Yellow Rose

I think Obama is handling this perfectly. Showing up would have been a big mistake. Also I think ... dangerous to his physical safety. Gay civil rights in Russia is important but compared to other issues that are the basis of the current BAD RELATIONS between the USA and Russia such as SYRIA, they are not that important. To suggest that Obama should have grandstanded with a rainbow pin is completely absurd. Some Americans like to bend over backwards to find reasons to diss Obama. That's sad. For gay Americans to diss him over gay civil rights issues is even more horrible. He has done more for gay civil rights than all other American presidents COMBINED. If we don't return support (at least for this issue) for a president like Obama, we are as a movement basically INSANE. Happily, the vast majority of gay Americans know the TREASURE we have in President Obama.

"dangerous to his physical safety" - how?

The one thing Putin would be guaranteed to do would be to ensure Obama's absolute safety if he went. To suggest anything but really is "absurd" and utter nonsense.

"the vast majority of gay Americans" today feel betrayed and badly let down by Obama and this is just one example of why. You're out of touch.

Obama had a chance to put his money where his mouth is, to face Putin down and to stand proud and to stand up for gay rights as he promised, but he blew it. All he had to do was attend and wear a little rainbow pin.

Instead we're sending a minor official nobody's heard of, a great but old tennis player who's never had anything to do with winter sports and most young Russians won't recognize, and an ice dancer who's still competing but didn't qualify. That may go down well with some gays at home, but he could have done so much more if he'd wanted to.

There are a lot of terms that need to be agreed upon to come up with statistically valid information on the issue. What constitutes sexual contact? What constitutes gay? Do MSM count? Many of the studies cited earlier were not specific to gay people and the wording of the questions may not fit. If you ask about how many relationships someone has had in the past year, the answer might be different from sexual encounters.

Due to a busy schedule, I havent had time to respond very thoroughly to this topic. First of all, the statistics sited come from a report by The Guardian and are derived from information the dating site OKCupid. OKCupid is not a gay dating site and doesnt even rank among the top 3 dating sites. The top 3 gay sites are: Match.com, Manhunt.net and Planetout.com. The information derived is very far from a scientific study and data derived about gays do not meet any standard of statistical validity.

People using a dating site may be very different in their sexual activity than people who do not. Even so, this study does point to a higher level of promiscuity. The increase that you site as being attributable to 2% of the gay population may not be correct. According to another source, it is 13%:

My conclusion, then, is that (according to the GSS data) there is a segment of gay men (roughly 13% of the total of gay men) who are promiscuous to a degree that straight men are not.

http://humbumbershoot.wordpress.com/2009/06/09/are-gay-men-more-promiscuous-than-straight-men-analyzing-research-results/

Please note that the comparison rules out married men. If married men were included the statistical difference would likely be quite different. In that same study single gay and straight men track fairly close in the number of partners, but again gay men do have more sexual partners than straight men.

There are studies which specifically look at gays rather than gleaning information from general data. Most of those show a higher level of sexual partners than their straight counterparts.

In the New England Journal of Science article, the statistics were derived from a sample of of men who had homosexual contact after the age of 20. Including all men, rather than gay men, would skew the statistics, unless all men who have homosexual contact over the age of 20 are considered as gay.

The overall information points to the fact that gays have had more sexual partners than straight men. The difference seems to be in the degree. Gay men may not be as promiscuous as many think, but they are never-the-less more promiscuous than their straight counterparts.

Yet again a mod expressing opinions which are ill-researched. The New England journal does NOT back up your conclusion.......

I don't know anything about mod's opinions but I've read all the links (nothing to do some evenings!) and I agree the New England Journal doesn't say anything like that nor do the newer more representative studies.

Does it really matter if this "segment of gay men" is 2% or 13%? Either way they're not representative of most gay men and whatever the view of those here is the studies show that most gay men - 87%, 89%, 98%, who cares - are about as promiscuous as most straight guys.

I'm not sure how much sluttier gay men are compared to straight men but I suggest we keep the myth alive that we are MUCH sluttier, true or not. It's one of the few things some straight men are jealous of us about! Why burst their bubble?

Are you serious, man?

Why do you think we were blamed for HIV/Aids and still are? What do you think the biggest argument is against gay marriage in the States? Read some of the homophobic stuff in this thread from the nuts at CARM and the FRC if you've been out of the States for a while, or from the homophobic nuts in Africa.

Hi guys. I've been reading TV and some of the other Thai/gay forums for a while but I'm not a "forum" guy so this is the only one I've got round to joining as I'm not too keen on the way Americans, gays and American gays (like me) are being pictured by some posters here.

I dont have as much Thai experience as some here as I've mainly been in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam for the last 5 years with the MAG and Halo since retiring, but I guess I'll end up in the area and hope I can give another US view.

Semper fi, guys