Are Gay Men Happier Than Straight Men? | Psychology Today

Contents:

• ARE GAY PEOPLE SMARTER THAN STRAIGHT PEOPLE?
• WHILE STRAIGHT MEN FACE TNAL CRISIS, GAY MEN EXCEL AMILLY, STUDY FDS
• ARE GAY PEOPLE SMARTER THAN STRAIGHT PEOPLE?
• STUDY PROV WHAT WE KNEW ALL ALONG: GAY STUNTS ARE SMARTER
• BRAS OF GAY PEOPLE REMBLE THOSE OF STRAIGHT PEOPLE OF OPPOSE SEX
• GEN LKED TO BEG GAY MAY HELP STRAIGHT PEOPLE GET MORE SEX
• THE NEW STEM GAP: STUDY CONFIRMS GAY MEN ARE LS LIKELY THAN STRAIGHT MEN TO BE IN STEM FIELDS
• ARE GAY MEN HAPPIER THAN STRAIGHT MEN?
• ARE HOMOPHOBIC PEOPLE REALLY GAY AND NOT ACCEPTG IT?

ARE GAY PEOPLE SMARTER THAN STRAIGHT PEOPLE?

”A new study makg wav among LGBTQ-foced amics lends empiril crence to the inic Act Up -founr’s priful claims — not to the supposed sweepg superry of gay men, rather to the more narrow assertn that this group is remarkably cled to excel the paper, which was published the Amerin Soclogil Review on Feb. Courty Amy LevJoel Mtleman, a Universy of Notre Dame soclogist and the paper’s sole thor, found that on an array of amic measur, gay mal outperform all other groups on average, across all major racial groups. “This article is focg a lens on what we do to all kids, ” Lisa Diamond, a psychology profsor at the Universy of Utah, said of the societal prsur that appear to impe lbians school even as the strsors possibly unnerve gay mal to pensatg for homophobia through amic strivg.

The three surveys of Amerin adults nsistently dited that gay men are far more likely than straight men to have graduated om high school or llege, wh jt over half of gay men havg earned a llege gree, pared wh about 35 percent of straight men. What’s more, gay men’s llege graduatn rate dramatilly bts even that of straight women, about one-third of whom have a bachelor’s longudal survey showed that pared wh their straight male peers, gay mal earned higher GPAs high school and llege, enrolled harr class, took school more serly, had more amilly md iends and had a much lower rate of ever droppg out for a month or more.

WHILE STRAIGHT MEN FACE TNAL CRISIS, GAY MEN EXCEL AMILLY, STUDY FDS

But as nstrictns on women’s potential have eased sce the 1960s, straight women’s llege graduatn rate has risen to the pot of statistil pary wh lbians among today’s young Nancy Drew effect Searchg for the drivers of the differenc school performance between straight and gay stunts, Mtleman ed a mache-learng algorhm to intify rponse patterns to survey qutns that predicted beg male vers female among members of the longudal hort. “Girls who prent as mascule are seen as troublemakers, are seen as spic some way, ” Mtleman ‘Bt Ltle Boy the World’ phenomenon An addnal factor that Mtleman argued driv the average gay boy to surpass even the average straight girl amilly is what’s known queer psychology as the “Bt Ltle Boy the World” phenomenon. This refers to the tle of the 1973 memoir by former Democratic Natnal Commtee treasurer Andrew Tobias, which he chronicled his youthful csa to appease his ternalized homophobia through admissn to Harvard Universy and other feats of superlative a 2013 paper published Basic and Applied Social Psychology, psychologist Mark Hatzenbuehler, now of Harvard Universy, and Pachankis found evince suggtg that gay male llege stunts ed sought to pensate for anti-gay stigma by rivg their self-worth part through amic mastery and other forms of petn.

This psychologil paradigm also pris the bedrock of “The Velvet Rage, ” psychologist Alan Downs’ go-to bible for queer men, published 2005, on “overg the pa of growg up gay a straight man’s world. ”An analysis by the Brookgs Instutn’s Haton Project published January found that gay male upl earn $30, 000 more annually than lbian Meyer, a rearcher at UCLA’s Williams Instute, exprsed trigue over the story Mtleman’s paper tells of many gay men apparently overg nsirable odds.

ARE GAY PEOPLE SMARTER THAN STRAIGHT PEOPLE?

Meyer poted to the Centers for Disease Control and Preventn’s Youth Risk Behavr Surveillance reports that have chronicled the myriad strsors lbian, gay, bisexual and transgenr young people weather school and the lany of leter impacts, cludg prsn and, Mtleman found that on the whole, lbian, gay and bisexual young people reported feelg more unsafe school and suffered higher levels of discrimatn and what’s known as mory strs than their straight peers. Suggtg that feverish amic strivg search of validatn n e at a steep st to mental and physil health, Mtanski poted to his own rearch fdgs that gay men have disproportnately high levels of chronic flammatn.

Notg what an overwhelmgly unsafe place school still is for many queer kids, Wilson further utned the public not to nclu, for example, “that a poor Black gay boy livg Montgomery or Mobile, Alabama, feme-prentg and genr-nonnformg, is actually succeedg high school right now. Ethnographi of tradnal societi suggt that exclively homosexual behavur was probably rare the anctral environment, so the Hypothis would predict that more telligent dividuals are more likely to intify themselv as homosexual and engage homosexual behavur. When he’s not havg his blog ncelled for sayg black women are unattractive, he’s argug that some natns jt aren’t smart enough to be which, his latt work, sayg that gay people are smarter on average, is probably his most polilly rrect paper years, strange as that may three large populatn surveys (USA’s AddHealth and GSS, UK’s NCDS), Kanazawa found a small posive rrelatn between timated IQ and self-reported homosexual behavur or I’m not sure what to make of this.

Meangays1Kanazawa terprets all this terms of the Savanna hypothis, sentially the ia that telligence allows to transcend our evolutnary programmg (acrdg to which we ought to all be straight, amongst many other thgs) –. Cult for dividuals to prefer or value somethg that they nnot tly prehend…However, uld be that Ameri and the UK today, smarter people tend to end up the kd of social circl where beg gay is (for whatever reason) more ma problem wh this is that the effects are very small.

STUDY PROV WHAT WE KNEW ALL ALONG: GAY STUNTS ARE SMARTER

The efficients reprent the change homosexualy per ‘pot’ change the other variable, but IQ vari more than polil orientatn, bee polil attus were measured on a 5 pot sle AddHealth but IQ has a mean of 100 pots. Wrten by Joel Mtleman, a soclogist at the Universy of Notre Dame, the paper explor how growg up gay impacts amic short, unvered that on a wi array of amic measur, on average, gay men outperform virtually everyone else. One of the reasons for this uld be that gay mal, who are often the most vulnerable and picked upon groups school, pensate for homophobia by excellg fact that gay men outperform others school is particularly tertg right now bee over the last several years, women overall have excelled their amic pursus while men have been stagnant or fallen behd.

This study reports that the cle amic standg is only among straight men, not gay three surveys ed by Mtlemen his study showed that:- Gay men are far more likely than straight on to graduate om high school and llege. When he backed answer patterns agast standard genr intifiers, he found that the answers provid by gay men of all rac were more siar to those of straight whe suggts that sexual orientatn alone don’t drive amic performance.

It seems more likely that sexual orientatn upled wh genr intifitn may be the actual reason why gay male stunts do so well genr experts, cludg Mtleman, believe that the anti-tellectual bias of many straight boys and men is driven large part by the sire to assert their masculy by distancg themselv om the smart female the ntrary, gay boys and men, based on the study, seem to be willg — or even eager — to go agast genr norms — and actually rebel agast them — when to amics. In other words, ’s the “I’ll show you” of negative ramifitns of outperformg may seem like a great way for young gay men to al wh their strs and e out ahead of the people who pick on them and make them feel “ls than”. Your sire to prove your classmat wrong by earng an MBA uld end up dog more harm to you than them, mentally, physilly and to learn more about how gay llege stunts n al wh strs and mental health issu?

BRAS OF GAY PEOPLE REMBLE THOSE OF STRAIGHT PEOPLE OF OPPOSE SEX

Their imag show that the bras of gay people, certa featur cludg symmetry and nnectns to the bra’s emotnal centre are more closely matched to the bras of straight people om the oppose sex.

For example, parts of the bra volved reward and emotn are more strongly activated when straight men and lbian women look at female fac, and when straight women and gay men see male fac. But attractive fac and enticg pheromon are both related to sex, and rpons to them uld be learned over Savic’s and Ldstrom’s new study shows that the differenc extend to fundamental aspects of the bra that aren’t directly lked to sex or behavur, and that are probably fixed om ia that straight men have more asymmetril bras than gay men fs wh prev rearch.

From prev studi, we know that the nnectns ually lk to different areas the bras of men and women, and sprout om different hemispher -the right men, and the left was the pattern that Savic and Ldstrom saw the straight volunteers om their study, but the homosexuals showed the reverse pattern.

GEN LKED TO BEG GAY MAY HELP STRAIGHT PEOPLE GET MORE SEX

For example, the amygdalas of gay men had more mon wh those of straight women – the two halv were well-nnected, they had more nrons projectg om the left half (as opposed to the right straight men) and the nrons nnected to the same parts of the bra that those of straight women nnectns provi some tantalisg hts about how gay and straight people differ their behavur.

Scientists may have fally solved the puzzle of what mak a person gay, and how is passed om parents to their children.A group of scientists suggted Tuday that homosexuals get that tra om their oppose-sex parents: A lbian will almost always get the tra om her father, while a gay man will get the tra om his mother.The heredary lk of homosexualy has long been tablished, but scientists knew was not a strictly geic lk, bee there are many pairs of intil tws who have differg sexuali.

Scientists om the Natnal Instute for Mathematil and Blogil Synthis say homosexualy seems to have an epigeic, not a geic lk.Long thought to have some sort of heredary lk, a group of scientists suggted Tuday that homosexualy is lked to epi-marks — extra layers of rmatn that ntrol how certa gen are exprsed. In homosexuals, the epi-marks aren't erased — they're passed om father-to-dghter or mother-to-son, explas William Rice, an evolutnary blogist at the Universy of California Santa Barbara and lead thor of the study."There is pellg evince that epi-marks ntribute to both the siary and dissiary of fay members, and n therefore feasibly ntribute to the observed faial herance of homosexualy and s low nrdance between [intil] tws," Rice not.Rice and his team created a mathematil mol that explas why homosexualy is passed through epi-marks, not geics. But bee the epi-marks provi an evolutnary advantage for the parents of homosexuals: They protect fathers of homosexuals om unrexposure to ttosterone and mothers of homosexuals om overexposure to ttosterone while they are gtatn."The epi-marks protect fathers and mothers om excs or unrexposure to ttosterone — when they rry over to oppose-sex offsprg, n e the masculizatn of femal or the femizatn of mal," Rice says, which n lead to a child beg gay.

THE NEW STEM GAP: STUDY CONFIRMS GAY MEN ARE LS LIKELY THAN STRAIGHT MEN TO BE IN STEM FIELDS

Rice not that the markers are "highly variable" and that only strong epi-marks will rult a homosexual offsprg.Though scientists have long spected some sort of geic lk, Rice says studi attemptg to expla why people are gay have been few and far between."Most mastream blogists have shied away om studyg bee of the social stigma," he says. Well there are many exampl of homosexualy nature, 's very mon." Homosexual behavr has been observed black swans, pengus, sheep, and other animals, he says.Rice's mol still needs to be tted on real-life parent-offsprg pairs, but he says this epigeic lk mak more sense than any other explanatn, and that his team has mapped out a way for other scientists to tt their work."We've found a story that looks really good," he says.

”Details of the unpublished study have been scribed a public rearch plan, two scientific abstracts, and by rearchers at a scientific meetg held June at the Broad Instute, a genome rearch center Cambridge, hunt for sexual orientatn gen—which was to the polarizg qutn of whether people are born gay or bee so—is part of a boom genomics rearch that aims to unveil how gen shape behavr, not jt diseas. They scribed their tent to perform a genome-wi associatn study, a technique origally veloped to lote geic sceptibili to diseas like macular generatn and stead of surg for associatns between people’s illns and featur of their genom, they would rry out a vast statistil analysis parg the DNA of hundreds of thoands of people wh rmatn about their sexual ’s already well known that beg gay is partly geic—as all other behavrs, gen play a role.

”Acrdg to a prentatn by team member Robbee Wedow of the Universy of Colorado June, the rearchers loted four posns men’s genom that were statistilly rrelated wh their ever havg had gay sex, and about 40 rrelated wh whether heterosexuals had had more or fewer sex partners. Acrdg to an abstract the team submted to the Amerin Society for Human Geics, whose annual meetg is unr way this week San Diego, the DNA signals lked to gay sexual experienc also appeared more often straight men who had a larger number of sex partners.

ARE GAY MEN HAPPIER THAN STRAIGHT MEN?

Ten days ago, Vanrbilt Universy announced two enomists had nclud that gay men same-sex upl are 12% ls likely to have a STEM-related bachelor’s gree than straight and bisexual men whose partners were women. ” When asked about the total absence of data regardg transgenr people — given that someone who is trans also n be gay, lbian, bisexual, asexual, poly, pan or any sexual orientatn, Carpenter had this to say:. Sansone wrote their paper that this fdg suggts that the factors that perpetuate the very large genr gap STEM fields — “heteropatriarchy, implic and explic bias, sexual harassment, unequal accs to fundg, and fewer speakg vatns” — are related to this newly intified gap STEM fields between gay men and heterosexual men.

Alas, none of this good news for gays and spankg fetishists is really backed up by the data the origal study, which, while trigug, is hardly evince that is beg out and gay that mak men happier (let alone women).

While gay men the study seemed to experience ls strs and prsn than straight men, there are a variety of alternative explanatns that might expla this fact (like whether they worked out or not; whether they had children or not; e level and stabily). It seems like more than jt bad reportg to tell gay men and women that happs is up to them, not the world at large, and happs will rive om disclosure when that very disclosure n be dangero.

ARE HOMOPHOBIC PEOPLE REALLY GAY AND NOT ACCEPTG IT?

A seri of studi recently published the prtig Journal of Personaly and Social Psychology found higher levels of homophobia dividuals wh unacknowledged attractns to the same sex, particularly when they grew up wh thorarian parents who also held homophobic attus.

In the Universy of Rochter's prs release, Netta Weste, the study's lead thor, said, "Individuals who intify as straight but psychologil tts show a strong attractn to the same sex may be threatened by gays and lbians bee homosexuals remd them of siar tennci wh themselv. Acrdg to the team of rearchers, this study is the first to document the role that both parentg and sexual orientatn play the formatn of anti-gay attus, cludg self-reported homophobic attus, discrimatory bias, implic hostily towards gays, and endorsement of anti-gay polici.

In the experiments, participants who reported themselv to be more heterosexual than their performance on the reactn time task dited were most likely to react wh hostily towards gay people. This ngence between implic and explic measur of sexual orientatn predicted a variety of homophobic behavrs, cludg self-reported anti-gay attus, implic hostily towards gays, endorsement of anti-gay polici, and discrimatory bias such as the assignment of harsher punishments for homosexuals. How about the fact that well ted and telligent people who are gay are much more likely to be open about their orientatn and the dullards who are gay are more likely to keep a secret bee their crappy job, loy social standg, and church membership would be at risk if they me out.