Response to the Letter to the Editor on “A Worldwide Internet Study Based on Implicit Association Test Revealed a Higher Prevalence of Adult Males’ Androphilia Than Ever Reported Before”

Dear Editor, We strongly agree with the author(s) of the present comment letter to the JSM Editor.1 We believe that exploring the causes of the mismatch between explicit homosexuality, and implicit androphilia, has important implications in understanding, and intervening into the issues associated with human sexuality, and homosexuality. To this purpose, the complex relationships between biological (genetic) causes influencing sexual orientation, and all the factors associated with the cultural, and psycho-social (epigenetic or better non-genetic) landscape, influencing individual psychodynamic processes for the expression, and acknowledgment, of explicit sexual orientation, should be considered. Based on the results of our researches,2,3 we believe that implicit androphilia might be the biological (genetic) expression underlying homosexual orientation. This condition is necessary, however, it is not sufficient, to develop, and understand human homosexuality. Culture, social homophobia, internalized homophobia, psycho-social aspects, and psychodynamic processes, all concur, and need to be accounted for, in the development of an ego-syntonic acceptance of one’s sexual preferences, and orientations. In this perspective, we believe that our results2 concerning the marked differences, all across the world, between religious and non-religious individuals in explicit homosexuality, but not in implicit androphilia, represent a clear finding in this direction.