The effect of the promiscuy stereotype on opposn to gay rights - PMC

Contents:

• GAY STEREOTYP: ARE THEY TE?
• THE PLACE OF PROMISCUY GAY CULTURE
• WHY ARE THERE GAY MEN?
• THE EFFECT OF THE PROMISCUY STEREOTYPE ON OPPOSN TO GAY RIGHTS

GAY STEREOTYP: ARE THEY TE?

Although neher of our fantasi was fulfilled by the enunter, we end up havg an tertg nversatn about homosexualy, a topic the fellow was studyg graduate school, wh an obv personal vtment, and the topic of a paper I’d wrten my unrgraduate psychology class. For one thg, homosexualy shows a reasonably high herabily—if you are homosexual, and you have a tw brother, there is a very good chance he is homosexual as well. Another odd thg about homosexualy is the shape of homosexual men’s preferenc: Although gay men share women’s attractn to humans wh penis, that’s about as far as the siary go.

But studi by Michael Bailey, my own lleagu, and other rearchers repeatedly fd that homosexual men are most attracted to men their late teens and early twenti, and they don’t re much about stat, stead prrizg physil attractivens. All this suggts that the old “social learng” theori don’t apply well to homosexual preferenc—if so, gay guys would learn om media and the social environment what mak for an attractive man, and go after the same featur that women fd attractive.

THE PLACE OF PROMISCUY GAY CULTURE

Homosexual men are famoly promiscuo, a fact that beme well-known wh the onset of AIDS, when studi of gay men who were HIV-posive revealed average numbers of partners the hundreds (and even though gay men who were HIV negative had much lower numbers, the average for them was still dramatilly higher than the average numbers for heterosexual men). 6% of the women were exclively homosexual, a much larger percentage—13% of men and 11% of women—had at least some sexual experience wh, or attractn toward, the same sex.

Camper-Ciani and other rearchers have gathered some evince that relativ of homosexuals have more sexual partners, and more offsprg, than relativ of a parable sample of heterosexuals.

WHY ARE THERE GAY MEN?

Two of the puzzlg featur of homosexualy make some sense if you nsir that sexualy is not simply a “one swch” mechanism, but a pose of a number of separate mental modul. Homosexual men are cled toward promiscuy, attracted to youth and good looks, and unrg about stat—hence many of the sexual swch homosexual men are set the same posn as they are heterosexual men—if gay guys were straight, their preferenc would lead them to pick fertile femal. To plite matters further, rearchers like Lisa Diamond have reviewed a reasonable amount of evince that different explanatns will likely apply to male and female homosexuals, and bisexuals.

15, 2006 — -- Gay activists often cricize media verage of gay pri paras, sayg, rrectly, that the media foc on the extreme, the more flamboyantly feme men and very mascule women. Not all straight men are bad drsers, " he is rearch that suggts gay men do prefer certa profsns, like fashn, terr sign and hair lorg, and that lbians are more likely to prefer sports and the ary. Rearchers say 's bee lbians, on average, are attracted to more mascule occupatns, and gay men tend to prefer more feme is te that hostily toward gay people drove many away om some other profsns.

"Whether you work, you know, as an artist or a sger or a dancer, those are all really creative plac where gay people are embraced, " Krsley saidIncreasgly gay people are visible every profsn. And probably has to do wh the of sexual orientatn and early effects of hormon on the bra, " Bailey did a survey of profsnal dancers and found half the men were gay.

THE EFFECT OF THE PROMISCUY STEREOTYPE ON OPPOSN TO GAY RIGHTS

You n tell far better than chance who's a gay man om jt listeng to him say four sentenc, " Bailey Bailey's help, "20/20" ran a tt 2004 to see if people uld tell who was gay and who was straight. The man who most people thought was straight was actually people do thk that gay men are more promiscuo than straight men, and fact, Bailey said, gay men do have more sex partners. "I thk that the typil straight man would have as many sex partners as the typil gay man if he uld, " Bailey, we asked Bailey, isn't stereotypg harmful?

Homosexuals nform to the pattern: Gay men typilly have more partners than lbians, and one study San Francis found that nearly 50% of gay men had more than 500 partners.

2, 2005 One night last May, a handful of New York Cy's bt-known gay journalists, artists and amics lled together some iends to bemoan what they viewed as a backlash agast the sexual practic of homosexuals.