“In a study of alcoholism, it was noted that alcoholism is a significant health concern for lesbians, with an incidence rate perhaps three times that of the general population.  The relationships among the development of alcoholism in women, the experience of stigmatization and the complex facets of lesbian identity and lesbian community are explored.  This exploration provides for a more comprehensive and critical analysis of alcoholism in lesbians.  As a phenomenon of women’s health, alcoholism is examined using the perspectives of developmental theory, symbolic interactionism and critical theory.  The author offers insights and implications for health care, research and theory building.”  (Hall, J. M., “Alcoholism in Lesbians:  Developmental, Symbolic Interactionist, and Critical Perspectives,” Health Care for Women International 11(1) (1990):89-107.)

“Yalom et al. (1973) studied 20 16-year-old boys of diabetic mothers, who had received estrogen or progesterone during pregnancy.  These boys showed less heterosexuality and less masculinity than 20 control boys.  Netley and Rovet (1982) showed that among 33 males with 47,XXY syndrome, 24% were nonrighthanded, compared to 10% of a control group. …  In the present study, as well as in Lindesay (1987), only homosexual men were studied.  In Rosenstein and Bigler (1987) and McCormick et al. (1990), both men and women were studied, and in the latter study, a significant increase in lefthandedness (or rather nonrighthandedness) was obtained for women.  This was assumed to be related to higher-than-normal levels of prenatal testosterone levels.  In their results, the increase in lefthandedness in homosexual women (which have lower occurrence than men in the general population) is much larger than that of homosexual men.  It is, therefore, fair to assume that the increase in testosterone, believed to cause both lefthandedness and homosexuality in women, will give a more pronounced effect in women than in men (p. 184).”  (Coates, T. J., Ekstrand, M., and Gotestam, K. O., “Handedness, Dyslexia and Twinning in Homosexual Men,” International Journal of Neuroscience 63(3-4) (1992):179-86.)

“Although numerous researchers have hypothesized a biological factor in the etiology of homosexuality, there is a lack of empirical evidence.  Previous investigations did not focus on behavioral functions of the brain.  Using neuropsychological testing, we found an increased incidence of left-hand preference (defined as non-consistent right-hand preference) in a group of 32 homosexual women.  A trend in the same direction was found in a group of 38 homosexual men.  These results suggest that homosexual orientation has a neurobiological component possibly related to hemispheric functional asymmetry.  The results are consistent with previous reports that (1) prenatal neuroendocrine events are a factor in the development of human sexual orientation and functional brain asymmetries, and (2) the mechanisms associated with homosexual orientation and related neuropsychological characteristics are different between the sexes, i.e., elevated levels of prenatal sex hormones in women and decreased levels in men.”  (Kingstone, E., McCormick, C. M., and Witelson, S. F., “Left-handedness in Homosexual Men and Women:  Neuroendocrine Implications,” Psychoneuroendocrinology 15(1) (1990):69-76.)

“Human homosexual males report more stressors (such as bereavement) during their mother’s pregnancy than controls (Dorner, Schenk, Schmiedel, and Ahrens 1983).”  (S. Baron-Cohen, S. Lutchmaya, and R. Kinickmeyer, Prenatal Testosterone in Mind:  Amniotic Fluid Studies (Massachusetts:  MIT Press, 2004), pp. 11-12.)

“Matched groups of homosexual men, heterosexual men, and heterosexual women (n = 38 per group) were tested on three measures of spatial ability and two measures of fluency that typically reveal sex differences.  For the three spatial tests and one of the fluency tests, the mean performance of homosexual men fell between those of the heterosexual men and women.  The pattern of cognitive skills of homosexual men was different from that of heterosexual men: homosexual men had lower spatial ability relative to fluency.  The cognitive pattern of homosexual men was not significantly different from that of heterosexual women.  In addition, the results suggest that homosexual men classified on the basis of hand preference may form two subgroups that differ in cognitive pattern.  These findings are compatible with the hypothesis that there is a neurobiological factor related to sexual differentiation in the etiology of homosexuality.”  (McCormick, C. M., and Witelson, S. F., “A Cognitive Profile of Homosexual Men Compared to Heterosexual Men and Women,” Psychoneuroendocrinology 16(6) (1991):459-73.)

“The raised incidences of strong left-handedness and of mixed-handedness in homosexual men, as in dyslexics, are mutually consistent under the normal distribution function, as expected by the right shift theory of handedness.  It is argued that atypical laterality in these groups is better described as a ‘reduction of right shift’ than as a ‘left shift.’”  (Annett, M., “Comments on Lindesay:  Laterality Shift in Homosexual Men,” Neuropsychologia 26(2) (1988):341-3.)

“A study of handedness, dyslexia, stuttering and twinning, was included in a study of sexual habits of homosexual men.  A questionnaire was mailed to homosexuals, and 394 forms suitable for data analysis were received.  The results showed an increased rate of lefthand writing (17.5% compared to 8-8.4%), and a clear left shift.  There were increased occurrence of both stuttering (7.1% compared to 1.6%) and reading difficulties (7.9% compared to 1-3%).  The incidence of twins was lower than the population (1.3%).  The results confirm earlier attempts to show a left shift in homosexuals, and support Geschwind’s hypotheses about etiological factors for both lefthandedness and homosexuality.”  (Coates et al., 179-86.)

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Phonetic dyslexics (Annett, 1990); stutterers (Corballis, 1981; Bryden, 1994); many Tourette’s sufferers (Shapiro et al., 1972); many gifted athletes, mathematicians, artists, musicians (Deutsch, 1978; Hassler, 1991b; Hassler & Gupta, 1993), and composers (Hassler, 1992); many schizophrenics (Crow et al., 1996); specific alcoholic types (London, 1985) and many obese women are individuals located at the left end of this societal balance that I’ve been describing.  In addition, there are many homosexuals and lesbians firmly positioned in matrifocal social structure displaying high testosterone women and low testosterone men.

Congregating these various excerpts in a single place, I’m hoping to make clear the pattern this particular group exhibits in the context of the thesis I’ve been describing.  There are groups in current society that exhibit neurological, endocrinological and handedness dispositions characteristic of matrifocal social structure and, hypothetically, our recent evolutionary forebears.  Gays and lesbians fit the paradigm.  Gays evidence maturational delay and females evidence acceleration.  In addition, females exhibit higher testosterone levels, males lower levels, and both are coming from high testosterone mothers.

I’d expect that male homosexuals, if they congregate features like those that we hypothesize were common when we were evolving in matrifocal social structures, would be often narcissistic, performance based, highly sexually motivated, often obsessive compulsive, musically inclined and excellent dancers.

I would estimate that lesbians would often feature female traits in our ancient matrifocal archetype.  They would have commanding dispositions, and they would be overweight (high testosterone/high estrogen), extremely discriminating and musically inclined.

I would also predict that gays and lesbians would often have relatives with autism and Asperger’s, with homosexuality not uncommon among the autistic and those with Asperger’s.  Gays and males with autism feature maturational delay; lesbians feature maturational acceleration.

The patterns here seem pretty clear.

Rosanna and I are conducting an overview of matrifocal societies around the world, seeking correlations with the primary elements of the thesis.  I’m estimating that a matrifocal society will have females with higher testosterone and higher estrogen than a modern conventional society, males with lower testosterone and lower estrogen, more frequent anomalous cerebral dominance with both cerebral hemispheres more often the same size, a leftward shift of Annett’s handedness distributions (more left-handers), delayed puberty and tendencies to exhibit specific diseases and conditions characterized by the hormonal tendencies just mentioned.

There is the possibility that matrifocal societies will have language structures characterized by an emphasis on the present tense as in the Hopi and Trobriand Islanders.  This would suggest an affinity to primary process in waking consciousness:  one time, one place, no negatives.  An implication might be a different kind of sense of humor and a possible different kind of creative imagination.

Elia and I were talking last night about the relevance of myth.  Elia suggested that the structure of the mythology of matrifocal societies may reflect the unique neurological constellation we are proposing.  We considered that the myths might show a single story line, main character almost always present (no…

Yesterday, I met my younger sister Terry and her family in the Walker Brothers in Highland Park.  Our dad was treating us.  It was 8:30 a.m. on a Saturday.  I am the oldest of three kids, the only one still close to home.  We were eating breakfast a few blocks from one of the houses Terry and I grew up in.

Talking with my niece Renee, she told me about her choosing the economics of institutions as her undergraduate major, and her likely specialization as Ph.D.  It combines history, political science and economics and offers a wealth of interesting areas to explore.  Renee was excited.

I asked if there were evolutionary aspects to the discipline, if a paradigm of a succession of institutions in different societies over time was examined.  Renee was not aware that this was the case.  From her introduction to the study, it looked like the economics of institutions concentrated on snapshots of a place and time.

Riane Eisler’s The Real Wealth of Nations explores society’s institutions from a matristic point of view.  It’s not exactly an evolutionary model, but Eisler reveals the recent emergence of “partnership” society horizontal and egalitarian economic and government institutions.  From what…

Just had a rather odd thought that may or may not be relevant to the principles I’ve been exploring.  I’m wondering if estrogen levels in procreating males and females influence the number of children in families.

There are r and K strategies for guiding progeny to maturity.  In an r strategy, you have as many children as possible to compensate for an inability to control an environment often hostile to progeny achieving maturity.  In the K strategy, parents conclude that by paying close attention to fewer progeny, adulthood for the offspring can be more predictably achieved.

A high-estrogen male would likely be more inclined to pay close attention to his children than a low-estrogen male.  That attention would more likely translate into a K strategy whereby the child is ushered into adulthood with much attention.  Plummeting birth rates in Europe and developed countries might be directly related to changing male hormone levels, elevating estrogen.  Twentieth century high fat diets may be partly responsible for drops in birth rates.

High fat diets granted to emerging middle classes in developing countries may be leading to a diminution in population explosion as males become more solicitous of their children.

Studies with animal populations…

Ten years ago, I was exploring the possible origin of human culture in tribal societies driven by rhythmic dance and music. Tribal societies are on rare occasions characterized by paternal anonymity, or children who are unaware of the identity of their biological father. Observing that human brain size began to diminish about 25,000 years ago, I hypothesized that this reflected an emerging patrifocal emphasis on speech instead of gesture and a movement away from a selection for big-brained males. If this was the case, I suspected that there might be remnants of the old matrifocal paradigm that still exist within contemporary society. In the neurological literature, I sought humans with unusually large brains, difficulty with language, but who were also ambidextrous or left-handed. I came to find that autistic individuals commonly display these features; in addition, I discovered that individuals with autism are often obsessed with pattern replication and have perfect pitch (Brenton, Devries, Barton, Minnich & Sokol, 2008).

It appeared that hidden beneath the just-so story was a theory, which, if brought to light, could help make useful predictions and illuminate unrecognized relationships. From the beginning, the theory drew information from three different disciplines: anthropology, evolutionary biology…

I’ve talked about the effect of sunlight on the pineal gland changing testosterone levels of immigrants from equatorial regions. Equatorial people with established, normal, daily 30% fluctuations in testosterone move to northern climates and experience fluctuations that last for months, thus compelling radical changes in a mother’s uterine testosterone levels. Unusually high or low mother’s uterine testosterone levels can cause unusually high or low testosterone levels in her children, translating into exaggerated maturational delay and acceleration (depending on the season of conception) that can contribute to autism.

In previous pieces, I’ve noted these effects on Jewish and American Black populations, with a skewing of populations toward the extremes of maturational delay and acceleration evidenced by a number of diseases and disorders characterized by these hormonal extremes. I would predict that both these populations would evidence higher percentages of autism and left-handedness, perhaps higher in places like Milwaukee and Minnesota than Houston and Miami. In just the way the Somalis in Minneapolis and St. Paul are exhibiting higher rates of autism, I would suggest that this Somali population would exhibit higher rates of left-handedness.

Another population influenced by these processes are the Latino immigrants from South and Central America. Studies could…

Two biological processes impact the American Black population, resulting in increased learning disabilities, specific medical maladies and challenges not familiar to most other ethnicities and most whites of European origins. In addition to the challenges of these biological circumstances, as a result of these processes, the American Black population is also blessed with gifts that provide recognition and respect, and now the presidency.

There are three primary genetic pools in Africa. One genetic source is believed to have resulted in literally all other humans that have distributed themselves about the world since the diaspora of 50,000–80,000 years ago. The other two are far smaller, located in central and east/central Africa. All three are relatively ancient compared to the many other ethnicities across the planet.

Darwin observed, while breeding pigeons, that when two widely divergent threads or strains mate or blend, having had no genetic contact for a prolonged period of time, the progeny often reveals traits of the last common ancestor. For example, Chinese pigeons were bred in isolation from European pigeons for more than 2,000 years. When cross-bred, they revealed features of the Roc pigeon, ancestor to both derivations.

Breeders would sometimes observe a surge of archaic features that…

A superb 25-year study in the UK by Marian Annett ending in the 1990s seemed to prove that in that part of the UK, left-handedness was not increasing over time. It’s been a difficult issue to parse out, what with left-handedness being repressed before WW II. When conventional wisdom declared that forcing children to switch hands would encourage stuttering, schools withdrew from demanding all children use the right hand. A result has been that though it looks like the number of left-handers has been increasing over the decades, it is obvious that institutions stopping the repression of left-handers has skewed the numbers.

A similar effect is seen in Asia. Society has strongly encouraged that the left hand not be used. The rates of left-handedness in many parts of Asia are 2% and lower. It’s difficult to determine the true handedness percentages.

The same effect comes into play with autism. Though it seems there have been dramatic rises in autism over the last twenty years, many believe we just have more refined evaluation protocols with more attention being placed upon those individuals exhibiting unconventional behaviors.

The thesis presented in this work makes several predictions regarding handedness and autism, two issues that…

Writing these daily entries, I discover something new almost as often as I record something I’ve earlier discovered. It’s time to collect some of the hypotheses or predictions of this work.

1) Relative testosterone levels in males and females inform matrifocal vs. patrifocal societal structure. High T females choose low T males for their cooperative abilities, creating more egalitarian, matrifocal cultures. High T males choose low T females for their ability to be the complement to male authority, forming patrifocal cultures.

2) Autistic males, from families of left-handers, will have lower testosterone than the norm, and autistic females will have higher testosterone. In any study of autism, those with familial male maturation delay tendencies, families of left-handers, need to be evaluated separately from those possibly traumatized by an environmental effect.

3) Larger penis and testicle size will be associated with autistic, ambidextrous males and the familial left-handed.

4) Autistic males will exhibit more neotenous characteristics while autistic females should show less neoteny than contemporary populations.

5) If larger testicles and increased sperm production are associated with low-testosterone, promiscuous social-structure males, the two variables will be related in that higher-testosterone males will have smaller testicles or lower sperm production.

6) Left-handed…