Shelley Metcalf

Carlo Joyce, right, and Thomas Joyce share a moment on their wedding day on July 10, 2010.

As a teenager, Carlo Joyce’s relationship with his parents was strained. He’s gay, but hid that fact from family and most of his friends. So he usually found himself lying when his folks asked where he was going and with whom.

“After I came out at 19, things got better with my family,” he recalled. But then he joined the Marines and had to hide his sexuality all over again.

He had to go to strip bars to fit in, and when the other guys talked about sex, or dating, he had to be sure he changed the gender in his stories. “It was very stressful to live that double life,” he explained. “I always had to watch what I said.”

Now, in a study released today in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine, a team of psychologists and neurologists from McGill University and the University of Montreal has found that leading that double life affects physical and mental health. Gays, bisexuals and lesbians who disclosed their sexuality to family, friends and co-workers were psychologically healthier and had lower levels of a key stress-related hormone than those who were still “in the closet.”

That finding could help explain a remarkable study published last year by a group of researchers from Columbia University in the American Journal of Public Health. They found that after Massachusetts enacted its same-sex marriage law in 2003, there was a significant drop in medical and mental health care visits -- and therefore costs – incurred by gay men.

Lead author of the Montreal study, Robert-Paul Juster, a PhD student at the Centre for Studies on Human Stress at the University of Montreal, said “it seems to be that if you’re using more avoidance coping, and wishful thinking, then you get poorer health. If you aren’t dealing with the problem, it affects health in a negative way.”

On the other hand, dealing with the problem by transitioning from “in” to “out” can instill a great sense of accomplishment. “A rebirth happens that makes them feel much more empowered and conscientious” for having taken what many see as a risky action. That sense of empowerment can have ripple effects benefitting overall health and well-being.

Juster’s study was complex. It included 87 people with a mean age of about 25, 46 of whom were lesbian, gay, or bisexual, and 41 of whom were heterosexual. There were slightly more men than women.

All the participants completed a battery of psychological testing to gauge traits like depressive symptoms, chronic stress, burnout, anxiety and conscientiousness. Blood samples were taken by the researchers, and the participants collected their own urine and saliva at five time points each day for two consecutive days. These were tested for a series of 21 biomarkers related to immune function, metabolism, inflammation, the cardiovascular system, and the endocrine system.

When all the numbers were sifted, and differences like social and economic status were controlled for, it turned out that disclosed sexual minorities had fewer symptoms of depression.

They also had lower cortisol levels 30 minutes after waking. That’s important because cortisol, a key stress hormone, spikes about half an hour after we wake up, like an ignition spark getting us ready to face the day. But you don’t want too much or too little. Disclosed gay men and lesbians were just right. In fact, dislcosed gay men also had lower cortsone levels than straight men.     

Juster isn’t sure why, exactly. It could be because the gay men were in better physical shape. It could also be that because heterosexual men have never had to go through the stress of living life undercover, they’re less practiced at coping and so less resilient to life’s stress.

Joyce, now 33, and living in San Diego, has had a lot of practice. He’s an engineer at a large corporation. When he first started that job, he again hid his sexual orientation, from co-workers and bosses.

“It was like I was back in the closet,” he said. The hiding was self-imposed, but stressful all the same. “Once I did come out, it was much less stressful and I found great acceptance and support.” When he married his partner, many of his co-workers attended. (To clarify, the July 10, 2010, wedding was not a legal marriage as recognized by the state.)  “Life’s much easier,” he said.

Brian Alexander (www.BrianRAlexander.com) is co-author, with Larry Young Ph.D., of "The Chemistry Between Us: Love, Sex and the Science of Attraction," (www.TheChemistryBetweenUs.com), now on sale.

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By Susan E. Matthews
MyHealthNewsDaily

The way people's pupils react when they see other people is an effective way to assess sexual orientation, according to a new study.

The reactions of study participants' pupils revealed that heterosexual men responded most to images of women and homosexual men responded most to images of men.

Additionally, researchers found that homosexual women responded most to images of women, and heterosexual women expressed arousal in response to both men and women, though they were more likely to choose to watch men.

Previous studies have shown that people's pupils widen in response to seeing others who they find attractive; the new study showed that, indeed, a person's sexuality is evident in their pupils' responses.

Results also revealed that bisexual men were attracted to both men and women, an idea that has been disputed, and that heterosexual women may be aroused by both genders, despite being straight.

"The pupil reacts very quickly, and it is unconscious, so it's a method that gives us a subconscious indicator of sexuality," said lead study author Gerulf Rieger, a researcher at Cornell University. Sex researchers don't always want to rely on people's own reports about who they are sexually attracted to, because cultural and societal pressures can influence what people say, he explained.

The findings are detailed today (Aug. 3) in the journal PLoS ONE.

Reasons for women's arousal

Researchers asked about 300 study participants to watch 30-second videos of people of both sexes masturbating, and tracked the dilation of participants' pupils in response. The participants also watched simultaneous videos of males and females, and the researchers tracked where they spent more time looking.

The finding that heterosexual women are aroused by both genders is in line with other studies.

"The female brain is not as differentiated," said Sandra Witelson, a professor of psychiatry at the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine of McMaster University. "They don’t have as strong a response for only men, as heterosexual men have for only women."

The female tendency to be aroused by both sexes may be because of female brain composition, Witelson said.

Study researcher Ritch Savin-Williams, a psychology professor at Cornell, said women's less-distinct preference for men may be the result of a defense mechanism that evolved to protect women from forced sexual intercourse. If a woman can become aroused with any sort of sexual simulation, the lubrication that results can protect her from injuries.

Bisexual men

The pupils of men in the study who identified themselves as bisexual responded similarly to videos of males and females, confirming that bisexuality truly exists in nature, Savin-Williams said.

This fact has been disputed because of past research suggesting that men who say they are bisexual actually respond only to men, in measurements of genital responses, he said. Some have suggested that being bisexual is not a true state of sexuality, and is instead a sign of someone transitioning to accept himself as being gay.

"I was surprised that the pupil tells us something more in line with what the people tell us, which is not what the penises tell us," Rieger said. In general, studies measuring genital responses are trickier, because such responses vary greatly between people, and are difficult to prompt naturally in a lab setting.

Studies on genital responses from Northwestern University researchers have also confirmed the possibility of male bisexuality, Rieger said.

Overall, the study results show that pupil dilation tests can be used to assess overarching trends in sexuality in a large population, not necessarily the sexual orientation of individuals, Savin-Williams said.

However, the researchers said pupil responses could possibly be used in the future for more specific measurements, like understanding the sexuality of someone on trial for a sex crime, Savin-Williams said.

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Eureka! Doc claims he's found the G-spot

The search for the female G-spot -- that supposedly erotic pleasure button somewhere in the vagina -- has become like the search for the Lost City of Atlantis. Some insist it’s real and that they’ve found it; others insist it’s a myth; and still others say it was never lost, it’s just part of an island we’ve known about all along, an extension of the clitoris.

Now a surgeon from Florida is insisting he’s not only solved the mystery, but that he’s held the G-spot in his hands.

Dr. Adam Ostrzenski, a surgeon and retired professor of gynecology, who now practices “cosmetic gynecology” in St. Petersburg, reports in an article in the Journal of Sexual Medicine today that he found the G-spot in an 83-year-old Polish woman. It is, he told msnbc.com, not an extension of the clitoris, as many experts believe, but a discrete structure angling away from the urethra.

He based his search, he says, on previous investigations and readings dating as far back as the third century A.D.

“I incorporated that into my protocol for how to identify where to go” in the vagina, he explains. “I put this together. My entire life has been surgery and developing new surgical techniques…and now, of course, there is the excitement of being the first human being to see and touch this structure.”

The bizarre G-spot controversy that has gone on for nearly 40 years, he says, “should be resolved.”   

The question is: Has the doctor done it?

First, Ostrzenski dissected a cadaver, so there is no way to know how the ropy, bluish structure he displays in his paper functioned other than that it seemed to be erectile. Second, the woman was 83-years-old, about 30 years past menopause and its dramatic hormonal shifts. Third, she is just one woman.

“It’s speculation,” Dr. Amichai Kilchevsky, a Connecticut urological surgeon who has conducted his own investigation into the G-spot, says. “It is almost impossible to say what it is, based on what he describes.”

It could be some sort of gland, an extension of the clitoris as some have long maintained, or something else entirely. Without any functional information or even a sexual history of the woman and whether or not she was orgasmic, nobody can claim much of anything, says the urological surgeon and researcher.

Yet, Ostrzenski told msnbc.com, over 50 reporters from all over the world have called him to prepare stories on his “discovery,” evidence of a kind of G-spot mania. The G-spot (like everything) has even become political, with some women arguing that G-spot denial is an anti-woman slander meant to keep women from fulfilling their sexual potential.

It’s also become a business. A German doctor named Ernst Gränfenberg first described the spot, supposedly an inch or two inside the vagina on the anterior wall (facing the front of a woman, not the back) in 1953. Then, in 1982, a book called The G-Spot: And Other Discoveries about Human Sexuality popularized Gräfenberg's findings. Now, sex toy manufacturers sell G-spot stimulators, publishers offer G-spot how-to books, and surgeons offer “G-spot augmentation” meant to enhance sexual pleasure.

“Certainly, if we can prove there is a G-spot, and we could enhance it, surgeons could benefit,” Kilchevsky says.

But maybe not the patients. The dark side of the mania is that many women who’ve come to believe the G-spot is real say they can’t find it, or that they don’t have it. They worry they’re doing something wrong, or that they are defective in some way, and missing out on sexual pleasure.

As Dr. Rachel Pauls, a uro-gynecologist at Cincinnati’s Good Samaritan Hospital told msnbc.com back in 2008, "I see patients looking for the G-spot, and they come to see the doctor because they are so upset they cannot find it.”

“There is such a huge psychology of this,” argues Kilchevsky. “Women who say they experience vaginal orgasms may be experiencing clitoral stimulation and not the G-spot. Finding a G-spot isn’t going to help women understand their bodies. If anything, it might upset women if they feel they can’t experience it.”

Ostrzenski says he understands that the controversy won’t die based on this one paper. He has plans to return to Poland next month to dissect more, younger cadavers, and to conduct more in-depth analysis of the structure, partly in preparation for “clinical applications.”        

“I am close to putting the putting the controversy to rest completely,” he says.

That’s doubtful. But not the end of the world -- or good sex. After all, women and their sexual partners don’t have to pay any attention at all to the G-spot. All they have to do is figure out what feels good, and do it. 

Brian Alexander (www.BrianRAlexander.com) is co-author, with Larry Young PhD., of "The Chemistry Between Us: Love Sex and the Science of Attraction," to be published Sept. 13.

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