From: kane@buast7.bu.edu (Hot Young Star)
Newsgroups: ca.politics,ba.politics
Subject: Re: The Mother of All Flame Wars, Part 2 of 4
Date: 9 Oct 92 18:26:27 GMT
	    <ld98vlINNsv9@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM>
	    <1992Oct9.161925.3538@netcom.com>
Followup-To: ca.politics
Organization: Astronomy Department, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA

In article <1992Oct9.161925.3538@netcom.com>
phil@netcom.com (Phil Ronzone) writes:

>In article <ld98vlINNsv9@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM>
chased@rbbb.Eng.Sun.COM (David Chase) writes:

>>In article <1992Oct8.155948.27041@netcom.com> phil@netcom.com
>>(Phil Ronzone) writes:

>>>In short, the emotional reaction shows that Clayton has
>>>clearly hit a nerve.

>>Clayton hit a nerve, yes. He hit my "bad statistics nerve".

>Well, do, or do not, male homosexuals on the average, have close to TWO
>orders of magnitude more sex partners than hetersexuals? Do you NOT
>accept that many many people find this disgusting?

You are using the phrase "two orders of magnitude" deceptively, Phil.
Most people with scientific backgrounds will understand this to mean
10*10, or 100 times the promiscuity.

What you actually appear to be referring to is the Masters, Johnson,
and Kolodny studies which showed that straight unmarried men have
about 10 sex partners per year, and that gay men have about 22 partners
per year on average. The difference is "two times", NOT "two orders of
magnitude"!!!

As for the "digusting" part, then any straight man who beds a different
woman every month must also be depraved and disgusting, too. The average
gay man is not incredibly different than the average unmarried straight
man. The behavior that Clayton always highlights---gay men who frequent
bathhouses and have a dozen partners a night---is clearly on on fringe
of a distribution of behaviors. Any attempt to portray it as "NORMAL"
gay behavior is outright fraud.

Do you really want to differentiate between bedding a new person every
two weeks instead of once a month? These aren't married people, you
know.

Their promiscuity may be incredibly stupid in the age of AIDS, but
disgusting? What's disgusting about it? (Careful how you use that word,
"disgusting"!)

In any case, you can't really compare the relationship between two men
to that between a man and a woman, NOT because they are inherently different,
but because men and women are STILL socialized differently. Men are
still taught to be the hunters and the aggressors, and women the more
passive, intuitive, and sensible.

Clayton implies that two men can not inherently have a romantic and
loving relationship, that their relationships would naturally devolve
into buddy-buddy, or competitive, or sex-crazed relationships, and that
is why gay relationships supposedly don't last.

There was a study done in the mid-80's by a gay male professional couple---
one is a clinical psychologist, the other a psychiatrist---the names escape
me (one is named McWhirter???)---who chronicled the relationships of roughly
150 male couples. Their durations ranged from 1 year to over 40 years.
The average length in the relationship, if I remember right, was about
15 years.

As a comparison, new divorce statistics indicate that of all the marriages
which took place in 1989, 49% of those couples are now divorced in 1992.

Are you really going to go out on a limb and say that gay male behavior
is INCREDIBLY DIFFERENT than straight male behavior? Sure, they're a bit
different, but there is no hard evidence of a night-and-day situation.

We'd all do better to regard each other as _human beings_, instead of
"US vs THEM".

Brian
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
kane@{buast7,astro}.bu.edu (Hot Young Star) Astronomy Dept, Boston University,
Boston, MA 02215. True personal salvation is achieved by absolute faith in
ones true self.
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