Here's A2Person:
Glad to see heterosexism is alive and well in the domain of neurobiology/brain-science-cology! "Each [male or female] brain is like one half of a complete system. The new brain is like two brains working together as one."???? Wow, I guess as a gay man I can look forward to 'an incomplete' relationship based off this logic. :-)
In issues where hard science, in this case neurology, and soft science, gender identity/construction here, are in dialogue with each other, it is critical that the researchers involved work through and examine their own heterosexist assumptions and conditioning. Don't get me wrong, there's great value to this study, but, c'mon people, scientific studies proclaiming the primacy of male/female sexual unions sounds suspiciously like the scientific studies justifying white racial hegemony. (See Stephen Jay Gould's "The Mismeasure of Men" about how great scientific work was clouded by unconscious (or not so unconscious) attempts to justify dominant power structures.)
My rant stems from a minor semantic point in this article, but it is emblematic of a pattern of similar lapses in judgment and omission quietly found in multiple essays and links here on the spirituality of sexuality -often exclusively concerning the spirituality of heterosexuality. Teachings detailing the union of male and female as the greatest form of spiritual completion are problematic, and, well, unnecessary. Please, straight people, I'm really happy for your success in attaining union between anima/animus with your partner and in transcending your egos through pleasure and bliss, and thanks your great empirical research: just don't claim an exclusive right on this stuff!
Okay, out of my system –otherwise great article!!!
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