SHE BLINDED ME WITH SCIENCE: The last major study on the genetic origin of homosexuality was conducted 18 years ago by Harvard neuroscientist, Simon LeVay and now “www.Clicck.com has signed an exclusive agreement with GenePartner, one of the world’s leading genetic testing companies, and is currently engaged in collecting and identifying the genetic patterns found in the DNA of LGBT men and women.” That’s right, who needs Harvard when you’ve got COMMERCE!
The press release continues: “The two companies are quite confident that collaboration will result in a unique algorithm that proves once and for all that gay and lesbian individuals match along the same lines that straight individuals do and will be available to the LGBT community as an enhanced service on Clicck’s website next year.”
Yup, they’re gonna prove the gay gene, and then they’re gonna use your DNA to find you a boyfriend. Basically they want to do for you what your parents never could, ‘I know that you’re gay, and it’s not your choice. Coincidentally, I have found your lesbian soulmate, wanna go have pizza and play checkers?’
If that doesn’t work, you can try KC Danger’s Tips for Picking Up Chicks.
MARRIAGE: How bitter am I that I can’t enjoy this lively nerve debate about marriage between our Goddess of Depression Elizabeth Surly Wurtzel and some dude without thinking GOD you’re so LUCKY to even be able to CONSIDER it, assfucks … Oh Lizzy you go on and on … “I’m with you on the whole toasting thing too. For once, it would be nice to hear the good things people have to say about me rather than find out what I’ve done wrong on Gawker … Marriage seems to be the death of heat. It’s the beginning of domesticity, which is a nice thing, for sure, but it’s the end of hotness. I think there’s something about getting all the paperwork done — making it legal — that just kills the fire.”
THE MALE BIAS: US trade magazine Publishers Weekly has come under fire for failing to include a single woman in its list of the top 10 titles of 2009 …. Hello Margaret Atwood and Lorrie Moore and Mary Gaitskill all had new books this year. DAMN THE MAN!
GREEN: Good Magazine reports on the Transition Towns debate. Transition Towns, if you haven’t heard, are communities that are preparing themselves for peak oil and climate change by reducing their energy use and carbon emissions, eating locally, and sometimes even setting up their own currencies. There are 243 official Transition Towns at the moment (the list is here). And someone is really pissed about it: “all over the world, groups of people with graduate degrees, affluence, decades of work experience, varieties of advanced training and technological capacities beyond the imagining of our great-grandparents are coming together, looking into the face of apocalypse… and deciding to start a seed exchange or a kids clothing swap.”
hey, if he hates seed exchange so much, then he’s probably at least in favour of gay marriage, right?
i like most of the stuff i see on nerve, but the debates between these two sometimes get on the obnoxious side of life. it’s all ‘look! we’ve got a GUY who likes marriage and hates bikini waxes and heels and a GIRL who like to bang and wax and wear tall shoes. look at them not sticking to gender roles!’
Ergh, I know. Plus, I can hardly read the name of Our Lady of Self-Indulgent Prattle without feeling like I need a prescription for Zoloft.
I think the problem is when that GIRL is Elizabeth Wurtzel? Who I love, in so many ways, but also in the worst ways ever, like an embarrassing ex, who sometimes says exactly what I mean, but also, sometimes just seems like she is trying to piss everyone off.
GO SCIENCE! I dont care if they’re using it for a dating site (umm thats weird? Like REALLY weird) but there IS a bigger link to biology and our sexuality than we give it credit for. And I want this to be proven. If I went to Science School instead of Fashion School, I’d probs be obsessed with finding the “gay gene”.
I bet the gay gene glows in the dark.
hahaha I bet it does! That’d be freaking sweet!
We need an Autostraddle transition town.
Now.
it’s called northampton.
Holy lord, I’m freaked out that you answered my reply with that. True story: I’m moving there after I leave Seattle. Is it really as lesbionic as they say??
I wasn’t who you were asking, but yeah, Northampton’s is definitely a lesbian hub. Somerville (a suburd of Boston) is pretty awesome, too.
ty. Can’t wait to get back to the east coast!
Oh man, I would be so down for that right now. I don’t like the real world! Let’s make a sustainable gay utopia!
Thanks for reminding me of The Real L Word.
I don’t think a sustainable gay utopia would look anything like The Real L Word.
I am ready to retire on a farm now
I really want the gay gene proof thing to work, and to be able to get quick little printouts of your homo/hetero/bi DNA. Then I could just mail it to everyone I know with a note attached that says “I told you. You can stop debating/talking about it now.”
Okay… gay gene shmay gene. Sure, it’s totally frackin awesome, buuuuuut the REAL question here is: when are they going to be able to prove the AUTOSTRADDLE gene…. dun dun dun.
I don’t know. I guess I sort of don’t care if they can prove there’s a gay gene or not. I don’t really feel like it’s going to help in the fight against bigots b/c they’ve already shown they don’t care about facts. Also, although I know being gay/bi/trans/etc. isn’t a choice or a result of some sort of “trauma,” I don’t really feel that I need to verify and/or validate my gayness with a sample of my DNA. You know?
All genetic testing for things like this is complete bullshit. Yeah, you can be told if you’ve got the gene for Cystic Fibrosis, Tay-Sachs, Huntington’s and other genetic disorders that are based on variations of single alleles. Gayness isn’t based on a single variant, and no one really knows which variants it IS based on. In order to even gain this kind of information, a inconceivably large amount of people would have to donate their DNA, and all of these people have to be completely honest about the answers they give to questions asked of them. Genetic tests can’t even reliably prove how likely you are to become bald- how are they supposed to pump out data on something as complex as sexuality? I typically like girlier girls but I find short hair incredibly attractive, and i like creative girls, and girls with tattoos except if they’re butterflies, and girls who like to babe watch in parks and every once in a while i get a crush on a queer activist boy with plugs. A genetic test isn’t going to prove those things to myself or anyone else, so I don’t see why a dating site would need or want that kind of technology.
And, not to be a downer or anything, but this kind of technology would probably be used for pre-genetic testing and the designer babies thing.
“Honey, the test says he’ll probably have asthma, and… oh my god, he’s gay! Bring me to the doctor right now, we have to try again!”
“I’d like… a girl, with green eyes, tall, but not too tall, and slim, and I guess brown hair would be nice… Ah! And make sure she’s not a lesbian, I want to be a grandmother someday!!!”
Genetics can also be used against you. Health insurance companies and employers can’t discriminate based on genetic data, but life insurers can. How long would it be before life insurers refused to offer policies to gay men because the general public believes HIV and AIDS are “gay” diseases?
The only reason I would want anyone touching my gay gene is too find me a hot gay wife.
Also, TO find me a wife.
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