genetic sexual attraction
{{short description|Hypothesis that attraction may be a product of genetic similarities}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=February 2020}}
Genetic sexual attraction is a hypothesis that attraction may be a product of genetic similarities.{{Cite book|title=Encyclopedia of Rape and Sexual Violence|last=Smith|first=Merril D.|publisher=ABC-CLIO|year=2018|isbn=9781440844904|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7SJWDwAAQBAJ&q=2018+Encyclopedia+of+Rape+and+Sexual+Violence&pg=PA200}}{{rp|200}} While there is scientific evidence for the position,{{rp|200}} some commentators regard the hypothesis as pseudoscience.{{Cite book|title=Television and the Genetic Imaginary|last=Bull|first=Sofia|publisher=Springer|year=2019|isbn=9781137548474|pages=121|series=Palgrave Studies in Science and Popular Culture|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oOmaDwAAQBAJ&q=2019+%22Television+and+the+Genetic+Imaginary%22&pg=PA121}} The term is also used for a phenomenon in which biologically related persons separated at a young age develop intense feelings—including sexual attraction—upon the restoration of contact.{{cite news|magazine=Cosmopolitan|title=A woman suffering from Genetic Sexual Attraction explains how it feels to fall in love with your dad|last=Harvey-Jenner|first=Catriona|url=https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/love-sex/relationships/news/a43973/genetic-sexual-attraction-incest-fall-in-love-with-dad/|date=June 13, 2016}}{{cite web|title=When blood relatives hook up: Is 'Genetic Sexual Attraction' really a thing?|last=Lewis|first=Ricki|work=Genetic Literacy Project|url=https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2022/07/01/when-blood-relatives-hook-up-is-genetic-sexual-attraction-really-a-thing/|date=July 1, 2022}}{{cite web|title=Genetic sexual attraction|work=Cumbria County Counsel|url=https://www.cumbria.gov.uk/eLibrary/Content/Internet/327/857/6802/42109163456.pdf}}{{cite news|work=The Guardian|url=https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2003/may/17/weekend7.weekend2|date=May 16, 2023|title=Genetic sexual attraction|last=Kirsta|first=Alix|quote=You're 40, happily married - and then you meet your long-lost brother and fall passionately in love. ... Alix Kirsta talks to those who have suffered the torment of 'genetic sexual attraction'}}
Background
The term was popularized in the United States in the late 1980s by Barbara Gonyo, the founder of Truth Seekers in Adoption, a Chicago-based support group for adoptees and their new-found relatives. Gonyo first heard the term used during an American Adoption Congress conference in the early 1980s.{{cite web| newspaper=Rolling Stone|date=29 January 2022| last=Tsoulis-Reay|first=Alexa|title=Her Dad Convinced Her It Was OK to Date Him| url = https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/finding-normal-excerpt-incest-abuse-1291708/| access-date=31 January 2022}} She developed sexual feelings for her son when she met him after he was adopted away, but he did not want to be part of any such contact.
Psychologists theorize that the reported phenomenon of attraction to biological relatives separated at a young age occurs because the separation forecloses the Westermarck effect,{{cite news|work=ABC News|url=https://abcnews.go.com/Health/secrecy-adoption-fuel-genetic-sexual-attraction/story?id=16371998|title=Adoptees Who Reunite With Lost Parent Risk Genetic Sexual Attraction|last=James|first=Susan Donaldson|date=May 17, 2012}} which normally desensitizes biologically related persons to later sexual attraction.{{cite journal |author1=Lieberman, Debra |author2=Tooby, John |author3=Cosmides, Leda |title=The architecture of human kin detection |journal=Nature |volume=445 |issue=7129 |pages=727–731 |doi=10.1038/nature05510|pmid=17301784 |pmc=3581061 |year=2007 |bibcode=2007Natur.445..727L}}{{cite journal |last1=Fessler |first1=Daniel M.T. |author2=Navarrete, C. David |title=Third-party attitudes toward sibling incest |journal=Evolution and Human Behavior |volume=25 |issue=5 |pages=277–294 |doi=10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2004.05.004 |year=2004}} Another suggested explanation for the phenomenon is possible narcissistic feelings.{{Cite book|title=Adoption Life Cycle: The Children and Their Families Through the Years|last=Rosenberg|first=Elinor B.|publisher=Simon and Schuster|year=2010|isbn=9781451602487|pages=42}}{{Cite book|title=Birthbond: Reunions Between Birthparents and Adoptees--What Happens After|last=Gediman|first=Judith S.|publisher=New Horizon Press|year=1989|isbn=9780882820521|location=Pennsylvania State University|pages=62, 96}}
Although reported frequently in the field of psychology,{{Cite journal |last=Paul |first=Robert A. |date=1 December 2010 |title=Incest Avoidance: Oedipal and Preoedipal, Natural and Cultural |journal=Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association |language=en |volume=58 |issue=6 |pages=1087–1112 |doi=10.1177/0003065110395759 |pmid=21364180 |s2cid=207608127 |issn=0003-0651}}{{Cite book |title=Genetic sexual attraction: Healing and danger in the reunions of adoptees and their birth families |last=M. |first=Childs, Robert |date=1998 |oclc=124077946}}{{Cite journal |last1=Greenberg |first1=Maurice |last2=Littlewood |first2=Roland |date=March 1995 |title=Post-adoption incest and phenotypic matching: Experience, personal meanings and biosocial implications |journal=British Journal of Medical Psychology |language=en |volume=68 |issue=1 |pages=29–44 |doi=10.1111/j.2044-8341.1995.tb01811.x |pmid=7779767 |issn=0007-1129}} there are some studies showing that people are sexually attracted to those genetically similar to them. Studies of MHC genes show that people are attracted to those genetically similar to them.{{Cite web |url=https://www.theguardian.com/science/2009/may/24/genes-human-attraction|title=Gene research finds opposites do attract |last=Sample |first=Ian |date=24 May 2009 |website=The Guardian|language=en |access-date=23 October 2018 }}{{Cite journal |date=1 February 2005 |title=Human pheromones and sexual attraction|journal=European Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology and Reproductive Biology |language=en |volume=118 |issue=2 |pages=135–142 |doi=10.1016/j.ejogrb.2004.08.010 |pmid=15653193 |issn=0301-2115 |last1=Grammer |first1=Karl |last2=Fink |first2=Bernhard |last3=Neave |first3=Nick}} However, in mice, this lack{{explain|date=October 2024}} of attraction can be reversed by adoption.{{Cite journal |last1=Penn |first1=Dustin |last2=Potts |first2=Wayne |date=22 July 1998 |title=MHC–disassortative mating preferences reversed by cross–fostering |journal=Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences |language=en |volume=265 |issue=1403 |pages=1299–1306 |doi=10.1098/rspb.1998.0433 |issn=0962-8452 |pmid=9718737 |pmc=1689202}}
Catherine MacAskill, an adoption and child sexual abuse expert, has suggested that "genetic sexual attraction" cases seem to be associated with sudden unplanned meetings which lack the proper safeguards of a thoroughly prepared reunion.{{cite book|title=Safe Contact?: Children in Permanent Placement and Contact with Their Birth Relatives |last=Macaskill|first=Catherine|year=2002|publisher=Russell House|location=Pennsylvania State University|isbn=978-1-903855-09-6|page=81|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1YwbAQAAMAAJ&q=%22genetic+sexual+attraction%22}}
Criticism
Critics of the hypothesis have called it pseudoscience.{{Cite news |url=https://www.salon.com/2016/08/16/debunking-genetic-sexual-attraction-incest-by-any-other-name-is-still-incest/ |title=Debunking genetic sexual attraction: Incest by any other name is still incest |date=16 August 2016 |work=Salon |access-date=28 September 2018 |language=en-US}} In a Salon piece, Amanda Marcotte called the concept "half-baked pseudoscientific nonsense that people dreamed up to justify continuing unhealthy, abusive relationships". The use of "GSA" as an initialism has also been criticized, since it gives the notion that the phenomenon is an actual diagnosable "condition".{{cite journal |last1=Edwards |first1=Jeanette |title=Incorporating Incest: Gamete, Body and Relation in Assisted Conception |journal=The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute |date=Dec 2004 |volume=10 |issue=4 |page=773 |doi=10.1111/j.1467-9655.2004.00210.x |jstor=3803853}}
Many have noted the lack of research on the subject. While acknowledging the "phenomenon of genetic sexual attraction", Eric Anderson, a sociologist and sexologist, noted in a 2012 book that "[t]here is only one academic research article" on the subject, and he critiqued the paper for using "Freudian psycho-babble".{{cite book|author=Eric Anderson|title=The Monogamy Gap: Men, Love, and the Reality of Cheating|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bYsVDAAAQBAJ&q=%22Freudian+psycho-babble%22&pg=PA48|date=7 February 2012|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-977792-1|page=48}}
See also
- Assortative mating, preferential mating between individuals with similar characteristics
References
Notes
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Bibliography
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- {{cite journal |author1=Bereczkei, Tamas |display-authors=etal |title=Sexual imprinting in human mate choice |journal=Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences |year=2004 |volume=271 |issue=1544 |pages=1129–1134 |doi=10.1098/rspb.2003.2672 |pmid=15306362 |pmc=1691703}}
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Further reading
- {{Cite book|title=Adopted Women and Biological Fathers: Reimagining stories of origin and trauma|last=Hughes|first=Elizabeth|publisher=Taylor & Francis|year=2017|isbn=9781315536361|series=Women and Psychology}}
- {{Cite book|title=A to Z of Narcissism and Narcissistic Personality Disorder Encyclopedia: The Narcissism Bible|last=Vaknin|first=Sam|publisher=Narcissus Publishing|year=2014}}
{{Incest}}