„Fruitless“ does not sound as bad as it is. I mean I live most of the time „fruitless“ and I (so far) survived. I think “pastaless” or “wineless” would be way worse. Now I read that “fruitless” has quite terrible consequences: You will go around trying to sexually attract members of your own sex and even start copulating with them. Wait, before you run to the kitchen in order to find some left over banana or an apple let me explain to you that “Fruitless” (Fru) is actually a gene and only when it is mutated causes the described phenotype – in the fly.
As reported in the scientific magazine
Cell scientists from the Barry Dickson’s lab at the
IMBA in Vienna have inserted the male specific form of FruM into female flies which then displayed typical male courtship behavior although they were morphologically females. What is fascinating is first the sex life of the flies that I would have imagined less exciting and more quick before reading the article: male (or in this case the FruM carrying female) first stamp with their legs, flap their wings and carefully try to lick the female (a sort of fly-kiss). Then they start to sing, well they “play a song” by vibrating their wings (probably “Can’t help flying in love”). Dickson and his coworkers did not specify if they then started to dance a waltz or a salsa (possibly waltzing given they were Viennese flies) but finally the female accepts the male by “exposing her genitals to him”, which he immediately starts licking (would you ever have imagined flies having cunillingus as a foreplay?). Finally they have intercourse; for 20 minutes! Yes I know, you can do the same on a good day when it is rainy outside but try to extrapolate 20 minutes in the lifetime of a fly to that of humans. Paste envy here. Of course the last point was a bit disappointing for the FruM females trying to penetrate other females. But if they were put together with male flies carrying a female Fru version (FruF-these male were passive) it physically worked again and the FruM females went completely crazy for the FruF males (just like normal males go crazy for normal females). This craziness was actually due to the pheromones produced by the FruF males and as researches found out, the Fru gene regulates the response to the pheromones. In other words: just a bit of female smell forced them to do crazy and stupid things like stamping and vibrating their wings. If you are a male – or at least FruM – you may remember moments when the smell of a beautiful woman made you, if not stamp and flap your wings, at least forget about your surrounding and gaze at the pheromone source.
But of course we are not flies. First, in humans there seem to be quite some initiative FruM females (the so-called fru-fatale!) as well as some passive FruF males (frufties) and second, if we were like these flies the perfume industry would be even richer. They would distillate those pheromones and put them in small falcons saying Fru de Toilette or Fru for Men! Considering the 20 minutes and the lifetime difference we would not do anything else, but then, just imagine what happens if you accidentally take your girlfriend´s deodorant in the morning. That is actually the other fascinating part of the story. That it takes just one gentic switch to be homosexual, at least in flies. There are still enough people who think homosexuality is a sin or a disease, a perversion that can be fought against. A lot of people see it as something disgusting and they condemn homosexuals (the Nazis simply killed them because homosexuality was against the nature). But it is not hard to understand homosexuals even if you are straight. Just imagine you, I mean your brain, your personality inside a body of the opposite sex. You would be homosexual then but given your personality you would actually feel homosexual if you would mate the –morphologically- other sex. You see!
Ok, I don’t think it is so easy with humans then with flies. They have a very determined behavioral program when it comes to mating (that’s why the researches picked them for their study). It would probably take more then one gene to mutate in men and homosexuality may not completely and exclusively be determined genetically. There was another report this week about insect sex, giving actually the opposite example. Dragon flies determine their ideal mate by their surrounding types of dragon flies. Let’s say if the majority of “draggy” girls have long blond hair, big breasts and mini skirts then the males would literally fly for them. But if they were the minority and thin-breast brown haired would dominate then the male would go for them and leave the blondes aside (that’s the difference to human males). So, in the extreme case, if there would be mostly males around, a male dragon fly would find them most attractive and become a sort of drag-fly. So in this case there is no genetic determination of homosexuality instead it is all behavioral. Again this extreme may not be transferable to humans but it made me think of special cases like the high incidence of homosexuality among catholic priests or homosexual sex in prisons. However, I think human (sexual) behavior is way too complex to be explained by a single simple answer but I think we can learn from such animal models to be more tolerant with other forms of sexuality and to not condemn people for what is their nature.
