Name: Are There Any Scientific Differences Between Straight and Gay People?
Uploaded: 2025-08-27T16:45:05.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Are There Any Scientific Differences Between Straight and Gay People?' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-08-27. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Are There Any Scientific Differences Between Straight and Gay People?' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-08-27. Transcript available.

are there any scientific differences between straight and gay people well does
that question
make sense kind of yeah no it's a it's a fundamental question and so uh well
let's
approach it a couple of different ways so one way you could say well how much
of the trait of
who you're interested in sexually uh is heritable do you get it inherited from
your parents okay so
heritable means you can inherit it from your parents that's right and you can
pass it down
yeah okay that's right exactly that's right so you know eye color for example
is something we will
understand that we inherit from our parents mom's got this your dad's got this
but most traits are
not so defined that way they're only partially heritable they're only partially
determined by
the genes you get from your mom and your dad um so sexual orientation turns out
it's actually
different for men and women the best estimates for uh genetic studies are that
sexual orientation in
men is about 40 percent heritable and in women it's about 20 percent heritable
so that means you could
pass down gay from an adult to a child you could pass down gay or straight or
bi or whatever you happen
to be really uh from from from a parent to a child but keep in mind keep what
these numbers are like
40 that's only 40 that's not the whole story that's still leaving 60 that you're
not getting from the
genes you inherit from your parents but that still doesn't mean that that's 60
part of that isn't
biological it's just not heritable so for example we know that women who for
various different reasons were
exposed to testosterone uh in in the womb in the womb or as they were young
because the adrenal glands
can secrete testosterone there is a disease called congenital adrenal hyperplasia
which just means the
adrenal glands get big and they secrete a lot of testosterone so women who have
that can be
slightly masculinized in their appearance sometimes and they're way more likely
to be into other women
sexually right which makes sense because you have more testosterone that's
right so that's not
something you're going to pass down to your kids got it but it's a biological
way in which your sexual
orientation can be affected i see so that's an example of a biological way that's
a biological i mean
biological is the whole thing biological means the hereditary stuff the inherit
the heritable stuff
and the non-heritable stuff that's also biological got it and then so you might
say well what about how
your parents raised you here's something that to me is shocking right there was
this major study done by the american
psychological association to say if you are raised by gay parents or straight
parents or a single mom or two parents or
or or or you're religious or non-religious or you're politically this way or
that way does it make a difference on how
likely you are to be straight versus gay the answer doesn't make any damn
difference at all
it's it's unimportant now it make a difference in terms of how willing you are
to express it like if
you grow up in a super religious family or any religious family where being gay
is looked down on
you might not want to admit it you might not come out but it doesn't mean you
don't feel it
in yourself but so you're saying if a couple's driving a subaru they're not
more likely to have
a child that um could be gay than somebody else no they're more likely to have
if they do have a kid
that's gay they're more likely to have a kid that's comfortable with being gay
yeah as opposed to
repressed about it and feeling like they can't express that oh but there is i
mean and this is you know
kind of surprising right you would you know because people say oh parents are
so important parents are
important but they're not important in everything and whether you're gay or
straight parents don't
have a damn thing to do with it now what if you what if somebody's almost gay
right they're all they
think about being gay sometimes but they're not being gay are they like can i
just wonder is there a
level of that kind of myth you know like almost gay where then the kid is gay
you know what i'm saying
well so when you say the kid is gay though what do you mean you mean just the
kid is well like i mean
to me what i'm talking about is what do you feel in your heart about your own
self right what do you
answer in an anonymous survey you know not when you're too scared to be in your
school or your
community or with your co-workers or with your family but what's really inside
you
parents don't matter for that parents matter a lot and your community matters a
lot for are you
willing to admit it are you willing to come out are you willing to you know
bring your your your
your gay partner home to to meet the folks you know their parents and community
matter enormously
yeah right does nature and this is awesome and it's pride month too so i'm glad
that we're
talking about some of this stuff yeah does nature is being gay and a a an
abnormality to nature
well let's put it this way and i don't mean a negative abnormality yeah i just
mean is it
something unique to nature or is that the right term well i don't know what
unique to make nature is
nature is everything we got so but but but well i can i can tell you this and
you've probably heard
this before we're not the only animals that uh where their same sex sexual
behavior right you can find
in lots of different critters uh what is true though is that if you look at
examples sheep are a good
example all right okay some male sheep will mount other male sheep right yeah
okay are they really
gay well actually they're bi so it turns out when you look at critters and you
look at same-sex behavior
it's almost never exclusive same-sex ah so they're just having a good time
behavior they're in a frat
no offense dude and yeah and that's you know so so so that is somewhat somewhat
different but in terms of
you know is there like can we can we divine a larger purpose for for for for
gay and bisexual behavior
you know people have theorized about this they've theorized about the
contribution of the gay aunts
or uncles and helping to raise kids the same way people talk about the grandparent
effect you know
pitching in whether that is really a true thing or not i would say is still
very much up in the air
interesting that's a cool answer man bring up the sheep again that's really
interesting i didn't know
this homosexual behavior in sheep has been well documented and studied the
domestic sheep
is the only species of mammal except for humans which exhibits exclusive
homosexual behavior well so
that's that's contradicting what i just said that's interesting i wonder if
this is but who but
this is probably well but wikipedia probably is more up to date than me sheep
may be an uh an
exception but if you look i mean there's a whole lot of different species that
do have homosexual
behavior and for most of them it's not exclusive homosexual behavior okay go
back to that again
actually because i think a lot of what you're saying is in here 30 of all rams
which are male sheep
demonstrate at least some homosexual behavior um one report on sheep found that
eight percent of rams
exhibited homosexual preferences that is even when given a choice they chose
male over female partners
um this documented homosexual preference has garnered much discussion such rams
prefer to court and mount
other rams only even in the presence of estrus ewes um anyway it's just it's
interesting i never thought
about this or even talked about it with somebody so this is pretty cool well so
i mean i think the important
thing here is that this is not just something humans came up with right right
it's not and if you're
trying to explain it as a moral failing right as as many religions would well
you would have to say
well you know it didn't it didn't start with us right you know pete buddhage
says you know had a real good
quote and i'm paraphrasing him and he was saying you know uh i've been felt gay
as soon as i had any
sexual feelings whatsoever it wasn't a choice yeah if your quarrel with me mike
pence is not with me it's
with my creator i got made gay i was i was born that way that's a great
statement huh yeah no i think it
it gets to the heart of the matter like if you ask if you ask if you ask a
straight man when did you
decide to be straight yeah no guys go oh yeah i was thinking about and i was
weighing the pro and cons
and i was like well you gotta put you over here it was february well and so
yeah okay i kind of came down
like i'm gonna be straight no like no guy ever answers that way you're right oh
yeah i think that is
that's pretty ridiculous and i think that yeah to me it doesn't feel like that
would be a moral
thing i just wonder i guess i wonder um i wonder sometimes does nature because
nature i guess i
always look at it as uh male and female needed to reproduce to keep to keep
like existence happening
right and so then i wonder at some point does nature need more like gay energy
and i just in the unit
you know what i'm saying i just don't know sometimes like what nature's plan is
i guess
yeah well um i guess it's tbd some of it a lot of it yes yeah bring it up pdb i
want to see exactly
what he said man started over going you may be religious and you may not but if
you are
and you were also queer and you have come through the other side of a period of
wishing that you
weren't then you know that that message that this idea that there is something
wrong with you
is a message that puts you at war not only with yourself but with your maker
and speaking only for
myself i can tell you that if me being gay was a choice it was a choice that
was made far far above
my pay grade and that's the thing i wish the mike pences of the world would
understand that if you
got a problem with who i am your problem is not with me your quarrel sir is
with my creator and did
mike pence directly attack him or was that some of that could be political kickballing
i don't i
don't remember exactly but either way that's a uh that's yeah i i think that's
such a it's just a
it's an important thing to hear you know