The Lesbian Hand Thing - Biology and Homosexuality

[cydonia1978]

Hello everyone! This is a very fun thread... I don't think this has been posted already (if it has and I missed it.. oops! )...



Back in high school I used to know a few "handshaking" jokes that I spread around.. and the funniest thing is, back then I had no idea that I was gay, but I loved freaking people out with the last joke.



The easiest one was the fisheries joke. You extend you hand to someone, and when they take it you say, "Hello, I'm with the local fishery. Nice to meet you!" and you wiggle your hands (yours and theirs) back and forth like a fish. That one's just silly, and good for an eye-roll... but the best one was the next one..



You extend your hand to shake, and when they take your hand, you take their's in both hands and start feeling it slowly. Concentrate on it, do it slowly and softly. Touch their fingers, palms. After a little bit, say in a soft, dreamy voice: "Did you know aliens have sex-organs on their hands?"



heheh... I used to love doing that to people - and I never realized it was a really good excuse to caress girl's hands... *grin*



Use it well!!



*new around here*

~*Cydonia*~

queerwistaria.blogspot.com

[Modjadji]

You gotta love hands.



I've always been particularly fascinated by hands, right from childhood when i would play with mine and other people's. Both of my ring fingers are longer than my index fingers, and I curl my nails to look at them. Guess I'm just a big ol' dyke



Still, gotta pay homage to one more aspect of the whole hand fetish. as unionjill (or one of her admirers, i forget)pointed out in the "Songs for a Mix Tape" thread, guitarists and bassists gotta have the nicest hands . There's just something about hands that make music... The first girl I ever loved was an amazing jazz bassist and I recently started playing bass for a rock band. (we had our first real gig on friday, played a cover of Nirvana's "About a Girl" among other things and ended up with an invite to play at a local club...watch this space ) Can't wait to see what happens to my hands as I play more



In conclusion, you just gotta love hands.



Mojo

[Gatito Grande]

Pardon my excitement, but I have been waiting for news on this front for years: double egg reproduction. That's right, two lesbian moms (or lesbian mom and lesbian dad. Whatever. )



Now of course this is just animal research, w/ the obligatory "not applicable for humans now." But still:

Quote:

---

Scientists conceive mouse with two moms

Wednesday, April 21, 2004 Posted: 1:03 PM EDT (1703 GMT)





NEW YORK (AP) -- Men, your gender just took a hit in the animal kingdom. Scientists report they've created mice by using two genetic moms -- and no dad.



That's a first for any mammal. But don't look for this service at the corner fertility clinic. Experts say the mouse procedure can't be done in people for technical and ethical reasons.



In fact, one of the moms was a mutant newborn, whose DNA had been altered to make it act like a male's contribution to an embryo.



The work sheds light on why mice and people normally do need a dad's DNA to reproduce. Some experts also said it held implications for using human stem cells to treat disease.



The achievement is reported in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature by Tomohiro Kono of the Tokyo University of Agriculture in Japan, with colleagues there and in Korea. They say they produced two mice, one of which grew to maturity and gave birth. Kono said this mouse, named "Kaguya" after a Japanese fairy tale character, appears to be perfectly healthy.



Kono, in an email, said the procedure might be useful with animals for agricultural and scientific purposes. When asked if he saw any reason to produce human babies this way, he dismissed the question as "senseless."



Some lizards and many other animals reproduce with only maternal genes, but mammals do not. Lab experiments in mice had produced embryos and fetuses, but no successful births.



Such development is enough to produce stem cells, however. Some researchers hope that by stimulating unfertilized human eggs to develop into what they call "parthenotes," they can harvest stem cells without destroying ordinary embryos. Researchers hope stem cells can be used to treat a variety of diseases.



Kent Vrana, a researcher at Pennsylvania State University who is studying the unfertilized-egg approach, said the Nature study is encouraging for that technology. If a normal, fertile mouse can be produced without a father's DNA, he said, that gives hope that stem cells from a similar process would be normal as well.



The Tokyo work provides new evidence for the standard explanation for the developmental roadblock. Scientists say some mammal genes inherited from the father behave differently in the embryo than if they came from the mother, and that paternal activity pattern is needed for normal development.



Relatively few genes act in that way, and they are said to be "imprinted." In some cases these genes are active only if inherited from the father, not the mother, and in other cases it's the other way around.



For the study described in Nature, the researchers got around the need for male-derived DNA by turning to mutant mice. The female mice were missing a chunk of DNA, and as a result, two of their genes would behave in an embryo as if they'd come from a male.



What's more, the scientists took this mutated DNA from the egg cells of newborns, because at such a young age the DNA hasn't yet taken on the full "female" pattern of imprinting seen in mature eggs.



That DNA was combined with genes from ordinary female mice to make reconstructed eggs. Only two of 457 such eggs produced living mice.



Marisa Bartolomei, who studies imprinting at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, said she was "stunned" that manipulating just the two genes removed the roadblock to producing live mice.



In fact, analysis showed that an array of other imprinted genes had somehow taken on their normal levels of activity, as if there'd been a standard fertilization. The researchers said they don't know how that happened.



Gerald Schatten, a stem cell researcher at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, said the work emphasizes that scientists must thoroughly understand imprinting in human embryonic stem cells. Otherwise, such cells might behave abnormally when used for treating diseases like diabetes or Parkinson's, he said.

---

www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/sci...index.html



Having celebrated the discovery, let's analyze the story. Don't you just love the first sentence (the focus)? Not.



And how bout this?

Quote:

---

When asked if he saw any reason to produce human babies this way, [the scientist who made the discovery] dismissed the question as "senseless."

---

In fact, when I Googled this story inc. the word "lesbian," it didn't come up w/ any (relevent) hits.



As usual, it's like lesbians---y'know, the kind who might be interested in having a kid w/ two "maternal contributions"---don't frickin' exist.



GG "Can't be done for ethical reasons": my dyke arse! Out



Obviously, we can't leave this discovery in the hands of the boys!

[her BRIGHTeyes]

I kNOW!!! when i read that he said it was 'senseless', I was shocked! that was saddening = /.



i hope one day, they could eliminate men completely from the human reproductive cycle. hehe.



(just kiddin guys lol)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

she had eyes bright enough to burn me --conor oberst

[urnofosiris]

I doubt this technique will ever be applied to humans. Even if it were to become technically possible (which will take a long time even if they start trying today) I seriously doubt there will be a country in the world that would allow it, not even countries (like mine) where gay people can get married. I think this touches on a very fundamental feeling that will make a lot of people react against it and not necessarily out of homophobia. Maybe I am wrong, but I don't think so, heh.



If you look at this objectively, I do not see why this would be any more "unethical or senseless" than injecting a sperm into an egg so two people can conceive a child they otherwise would never have been able to conceive. If the possibility is there, how can you withhold it from two people who want to have a child together? Some people might argue why science should go through such lenghts to have people reproduce who can't otherwise conceive, but then IVF or ICTI should not be allowed either. These are invasive procedures that go way beyond artificial insemination. There has been a lot of resistance to that as well, and some people still consider it unethical, but it is legal in many countries now.



I can't have a child of my own, but if there would be a technique that would let me have a child with my partner (I would have to find one first, heh) I don't think I would say no. In theory even two men could have a child together, using a donor egg from which the genetic material has been removed. There is still the matter of who is going to carry the child to term, but that is the least of the difficulties.

[Gatito Grande]

There's obvious scientific problems, Garfield, starting w/ the fact that one of the two mouse "moms" was genetically-engineered to begin with (genetically engineered Kittens raise your {checks thread} hands! ).



That said, this research moves along the basic problem of how to get the nuclear material from two ova to combine in the way that an ovum and sperm would (ergo, it's all good).



It's truly depressing, G, to hear you say that you don't think that the essential breakthrough here (two eggs=two women=two lesbians . . . or a woman and a still ovary-equipped transman ) couldn't---for political reasons---be pursued even in the Anything Goes! (j/k) Netherlands. Heck, I hear people defending cloning as a (possible, not actual, obviously) reproductive technology, and two ova, it seems to me, ought to be far less objectionable than that.



More importantly (and the argument always comes back this way), babies are conceived the "old-fashioned way" for all kinds of mo'fo' STUPID reasons (or *lack* of reasons). If the heterosexual laissez faire status quo here is to continue (and no one I've heard of argues it shouldn't), then why the f*ck shouldn't two people (say, two lesbians), through unimpeachable reason, turn to science to give them the child they've always wanted (and will emphatically love)?



GG Here in the f-ed USA, eventually, but somewhere like the Netherlands---maybe even Japan?---first? Out



FYI: in the only other research I've seen on this topic (mammals, but not resulting in actual live births), the problem has been not that two egg nuclei couldn't combine, but that there seems to be something essential in the sperm (or formerly thought to be essential! ) for the formation of the placenta. Ergo, one could get the zygote to divide (similar to parthenogenesis), but just not for very long, sans placenta.



[On the somewhat squickier front, the nuclei of two sperm could also be---in the laboratory only!---combined. Placenta was not a problem, but lack of things like a head and internal organs were! (See, I said it was squicky!) Two gay dads: you'll just have to wait a little longer . . . ]

Edited by: Gatito Grande at: 4/22/04 8:50 pm

[maudmac]

Of course I think it might be nice if some future child I might want to have could carry genes from me and my partner, but, for me, I know I'd love absolutely any child at all, no matter the source of her/his genes. I actually lean toward adopting anyway, when I think of possibly having a child. And I also wish that more people who spend huge time and money to conceive a child would look to adoption. It's a shame that there are so many children all over the world who don't have families and a greater shame, I think, that adults who want children ignore them in favor of spending thousands of dollars and possibly years trying to conceive. I can see that people want their "own" child and I've felt the pull of my own genes wanting to continue in this world, but I feel, when/if I do have a child, I can leave a far greater legacy by loving an already-born child than by putting a new one into the world. All this is my own take on my own situation from my own perspective. I won't judge someone who wants to propagate their own genetic material, though I do wish fewer people felt that way.



But that's not what I came here to post. What I wanted to say is that I'm not crazy about messing around with the fundamentals of nature this way. Humans are not wise enough to be trusted with all of nature, as our history has made abundantly clear. We tinker and tweak and we might think we're doing a good thing, only to discover a decade or so later what a colossal mess we've created...which often requires even more tinkering and tweaking to correct, if it's even possible to do so. We are too arrogant a species to consider that we might not be able to foresee every possible consequence to our tinkering with nature. We don't just selectively breed characteristics into or out of plants and animals (altering species within the confines of what's naturally possible), we proceed with the creation of plants and animals that could never exist in nature. It's one thing to strap two fruit trees together to make some new and interesting fruit, but an entirely different thing to, say, insert flounder genes into tomatoes.



It isn't so much that I think all this tinkering is fundamentally wrong as it is that I don't trust humanity with it. So I approach this news with the hesitation of someone who thinks that humans have been lucky so far to've not been bitten too badly ourselves by all our meddling with nature. Plenty of other species haven't been so lucky.

---

everybody here is outta sight   /   they don't bark and they don't bite

[urnofosiris]

Quote:

---

Heck, I hear people defending cloning as a (possible, not actual, obviously) reproductive technology, and two ova, it seems to me, ought to be far less objectionable than that.

---

Agreed, cloning is reproducing in the most literal sense I guess, a re-product of the old so to speak. The child would be a twin of the parent. My feelings say no to such a way of producing offspring, but I am being subjective there as well. It's a feeling I have and I think a lot of people will have such strong feelings against cloning *and* the notion of a child being conceived without a sperm that it will not be allowed.

In theory the genetic enginering would not have to be done on the parent first. Whatever is needed to form a viable pregnancy from two eggs could be added to the embryo on fertilisation. The same could be done for a two sperm version, whatever it is that is needed to form an embryo in the first place could be added too.



I believe this will remain speculation though, and if anything should come of it, it will take a long time, and who knows, maybe then. Anything is possible, but right now most countries in the world are not even ready to allow gay people the same rights when it comes to marriage or adoption or even artificial insemination. That will have to change first and then it will take time for the feeling that a child always has to be born from a man and woman to change as well.

[sharleen711]

Hands, hands, hands...........

women's hands........

AMBER hands........; I'm kinda have so much phantasms about AMBER's hands..... Hard to find more beautiful hands..... So sexy....... I can't believe she's not gay!!!!! With those hands!!!!!!!!!! she's wasting them......

[Gatito Grande]

maudmac, there's very little you said that I disagree w/ (adoption over expensive reproductive tech, humans tend to do evil things w/ their scientific breakthroughs, etc.). I'm just all about equality: if a het couple can use expensive tech to reproduce, then why can't two lesbians? LGBTs should be able to adopt as easily as straights, but at the same time they should be no more pressured to do that, than to reproduce as much as hets do.



To the argument hets will make "we reproduce naturally," I see two responses (I'm sure there are more). 1) Who cares? "Unnatural" reproduction is also something hets turned to, as soon as they figured out The Stork wasn't going to fix their problems! Unnatural is A-OK (that might be in conflict w/ your distrust of biotech though). 2) Why is "natural" to be defined solely in terms of heterosexual intercourse? By that definition, rape is more "natural" than say, in vitro. Fuhgeddaboutit! What's *truly natural* for homo sapiens is to use our Big Ol' Brains to solve problems . . . like the problem of a lesbian couple wanting to have biological offspring. (Or what's sauce for the goose and gander is also sauce for two geese )



GG sharleen, I empathize, but I look at it this way: as long as Amber's hands aren't on me, I'm equally at a loss compared to whomever (boy or girl) is So Extravagantly Blessed! Out

[sharleen711]

yeah GG it's true that i'd prefer Amber's hand to be on me...... She's also wasting them if they are on another girl.....

[Tempest Duer]

Sharleen, I'm sure the other girl wouldn't be thinking so.



I know a straight girl with the sexiest hands... actually, she reminds me of Amber in a lot of ways. Not fair!

Saying that up is down will not make up, down.



~Gene Burns

[charmedloverloes]

Did you know that most people have bended forefingers? I talked about that with my friends, it's funny.

~xxx~ Loes

[sharleen711]

hey Tempest!

I'm sure the other girl would like it..... she should be nuts not liking them......

And this girl you know, can't you present her to me..... or you prefer to keep her for you...

[Tempest Duer]

Haha, I wish, but I don't know... anybody who's been touched by Amber can't be THAT bad...



Actually, I'm more jealous of Alexis myself...

Saying that up is down will not make up, down.



~Gene Burns

[galilea153]

Just slightly worried...



I registered on this site thinking I was a lesbian but it now appears that both my index fingers are longer than my ring fingers...



PS: does it help that I fancied girls since I was ten / never had a boyfriend but a 3-year relationship with a girl???

[Tempest Duer]

Oh, dear. Your fingers are all wrong for this, dear. Maybe if you start wearing Docs you can make up for your lack of lesbiosity.

Saying that up is down will not make up, down.



~Gene Burns

[galilea153]

Quote:

---

Oh, dear. Your fingers are all wrong for this, dear.

---

LOL... Well, they've always served their purpose



I would never have thought about wearing Docs before... God, what is wrong with me???

[Tempest Duer]

I'd think the same thing.



Don't worry, I don't wear Docs either.

Saying that up is down will not make up, down.



~Gene Burns

[ikkledevil2004]

i tend to hold my g/f hand alot. over the past few days i have been doing it more i think this is because we just bought each other eternity rings and i love to feel the ring on her finger. i am right handed and use both hand for *things*. both my ring fingers are longer than my index but my left ring is longer than my right ring( so what does that mean?) the left of me is more gay than the right? i look at my fingers in the non girlie way.



oh and this is my first post i have just joined and me and my g/f love this site.

[reiforever]

I've always had a nail/hand thing. My old girlfriends used to make fun of me because I clipped my nails everyday, they never grow long enough to see the white parts because I am obsessed with keeping them really short, no clue why. As an aspireing author I have developed callouses on the insides of my fingers, which, I've heard is very pleasing I noticed that whenever I see two women who are interested in each other hold hands, they always seem to feel it out, like they're mapping the other person's hand. Maybe we're just bored. Maybe we all have secret hand craving. Maybe we're all just insane *shrug*



-Rei

"Tell them Amber says 'don't do drugs' Amber doesn't endorse drugs." -Amber Benson

[willowtaracrazydude]

Hmmm...I've never come across this Lesbian Hand Thing before but now that I think about it, a couple of my girlfriends have told me at one time or another that they loved my hands. At first I'd joke with them about it telling them playfully that that was just because they were horny or something but they always explain that it's not that way entirely. They said of course it has something to do with the "sexual" part of it but then part of the reason they liked my hands is because they find them rather manly and sexy...? Isn't that the same with the "sexual" part of it? Is it the same for you guys?



Oh and Amber's hands can be on me any freakin' day!

Willow and Tara rock my world!!

[Gatito Grande]

Don't know what to make of this, but here ya go:

Quote:

---

Study links genes, male homosexuality

Wednesday, October 13, 2004 Posted: 12:52 PM EDT (1652 GMT)



LONDON, England (Reuters) -- Genetic factors, along with cultural and early experiences, influence male homosexuality, Italian scientists said on Wednesday.



Researchers at the University of Padua said the genetic components are linked to the X chromosome which is inherited only from the mother. But they are probably on other chromosomes and could partly explain male homosexuality.



"The key factor is that these genes both influence homosexuality in men, higher fecundity in females and are in the maternal and not the paternal line," Andrea Camperio-Ciani, who headed the research team, said in an interview.



More than a decade ago scientists in the United States reported that they had found evidence of a "gay gene" in men. But other researchers questioned the finding when they could not duplicate the results.



Camperio-Ciani and his team suggest there several genes could be involved, including those on the X chromosome.



In their research, which is reported in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, they found an increase in homosexuality in the maternal line of gay men they studied which suggests the X chromosome.



"We know that at least one of these genetic factors in on the X chromosome but that it not enough, there must be other genetic factors that are important but are elsewhere," Camperio-Ciani added.



The results are based on a study of 98 homosexual and 100 heterosexual men and about 4,600 of their relatives. The scientists compared the frequency of gay men on the maternal and paternal lines of the families.



Among homosexuals there were a greater number of gay men in the maternal line of the family, as well as greater fertility in the female relatives.



An early interest in sex before the age of 10 was also a predictor of homosexuality, according to the researchers.



"We can no longer say that is it impossible to have a gene that influences homosexuality because we found out that genes might have different effects depending on gender," Camperio-Ciani.



But he added that cultural and individual experience also play a part.

---

www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/sci...index.html



GG You just know that, to the extent the 'phobes believe this, they'll start blaming women: "It's all your fault! It's in your family! Out

[WickedReds]

Whoa GG that was interesting... Makes me think about my family line and if i had inherited my lesbianism, cause that has to be ture for lesbians too..

Anyways... Both my ring fingers are longer the my index... more on my left hand... Fingernail keep them short... I'm a martial artist so i have strong fingers...and hands...and when i look at my fingernails i bend them to me the non-girly way... I think that means i'm gay... *skips around kitten board singing* I'm gayyy.. I'm gayyy...



-reds



my banana dances for smut

Tara in a wet shirt, Tara in a wet shirt. Tara in. A. Wet. Shirt. “Of course.”-Willow From Remember to Breath By Yellow Crayon

Edited by: WickedReds at: 10/13/04 8:11 pm

[charmedwitchtara]

well when i look at my fingernails i bend them in the not girly way and my nails are short (i play the guitar annd they get in the way if i dont, plus i help out with the cooking at my mums restaurants) oh and my ring fingers are both longer than my index fingers. guess that means im kinda gya. woo hoo i'm gay. oh and with the whole lesbians play with each other's fingers thing i think thats good new for me cause one of my best friends(who ive had a crush on for like 2 yrs but i dunno if shes gay or straight and i can ask cause i havent come out yet) loves to play with my hands so i am now happy



mel.xxx

[JennyB UK]

Ok, so my index fingers are longer, I have long nails and i look at them in the girly way. Maybe it is time to give the boys another go...



Or maybe not!



I love hands, the girl I have a crush on has beautiful hands, they are tiny and perfect, and they totally do it for me whenever she brushes them over me (we are friends so touching digits is allowed!). I think what makes it more sensual is that she is kind of dating someone and her hands are the only part of her I can have.



Hopefully I will get to use my own hands on her at some point.

[Floyd]

Both my index fingers are shorter and always have been, that's why I always thought that everyone's index fingers were shorter than their ring fingers. And I have short nails because I row and I'd probably end up slashing my wrists with them if they weren't short. I look at my nails the non-girly way although probably just because the other way takes more effort.

"Green day is like sex, when we're good, we're really good, when we're bad . . . we're still pretty damn good." - Mike Dirnt, Green Day

Edited by: Floyd at: 11/24/04 9:12 am

[numbered words]

Wow! I seriously never thought of this whole hand thing. I thought it was just a weird obsession of mine. It would make sense considering I play double bass and guitar that I would like hands a wee bit. But I never thought of it in terms of my homosexuality.



This is so neat. I love playing with people's hands and fingers. I just love it. I think thats part of the reason I like simple rings and such. I don't like for something on the hand to be the focus. I'd rather have the hand be the main focus.



Strange. Interesting.



-Kristyn

[WTtruelove]

huh, how bout that. i always noticed that i had big hands and long fingers (mostly because everyone wanted to point that out to me) but i didnt know about the whole lesbian hand thing. guess i was built for it :-D

i dont really look at womens hands per say but i do love when they use them. especially for a nice back rub.

"Its not like death is some horrible and terrible thing when you think about it intellectually, ignore me I'm full of sh*t" - Chance



"I like my demons. I consider them close personal friends. We enjoy each other's company immensely." ~Chance

[behindhereyes]

It's taken me awhile, but I've finally through this entire thread.



Lets see, when I lay my hands on the table my ring fingers are longer (barely) than my index... my left ring finger is longer than my right one. When I look at my nails, they're splayed outward girlie fashion. I'm right handed, but my left has more skills . at the beginning of my first relationship with a woman... we were both nervous... I remember reaching for her hand... caressing it... putting it to memory... the hand play went on for awhile, but somehow that eased the nervousness and helped us move forward.

Honestly it felt very intimate .



Do you think my hands know I'm gay .



behindhereyes

Kim

"To the world, you may be one person; but to one person, you may be the world"