PIERCE COLLEGE : Homosexuality Talk Packs Room

More than 300 Pierce College students and teachers filled the Campus Center last week to hear neurobiologist Simon LeVay speak about his controversial theory on the biological basis of homosexuality.

The event, sponsored by the Associated Students Organization and the Lesbian and Gay Organization of Students on Wednesday, attracted an audience that not only filled all available seats, but had people sitting in the aisles and lined up along the walls.

LeVay’s presentation, “The Science of Sexual Orientation--What Makes Us Straight or Gay?” was based on his studies at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego, where he is an associate professor.

The anterior hypothalamus of the brain is believed to play a part in regulating male sexual behavior, LeVay said, who researched the difference in hypothalamic structure between heterosexual and homosexual men.

The interstitial nuclei of the anterior hypothalamus measured on cadavers were found to be more than twice as large in heterosexual males as in homosexual males.

But LeVay cautioned that his findings do not demonstrate cause and effect. So, whether the smaller group of cells governing certain types of sexual behavior caused a leaning toward homosexuality, or whether homosexuality caused the smaller nuclei, is not currently known.

LeVay presented slides and videotapes showing a psychologist who claimed to have changed the sexual orientations of at least 20 homosexuals through therapy, a man having brain surgery in an attempt to change his sexual orientation and a scientist who did experiments using male hormones to manipulate the sexual behavior of laboratory rats.

His study “suggests that sexual orientation has a biological substrate,” which may affect people’s attitudes toward homosexuality because it can no longer be considered “a perversion made out of choice,” LeVay said.