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Positive Selection on Male Same-Sex Attraction

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The Evolution of Same-Sex Attraction
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Abstract

In the current chapter, I will introduce the reduced intrafamily conflict hypothesis, which proposes that male homosexuality has evolved to enable younger sons to accrue inclusive fitness benefits by effectively opting out from heterosexual mating. More specifically, by being exclusively attracted to the same-sex, they avoid conflict over resources, and gain thus, inclusive fitness benefits which could offset the fitness costs of such attraction. The proposed hypothesis, explains the shape of the distribution of same-sex attraction men as well as the fraternal birth order effect, where the more older siblings a man has, the higher the chance to be homosexual is.

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Apostolou, M. (2020). Positive Selection on Male Same-Sex Attraction. In: The Evolution of Same-Sex Attraction. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53925-2_14

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