Swedish researchers have, using brain-imaging techniques, concluded that gay men and straight men respond differently to two different scents that are potentially involved in sexual arousal.  So what does all this sex on the brain mean? Firstly, it may give credence to the notion that humans, like animals, may have pheromones, which are chemicals that invite certain types of behavior, such as sexuality, within a species; secondly, this data may prompt researchers to consider the biological and chemical foundations of sexuality and sexual preference.

The study, however, should only be seen as a beginning and certainly not as proof that there is a biological explanation for sexual orientation and behavior; it is still unclear whether it is sexual behavior that transforms brain chemistry or whether it is the brain chemistry that dictates sexual preference.  Furthermore, Dr. Ivanka Savic of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, who headed the study, issued the curiously vague comment that while the subjects in her research included gay women, the results of that aspect of the study were “somewhat complicated” and therefore cannot yet be published. We should, then, cautiously understand this study only as a foray into the biological causes and effects of sexuality and as a door that is beginning to be opened, but not as a definitive statement about sexuality or sexual behavior and orientation.

Mimi Hanaoka