What is the biological advantage of homophily?

Answer

The term homosexuality is more commonly used in the scientific world today. According to a Darwinian approach to sexuality (though not many scientists do), this seems rather an explanation for the fact that open homosexuality and especially homosexual cohabitation as the only form of relationship has, so to speak, been rare in history.

Sexual acts between people of the same sex became more common. But that happened, especially with men, often in addition to a heterosexual relationship. The advantage of a homosexual relationship is also visible here. In classical Athens, male homosexuality took place in a relationship that had a clear imbalance of knowledge and power: the dominant partner was older, wiser, richer, more powerful and saw himself as the mentor of the youth with whom he had sex. The relationship was set up in such a way that it was not actually considered that the youngster himself “had sex” with the man: he had a servant position.

Since homosexuality has not always been defined in the same way throughout history (the idea of ​​a “gay or lesbian identity” is about a century old and has also changed a lot in that time), I don’t think you can assume that homosexuality is relatively occurs a lot. We also do not know whether it is a genetic phenomenon or not: it could be partly (note that I am not talking about an “abnormality”, because it is not so obvious what the “norm” is in that case, and whether we need a standard in such a domain.)

Within a Darwinian hypothesis, you could ask yourself whether the new possibilities of having children through surrogate mothers and sperm donors as part of a gay or lesbian relationship will lead to homosexuality as a form of society manifesting itself more strongly in the future. Whether we as a society should only be guided by the question of what benefits the survival of the species is, is a completely different matter.