Female homosexuality is beneficial as opposed to male homosexuality?
Not as opposed to, but I'm sure you agree that the difference between men and women is sex, and female homosexuality and male homosexuality are quite different in how they relate to reproduction. For that reason, there is no reason that the evolutionary explanation for them should be the same. Indeed, it would be surprising if they were.
So I'm not criticizing male homosexuality, my explanation simply does not cover it.*
More? Have you seen me exhibit prejudice?
I know that you are prejudiced....but please explain your 'reasoning' anyway, I like a laugh.
You do? How do you know that?
O.K. it's like this. In the ancestral environment (always bear in mind that the ancestral environment is hunter-gatherer) there are substantially fewer men than women. Since a single male can impregnate many females, and because of the way male sexuality works, it is relatively easy to find a male to have sex with. It is often quite difficult to find a male partner/husband to raise children with. So if a woman is pregnant or has a small child or children, and no husband, it would benefit her to have the capacity to form a pair-bond with another female. In particular, her offspring would be more likely to survive to adulthood and so carry on her genes. For this reason, the capacity to form a female/female pair-bond can be evolutionarily successful for women.
And we observe that many women discover this capacity in themselves at some point in their lives. What is rare is women who are exclusively lesbian, with no heterosexual capacity at all. I believe these women are a rare and extreme example of a capacity that is common in many women.
*We really don't know, but suspect that male homosexuality may be vestigial to female sexuality. I predict that any genetic component will be located on the X chromosome, which means that it will be expressed when there is no corresponding gene to pair it with.
