More Countries Accepting Gay Lifestyle: Study

[tombkk]

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/more-countries-accepting-gay-lifestyle-study-031409223.html

http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/World/Story/STIStory_673874.html

You'll find the same story all over the internet when you google for the title. I don't know the rules regarding copyright when c&p'ing any newspaper stories here, so I'll refrain from it. Maybe a mod can do that.

[Ijustwannateach]

Thanks for the links, Tom- I think that unless there is a specific ban on mention of the news organisation because of their requests or policy regarding linking/copying, that it is ok to quote an excerpt of about 100 words or so- will double check on that for you. The only papers I am aware of which do not allow us to use their material are certain Thai ones at the moment, so the links you posted are just fine.

[isanbirder]

It sounds good, but the links actually contain little information.

[xandreu]

Interesting. And Promising.

Although in the big picture of things, if you take into account that homosexuality has existed since the dawn of man, acceptance of it throughout history and culture's/civilizations has always had it's peaks and troughs.

This looks like a peak to me. Which is good. But a trough will inevitably come. It always does.

And yes, my glass is always half empty. Never half full.

[tombkk]

It sounds good, but the links actually contain little information.

The AFP article is a short summary of the findings. I am sure you can get the full details if you contact U of Chicago.

[tombkk]

Thanks for the links, Tom- I think that unless there is a specific ban on mention of the news organisation because of their requests or policy regarding linking/copying, that it is ok to quote an excerpt of about 100 words or so- will double check on that for you. The only papers I am aware of which do not allow us to use their material are certain Thai ones at the moment, so the links you posted are just fine.

Are you sure about that? I think it would have to do with international copyright law, especially when concerning an organisation like AFP who get their income from people wanting to copy their articles.

[Ijustwannateach]

I'm pretty sure, but like I said I'll double check.

[LeCharivari]

The one thing I can't understand about the AFP release/report is why they changed the title of the study from the original Uni of Chicago one (More Countries Accepting Homosexuality) to More Countries Accepting a Gay Lifestyle.

To me the two are far from synonymous - I am gay, but the only difference between my "lifestyle" and my straight counterparts is that I live and sleep with a man rather than a woman. A "gay lifestyle" to me implies a rather 70's idea of bath-houses, the Castro, and men in drag or leather dancing with each other - hardly the "lifestyle" most gay people follow.

[Jingthing]

I don't agree. I think "gay lifestyle" is simply a dated description of homosexuality in general still used by people not savvy about how that phrase trivializes the holistic importance of sexual orientation in a person's life. Lifestyle is a word legitimately used for hobbies and passions like golfing, boating, and surfing, not to a core thing like sexual orientation. Also it perhaps is used by some to be polite, thinking calling people gay or homosexual is too direct. You would never call a heterosexual person as living a straight lifestyle, so we shouldn't accept being trivialized that way. I cringe when I hear people say gay lifestyle, but I've been called much worse.

[LeCharivari]

I don't agree....

So what don't you agree with?

Reading what you wrote I would have thought that, for once, we are actually in agreement - depressing though that may be .....

[Jingthing]

I don't agree....

So what don't you agree with?

Reading what you wrote I would have thought that, for once, we are actually in agreement - depressing though that may be .....

Don't get too depressed. The part where you stated you think gay lifestyle means bathhouse culture, etc. I don't agree it is limited that way to the people that still use that tired phrase.

[tombkk]

The one thing I can't understand about the AFP release/report is why they changed the title of the study from the original Uni of Chicago one (More Countries Accepting Homosexuality) to More Countries Accepting a Gay Lifestyle.

To me the two are far from synonymous - I am gay, but the only difference between my "lifestyle" and my straight counterparts is that I live and sleep with a man rather than a woman. A "gay lifestyle" to me implies a rather 70's idea of bath-houses, the Castro, and men in drag or leather dancing with each other - hardly the "lifestyle" most gay people follow.

To me, "homosexuality" is a word a doctor (well, let's say scientist) would say. I don't like it too much, because the part "sexuality" seems to indicate that it is reduced to what happens in bed. Any many straight people I have met over the years think so.

"Gay lifestyle" is a more modern word, IMHO, showing that there is more to it than just sex. However, it seems to implicate a choice, which is being deliverately misunderstood by, for example, the religious extremists. But tfor the general population and presumable the target group of AFP, it is a better word, because more readers would read into that article, maybe with a bemised curiosity, rather than into an article with the ugly (as sexual) word "homosexuality" in it. Alternative lifestyles something most readers may be tolerant towards (as long as it does not include their own children) but sex is disgusting.

IOW the change of title is a move by the editor to catch more readers, IMHO. And that's his job.

[LeCharivari]

If you do a search for gay lifestyle a lot of people still apparently do see that as being what it implies, JT - even the Christian gays , whom I would normally avoid as I would most other religious groups, think that is how most people see it.

I didn't actually say that I thought that was what it "meant" - what I said was that I thought that was what it "implied" .

I may be wrong, as I have never followed a "gay lifestyle", nor immersed myself in "gay culture" (whatever that is) or been part of a "gay community", but to me my "lifestyle" is little different from my straight counterparts except for "what happens in bed" and who my partner is and I think that would apply to many gays - particularly those in long term relationships. There are some differences (no kids, for example, but that is out of choice as much as physical impracticality) but to me the only real difference is that a "straight lifestyle" would probably be easier as it is more widely acceptable, but in my case it made no difference to my choice of career, friends, etc - even my lifestyle.

Tom, I am curious about one thing - if by "it" you mean being gay, just what "more" is there "to it than just sex"? If you take away differences due to discrimination, then surely that is all "it" is about?

(and by "just sex" I don't mean just physical sex, but sexual attraction)

[Jingthing]

Whatever it means or people think it means, it's a phrase that has served any usefulness it had, if it ever had any in the first place.

[tombkk]

If you do a search for gay lifestyle a lot of people still apparently do see that as being what it implies, JT - even the Christian gays , whom I would normally avoid as I would most other religious groups, think that is how most people see it.

I didn't actually say that I thought that was what it "meant" - what I said was that I thought that was what it "implied" .

I may be wrong, as I have never followed a "gay lifestyle", nor immersed myself in "gay culture" (whatever that is) or been part of a "gay community", but to me my "lifestyle" is little different from my straight counterparts except for "what happens in bed" and who my partner is and I think that would apply to many gays - particularly those in long term relationships. There are some differences (no kids, for example, but that is out of choice as much as physical impracticality) but to me the only real difference is that a "straight lifestyle" would probably be easier as it is more widely acceptable, but in my case it made no difference to my choice of career, friends, etc - even my lifestyle.

Tom, I am curious about one thing - if by "it" you mean being gay, just what "more" is there "to it than just sex"? If you take away differences due to discrimination, then surely that is all "it" is about?

(and by "just sex" I don't mean just physical sex, but sexual attraction)

I'm not gay because of what I do in bed, but because I love men. That's because men and women are different, and I am not referring to the body but to, well, the overall character for want of a better word. The discussion of whether men are from Mars and women are from Venus does not belong in a gay forum, but please feel happy to discuss with your straight friends, both male and female. They can explain the difference between men and women better than I can.

[LeCharivari]

In some ways I agree with you, Tom, but in others I couldn't disagree with you more.

True, male and female characteristics in very broad brush terms are different but that's very much social stereotyping. I have gay and straight friends, enjoy male and female company, and have enjoyed holidays with female friends as much as I have with male friends (although I didn't sleep with the former, and seldom did with the latter!). I don't feel any more comfortable in an all gay group than I do in an all female group (often the reverse), although I don't have the same reservations about an all male (not openly sexually orientated) group.

I would have thought that the argument that "men and women are different" mentally as well as physically would have been one which would have set back any arguments for sexual equality irredeemably - if they are so "different", how can they possibly be "equal"? How, for example, can you possibly deploy male and female troops together, under identical conditions requiring them to act and react in identical ways, when their mental processes (or "characters") are so different? The British military was convinced that these differences meant that women should not have direct combat roles, but now that some have due to some loopholes (for dog handlers, for example, as well as some pilots) it seems as if there are less and less differences in "the overall character" and that the only real differences are in "the body".

In some ways I can't help thinking that exactly the same sort of differences were thought to exist between blacks and whites, for example, and that once the artificial barriers there were removed the differences were either found to be for social and economic reasons or to be purely physical.

[Jingthing]

Men and women aren't different?

Let us know when you get back ...

There is P.C. and being open minded/intellectually curious. Then there is total denial of a clear reality. Just because we are gay doesn't mean we have to think the sexes aren't different.

What's next? Meat made from poop?

[tombkk]

LC: Men and women can have equal rights, but they are not similar. If you frequently mix with both, I am surprised you think that all people are equal. Please do search below the surface, you will find many similarities between men (whether straight or gay) and between women, but will find that deep down, men and women are different.

I don't know whether it's fortunate or unfortunate, but it's a fact that men and women tick differerently. Please ask your straight friends (both men and women) for verification. Ask you lesbian friends or any womens libber about their opinion about men, and listen closely. They too say the same.

Of course, some people of either gender will deny this reality, but I hope you have an open mind.

[endure]

I'm not gay because of what I do in bed, but because I love men.

Simple words - profound meanings. Thanks.

[Ijustwannateach]

There was a scale of stages I read about somewhere once in which the author was trying to determine what really defined 'gay' in its modern English usage. His conclusion was that it wasn't just about physical activities or attractions; it required a substantial and self-conscious emotional identity to be formed. Let me see if I can find a link to something of the sort:

from "The Ecological Model of Gay Identity":

'(1) awareness of homosexual feelings; (2) testing and exploration without self-identification as gay; (3) adoption of a gay identity (i.e., identity acceptance); and (4) identity integration.'

By this formulation, even in this contemporary period many of the MSM (men who have sex with men) are still not technically 'gay', nor would many people from other cultures and time periods have been.

There is also a comparative discussion with bibliography of various models of identity formation for homosexual individuals here.

[Jingthing]

There was a scale of stages I read about somewhere once in which the author was trying to determine what really defined 'gay' in its modern English usage. His conclusion was that it wasn't just about physical activities or attractions; it required a substantial and self-conscious emotional identity to be formed. Let me see if I can find a link to something of the sort:

from "The Ecological Model of Gay Identity":

'(1) awareness of homosexual feelings; (2) testing and exploration without self-identification as gay; (3) adoption of a gay identity (i.e., identity acceptance); and (4) identity integration.'

By this formulation, even in this contemporary period many of the MSM (men who have sex with men) are still not technically 'gay', nor would many people from other cultures and time periods have been.

Makes sense to me. Similar issues discussed in this topic --

[isanbirder]

What you call it doesn't interest me. However, I think that if you are gay, it permeates your whole life, more or less according to your own personality. ( As we might say, some are sexpats, others are just expats.)

[Jingthing]

What you call it doesn't interest me. However, I think that if you are gay, it permeates your whole life, more or less according to your own personality. ( As we might say, some are sexpats, others are just expats.)

If you're implying that all expats who strongly identify as gay in Thailand are all sexpats, you are incredibly off base. If not, never mind.

[isanbirder]

What you call it doesn't interest me. However, I think that if you are gay, it permeates your whole life, more or less according to your own personality. ( As we might say, some are sexpats, others are just expats.)

If you're implying that all expats who strongly identify as gay in Thailand are all sexpats, you are incredibly off base. If not, never mind.

Jingthing, how on earth did you get that out of it? Get some fun out of life for a change!

[Jingthing]

What you call it doesn't interest me. However, I think that if you are gay, it permeates your whole life, more or less according to your own personality. ( As we might say, some are sexpats, others are just expats.)

If you're implying that all expats who strongly identify as gay in Thailand are all sexpats, you are incredibly off base. If not, never mind.

Jingthing, how on earth did you get that out of it? Get some fun out of life for a change!

That's how I read it. Maybe you should read what you wrote carefully and I think you might get a clue. Not going to draw you a diagram.

[LeCharivari]

LC: Men and women can have equal rights, but they are not similar. If you frequently mix with both, I am surprised you think that all people are equal. ......

That's actually the exact opposite of what I believe or have said.

Far from thinking that "all people are equal" I think that all people are different - regardless of whether they are male or female, black or white, gay or straight, Western or Asian, fat or thin, weak or strong, clever or slow, etc, etc.

In my experience it is social conditioning that dictates how people act and "tick" far more than any natural tendency that can be ascribed to someone being male or female, gay or straight, etc. Once you remove social conditioning (which can only happen under extremes of stress, if at all) or the same social conditions apply the set ways that men, women, gays, straights, etc, are expected to behave or "tick" as biological or social groups disappear.

Far from saying that "the sexes aren't different" I am saying that all people are different and those differences depend on the individual far more than on their gender, sexual preference or any other rigid categorisation.

[Ijustwannateach]

In what is perhaps an American, or Anglo-Puritan, perspective- adopting a gay identity is also socially important as a matter of 'opting out' of the prevailing models of masculinity in that kind of background. I think we Anglo Saxons are particularly bad culturally about requiring men to be emotionally constipated, socially distant creatures who are unable and unwilling to connect to ourselves or each other. This hurts both gay and straight men in all kinds of ways, making the default LESS social support in our lives even from males who are or could be close friends (never mind any romantic attachment). Thankfully, it seems to me most Asian populations never developed this kind of problem to such a neurotic, self-conscious and widespread degree.

For example, the closeness which even straight Thai men can attain to their 'brothers' is something which doesn't have much of an analogue in Anglo Saxon culture, even considering the concept of 'mates' or 'buds'. I would imagine that the existence of such a social model helps gay men here to adapt more easily to a cooperative domestic stance with each other in close relationships; whereas American men would have to struggle somewhat with the stereotypes of what BOTH being males (who must be macho; dominant, etc.) implied in terms of power negotiations within the relationship much more.

[LeCharivari]

I'm not gay because of what I do in bed, but because I love men.

Simple words - profound meanings. Thanks.

Thought provoking, certainly, depending on "whatever (in) love means".

Do I "love" men? Definitely not all of them.

Do I hate women, which might follow as a corollary? Definitely not all of them, either.

Am I more physically attracted to men than women? Yes, but not exclusively: given the choice between being marooned on a desert island with an old, overweight, wrinkly, unattractive, TV posting farang male or a young, slim, athletic, attractive, broad-minded Asian female, assuming that they were both equally friendly and able to start a fire, I think I'd go for the latter.

Does any of that mean that I'm gay? Maybe, maybe not.

I am, however, in love with a man - that probably does.

[tombkk]

I'm not gay because of what I do in bed, but because I love men.

Simple words - profound meanings. Thanks.

Thought provoking, certainly, depending on "whatever (in) love means".

Do I "love" men? Definitely not all of them.

Do I hate women, which might follow as a corollary? Definitely not all of them, either.

The corollary doesn't apply. I don't hate women. I just don't fancy them as a life partner.

[tombkk]

LC: Men and women can have equal rights, but they are not similar. If you frequently mix with both, I am surprised you think that all people are equal. ......

That's actually the exact opposite of what I believe or have said.

Far from thinking that "all people are equal" I think that all people are different - regardless of whether they are male or female, black or white, gay or straight, Western or Asian, fat or thin, weak or strong, clever or slow, etc, etc.

In my experience it is social conditioning that dictates how people act and "tick" far more than any natural tendency that can be ascribed to someone being male or female, gay or straight, etc. Once you remove social conditioning (which can only happen under extremes of stress, if at all) or the same social conditions apply the set ways that men, women, gays, straights, etc, are expected to behave or "tick" as biological or social groups disappear.

Far from saying that "the sexes aren't different" I am saying that all people are different and those differences depend on the individual far more than on their gender, sexual preference or any other rigid categorisation.

Everybody is different, but men have more in common with other men (straight or gay) than with women. I'm sorry to burst your theory (which will get you into heaven), but it's just not reality.