From: mike@gordian.com (Michael A. Thomas)
Subject: Re: AIDS and Legislation of morality
Keywords: significant words from a document used as an index to content
Organization: Gordian; Costa Mesa, CA
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 18:12:37 GMT

In article <1992Oct13.220616.27501@midway.uchicago.edu>, thf2@ellis.uchicago.edu (Citecheck Hell) writes:
> In article <1992Oct13.201832.5808@sol.ctr.columbia.edu> StarOwl@uiuc.edu writes:
> >However, _people_ in general, in the US have had a tendency to gravitate
> >towards urban areas.  While your statements would explain why fewer
> >people in North Dakota are gay or bisexual, I suggest that it wouldn't make
> >a very _big_ difference.  That's the reason I emphasized "significantly"
> >above.
> 
> I would have to disagree with you.  I think it would make a big difference.
> Even if the difference in the migration rate isn't that great (and I
> think that someone who is *different* from his or her small-town/rural
> surroundings is more likely to migrate than someone who already fits in),
> the reality is that a homosexual in an urban area is more likely to be
> promiscuous, if only because there are greater opportunities to do so.

  I've been watching this exchange with some amount of amusement, but
the fact of the matter is that to a degree you are both right. There
are plenty of gay people who gravitate toward metropolitan areas for
obvious reasons (wanting to be in a culture which isn't constantly trying
to lynch you being the biggest reason, IMHO). However, there are also 
*plenty* of gay people out here in the homophobic hinterlands (I am one
of them, living in Orange County -- the definition thereof).
  Also your supposition about promiscuity vs. urban areas is very 
doubtful. Clearly it is much easier to find places to be promiscuous
in urban areas, but that does not in any way imply that:

  1) Urbanites use these facilities to any larger degree than the
     general population.
  2) That rural people do not go to the "big city" for fun.
  3) That rural people cannot be just as promiscuous within
     a more limited context.

  When I see some reliable statistics about all of this I might
give this some credibility, but I have never heard you produce
them. Indeed, to say anything credible they would have to be
correlated with heterosexual promiscuity as a "control" group.

> Take a San Francisco -- I've heard stats that it's 30% gay, which would be
> ten times the national rate.  Those people are coming from *somewhere*.

  Nit:
  According to Kinsey that number is really 10% (Kinsey 5 or 6). Although
I do not know the accuracy of your SF number, but my guess is that it
uses the same kind of metric (K5 or 6). Apples to apples.
 
> Even within San Francisco (or Chicago or New York or Houston) the gays
> (like just about any other cultural group) tend to cluster in the same
> neighborhood.

  For obvious reasons to me: acceptance. I think this is beyond your 
  comprehension which only sees this as a sex issue.
-- 

		Michael Thomas	(mike@gordian.com)
	"I don't think Bambi Eyes will get you that flame thrower..."  
		-- Hobbes to Calvin
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