Cargando…

Sexual Arousal Patterns of Identical Twins with Discordant Sexual Orientations

Genetically identical twins can differ in their self-reported sexual orientations. However, whether the twins’ subjective reports reflect valid differences in their sexual orientations is unknown. Measures of sexual orientation, which are free of the limitations of self-report, include genital arous...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Watts, Tuesday M., Holmes, Luke, Raines, Jamie, Orbell, Sheina, Rieger, Gerulf
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6175819/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30297914
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-33188-2
_version_ 1783361569935065088
author Watts, Tuesday M.
Holmes, Luke
Raines, Jamie
Orbell, Sheina
Rieger, Gerulf
author_facet Watts, Tuesday M.
Holmes, Luke
Raines, Jamie
Orbell, Sheina
Rieger, Gerulf
author_sort Watts, Tuesday M.
collection PubMed
description Genetically identical twins can differ in their self-reported sexual orientations. However, whether the twins’ subjective reports reflect valid differences in their sexual orientations is unknown. Measures of sexual orientation, which are free of the limitations of self-report, include genital arousal and pupil dilation while viewing sexual stimuli depicting men or women. We examined these responses in 6 male twin pairs and 9 female twin pairs who reported discordant sexual orientations. Across measures, heterosexual male twins responded more strongly to women than to men. Their homosexual co-twins showed an opposite pattern. Heterosexual female twins responded equally to both sexes, whereas their homosexual co-twins responded somewhat more to women than men. These differences within pairs were similar to differences between unrelated heterosexual and homosexual males and females. Our study provides physiological evidence confirming twins’ discordant sexual orientations, thereby supporting the importance of the non-shared environment for the development of sexual orientation and sexual arousal.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-6175819
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2018
publisher Nature Publishing Group UK
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-61758192018-10-12 Sexual Arousal Patterns of Identical Twins with Discordant Sexual Orientations Watts, Tuesday M. Holmes, Luke Raines, Jamie Orbell, Sheina Rieger, Gerulf Sci Rep Article Genetically identical twins can differ in their self-reported sexual orientations. However, whether the twins’ subjective reports reflect valid differences in their sexual orientations is unknown. Measures of sexual orientation, which are free of the limitations of self-report, include genital arousal and pupil dilation while viewing sexual stimuli depicting men or women. We examined these responses in 6 male twin pairs and 9 female twin pairs who reported discordant sexual orientations. Across measures, heterosexual male twins responded more strongly to women than to men. Their homosexual co-twins showed an opposite pattern. Heterosexual female twins responded equally to both sexes, whereas their homosexual co-twins responded somewhat more to women than men. These differences within pairs were similar to differences between unrelated heterosexual and homosexual males and females. Our study provides physiological evidence confirming twins’ discordant sexual orientations, thereby supporting the importance of the non-shared environment for the development of sexual orientation and sexual arousal. Nature Publishing Group UK 2018-10-08 /pmc/articles/PMC6175819/ /pubmed/30297914 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-33188-2 Text en © The Author(s) 2018 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Article
Watts, Tuesday M.
Holmes, Luke
Raines, Jamie
Orbell, Sheina
Rieger, Gerulf
Sexual Arousal Patterns of Identical Twins with Discordant Sexual Orientations
title Sexual Arousal Patterns of Identical Twins with Discordant Sexual Orientations
title_full Sexual Arousal Patterns of Identical Twins with Discordant Sexual Orientations
title_fullStr Sexual Arousal Patterns of Identical Twins with Discordant Sexual Orientations
title_full_unstemmed Sexual Arousal Patterns of Identical Twins with Discordant Sexual Orientations
title_short Sexual Arousal Patterns of Identical Twins with Discordant Sexual Orientations
title_sort sexual arousal patterns of identical twins with discordant sexual orientations
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6175819/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30297914
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-33188-2
work_keys_str_mv AT wattstuesdaym sexualarousalpatternsofidenticaltwinswithdiscordantsexualorientations
AT holmesluke sexualarousalpatternsofidenticaltwinswithdiscordantsexualorientations
AT rainesjamie sexualarousalpatternsofidenticaltwinswithdiscordantsexualorientations
AT orbellsheina sexualarousalpatternsofidenticaltwinswithdiscordantsexualorientations
AT riegergerulf sexualarousalpatternsofidenticaltwinswithdiscordantsexualorientations