Emil Kirkegaard is a psych blogger with some politically incorrect ideas about mental and sexual disorders. Specifically, in his online arguments with Scott Alexander and Bryan Caplan, Emil bites a bullet and says that homosexuality and related sexual orientations are disorders, because:
With regards to sexuality, humans are a sexually reproductive species, meaning that we have two sexes and they have to have sex to reproduce. Specifically, they must have vaginal intercourse ending with ejaculation. As such, if one deviates from this norm, it will have some kind of cost. One can deviate within heterosexual norms, for instance, by having strong preferences for non-vaginal sex (oral, anal, feet, hands, masturbation etc.), by being interested in the wrong sex (homosexuality, or bisexuality), or the wrong age range. Some unusual people deviate so far as to be having sex with the wrong species (horses, dogs, goats, sheep, cats etc.).
He clarifies that:
It is clear from discussion of these that being disordered is a matter of degree. Preferences for oral sex presumably evolved in humans because this has other benefits for pair-bonding, while not having a too high fertility cost. Every time one has non-vaginal sex, one could have been having vaginal sex instead, which can lead to pregnancy. As non-vaginal sex never leads to pregnancy there is an opportunity cost of this. However, if this cost isn't great, the fitness cost of non-vaginal sex is not large, and it only becomes a problem if it's extreme… There's nothing wrong with using sex for non-reproductive purposes, as both bonobos and humans do, and probably other species (e.g. dolphins). But since time is limited, each such act has some opportunity cost, and thus if extreme would be disordered. In general, then, all sexual disorders are a matter of degree with a large zone of variation that cannot be considered disordered.
But Emil may not have carefully considered the consequences of this stance. Because a very obvious logical implication is that, if behaviors and preferences interfering with fertility are disordered, then, using birth control is disordered.
Specifically, in order to reproduce, it isn’t really true that humans must have vaginal intercourse ending with ejaculation. More precisely, there must be sperm that meets an egg in an environment conducive to implantation and development into a fetus, followed by live birth. None of this can occur when birth control gets in the way. That is, indeed, the entire point of birth control: to get in the way of conception.
Only a Matter of Degree?
Emil tells us that, obviously, disorder may be a matter of degree. So let’s start by considering the humble condom. Occasional use of condoms, which have moderate failure rates and can still result in pregnancy, may be only slightly disordered. Condoms can also be used with certain partners and then neglected with others, allowing a certain discrimination. And of course condoms help to protect a person from disease, which represents a fitness cost.
So the guy who wanders around bars with a condom in his wallet could be compared to the occasional smoker: a person with a minor problem that doesn’t greatly impact his life. (Hopefully he doesn’t get pass-out-drunk at the bars, though; that’s expensive.)
But birth control pills taken consistently would represent a very clear case of sexual disorder. Worse still are options like IUDs (intrauterine devices) which virtually negate a person’s ability to reproduce. Failure rates for such devices are quite low.1 Once a person has an IUD, they don’t need to remember to use it, and in fact, they have to go through some trouble to reverse the procedure.
After having given birth to six babies, my wife has had one of these installed, and I can report no bugs or malware, so our user satisfaction with the IUD is high. Does she have a disorder? Quit pulling my leg, Emil. (Or hers—her foot’s still broken)
But Apple Pie You’re Taking This The Wrong Way
Emil did admit that oral sex and similar practices might not be disordered even though they don’t result in pregnancy because they evolved to promote pair-bonding or what have you. So maybe we can rescue his stance, or get at what he’s really trying to say, by reading things differently.
Let’s accept that even though birth control use is generally depressive of fertility, birth control can be used intermittently, to time or space births while still reproducing above replacement. Then, a married couple who has reproduced several times in between using birth control, as the Apple Pie family does, might ultimately be well adapted. After all, birth control helped us to space our children, offering optimal levels of care for each, and resulting in a reasonable inheritance for all when we die. Some birth control doesn’t get in the way of reproduction, and can even be used to enhance the long-term chances for genes to spread.
This seems reasonable in just the same way that it seems reasonable to say that alcohol use is not necessarily disordered; only the addictive, obsessive use of alcohol is. And Emil has even said things like this specifically regarding drugs: “too much drug use is a problem, but drug curiosity is probably a good thing.” So OK, maybe this is what he’s really trying to say.
When we use this interpretation, though, homosexuals who still find ways of reproducing would no longer be said to be disordered. Even though, on the whole, sexual preferences other than for vanilla, pair-bonded vaginal sex do relate to fertility decrements at the statistical level, such preferences would only be considered disordered if they impaired overall fertility.
Mind you, this doesn’t quite match what Emil stated elsewhere, that “exclusive homosexuality is [a mental illness].” But whatever; say this is what Emil really meant—homosexuals who still manage to reproduce don’t have a mental illness if they still meet replacement fertility. Or “Homosexuality is only a mental illness if it stops you having kids.”
But in this case, then strictly speaking, even exclusive homosexuality wouldn’t be a mental illness. Homosexuals can always reproduce through IVF. So the most disordered people wouldn’t be homosexuals per se. Instead, they would be child-free individuals who completely abstained from unprotected heterosexual sex and refused to reproduce through any means. Right? Being childfree is the real disorder.
Characteristics like asexuality would be next, followed by adjacent traits like workaholism, educational attainment, atheism,2 high intelligence,3 being a babysitter for your obnoxious, slutty sister, or blogging at Knowingless or Just Emil Kirkegaard Things. (So far as I can determine, neither Aella nor Emil have had any children, though they’d make a cute couple, and think of the entertaining blogs their kids would have!)
But all this focus on disorder is depressing. So let’s look on the bright side: Less disordered would be living like the Muslims and Amish. After all, Muslims are The World’s Fastest Growing Relgious Group™4 , and the Amish have more kids than just about any other Christians.5 Then least disordered and most mentally healthy of all would be that guy who won’t pay child support for his thirty children, and that doctor who used his donated sperm to produce hundreds of babies with patients over the course of four decades. Does this make sense?
No That Makes No Sense
Don’t get me wrong. I love evolutionary theory! I am a huge proponent of using principles from physics and biology to ground our thinking about life, the universe, and everything! But at some point this just starts to sound nuts. This is one benefit to reading Emil’s blog; you’ll never be bored. And when he points out that most identified mental illnesses cluster together, it’s at least interesting to know that there’s a large body of research finding homosexuality correlates with other traits broadly regarded as disorders.67 Modern studies are even finding that these relationships exist at the genetic level—that is, the genetic predisposition to homosexuality relates to the genetic predisposition to many behaviors, like smoking, cannabis use, number of sexual partners, psychological traits like Neuroticism and Openness, and disorders like ADHD and Major Depressive Disorder.8
But disorder and predisposition to a disorder are not the same. It’s obvious that someone who is so gay that they die of venereal diseases by age 26 had some kind of disorder. It’s also obvious that someone who is so gay that they can’t even interact with straight people has some kind of disorder. (“Heterophobia?”) Unless our definition of disorder is so broad that we’re going to say anyone who faces unusual difficulties is disordered, homosexuality doesn’t unambiguously fit.
And homosexuality isn’t only related to difficulties—it’s been known for a long time that homosexuals average significantly higher IQ than controls.910 This may not prove homosexuality isn’t a disorder, since anorexics do at least as well as controls on IQ tests, and most people agree that anorexia is clearly a disorder.11 Still, it does rather weaken the argument for homosexuality being one of many related mental disorders.
I’m not the first to make this argument; as I was browsing for studies on the subject, I found an article from 2012 arguing against the idea of considering homosexuality a paraphilia on similar grounds. Because their argument was slightly different, they also cited data on sex ratio, fraternal birth order, handedness, and characteristics of the brain:
Overall, homosexuality and the paraphilias appear to share the features of onset and course (both homosexuality and paraphilia being life-long), but they appear to differ on sex ratio, fraternal birth order, handedness, IQ and cognitive profile, and neuroanatomy.12
Ultimately
Homosexuality is an interesting characteristic with a variety of social, psychological, and biological correlates. Maybe the best way of thinking of it is as a disorder. Even though gay people I was friends with in college didn’t strike me as particularly disordered, they could easily have been a select sample of people who made it into advanced math and physics courses. Maybe vast, untapped reservores of insanity lie percolating throughout the rest of the gay community that I’ve just never encountered. If you’re a crazy gay person, hey, we can talk about that. And I’m open to the idea that mental disorders and low fertility do indeed have some relationship.
But disorders and low fertility aren’t the same thing. It isn’t enough to use fertility decrements to show a trait is disordered. And if we’re going to take Emil seriously and treat disorders and behaviors that interfere with fertility as the same, then well… doesn’t it seem weird that we’re letting some mentally disordered dude define mental disorders for us? (On the other hand, maybe crazy knows crazy? IDK)
Thonneau, P., Almont, T., de La Rochebrochard, E., & Maria, B. (2006). Risk factors for IUD failure: results of a large multicentre case–control study. Human Reproduction, 21(10), 2612-2616.
Hackett, C., Stonawski, M., Potančoková, M., Grim, B. J., & Skirbekk, V. (2015). The future size of religiously affiliated and unaffiliated populations. Demographic research, 32, 829-842.
Vining Jr, D. R. (1984). Subfertility among the very intelligent: An examination of the American Mensa. Personality and Individual Differences, 5(6), 725-733.
Why Muslims are the world's fastest-growing religious group. (2017, April 6). Pew Research Center. Retrieved July 23, 2023, from https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2017/04/06/why-muslims-are-the-worlds-fastest-growing-religious-group/
Wasao, S., Anderson, C., & Mpody, C. (2021). The persistently high fertility of a North American population: A 25-year restudy of parity among the Ohio Amish. Population studies, 75(3), 477-486.
Friedman, R. C. (1999). Homosexuality, psychopathology, and suicidality. Archives of General Psychiatry, 56(10), 887-888.
Gilman, S. E., Cochran, S. D., Mays, V. M., Hughes, M., Ostrow, D., & Kessler, R. C. (2001). Risk of psychiatric disorders among individuals reporting same-sex sexual partners in the National Comorbidity Survey. American journal of public health, 91(6), 933.
Ganna, A., Verweij, K. J., Nivard, M. G., Maier, R., Wedow, R., Busch, A. S., ... & Zietsch, B. P. (2019). Large-scale GWAS reveals insights into the genetic architecture of same-sex sexual behavior. Science, 365(6456), eaat7693.
Weinrich, J. (1978). Nonreproduction, homosexuality, transsexualism, and intelligence: I. A systematic literature search. Journal of Homosexuality, 3(3), 275-290.
Kanazawa, S. (2012). Intelligence and homosexuality. Journal of biosocial science, 44(5), 595-623.
Lopez, C., Stahl, D., & Tchanturia, K. (2010). Estimated intelligence quotient in anorexia nervosa: a systematic review and meta-analysis of the literature. Annals of General Psychiatry, 9(1), 1-10.
Cantor, J. M. (2012). Is homosexuality a paraphilia? The evidence for and against. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 41, 237-247.