The molecular structure of the two androgens, being very similar, it is postulated that the two hormones compete for the same receptor sites. Since androstenedione is a less potent androgen than testosterone, the decrease in male copulatory ability and increased lordotic potential seen in the prenatally stressed animals of the present study would be expected. The relative difference in potency between testosterone and androstendione has been repeatedly demonstrated. This extreme reaction to maternal stress even has a very logical and natural purpose. Sensing that a population is under the stress of crowding or poor living conditions, nature provides this hormonal mechanism as a means to limit population growth and thereby reduce the cause of the stress.
Homosexual behavior results in less offspring than heterosexual behavior.
Thus, the environment, by triggering an adrenal stress response, may control the reproductive capacity of successive generations of differentiating fetuses and, thereby, population size. Rats have been routinely used as psychological models for human brain studies for decades. Although no primate studies have attempted to duplicate this effect, it therefore seems fitting to apply these rodent findings to humans. Prenatal stress in early pregnancy seems to be a rational and plausible explanation for male homosexuality and should be viewed as a natural population limiting phenomenon. Personal choice in homosexuality appears to be an insignificant factor in those offspring who are born with a female hypothalamus, encapsulated in an otherwise normal male body.