I find myself saving a lot of posts and articles to read later. Inevitably a number of them are posts on a single theme, so I share them here as a occasional collections. Today’s theme: sex & gender. I’ve made a few comments on some of the links but not all of them.

A Systematic Review and New Analyses of the Gender-Equality Paradox

It should therefore be expected that the magnitude of most psychological sex differences will remain unchanged or become more pronounced with improvements in living conditions, such as economy, gender equality, and education.

Another academic paper with evidence to support the fact that Psychological Sex Differences increase the richer and more free a country becomes.

The Gender Debate: From the Gaslighting Era to the Culture War Era

Helen Lewis, a secular leftist feminist (and none of those terms are used pejoratively) describes her journey towards realising that trans rights are in opposition to women’s rights. Worth reading it all.

If I tell you that a trans activist attacked a TERF at Speakers Corner, I’m denying you the extremely relevant information that a twentysomething male physically assaulted a woman in her 60s. Talking about the spike in teenage referrals to gender clinics over the 2010s also requires the context that this spike was almost entirely driven by natal females — girls — the same group most prone to social contagion. Talking about rape requires the acknowledgement that 98% of sexual violence is committed by males, according to the ONS. The trans activist movement of the 2010s was so hostile to journalists because it wanted to make so many things unsayable. The things I have just said are, even now, hard to say in many liberal media outlets, because they would be deemed “anti trans”.

How Are The Gay Younger Brothers Doing?

There is a theory (and as this post shows with decent statistical evidence) that the number of older siblings you have increases the possibility of homosexuality. And the order matters, so it matters more if you’re at the bottom not if you’re in the middle. It’s called the Fraternal Birth Order Effect (FBOE). “But the core of the idea – that more older siblings = more gay – seems to stand.”

The author of this post is convinced there must be a biological explanation and seems ideologically opposed to the idea, without it seems to me evidence, that social factors are at least at this stage equally likely.

I would also feel more comfortable if somebody replicates Bogaert’s 2006 study finding this was definitely biological and it’s not just some boring social effect like guys with more brothers having more positive male role models and so being more likely to get attracted to men.

Throat Cancer Is Becoming an Epidemic, And Sex Could Be Why

Swap ‘could be’ for ‘almost certainly’ and you’re closer to the truth.

The main cause of this cancer is the human papillomavirus (HPV), which are also the main cause of cancer of the cervix. Oropharyngeal cancer has now become more common than cervical cancer in the US and the UK.

HPV is sexually transmitted. For oropharyngeal cancer, the main risk factor is the number of lifetime sexual partners, especially oral sex. Those with six or more lifetime oral-sex partners are 8.5 times more likely to develop oropharyngeal cancer than those who do not practice oral sex.

Essentially people are changing their early sexual practices from penetrative sex to oral sex to minimise STDs but this just seems to move the area of risk. Bottom line: the fewer sexual partners you have the better it is for you in all sorts of ways – less risk of illnesses, emotional, mental, physical.

Is there an analogy between divorce-and-remarriage and same-sex marriage?

We have seen that in the biblical witness of the Old Testament, the biblical witness of the New Testament, the witness of Church history, and in the witness of theology we can understand, tolerate, or even endorse the remarriage of divorcees. But what we cannot do is find an analogy between an abandoned or abused spouse marrying again and two people of the same sex marrying. In the scripture, in the history of interpretation, and in the theology that we hold, these are two different subjects which must be treated separately.

If we do have occasion to view them together, it is to highlight the total difference between the two.

A Sexular Stage

Which simply means that our biggest problem in modern Western evangelicals is not sexuality, it’s pragmatism. If something works, or seems to work, then it follows that it is a morally superior way of doing things. That’s the default. Outcomes are all that matter. Missional outcomes in particular, whatever that means.

Jesus’s Most Important Redundant Words

This means that Jesus’ words on marriage also offer us his perspective on one of the most contested questions of our day. What does it mean to be a man or a woman? For Jesus, it means to have a male or a female body. God determines who we are and communicates that to us through the body he gives us.³

Jesus offers us answers to the biggest questions of our day. Followers of Jesus need look no further than Jesus himself to find clear guidance on what marriage is and who we are as men and women. The implications of how we live this truth out may be a little more complex, but the truths themselves are made clear by Jesus, and all through a redundant quote from the Old Testament. Maybe Jesus knew his words wouldn’t prove to be redundant after all.

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