Laureate: Sex Drive Linked to Skin Color

B E R K E L E Y, Calif., Nov. 24, 2000 -- A Nobel laureate’s provocative speech on sunshine and sex — complete with slides of bikini-clad women — leftsome at the University of California, Berkeley, aghast.

James Watson, who co-discovered DNA, dumbfounded many at a guestlecture when he advanced his theory about a link between skin colorand sex drive.

“That’s why you have Latin lovers,” he said, according topeople who were there last month. “You’ve never heard of anEnglish lover. Only an English patient.”

“I realized right away that this was inappropriate,” saidSusan Marqusee, an associate professor of biochemistry andmolecular biology.

Watson also said fat people are happy and thin people moreambitious, showing a slide of waif-like model Kate Moss looking sadto illustrate the point.

Marqusee said she walked out after a comment about men findingfat women sexually attractive. “There wasn’t any science,” shesaid. “These aren’t issues that one can state as fact.”

No Comment From the Laureate

Watson has been traveling and does not comment on reaction tohis lectures, said Jeff Picarello, spokesman for the Cold SpringsHarbor Laboratory, where Watson is president.

Picarello said Watson has gotten positive reviews on the lecturebefore and is known for his sense of humor. Expounding on histheory that exposure to sunlight enhances sex drive, the mostlybald 72-year-old will announce that bald men have better sex,Picarello said. “He says this with a twinkle in his eye. It’sfascinating, but at the same time it’s amusing.”

Biology doctoral candidate Sarah Tegen said people were laughingat the beginning of Watson’s lecture. But the laughter turnednervous as he developed his theme.

“There was a lot of looking at the person next to you andsaying, ‘I can’t believe he’s saying this,’” she said.

The problem, says Tegen, was that Watson didn’t present thescience to back up his startling presentation.

“I think there’s a really important place in science forcontroversy. That’s how you overturn dogmas. But it’s got to bewithin a context of testable hypotheses,” she said.

Lessons from Melanin

Watson, who shared a Nobel Prize for his role in discovering thestructure of DNA in 1953 and who launched the Human Genome Projectin 1990, was giving a speech called “The Pursuit of Happiness:Lessons from pom-C.”

Pom-C is a protein that helps create different hormones —melanin that determines skin color, beta endorphins that affectmood and leptin, which plays a role in metabolizing fat. Watsontalked about how the chemicals are enhanced by sunlight, leading tothe supposition that people who are exposed to more sunlight havemore of the hormones.

He talked about an experiment at the University of Arizona wheremale patients were injected with a melanin extract. The test wasdesigned to see if skin could be chemically darkened to preventskin cancer, but found that as a side effect the men becamesexually aroused.

Watson went on to talk about how exposure to sun may affectsexual drive, showing slides of women in bikinis and one of veiledMuslim women.

Not Afraid of Public Opinion

Picarello said Watson’s theories are underpinned by biologicalfact.

“He approaches life as a science and puts forth his sciencebecause that’s what he loves. I don’t think he’s afraid of publicopinion. I don’t think he defers to public opinion and I thinkwe’re all a lot better off if biology isn’t politically correct,”he said.

James Allison, co-chair of the university’s department ofmolecular and cell biology, called the speech fallout a “tempestin a teapot. Jim’s a provocative guy. He certainly provokedpeople.”

But some Watson supporters were concerned he went too far.

“Doesn’t a guy like Jim Watson have the responsibility to makethis not ugly?” Berkeley biologist Michael Botchan, a Watsonprotege who presided over the session, told the San FranciscoChronicle. “Yes. But I cannot tell Jim Watson to change hisways.”