Gay uncle hypothesis

Maybe everyone could use a gay uncle. "Sexual identity and sexual behaviours are not good measures of sexual orientation," says Paul Vasey.

I couldn't believe it. This implies that the behavior is an evolutionary adaptation, the researchers say.

While pop culture and social media have popularized the term, there’s more to the "gay uncle"identity than meets the eye.

"If fa'afafine have really been selected to be avuncular and this is an adaptation, then they would not be redirecting resources to non-kin children," Vasey said.

A new study found that homosexual men may be predisposed to nurture their nieces and nephews as a way of helping to ensure their own genes get passed down to the next generation. Some 16% of women said they had had a sexual experience with another woman (8% had genital contact), and 7% of men said they had had a sexual experience with a man (with 5% having genital contact).

But that doesn't mean there's no homosexuality there."

Similarly in the West, there is evidence that many people go through a phase of homosexual activity.

"I thought, 'Well, I'll do the study in Samoa, it's a non-Western culture and I’ll get the exact same results and it'll be the nail in the coffin for this theory,'" Vasey recalled.

One major cultural difference is the individualistic nature of Western society, compared with the collectivistic culture in Samoa. The scientists call this behavior avuncular, or uncle-like.

The fa'afafine reported being much more willing to pay medical and school fees for their nieces and nephews, to help them with homework, babysit, teach them songs and dances.

Vasey said the next step is to test whether this trend exists in other non-Western cultures where males with same-sex attractions are also accepted as a unique category. This is where the kin selection hypothesis comes in.

A prominent study by Vasey and VanderLaan (2012) focused on the fa’afafine of Samoa, a third-gender category consisting of biological males who are exclusively attracted to men.

"They're interested in helping their nieces and nephews, and not in non-kin children."

This divergence differed from straight men and women, who tended to show a more equivalent level of altruism to related and non-related children. despite the discouraging cross-cultural differences, I hope this topic receives even more research attention, because humans deserve all the support they can get.

These findings suggest that, in certain cultural contexts, gay men could play a vital role in supporting their extended families, thereby contributing to the propagation of their shared family genes.

Is male androphilia an adaptation? And a follow-up study confirmed that fa’afafine had indeed spent more money on their young relatives than straight people.

"I am convinced that the fa'afafine have significantly higher avuncular tendencies than men and women," Vasey told LiveScience. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-009-9508-7

Vasey, P.

L., & VanderLaan, D. P. (2012). "And [the] latest batch of data seems to indicate that this manifests in [the] real world."

In their most recent study, the researchers tested whether fa'afafine are simply more altruistic toward everyone, or if their attention is targeted at their genetic kin.

"I am convinced that the fa'afafine have significantly higher avuncular tendencies than men and women," Vasey told LiveScience.