Learning Theory

Learning theory suggests that all human behaviours, including sexual orientations are learned and are not as a result of any inborn trait or any arrested development of the human brain. The proponents believe that a person’s sexual orientation is determined by the innumerable “carrots”

and “sticks” that have shaped his or her sexual feelings during childhood and adolescence.⁶⁹ Learning theory is subdivided into 2; behaviour-learning theory and gender-learning theory.

69 LEVAY S., Gay, Straight and the Reason Why (New York, Oxford University Press, 2011) p. 34

The Behaviour-Learning Theory states that the major “carrot” influencing sexual orientation is the pleasure of sex itself. According to Churchill, if a person’s first sexual encounter was with a female, he or she will desire further contacts with females, and vice versa.⁷⁰ Like a clean slate, starting off sexual relations with a particular sex will lead to a learning process whereby the individual’s mind would be imprinted with the sexual experience of the initial encounters and will fashion that individual’s mind towards accepting as normal sexual relations with persons of the particular sex he or she had the first encounter with. For instance, where a boy’s first sexual encounter was with a fellow boy, be it an older brother or a stranger during childhood or adolescence, there is the tendency that such act will form the first sexual orientation the boy will have and may influence his future dispositions towards sexual relations. Such a boy may relieve the experience whenever his libido rises or during masturbation periods, and this concretises the homosexual disposition in the boy. As reported by LeVay, a study found out that both homosexuals and lesbians are more likely to have had sexual relations with persons of the same sex with them during their childhood and adolescence years than heterosexual men and women.⁷¹ Another studies found that abused males were significantly more likely to become homosexuals in their adult years than abused females.⁷²

Criticising this theory, LeVay opined that for the idea that one’s first sexual contact shapes the person’s sexual orientation to be correct, it would then mean that the children or adolescents were sexually passive targets for molestation by their elders.⁷³ In reality however, it is likely that many of the children, especially the adolescents may have already felt sexually attracted to persons of the same sex, and may have initiated the contact leading to the abuse, dropped cues signifying same-sex attraction which the abuser picked, or may have responded willingly to the abuser’s advances. Again, in some cultures like the Sambia people of New Guinea, where it is the norm for all male adolescents to be engaged in sexual relations with older male youths for some years before they would be allowed access to females, the homosexual performing adolescents turn out most

70 LEVAY S., as in note 69 above, p. 34; CHURCHILL W., Homosexual Behaviour among Males: A cross-cultural and Cross Species Investigation, (Westerleight, UK: Hawthorn Books, 1967)

71 LEVAY S., as in note 69 above, p. 34; TOMEO M. E., TEMPLER D. I., ANDERSON S., & KOTLER D., Comparative data of childhood and adolescence molestation in heterosexual and homosexual persons, 30 Arch Sex Behav. (2001), pp. 535–541

72 LEVAY S., as in note 69 above, p. 34; WILSON H. W., & WIDOM, C. S. Does physical abuse, sexual abuse, or neglect in childhood Increase the likelihood of same-sex sexual relationships and cohabitation? A prospective 30–year follow-up, 39 Arch Sex Behav. (2009), pp. 63–74

73 LEVAY S., as in note 69 above, p. 35

times to be adult heterosexuals⁷⁴ when they gain access to the females and the theory of learned sexual acts seems unable to explain this variation. Finally, most children and adolescents are already aware of their sexuality even while they are still virgins and before any sexual contact that ought to, according to the learning theory, determine or influence their sexual orientation.

However, given the fact that many people were already aware of their sexuality while they were still virgins, before they were molested, or before they have had sexual contacts with their chosen partners, which does not rhyme with the postulations of the learning theory school of thought, the Gender-Learning school of thought developed to fill this gap. Because gender refers to the behavioural or psychological traits that are associated with one sex, it is typically learned just like every other human activity. A child is born with the capacity to speak but has to learn the art of speaking, and of languages. Likewise, a child is born with a libidinal instinct but has to learn also how to satisfy it through suckling, defecation, and sexual relations. In gender learning, some characteristics distinguish a boy from a girl. Young boys love to engage in difficult and demanding tasks while the girls engage in softer ones. Therefore, a child growing up starts displaying characteristics that is typical of the particular sex role he or she wants to adopt, and through social interactions with peers, he or she adds to and hones the acquired and learned characteristics. A chief proponent of this school of thought is John Money, who carried out, together with other researchers, several sex related researches at John Hopkins Medical School, Baltimore, United States of America⁷⁵ and made the case that a person’s sexual orientation develops as part of this gender learning process.⁷⁶ The case example Money cited in proof of the success of his gender-learning theory was later found to be unreliable, although Money himself did not disclose this fact.

The boy, Bruce Reimer, whose sex was reassigned after 7 months of his birth due to the damage of his penis during circumcision and was raised a female, later in his adult age underwent medical

74 LEVAY S., as in note 69 above, p. 35; HERDT G. H., Guardians of the flutes: Idioms of Masculinity, (New York:

McGraw-Hill, 1981)

75 MONEY J., HAMPSON J. G., & HAMPSON J. L., Imprinting and the Establishment of Gender Role, 77 Arch Neurol Psychiatry (1957), p. 333–336; MONEY J., & EHRHARDT A. E., Man and Woman, Boy and Girl: The Differentiation and Dimorphism of Gender Identity from Conception to Maturity, (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1971); MONEY J., & RUSSO A. J., Homosexual Outcome of Discordant Gender Identity/Role:

Longitudinal Follow-up, 4 J Pediatr Psychol. (1979), p. 29–41

76 LEVAY S., as in note 69 above, p. 38

procedures to reassign his sex back to male. This was contrary to Money’s assertions that the sex reassignment and gender-learning was successful.⁷⁷

To buttress the fallibility of the gender-learning theory, studies carried out at John Hopkins using 14 genetically born males that their sexes were reassigned to that of females as a result of severe malformation of the pelvic area that left them without a functional penis after birth and were raised as females, indicated that majority of them reverted back to the male role and expressed the view that they were sexually attracted to females contrary to the gender-learning theorists’

postulations.⁷⁸ These studies evidently show that sexual orientation goes beyond the postulations of the proponents of the behaviour-learning and gender-learning theory. If sexual orientations are not learned, then it presupposes that it is in-born in all persons and that a child is born with it.