief. He sees it as confounding the idea that it’s a choice that we behave this way.

What about why there’s a difference? He searches for a DNA marker, to see if there’s a “gay gene”. In his own family, the test is inconclusive. There is another theory: that low levels of testosterone in the womb create “female-typical” brains, which then would make them more attracted to males. (That’s such a heterosexual way of looking at sexuality – will science ever rid itself of its bias?) Another marker for intrauterine testosterone deficiency is the shape of our hands. A ring finger that is longer than the index finger indicates that one may have been exposed to higher levels of testosterone in the womb. Gay men tend to have shorter ring fingers, more like a woman. Barrowman trolls around a Gay Pride festival in Long Beach to take handprints – and 60% of those men’s hands had “feminized” fingers.

Another theory: if one has older brothers, a man is more likely to be gay. If one has 4 older brothers, the likelihood is a whopping 71% that one will be gay. The theory is immunological: it’s as if her body mounts an immune response to heterosexual male infants.

Barrowman searches with enthusiasm for scientific validation – he wants a “ticket” for being gay.  But as history has shown, if there’s a ticket for being gay, then there are dark forces in the world that would dearly love to punch it. It’s not too far-fetched to imagine, given the extent to which fundamentalist religion is taking hold in the world, that at some stage in the future a woman might choose, for example, to inject herself with testosterone if she is pregnant with a male infant, to ensure he turns out a “real” man.

I don’t have older brothers. My ring finger is long and butch. I sincerely doubt that I ever lacked testosterone, at any stage of my life. I’m a slob. I don’t chat for ages on the phone with friends. I’m good at DIY, outdoorsy stuff such as camping, and fixing things. Despite those characteristics, instinctively, I feel that I was born gay, and indeed that in some ways I have a “female-typical” brain. My aversion to sports when I was growing up, my playing with dolls as a boy, my sense of the dramatic, my interest in the emotional, the relational. I’d never describe myself as “straight-acting” – but as an actor I could play straight, and there are a hell of a lot of gay men out there who are actors, putting a lot of energy into the performance of playing “real” men. But, it’s not only gay men who do that. And there are also a hell of a lot of men out there having sex with each other who aren’t “gay”. As Mark Simpson writes, there is one obvious flaw in “the popular, consoling and time-honoured view of gay men as women’s souls trapped in men’s bodies”: why do so many of us have emotion-free sex with each other, the antithesis of “female-typical” behaviour?

The questions that scientists are asking now are more interesting than they used to be, less damaging, but the results simply throw up more questions. I would imagine, however, that  researching the “causes” of heterosexuality would be equally as fascinating. But I can’t help wondering if that would be less easy to find funding.