I’ll be away for the day, so here’s some pseudo science to keep everyone happy… (as long as you ignore the blatant sexism in the ‘which is bigger, earth or sun? question - and its answers)
comes from here:
First of all, gay sexuality is not a threat.
Gay people are not sexually interested in straights.
The subtext to a lot of homophobic thinking is the idea that gays will try to get straight people into bed at the first opportunity, or that gays are looking to “convert” straights. Freud called this concept schwanzangst; the U.S. Army calls it Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.
We combed through over 4 million match searches, and found virtually no evidence of it:
Match Search Returns
- only 0.6% of gay men have ever searched for straight matches.
- only 0.1% of lesbians have ever searched for straight matches.
- only 0.13% of straight people’s profile visitors are gay.
Furthermore
In our dataset, there was not a single gay user, male or female, who primarily searched for straight people.Gay people aren’t promiscuous.
Another common myth about gay people is that they sleep around, but the statistical reality is that gay people as a group aren’t any more slutty than straights.
Median Reported Sex Partners
- straight men: 6
- gay men: 6
- straight women: 6
- gay women: 6
Here’s how the distribution curves compare:
- 45% of gay people have had 5 or fewer partners (vs. 44% for straights)
- 98% of gay people have had 20 or fewer partners (vs. 99% for straights)
It turns out that a tiny fraction of gays have
single-handedlytwo-handedly created the public image of gay sexual recklessness—in fact we found that just 2% of gay people have had 23% of the total reported gay sex, which is pretty crazy.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I have to say it doesn’t seem that surprising that when gay men look for partners, they look for gay men . . . ! I’m straight, but I think most of us are attracted to people who we think might be attracted to us.
My experience on one dating site has been that my profile is visited by quite a lot of gay men, but not for dating purposes. I think it has more to do with my efforts at erotic photography. I occasionally get messages along the lines “I know you’re straight, and I’m not hitting on you, but I wanted to let you know your photos are really good”.
The “conversion” thing hadn’t occurred to me—my own theory is that homophobia comes from straight people’s aversion to the idea of having gay sex. As though I let my hatred of the taste of parsnips turn into hatred of people who like the taste.
My theory is that homophobia stems from people’s feelings about their own sexuality, and especially if they believe in the Abrahamic religions, they are made to feel that sex is dirty, etc. Even though being gay doesn’t mean you’re any more sexually active than a straight person! I often wonder why homophobes don’t think for themselves, or why they make assumptions about people they obviously don’t interact with. My ex-boss and a good friend of mine are both lesbians, yet they’ve never hit on me or each other, and have had/are in monogamous relationships. I’m really glad my friend can give me a compliment about my appearance occasionally without it seeming she’s hitting on me.