Crimes Against Nature

On Tuesday I posted a map showing which states still have anti-sodomy laws on the books. In the clip below, Russia Today examines how those antiquated laws are using against Louisiana's sex workers, who are often forced to register as sex offenders.

23% Of Straight Online Dating Site Members Report Experiencing Gay Sex

The online dating site OK Cupid polled 250,000 self-identified heterosexuals to get the above result. Buzzfeed has dozens of other survey responses, any one of which would also be worthy of discussion here.

Turning Gay Mice Straight?

The science journal Nature has published a study claiming that the sexual orientation of mice can be changed with the neurotransmitter 5-HT.

Although the question of to whom a male directs his mating attempts is a critical one in social interactions, little is known about the molecular and cellular mechanisms controlling mammalian sexual preference. Here we report that the neurotransmitter 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT) is required for male sexual preference. Wild-type male mice preferred females over males, but males lacking central serotonergic neurons lost sexual preference although they were not generally defective in olfaction or in pheromone sensing. A role for 5-HT was demonstrated by the phenotype of mice lacking tryptophan hydroxylase 2 (Tph2), which is required for the first step of 5-HT synthesis in the brain. Thirty-five minutes after the injection of the intermediate 5-hydroxytryptophan (5-HTP), which circumvented Tph2 to restore 5-HT to the wild-type level, adult Tph2 knockout mice also preferred females over males. These results indicate that 5-HT and serotonergic neurons in the adult brain regulate mammalian sexual preference.

You'll have to subscribe to Nature to read the full study.

What Celery Does To Straight Dudes

(Tipped by JMG reader Jaydog)

Michael Stipe: I'm 80% Gay

"On a sliding scale of sexuality I’d place myself around 80-20, but I definitely prefer men to women. I had sex with, and enjoyed sex with, women until I met someone that I fell in love with, and who is now my boyfriend. I wasn’t troubled or confused, but I just felt there wasn’t a place for me. I hate and refuse to apply the term bisexual to myself. It doesn’t seem appropriate. It feels like just another label." - REM lead singer Michael Stipe, speaking to the Observer.

Tears Kill Boners

When scientists exposed men to women's tears, they expected the men to respond with sympathetic emotions. Instead, they lost interest in sex.

In several experiments, researchers found that men who sniffed drops of women’s emotional tears became less sexually aroused than when they sniffed a neutral saline solution that had been dribbled down women’s cheeks. While the studies were not large, the findings showed up in a variety of ways, including testosterone levels, skin responses, brain imaging and the men’s descriptions of their arousal. “Chemical signaling is a form of language,” said one of the researchers, Dr. Noam Sobel, a professor of neurobiology at the Weizmann Institute in Israel. “Basically what we’ve found is the chemo-signaling word for ‘no’ — or at least ‘not now.’ ”

When gay men are exposed to women's tears, they respond with offers of cocktails and shopping.