The Mismeasure of Desire: The Science, Theory, and Ethics of Sexual Orientation. - Review - book review

Journal of Sex Research, August, 2000 by Bertram J. Cohler

The Mismeasure of Desire: The Science, Theory, and Ethics of Sexual Orientation. By Edward Stein. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999, 388 pages. Cloth, $35.00.

With the emergence of modernity as a mode of thought at the end of the nineteenth century, understanding of the experience of same-gender sexual desire was transformed from the realm of moral discourse to that of medicine. Work such as that of Richard von Krafft-Ebing and Havelock Ellis provided the basis for later claims, such as that of Freud, that same-gender desire could be understood objectively within a systematic psychology. This shift in discourse regarding same-gender desire was presumed to be more humane than trial and possible imprisonment for those persons (generally men) given the new designation of "homosexual." As Nungesser (1983) has observed, there must be something threatening to society about men loving and having sex with other men which is particularly intriguing and also threatening which underlies continuing preoccupation with finding presumed determinants for this same-gender sexual desire.

Earlier focus on a medical rather than a moral and legal basis for understanding same-gender desire fostered study of presumed biological-developmental factors which could be experimentally demonstrated and which would explain homosexuality. Claims that same-gender sexual desire may be founded on biologic substratum have also been popular within the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered (LGBT) community. In the first place, if such same gender desire is founded in biology, it "can't be helped" and it should be regarded in same manner as handedness or eye colon Viewed from this perspective, same-gender sexual desire is an intrinsic or essential characteristic which has been manifest across cultures and over long periods of time. Second, biological explanations provide an answer to the question of "how I got to be that way" and become part of what Plummer (1995), following Simon and Gagnon (1984), has portrayed as a "dominant narrative" or sexual story. At the same time, those ready to endorse a biological view of the determinations of sexual desire overlook the possibility that improvements in human genetics could lead to the prenatal elimination of those believed to show the relevant biological predisposition which would presage a nonnormative sexual orientation. Third, understanding same-gender sexual desire as founded in biology is empowering and provides a sense of community among those who believe that they share this common attribute.

This emphasis on a biological basis for same-gender sexual orientation has been enhanced by strong claims from biological scientists, who maintain that they have evidence supporting such a biological foundation for same-gender desire. Recent popular accounts such as those by Dean Hamer and Simon LeVay (Hamer & Copeland, 1994, 1998; LeVay, 1993; LeVay & Hamer, 1994) report findings believed to support this perspective regarding sexual orientation. All too often, scientific speculation is taken as fact by a community seeking to find scientific support for the presumption that such dispositions as personality or sexual orientation must have a biological foundation.

However, over the past 3 decades there has been increased critical discussion regarding the effort to demonstrate a biological foundation for sexual orientation. This reconsideration has been inspired by critiques such as that of Foucault (1975), emphasizing the relationship between social power and determination of scientific knowledge, together with the realization that heterosexuality, itself, is a sexual orientation which must be "explained" (Chodorow, 1994). Increased awareness both of bisexuality as a sexual identity, and also that the experience of same-gender desire may first be realized across the course of life, shows the complex ways in which social factors may contribute to present self-identification within the LGBT community. This more recent study suggests the importance of moving away from conceptions of same gender desire as necessarily binary (Chodorow, 1994; Katz, 1995; Stein, 1992).

In what may be the most careful and detailed exploration to date of the claims of those maintaining biological factors as essential in the origin of a same-gender sexual desire fixed from earliest prenatal life, the philosopher of science Edward Stein has countered these biological claims in his cogent review of findings regarding the biology of same-gender sexual desire. With a doctorate in philosophy from M.I.T., Stein is particularly well qualified to undertake this reconsideration of the scientific evidence. Designed to counter such claims as those of LeVay and Hamer (1994) and, like them and also the present reviewer, self-identifying as gay, Stein is careful to present findings from biological study in impartial terms before presenting his critique.

Claims regarding a biological substrate determining nonnormative (alternative) sexual orientation are most often founded either on presumptions of social evolution or on findings from behavior genetics and genetic linkage studies, animal models of prenatal development presumed relevant for human development, and comparative study of gender and neuroanatomy. In a previous volume, Stein (1992) had systematically examined the assumptions underlying claims that sexual orientation is founded either on some essential (biological) attributes or that it is founded in particular meanings of self and sexuality present in particular times and places. Critical both of those positions emphasizing an essentialist-biological claim, and also of the social constructionist claim that sexual desire takes many forms determined entirely by the meanings provided by a particular culture at a particular time, Stein observes that a so-called social constructionist view does not necessarily negate the essentialist view.