Ken Mehlman, President Bush’s campaign manager in 2004 and a former chairman of the Republican National Committee, has told family and associates that he is gay. Mehlman arrived at this conclusion about his identity fairly recently, he said in an interview.
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113 comments:
Pardon me if I'm incredibly sheltered, but how does a 44 year old man recently realize he's gay?
There seem to be a lot of gay Republicans for some reason.
you pass off a lot of opinion and theory as "truth."
Where is the proof that you "predicted" this.
That you can tell by a man's politics that he is gay.
Where is the proof?
Are you serious?
I'm reminded of how in the Soviet Union the KGB had fake dissident groups, to both frustrate the efforts of and keep track of actual dissidents or those who were inclined to stray from the party line.
The Republican Party is very much a fake dissident group, it helps the establishment pretend to the public that we have an actual democracy with an actual choice, and makes the worker bees of the establishment think they have an evil enemy to work against.
The Bush family is very much a knowing part of this charade, as their open disgust with actual conservatives and dissidents shows.
A big part of the problem though is that politics has become such a tedious and ridiculous exercise that no masculine, traditionalist man wants to spend very much time on it.
In looking for info on Ken Mehlman, I came across this cite:
>>
"'NYT' Sunday Preview: Ken Mehlman is 'Anal-Retentive, Man!' Says Karl Rove," Editor & Publisher, September 22, 2006.
>>
The plot thickens.
He's lying. He was asked if he's gay during the campaign and felt constrained to say No to placate his party. This second lie is to placate his homies over his previous closetry.
How did you arrive at the conclusion that Mehlman was gay long ago, even though you've never met or seen him on TV?
(I've always heard that Gaydar is pretty effective but this is impressive, indeed!)
Another shock: he's a jewish amnesty pusher, if you can believe that.
No!
Man, I didn't see that one coming ..
Is the GOP toying with the idea of going for the gay vote now? Ted Olson fighting Prop 8 in CA, now this. Might not be a bad strategy. Gays care about gay stuff. They aren't necessarily on board for the rest of the Democrat platform.
Wasn't this an open secret for the last decade or so?
This is not a realization that a someone with a stable personality can come to at age 44.
The real question is how someone with such a strange personality can go so far without enough people realizing there's something not right about the guy.
Come to think of it, the same goes for our President.
DisgruntledConservative said..."Pardon me if I'm incredibly sheltered, but how does a 44 year old man recently realize he's gay?"
Apparently the 44 year old man in question was even more incredibly sheltered than you are.
Can we take a poll?
Is he:
1) a top?
2) a bottom?
3) a versatile?
I am guessing versi...
"Man, I didn't see that one coming .."
That's what HE said.
ooooh!
"Where is the proof that you "predicted" this.
That you can tell by a man's politics that he is gay.
Where is the proof? "
Steve could tell he was gay because he acted and sounded gay to anyone with a pair of eyes and a pair of ears. Just like anyone can tell Lindsay Graham is gay.
That simple really.
When does W's turn come?
I heard he was gay years ago and was confused that it's news, but I work in DC. Sometimes forget not everyone hears the same rumors (or cares).
Hey that's cool; you guys have another "family values conservative" to vote for!
"Where is the proof that you "predicted" this.
That you can tell by a man's politics that he is gay.
Where is the proof?
Are you serious?"
Do you not tire of your own banality?
Why do you insist upon inflicting it on the rest of us?
These are some offhand remarks made on a FREAKING BLOG, not a mathematics paper. Steve isn't required to present "proofs".
Oh come on. He knew he was gay, he just happened to be head of the RNC.
Is this really that hard? Is Obama religious? Did Bill Clinton not think eating was cheating? Do politicians lie? Does a bear...
The plot thickens.
Or swells, as it were.
Melhman said he wants to be an advocate for gay marriage, and that, in part, was one reason for his coming out.
I wish we lived in a society that could discuss reasonably and dispassionately what science now believes about the trait of homosexuality (i.e, "Hey, America, it's biological, even if we haven't yet identified the mechanism that causes the atypicality") and then move on to separate that discussion from the discussion about marriage and marriage's place in the larger whole of society.
About half the country still believes homosexuality is a choice and thus, that gays are willfully decadent. The other half accepts the biological nature of it, then jumps too quickly, IMO, to the conclusion that because it's biological, gay marriage must therefore follow. That many of us have gay friends is, in part, the reason the jump is made, I fear.
One can be true w/out the other.
The institution of marriage is not in poor shape because of gays, that's for sure. However, I'd like to see a rational discussion of all the data that we know to be the case--that children raised w/out fathers have big troubles, boys and girls alike, and life is no picnic for kids raised w/out moms. We all know that these things are generally true, but the data is there as well.
For the last 50 years or longer, our failure to re-examine, to even discuss the benefits of successful marriages in the raising of children has been devastating to our society.
W/out meaning to, I fear that with each change to the institution, we will kill it for good. And, that is horrible for kids and in the end, horrible for the country.
Just because the institution has suffered and strayed from even trying to achieve the ideal is no reason to deliver to it its death knell, and it's possible that gay marriage will indeed be the final nail. Intended or not, the consequences of such unions send a message to everyone--the male role as father is not important and the female role as mom is not important either.
Kind of reminds me of attitudes about affirmative action when it was first proposed. One side argued that no problem existed and so resisted even facing the issue; the other side thought AA a fine idea and scoffed at the notion that there'd one day be negative unintended consequences.
Yeah, right.
Sorry for going OT. The gay marriage issue has, I realize, been beaten to death, but the debates have rarely been about consequences, positive or negative.
Apparently Bill Maher called him out at as a closeted gay republican in 2006 on the Larry King Show (this according to Wikipedia).
Is Karl Rove also gay?
"Ted Olson fighting Prop 8 in CA, now this."
Someone on a conservative blog, I think Red State, said that Olson has a personal reason for his volunteering to defeat Prop 8. FAmily member?
It still ticks me off--we voted and a single judge has decided what our cultural values "ought to be." No true conservative should believe that that is how gay marriage should come about.
"There seem to be a lot of gay Republicans for some reason"
Maybe their immune systems are less resistant to the bug than the dem's? Nah....the dems have most of teh gay.
"The Bush family is very much a knowing part of this charade, as their open disgust with actual conservatives and dissidents shows."
Well, hey, they're of New England Blue Blood stock. George W. (Bubba) has always been an embarrassment to them. They always thought old Jeb would do them proud.
This sounds just too so. I don't believe it.
I wouldn't be surprised if the The Atlantic will next be spreading the rumour that Linsey Graham is gay. Yeah, right...
Where is the proof that you "predicted" this.
It's been common knowledge for years and years.
Speaking of Rev Ted Haggard, how come no one, even on politically incorrect blogs like Steve's, never publicly asked the appropriate questions, like, who are the most likely actors that would have been blackmailing ol' Ted, and what did he do or not do that made them out him? It took me about 20 minutes of googling to find the most likely answer. I guess I should ask myself why I never wrote about it till now, but that's another story. Steve has said something like this more than once - the key is having a better mental model of how the world really works, minus the mental self-censorship.
So the former chairman of the Republican party is a pro Amnesty/illegalalienization of America, Jewish homosexual Israeli activist.
It just never ends.
I usually think my gaydar is pretty good. I recalled KM's looks, but not how he talked so I did a quick Google and found a Charlie Rose interview with him a few years back.
I watched only a minute or so, but I have to admit my gaydar failed me. He came off to me, a woman, as a very pleasant, very nerdy sort.
Lindsay Graham? Now, when I first began listening to LG years ago, I was just dumbstruck by his speech--to this Westerner's ears, it's gaowwwwwd-awwwwwwful. His construction of and his hanging onto his vowels makes me turn down the tv volume. Watching his lips struggle over those teeth to form those sounds is not pleasant either.
However, I didn't think him gay...not until some footage I saw of him making moon eyes at John McCain made me think otherwise.
He's just quirky, damn quirky.
"Truth said...
Hey that's cool; you guys have another "family values conservative" to vote for!"
You seem to take umbrage whenever anyone assumes you to be an Obama supporter. Yet, you casually assume that everyone here is a charter member of the George W. Bush fan-club. Do you not even bother to read other people's posts here? Does it seem like a Sarah Palin fan club? How could a person believe that most people who frequent this site are conventional Fox News Republicans, unless that person is an idiot?
Oh, never mind. The question just answered itself.
"Karl Rove's righthand boy....."
I'll try to forget the mental image that this phrase, given the context, conjures up.
"Oh, never mind. The question just answered itself."
Hey Anon, I have to admit, you are getting better, my friend.
When I first started reading your stuff I though you were kind of a weirdo, but lately I'm starting to think you might actually have 46 chromosomes.
Did he anounce that his boyfriend is Lindsey Graham?
Pardon me if I'm incredibly sheltered, but how does a 44 year old man recently realize he's gay?
Yeah - WTF? Women might be able to switch teams, but men are hardwired. Hell, I've known I was straight since I was 5. Thank you, cheesy live-action Saturday morning kids' show with hot women in leotards.
Where is the proof that you "predicted" this.
I couldn't even pick Ken Mehlman out of a line-up, but I recall hearing rumors years ago about his sexuality. All things considered, most men's gaydar is pretty damn reliable.
Is Karl Rove also gay?
Don't know. Know that Rove has at least one son - the one the he doesn't want doing jobs that God made Mexicans for.
His postions on a whole host of issues make him a democrat. Pelosi/Reid/Obama/Clinton will love him.
I recall 15-20 years ago reading about rampant homosexuality amongst Republican Congressional staff and other GOP/Conservative Beltway insiders. This wasn't inside the Beltway rumors, either, but common knowledge published in conservative magazines like Chronicles. I don't think this is accidental; certain types of people gravitate towards these kinds of jobs and others are repelled; once they become insiders they tend to promote their own kind so you get a kind of Lavender Mafia thing going on - which of course we all know is just Hate Speech and could never happen in real life, only a "homophobe" would think otherwise.
"Is the GOP toying with the idea of going for the gay vote now? Ted Olson fighting Prop 8 in CA, now this. Might not be a bad strategy. Gays care about gay stuff. They aren't necessarily on board for the rest of the Democrat platform."
Gays are a tiny minority and their votes don't swing national elections; gay conservatives are an even tinier minority. "Gay friendly" voters are a much larger group, and their votes can swing elections, but they are never going to vote for the GOP in significant numbers. De-emphasizing "culture war" issues like abortion, gay marriage (and truly stupid and pointless anti-science campaigns like Creationism/Intelligent Design) and emphasizing broadly-supported issues like fiscal conservatism, lower taxes, smaller government, reducing the debt, promoting economic growth and stopping offshoring of jobs, guarding our borders and enforcing laws against illegal immigration, would all put the GOP back on the road to success, without getting the Party bogged down in pointless culture war wedge issues which shouldn't be the concern of national, federal politics in the first place.
"Well, hey, they're of New England Blue Blood stock. George W. (Bubba) has always been an embarrassment to them. They always thought old Jeb would do them proud."
You buy W's act?
Pardon me if I'm incredibly sheltered, but how does a 44 year old man recently realize he's gay?
I know, I know! His boyfriend tells him!
"Gays are a tiny minority and their votes don't swing national elections; "
Clever observation. But that's not true of LOCAL elections - even a statewide election might hinge on a few thou votes.
This is why a politician running for national office wins by being anti-gay, but local pols have to be very ginger. The tension is going to have to be resolved eventually by the Supremes, or perhaps a constitutional amendment.
" but how does a 44 year old man recently realize he's gay?"
Mehlman was unsure of himself until one day he ran into Larry Craig in an airport bathroom. When he saw Craig's wide stance it was love at first sight.
Truth said..."Hey that's cool; you guys have another 'family values conservative' to vote for!"
Too bad you aren't in S.C. so you can vote for Alvin Greene. Apparently, he's got his own "youth mentoring" program going on. So heartening to see people of color giving back to the community, isn't it?
He just now figured it out?
The GOP: the Stupid Gay Party
fiscal conservatism, lower taxes, smaller government, reducing the debt, promoting economic growth and stopping offshoring of jobs, guarding our borders and enforcing laws against illegal immigration
The problem a lot of people have with the whole homosexual lobby is their desire to have others pay for their debauchery, so liberal attitudes in the cultural war feed against those nice, appealing line items. Just ask Ken Mehlman.
This is pretty old news. Mike Rogers was calling out Ken Mehlwoman six years ago.
Anonymous said . . .
De-emphasizing "culture war" issues like abortion, gay marriage (and truly stupid and pointless anti-science campaigns like Creationism/Intelligent Design) and emphasizing broadly-supported issues like fiscal conservatism, lower taxes, smaller government, reducing the debt, promoting economic growth and stopping offshoring of jobs, guarding our borders and enforcing laws against illegal immigration, would all put the GOP back on the road to success, without getting the Party bogged down in pointless culture war wedge issues which shouldn't be the concern of national, federal politics in the first place.
Do you have any evidence at all for these crazy ideas? Evidence that cutting Social Security and Medicare is wildly popular? That cutting the Pentagon is wildly popular? That cutting Medicaid (i.e. throwing old people out of nursing homes and forcing their middle class children to take care of them) is wildly popular? You know this is what you have to do to cut the federal budget significantly, right?
And, of course, you also have evidence that Christian conservatives (who make up 90% of Republican volunteers) are going to keep showing up to volunteer and vote after the Rs completely abandon all the issues they care about. They won't go back to what they were doing before the 1980s when the Rs were not interested in their issues---i.e. not vote, not participate? Or maybe they are going to be replaced by the collected membership of your local chapters of Mensa and the Libertarian Party? Could you share this evidence? Cause I ain't never seen none.
But, under your plan, Matt Yglesias might think for 2 seconds instead of 1 second before pulling the D lever. And your lefty acquaintances might dislike you less. It's almost as if your beliefs are shaped more by what you want to be true than by what is true.
"Gays are a tiny minority and their votes don't swing national elections;"
Oh, but they are an important part of the mother's milk of politics-money.
Seems that the trick of any political movement these days is to paint your minority as abused, misunderstood; then, the left, loving to view itself as kind plantation owners (they'd never admit that, of course) come to the rescue.
Gays learned well from the black card game.
The Republican Party is very much a fake dissident group
How does one get to the point that one thinks of the Republican Party as a "dissident group"? I'd really like to know the thought process.
I got active with my local GOP a few years ago and noticed a lot of fey young guys and my gaydar went off. They come from small towns across flyover, move up through the College Republican ranks and often end up as congressional staffers. Maybe they're closeted or in denial, or just quirky. But they are usually still close to their parents, and not rebellious, and so keep the family politics - which just happen to be Republican.
So that's how they end up where they are. There are careers to be had for being loyal and working behind the scenes, so why switch parties? I'm sure it's the same with the Dems.
Cochran, Ewald and Harpending think that persistent health conditions are probably the result of as yet undiscovered infectious agents. Cochran thinks we will live to see homosexuality eliminated. Me too.
I frequently speculate that the infectious agent is some sort of Ancanthocephala parasite - probably an intestinal worm. These parasites have complex life cycles and some alter the sexual behavior of their hosts to their own advantage. There are many species of these worms but only a few have been studied fully.
Homosexuality is therefore probably a disease. We should get busy and cure it.
We know that the sub-cortical structures that deal with sex are reversed in male homosexuals. That is to say where women have a big nucleus in their hypothalamus and that same structure is small in normal males, male homosexuals will have the female pattern. So most, maybe all, of what we recognize as gay behavior is just men acting like women. That's what we pick up with our "gaydar".
The problem of course is that people can act. At the poker table we affect being stone faced. On stage we can act noble. Confidence men act trustworthy. So it's not surprising that no matter how girly a man feels inside he can pretend to be macho. We tend to get gaydar signals only when the mask slips.
Albertosaurus
none of the above said...
Wasn't this an open secret for the last decade or so?
Yes. I heard this years and years ago.
Doesn't anyone know any bisexuals?
Not that I don't believe in bisexuality and know some actual bisexuals, but LOTS of gay men spend years convincing themselves they're bi until something snaps. Or they get caught by their wives. Or they meet the right man. Or they change jobs.
what science now believes about the trait of homosexuality (i.e, "Hey, America, it's biological, even if we haven't yet identified the mechanism that causes the atypicality")
Just because it's not a "choice" doesn't mean that it's purely or exclusively biological - there could be, at least in some cases, a strong psychological component. Childhood trauma, molestation, difficult relationships with fathers, could create a homosexual orientation without it being a "choice". It would be nice to figure this stuff out, but of course to even suggest studying it would be a career-ender.
"Arrived at that conclusion fairly recently." Perhaps the many years of midnight blow jobs at the park restrooms offered a clue? "What compels me to give this burly homeless man oral pleasure? Must analyze this-perhaps I can unearth some insights into my poor dating history,my lifetime subscription to Boys Life and my enormous Barbra Streisand collection..." Now its time for turd blossom to come out of the closet!
Albertosaurus:
"I frequently speculate that the infectious agent is some sort of Ancanthocephala parasite - probably an intestinal worm. These parasites have complex life cycles and some alter the sexual behavior of their hosts to their own advantage. There are many species of these worms but only a few have been studied fully."
Intestinal parasites make sense since a hypothetical bug would find transmission to another man through anal sex or from deep kissing (perhaps the bug likes a man's stomach lining better than a woman's since the linings are different), but I think I remember Cochran saying that if the cause were a parasite, we'd probably have found it by now in its worm stage. And he thinks that if the cause were bacterial that antibiotics would accidentally have prevented it by now (at least in those populations with common access to antibiotics.) These have lead him to surmise it's probably viral. I didn't know, however, that we don't know much about the intestinal bugs to which you refer.
Ewald always says he asks himself what he would do if he were a bug and wanted to hang around. Well, one way, of course, if it's to a bug's advantage to stay in a male's system, is to hijack the male's brain and make him desire close contact with another male. That is what you are suggesting with the intestinal worm idea.
Maybe, though, we're being thrown off the track. Maybe the hypothetical bug's primary goal isn't transmission to another male; maybe what it is really after is transmission to females, and maybe the attraction it results in for males is only incidental and secondary.
Consider that pre-gay little boys have gender atypical behavior that leads them to spend their time with females--with moms, grandmothers, sisters, and the little girls of the neighborhood. The preference for girl activities for most pre-gay boys extends from infancy to pre-adolescence and to teen years. Even their adult years are often spent very close to females. They have closer relationships to more females than hetero men do. In short, they spend an inordinate amount of time with girls, not guys. Thus, maybe the bug's primary goal is transmission to females, not men.
Stretching this even more, one interest of so many of these little boys is often the domestic skill of cooking. Ahhhh, time spent around the food source. Hmmmmmm.
Just trying to think like a bug.
"It would be nice to figure this stuff out, but of course to even suggest studying it would be a career-ender."
Actually, a lot of people are studying it. Perhaps they aren't taking the most direct root to its causation (if Ewald and Cochran are right), but they are studying it. There's a genetic linkage study being done by SAnders and Bailey at Northwestern; there's an epigenetics study being done at UCLA; there are always brain studies being done in Sweden; there are the studies of the sheep researchers (I think they are the ones most likely to arrive at some "surprising" findings when one by one, hypothesis are tested, then discarded.)
How can you separate the gay from the Jewish?
I just finished reading Imperial Bedrooms, the new book by Bret Easton Ellis. He's a spot on chronicler of the depravity that's inherent in empire. And the Yankee Empire is no exception.
So no more blaming the Jews for WASP elite gayness. Aren't you aware of "That Yale Thing"?
"The problem of course is that people can act. At the poker table we affect being stone faced. On stage we can act noble. Confidence men act trustworthy. So it's not surprising that no matter how girly a man feels inside he can pretend to be macho. We tend to get gaydar signals only when the mask slips."
Yep, I learned this. Years ago, just when gay lib kind of took off in the early seventies, I was young and naive, and bought into the notion that stereotypes were inaccurate and baaaddddd. I accepted the notion that only a few gays were flamboyant, that only a few more were actually a bit effeminate. I accepted the ideas put out there that most were just like straight guys in behavior, with the obvious exception being their sexual attractions. (okay, I was young and dumb.)
I came to be very good friends with a few gay men at work. One was closeted, very closeted; the others were openly gay. The closeted one did a great job of passing (with the exception of doing a poor job of faking an interest in women and in sports among those he was close to, including me) but his mannerisms and speech were typical of the average guy. Another was the empathic, soft-spoken, gentlemanly gay guy, sweet-natured, not nancyish, but not manly either. If he had had a wedding band on and had spoken of a wife and kids, I don't think anyone would have thought him anything other than simply a warm, thoughtful, heterosexual man. Another was the highly literary, sardonic, urbane sort, not a swisher, but again, not manly.
In all three instances, at different times, and in unexpected ways, I happened to see them in unguarded moments (in their homes, at parties, having had alcohol, etc.) I was not prepared for it. Stopping by one's house one Sat. night to get some materials for work, I found him and a few of his friends dressed in what I would call incomplete stages of drag. Well, he passed it off as a costume party gag--but what do you say when you see grown men dressed in brightly colored garments of silk scarves and chiffon? At first, I bought the "gag" thing, then realized that they must have had a need to don those clothes that went beyond a gag. I fought my conclusions, however, until it happened that the closeted guy greeted me once at his door wearing a pink robe. Yikes! The third--well, he's the most "fem" of the three, yet I have never really seen him in any female clothing although I have heard him wax eloquently about the beautiful material when he would compliment me on my dress.
I started wondering if whatever it was that makes a guy gay is correlated somehow to bright colors and textures, if maybe that is why little boys who grow up to be gay like to get into their mother's make-up and garments, because it's the bright colors/unusual textures that attract them. Dads have closets of browns, greys, and blacks....boring. I'm a woman, and I don't have the interest in colors and textures that gay men have, and of all the hundreds of women I know, I know only a few who really are as obsessed or transfixed by colors and textures as are so many gay men.
So yeah, I can buy the acting thing very much.
Albertosaurus--sorry, I just realized that I attributed what an anonymous poster said to you.
Wait--maybe I didn't confuse you with anonymous. Did I?
I guess I should give it up for today.
Albertosaurus, what you suggest is shocking. (Or is that Schocking?)
Only nerdy social maladroitness could make you think that gaydar only works when the "mask slips". Only nerdy scientistic "optimism" could lead to belief in eliminating gayness or gay sex acts by way of some pill, gene therapy or contrived method of conception. Give me old-fashioned buggery any day.
Cochran, Ewald and Harpending think that persistent health conditions are probably the result of as yet undiscovered infectious agents. Cochran thinks we will live to see homosexuality eliminated.
one of Cochran's few truly silly beliefs, although the fact that he has it makes me wonder about his understanding of evolution in general.
"How does one get to the point that one thinks of the Republican Party as a "dissident group"? I'd really like to know the thought process."
Ask anyone who watches Fox News or listens to Rush Limbaugh.
I was looking up the latest deets on Drudge's homosexuality on Wiki...do I have to tell you he's Jewish too? Mom was a lawyer on Teddy Kennedy's staff, dad was a social worker. Anyway, how the Lavender Mafia works:
"In their 2006 book The Way To Win, Mark Halperin and John Harris report that Republican National Convention chairman Ken Mehlman "kind of brags" (as CNN host Howard Kurtz puts it) about utilizing the Drudge channel."
The Drudge Report might've been better titled The Obama Report in 2008, so complete was his nut hugging; even self described conservative GayJews like Drudge can't help it. Gays and Jews are so friggin' averse to calling out not only groups but individuals from groups that it seriously impairs their ability to speak or act rationally about political matters.
Pretending that shared moral values are unimportant (trivial, even) is something the sperging libertarians have been harping on for decades. And they've gotten the GOP to go pretty far down that road (obviously given that the leadership is more or less indifferent about pathological sexual deviance).
It's an electoral loser, because ultimately if conservatism means anything it means a preservation of the link to tradition, not liberalism plus lower taxes and business oligarchies. Guys, you will not win any elections on account of being slightly more or less accomodating of gays, pedophiles, trannies, or any other deviant group out there. Not only will liberals always trump you in that category, but people who care about sustaining traditions will utterly reject you.
But then I've been saying for some time that the Republican Party must be destroyed for conservatism to move forward. So in that sense I encourage their embrace of gay identity politics. The quicker they meltdown (and hopefully take the amoral and childish libertarians with them), the better.
Consider that pre-gay little boys have gender atypical behavior that leads them to spend their time with females--with moms, grandmothers, sisters, and the little girls of the neighborhood. The preference for girl activities for most pre-gay boys extends from infancy to pre-adolescence and to teen years. Even their adult years are often spent very close to females. They have closer relationships to more females than hetero men do. In short, they spend an inordinate amount of time with girls, not guys.
Everything you say here is a lie. You know less than nothing about gay men, who are over-represented in the ranks of athletics. Which is not typically considered a "girl activity".
What all the discussion so far omits to note is that "homosexuality" is a fairly recent invention - conceived in 19th-century Germany by a handful of men who sought moral justification and legal approbation of the sex acts they habitually engaged in, which were then defined (as they continued to be long afterward) as crimes. Before this concept was introduced, there were only acts of sodomy, and not a particular state of being of which sodomy was just an outward manifestation.
Doubtless there have always been people that could have been described as 'homosexual' - effeminate men were generally objects of scorn - but to great extent, homosexuality as we now understand it would have been a concept foreign to the cultures of the past.
The ancient Greeks, for example, were rather more tolerant of homosexual behavior than, say, Christian Europeans of the nineteenth century - however, the circumstances under which they tolerated it were ordinarily restricted to relationships between a young adult man who was unmarried (the erastes) and an adolescent boy (the eromenos). Both were expected to "grow out" of these roles and give up homosexual, or at least exclusively homosexual, behavior at an appropriate age. The erastes was expected to marry at about 35 years of age and to become a father. The eromenos was expected to cease in that role upon growing a beard (puberty then typically occurred later than it does today, perhaps as late as 16 or 17) and embarking upon military service. Adult male homosexuals who preferred the passive role were regarded as "pathic" and were figures of ridicule - e.g., the poet Agathons portrayed in Aristophanes's play Thesmophoriazusae.
Today, the liberal ideal is that two adult males ought to be able to settle down as "husband" and "wife," enjoying employment and social-welfare benefits as such; while even those who view "gay marriage" with equanimity would likely regard the sort of homosexual relationship that the Greeks of Plato's time approved as being highly abusive.
As I see it - and I hate to use such trendy verbiage - this history suggests that the modern concept of homosexuality is a "social construct," and moreover is not one that has arisen spontaneously as some sort of social consensus, but rather one that was consciously constructed and deliberately promoted from the late nineteenth century until the rise of Hitler in Germany; thereafter in this country by emigrés, and throughout the West after WWII. My late father was a psychologist, and I remember him mentioning to me on a few occasions how the American Psychological Association was pressured for years by the Mattachine Society to remove homosexuality from its list of abnormal conditions. The APA finally did, and in so doing demonstrated that "official" psychology had very little to do with science, and everything to do with politics.
Re: parasitic manipulation of hosts
The case of toxo has always been interesting, but not long ago, I watched a really good Edge video, an interview of Robert Sapolsky of Stanford. It's only about 24 minutes, and he offers a really goood exposition of this crazy parasite. I recommend it.
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/sapolsky09/sapolsky09_index.html
What I never realized until I saw this video was 1) just how specialized the parasite is in what it hijacks in the rodent--how it zeroes in on just one fear aversion pathway, the fear of cat urine, leaving the fear of bright lights and open spaces alone; 2) And, that it not only knocks out something (special neurons), but that it also CREATES something--a sexual attraction to cat urine. I never knew that the parasite caused sexual arousal in the male rodent in order to attract it. Interestingly enough, while they've identified how the male is attracted, they've yet to discover how the female is attracted.
Oh, and he mentions the barnacle that hijacks the male crab's sexual senses, making it dig a hole thinking it has to bury eggs, eggs it doesn't have.
Like the professor says, "Cool." Who the heck knows what body snatchers have a hold of all of us?
It does make a lot of sense for a germ or parasite to manipulate the sexual behavior of an organism to get where it wants to go.
when is Rove coming out da closet?
When is Svigor going to blame this on the Jews?
Christ, Steve, you're from Cali! Like you don't see this every day?
Here in the little hamlet of Melrose MA, 2 of our last 3 Republican mayors have been gay. My current state senator is a gay Republican, now on the statewide ticket as Republican candidate for lt. governor. Since Romney left, he's been the ranking Republican official in the Commonwealth, and has held as conservative a line as one could expect here in the People's Republic. All three men have been exemplary public officials and I'd vote for them witout a second thought (though one just turned 100 and is a bit long in the tooth for the polical fray). None pushed any sort of gay agenda, which left them right there with the lefties up here; the hypocrite Dhimmis talk a good game but most voted the Obamian "present" on gay marriage and left it's enactment to the unelected justices of the MA Supreme Judicial Court, led by NYT moonbat emeritus Anthony Lewis' South African expat wife, the execrable Margaret Marshall.
The way a lot of people here have trouble with the fact that the David Geffen/Barney Frank version of the activist gay community's We're Here We're Queer sorts ignores the majority of gays who are as concerned about the economy, jobs, crime, housing, etc. as the rest of us.
Y'all need to get out more!
Brutus
Might not be a bad strategy. Gays care about gay stuff. They aren't necessarily on board for the rest of the Democrat platform.
Oh dear.
Hispanics = family values = conservative = Republican (failed strategy)
Asians = hard working = competitive = conservative = Republican (failed strategy)
Jews = rich = conservative = Republican (failed strategy)
Etc etc etc
I'm a woman, and I don't have the interest in colors and textures that gay men have
Are you really a woman? Your post strikes me as some sort of fantasy about becoming a transvestite.
"You know less than nothing about gay men, who are over-represented in the ranks of athletics."
Oi vey, macho man.
If 2-4% of the male population is gay, it only takes 3-5 males per 100 who are involved in a sport to render your statement true. Big deal. What's that prove? How does it discount what I said?
So, gay boys are found more frequently in non-contact competitions and in individual sports such as swimming, diving, tennis, dance, ice skating, gymnastics, track and field than they are in contact sports, but so what, even if they were found in greater numbers in the contact sports?
Your statement that they are "over-represented" proves no point and certainly doesn't undermine my statement that gay little boys spend a whole lot of time with females. They do.
According to study after study (see Bailey and others) the most accurate predictor of homosexuality is gender atypicality in play and in one's choice of playmates in one's young life. No researcher even questions that conclusion any more.
I think the number is 2/3rds of homosexual men were gender atypical as children.
Googling Bailey will get you there.
"As I see it - and I hate to use such trendy verbiage - this history suggests that the modern concept of homosexuality is a "social construct,"
Oh, no, not a "social construct" guy.
We are talking here about men who have no lust for women, not simply about men who will engage in a physical activity with another warm body if it gets them off.
The lack of wanting to mate with a woman is not the same as the desire to screw anything in sight.
Having a penis and an emotional system that doesn't respond to women is like having a pupil that doesn't respond to light, like having food in front of you and putting it in your ear instead of in your mouth, like trying to run from prey with your arms instead of with your legs. Those behaviors wouldn't be social constructs.
There's an HBD arg to be made that without the old moral restrictions gay men have advantages in political environments: more sexual contacts means more social contacts & favor-trading, plus skills at deceptive self-presentation. Since they have no need to court women or support a family, gay men can take the high risk/high reward path more easily than a normal male would. (See also: academia, Hollywood)
Of course, a society where gay men set the standards will be utterly dysfunctional, largely hostile towards normal men, and cluelessly misogynistic towards married mothers of children. (See Andrew Sullivan v. Trig Palin) The blackmail potential is also big. Wasn't a GHWB White House official implicated as a patron of an underage male prostitution ring?
Ah, Craig Spence is the name to look for.
Lodi, could you please expand a bit on who was blackmailing Haggard? Or provide a suggestive Google query?
"Are you really a woman? Your post strikes me as some sort of fantasy about becoming a transvestite."
Sure am. Instead of insults, why not point out what statement(s) you take issue with.
"one of Cochran's few truly silly beliefs, although the fact that he has it makes me wonder about his understanding of evolution in general."
Ooooo, you itchin' for a smackdown, son.
I'd like Greg Cochran to make an appearance to comment, but he's probably busy with today's paper from Emerson et al on the genomic sequencing of the Ashkenazi.
Social construct guy had me sold, then penis and emotional system guy showed up. Hmmm. Social construct guy does have a point that teh ghey does not seem to have been invented until the 19th century. Sappho, you say, except lesbians aren't gay, ask Steve.
What about late life lesbians? The "I'm done with acting like a lady" types, the chick from Family Ties? Last time I checked women viewed 80% of men as less attractive than average. Chicks really, really do not like men, no woman in history has ever gotten home from work, fired up the computer and masturbated furiously to man/penis porn. It has never happened. Is heterosexuality, then, a social construct?
What about late life lesbians? The "I'm done with acting like a lady" types, the chick from Family Ties?
This interesting article in Psychology Today not long ago: "what I found missing in the noise surrounding the Constance McMillen story was any serious discussion of why a growing number of girls self-identify as lesbian or bisexual."
The author noted that historically maybe 2% of women were lesbian or bisexual, while today the number who identify as either is 15% (mostly bisexual, I presume).
I could posit some possible reasons:
1) Increased exposure to sexualized images of women in media. Yes, it might turn on women, too. Perhaps our past prudishness actually did men a favor.
2) Men becoming more androgenous and feminized, and less manly. Funny that the women that women are attracted to are actually kind of masculine. Women, whatever they might say, like masculinity.
3) The general decline of men as stable providers.
4) Female financial and legal independence, including the government-as-husband.
Chicks really, really do not like men, no woman in history has ever gotten home from work, fired up the computer and masturbated furiously to man/penis porn.
Do they masturbate furiously to porn images of women? And someone's buying all those, um, "flashlights." It ain't just one woman in Indiana with all 80 million of them.
Hispanics = family values = conservative = Republican (failed strategy)
Yeah, except Hispanics don't really have great family values. Their teen birthrates are about 4 times higher than those of whites, their out-of-wedlock birthrates are higher, their crime rates are higher, and their native countries are a mess. Other than that, terrific family values.
Hispanics = Catholic = religion = family values.
Or maybe it's just Hispanic = superstitious = Catholic.
Also, we attribute family values to Hispanics not simply because they're Catholic, but also because their culture is otherwise so damn boring that we have no other stereotype to apply to it.
What else do they have? Pinatas? Sombreros? Ranchero music?
Udolpho:
Well said, Sir. Good post. I entirely agree.
Or maybe it's just Hispanic = superstitious = Catholic.
Bingo.
100% of contemporary American politics involves basic truths about human nature which were known half a millenium ago to the likes of Luther, Calvin, Tyndale, and Knox.
The "fact" that we have to continually re-discover this basic "fact" only serves to re-emphasize the terrible toll which political correctness [institutionalized marxism/gramsciism/frankfurt schoolism] has taken on our ability to see a spade for what it is: A spade.
"What about late life lesbians?"
More plausible, maybe, due to the drop in estrogen and consequent (relative) surge in testosterone at menopause?
There's some decent evidence that menopause changes the brain. As the ovaries quit and the female hormones fall, depending on her personal adrenal-secreted testosterone levels, the effects of which have been masked her reproductive life, crones experience increased visuo-spatial and other male skills. So maybe not surprising that some old women discover they prefer women.
Yeah, let's burn the Family Values plank and God while we are at it. You libtards need to get a clue.
Udolpho was spot on with his comments.
My definition of a libertarian:
A manifestly liberal sexual deviant that doesn't like anyone to pay taxes.
A Liberal/Demoncrat:
A lefty sexual deviant that doesn't personally want to pay taxes but wants you to pay taxes.
I think everyone knew Mehlman was gay. Mitch McConnell is also probably gay, and of course, there's Graham. Who cares. I just can't get excited by making an issue out of gayness.
Let them get married; marriage is a scam now. Wait until the divorces come. They want the state to sanction their marriages, but you better be careful what you wish for.
Isn't there just something about a career in Imperial politics that's, well, gay? All the backstabbing, the gossip, the backroom deals (ouch!)?
A real man might want to run for office - chicks dig power - but can you imagine the high school quarterback wanting the go off to D.C. to be a staffer?
These are the guys that in, say, the Byzantine Empire, would have been eunuchs.
Re: Lesbians and gay men.
Have you all forgotten your basic Sailer 101? Don't compare male and female homosexuals. They are completely different.
"You know less than nothing about gay men, who are over-represented in the ranks of athletics. "
Names?
Ranks?
Serial numbers?
The only gay athletes I know of are the late Bill Tilden and a teams sports player here and there who died of AIDS. And John Amaechi.
I know I know; they are all in the closet. Right.
So name a few of the possible closet cases.
(I personally think Derek Jeter is gay, but that's strictly conjecture, and he's the only top athlete that comes to mind.)
Having a penis and an emotional system that doesn't respond to women is like having a pupil that doesn't respond to light, like having food in front of you and putting it in your ear instead of in your mouth, like trying to run from prey with your arms instead of with your legs. Those behaviors wouldn't be social constructs.
I don't agee with B. F. Skinner's boast "Give me a child and I'll shape him into anything"; however, I suspect it's not that difficult to turn a child into an adult homosexual. It's common for childhood victims of sexual trauma to seek out and relive their experiences over and over in their adult years.
Homosexuality as "social construct" guy:You seem a bit,uhm,daft. Yeah,thats it;daft.
"I don't agee with B. F. Skinner's boast 'Give me a child and I'll shape him into anything'; however, I suspect it's not that difficult to turn a child into an adult homosexual. It's common for childhood victims of sexual trauma to seek out and relive their experiences over and over in their adult years."
I don't know if "common" is accurate, but rather than waste time arguing that particular point, in order for anyone to believe most homosexuality is the result of molestation, you'll have to contend with these facts:
1.) Most men who are gay were not boys who were sexually molested or otherwise treated horribly in their young lives.
2) Most gay men can never recall being spontaneously physically aroused at the sight of girls/women, at pics of them, at thoughts of them, etc.
I'll concede that there may be certain ugly family dynamics in the lives of some young boys (maybe their moms or aunts or grandmas did disgusting sexual things to them when they were children)that would explain their inability to be turned on by women, and lacking a sexual outlet or fearing an emotional entanblement with women, they might turn to men for sex (after all, the male sex drive is very powerful)....but what I described does not even come close to accounting for the 2-4% of the male popuplation that are not attracted to women.
Researcher Bailey snippets:
"childhood gender nonconformity is very highly predictive of adult homosexual outcome."
"The evidence we have at present strongly supports the proposition that there are hereditary factors in male homosexuality — the observation that an identical twin of a male homosexual has approximately a 20% likelihood of also being gay points to this conclusion, since that is 10 times the population incidence. But the fact that the answer is not 100% also suggests that other factors besides DNA must be involved. That certainly doesn’t imply, however, that those other undefined factors are inherently alterable."
"Gender nonconformity is another term for sex atypicality. One of the best established correlates of sexual orientation is childhood gender nonconformity. (Download a review of this topic by Ken Zucker and me.) Very feminine boys–those who cross-dress, play stereotypic girls' games, prefer girls as playmates, and who may even say they want to be girls–are likely to grow up to become gay men. Furthermore, the average gay man recalls being more feminine than the average heterosexual man. This link is probably weaker for females–most masculine girls probably grow up to be heterosexual adults–but lesbians tend to remember being particularly masculine.
Although the link between childhood gender nonconformity and adult homosexuality is well established (especially for men), much less research has been done on adult gender nonconformity. I have focused a great deal of attention on this topic."
His website:
http://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/JMichael-Bailey/research.html
"(I personally think Derek Jeter is gay, but that's strictly conjecture, and he's the only top athlete that comes to mind.)"
No, no, no!!!!!
I refuse to accept that Derek Jeter is gay. He simply has done what Tiger should have done--fooled around as much as he wants as a single man.
Love his eyes.
Josh - just how am I 'daft'? Do you challenge any of the historical points I made?
"Homosexuality" is indeed a word and a concept - a social construct, if you will - fabricated in the late nineteenth century. Before then, there was simply sodomy, and persons who occasionally or habitually engaged in it - some faute de mieux (e.g., in prisons or on shipboard), some out of preference. Some were effeminate, some were not. But the notion that being a sodomite was a state of mind or a state of being that preceded and necessitated particular sex acts simply did not exist.
As an analogy, consider the origins in late-nineteenth/early twentieth century psychology of the concepts of "alcoholism" or "kleptomania." They created existential conditions where before them only moral failings existed. Thus the drunkard became an "alcoholic," and the thief a "kleptomaniac." Such medicalization of course lifted much of the moral onus associated with drunkenness and thievery, for even though a person is held responsible for being a wrongdoer, he cannot be held responsible for laboring under some malady.
The medicalization of wrong behavior is the twentieth century's way of accomplishing Alexander Pope's prediction:
"Vice is a monster of so frightful mien,
As to be hated needs but to be seen;
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace."
Mr. Anon said...
"Truth said...
...
Do you not even bother to read other people's posts here? "
Troof is a copy and paste hero. When you try and argue with the guy, he'll make sure to have the last word, no matter how wrong or convoluted. He's like a robot, or basically a troll.
gay little boys spend a whole lot of time with females. They do.
They don't. The stereotypical gay man is one who attended an all boys school on his youth. England is teeming with such people.
For instance, Freddie Mercury, aka Farrokh Bulsara, was sent to all all boys boarding school at the age of eight. Excessive female company was not his problem.
Which makes sense, after all. Gay men are not noted for their fondness for womens company. (I'm talking in the real world here, as opposed to on TV)
Last time I checked women viewed 80% of men as less attractive than average.
Hmm. How exactly did you "check" that? And what are the comparable figures for men with respect to women?
Very feminine boys–those who cross-dress, play stereotypic girls' games, prefer girls as playmates, and who may even say they want to be girls–are likely to grow up to become gay men.
No doubt. But that says little about gay men in general, most of whom do not come across as even slightly feminine.
Rock Hudson was far more representative of gay men than is RuPaul.
"Rock Hudson was far more representative of gay men than is RuPaul."
1)Of course he was, but who on this thread ever suggested that a preponderance of adult gay men act like RuPaul? For that matter, who even said ONE man would act like RuPaul. Geeeez.
2) And what makes you think the Rock Hudson (or any other actor) you saw on the screen was the same guy off the screen?
How did you arrive at the conclusion that Mehlman was gay long ago, even though you've never met or seen him on TV?
This was an open secret in Washington. Mehlman was outed by Mike Rogers in 2004 and again by Bill Maher in 2006 on Larry King.
"That is to say where women have a big nucleus in their hypothalamus and that same structure is small in normal males, male homosexuals will have the female pattern."
Actually, I think what they've found is the opposite. From Wiki (and it's the same in other sources):
"The volume of SDN is significantly larger (about twice) in males than in females, caused mainly by greater cell number and larger cell size, in male SDN.[1]
The same is true in sheep. The ovineSDN of the ram is larger than in the ewe. The size of the oSDN in rams that won't mount estrous ewes but will mount other rams is smaller than the oSDN of the female-oriented rams.
However, at least in people, there are wide variations between both men and women in the size of the SDN, regardless of orientation.
Still, quite interesting. Some surmise something has been zapped.
Girly Man: "Only nerdy scientistic "optimism" could lead to belief in eliminating gayness or gay sex acts by way of some pill, gene therapy or contrived method of conception."
MQ: "one of Cochran's few truly silly beliefs, although the fact that he has it makes me wonder about his understanding of evolution in general.
--------
Basic Question asked by Gregory Dimijian, MD, Baylor University:
"When you see a behavior you don't understand, ask yourself whose genes it is benefiting."
Even a simpleton like me can quickly see that homosexuality sure isn't benefitting the homosexual's genes.
A good, quick read on bugs:
http://www.baylorhealth.edu/proceedings/13_1/13_1_dimijian.html
Oh, and MQ...even a quick search of resources show that it's not just MR. Cochran who understands evolution.
Let's see careers where u start out as a lowly paid intern working ridicous hours but w the possibility of aggrandizement and u get to wear nice suits and travel.
I can see a niche here for closeted young men.
Seems similar to why the clergy (of all denominations) is a bit gay.
Just because sexual orientation is evident early in life doesn't mean it is genetic. Consider that John B. Calhoun's rats were prone to greater homosexual behavior when population density rose. The environment may affect intrauterine development as well as childhood development prior to first memories of sexual orientation.
It seems like we are forgetting almost as much as we've learned when it comes to grappling with the ambiguous genetic/environment relationship. Looking for a cause such as a virus or a "gay gene" is, in my opinion, unlikely to pay off--the relationships are too complex, and therefore indirect.
I'll concede that there may be certain ugly family dynamics in the lives of some young boys (maybe their moms or aunts or grandmas did disgusting sexual things to them when they were children)that would explain their inability to be turned on by women. . .
Well, of course, that's rare. But for an adult who, as a boy, was sexually molested by an adult male to be turned on by men is not uncommon. Sexual molestation happens more than you think. As you stated, the male sexual drive is very powerful.
who on this thread ever suggested that a preponderance of adult gay men act like RuPaul?
Hard to say "who", as there are multiple anonymous posters here besides yourself. Since you clearly regard yourself as intelligent, perhaps you can figure out how to give yourself a name.
The claim which was made by one anonymous poster, citing Bailey, was that gay men reported being "feminine" and displayed "gender atypicality in play".
The problem which I'm pointing out, and which you seem determined not to grasp, is that that while it is probably true that little boys who like to wear womens clothes will grow up to be gay, the equation does not work in reverse - gay men are not, by and large, especially feminine. In fact in certain respects many gay men are hyper-masculine - for instance, they tend to be wealthy high achievers compared to the male population in general. And they tend to be exceptionally promiscuous, another "masculine" trait.
Severn,
Would you do us all a favor and cite some statistics to back up your laughable assertions such as "But that says little about gay men in general, most of whom do not come across as even slightly feminine."
Where do you get THAT from?
Regarding gay men as high achievers, it ain't true. You are focusing on some queens who make big media splashes because the media are entirely pro-gay. Gay men are queen bees only in heavily gay professions.
http://www.google.com/search?q=gay+men+earn+less+than+straight+men&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
YOu can do the heavy lifting & click on the various links.
It's all because of discrimination, yada yada.
I say BS. It's because, like women, they have less innate drive to succeed the world. They just want to find a husband.
Make that 50 husbands.
The social construct being discussed isn't men liking to f-ck/be f-cked by men, but rather accepting this as an identity.
The interesting question related to this is whether the social environments in which we evolved were different enough that they made gay genes less important for fitness. Perhaps in a hunter-gatherer tribe or a small farming village, they lead you to a little recreational buggery with no more fitness impact than masterbation or f-cking the sheep. It's not like men have a shortage of available sperm, relative to the number of babies we can manage to make and help raise.
And perhaps in the modern world, that whole gene-environment interaction thing comes up, and the genes that would have made you f-ck guys instead of sheep when none of the girls would have you back in the EEA instead lead you to live in the Mission district and hang around gay bathhouses for lots of casual sex with other men.
You are focusing on some queens who make big media splashes because the media are entirely pro-gay.
Most gay men are not "queens", even though "queens" are a subset of gay men.
It would help matters if you at least knew what words meant.
Severn:"The problem which I'm pointing out, and which you seem determined not to grasp, is that that while it is probably true that little boys who like to wear womens clothes will grow up to be gay, the equation does not work in reverse - gay men are not, by and large, especially feminine. In fact in certain respects many gay men are hyper-masculine - for instance, they tend to be wealthy high achievers compared to the male population in general. And they tend to be exceptionally promiscuous, another masculine' trait."
But they are-- "by and large" gay men *are* feminine, and it's not just the observation of most straights that says that they are--it's research. The only way you can conclude they are not is if you insist on contrasting most gay men to flamers like RuPaul or Boy George, which, of course, misses the point entirely. (BTW, I am the Anonymous who asked, "Who on this thread said the average gay man acted like Ru Paul?" No one claimed that. Gender dysphoria is one thing, but kids can be gender atypical, can display feminine traits without being gender dysphoric.)
I gave the references to Bailey thinking you might understand these are not things I pulled out of my hat, even if they present data which do indeed comport with my observations and those of others.
Let's forget about the little boys who were obviously gender dysphoric and dressed in their mother's clothes in childhood and let's deal only with the others boys who wind up gay. Study after study shows that they were less aggressive in childhood, less interested in, and more actively averse to engaging in rough and tumble activities than their straight male peers. They displayed less interest in activities most associated with male childhood play. They chose indoor activities much more frequently than their straight male counterparts.
Bailey: "The average gay man recalls being more feminine than the average heterosexual man."
Bailey:
"Stereotypes about homosexual people include sex-atypical occupational and recreational interests, superficial aspects of behavior such as movement and speech, and in the case of lesbians, physical appearance. My lab is examining the validity of these stereotypes. If they are true, on average, it will then be important to determine whether they represent innate or social causation (or both). The idea that people's sexual orientations can sometimes be accurately judged by listening to them say a few (nonsexual) words is fascinating and potentially important in illuminating the origins of sexual orientation and sex differences in articulation patterns
Bailey: "In general our lab is confirming the stereotypes, on average."
con't.
from http://nymag.com/news/features/33520/
"One study, involving tape-recordings of gay and straight men, found that 75 percent of gay men sounded gay to a general audience. It’s unclear what the listeners responded to, whether there is a recognized gay 'accent' or vocal quality. And there is no hint as to whether this idiosyncrasy is owed to biology or cultural influences—only that it’s unmistakable."
And on and on and on. I'd provide more links, but why? Yes, I do grasp what you are trying to argue--that the average gay man is no more feminine than the average straight guy or not "especially feminine." Perhaps you used the word "especially" to hedge your bets? Word games tossed out--the basic idea is that there's an observable difference in the masculine/feminine trait complex between straight men and gay men even with all the flamers thown out of the group.
As to your point about gays being "hypermasculine." Only insofar as they are more promiscuous than straight men. Gee, I wonder why that is? (Unless you'd like to discuss what some researchers are studying, whether gay men are more likely than straight men to suffer from compulsive behaviors, just one of which is sexual compulsivity. Jury is out on that one.)
And no, gays are not more high-powered in their professional attainment on average, but they do have, because they haven't a wife and children, more freedom to spend as they please than do straight men.
And before you mention them, yes, I know about bears, even know some. I once read an Andrew Sullivan column years ago that spoke about the growing numbers of gay men who were chosing to separate themselves from the more flamboyant aspects of their subculture because they didn't like being viewed as sissies and flamers just because they were gay, a perfectly understandable feeling. However, Sullivan stated that were someone to visit a bear bar, with guys just kicking back, sharing conversations over beer, and watching the ball game on the tv overhead, he or she would never be able to tell these bears, including him, were gay. I couldn't help but feel a little sorry for Andrew. He seemed to think that a beard or mustache (or the lack of one), the proper combo of dirty sweatshirt and jeans, and an interest in the Red Sox was the sum of masculine behavior, mannerisms, and traits.
Most bears might pass for straight for a bit, but not for long. I recall first seeing Sullivan on ABC; yeah, he had a beard, I had never heard of a "bear," and I knew within thirty seconds of listening to him that he was gay.
Sully definitely bleeds emotion in a way that most straight men don't. When he was traveling with Hitchens pimping the Iraq War some years back, he would go hysterical at the drop of a pin. Kaus has routinely chided him for being "excitable", which he is in a very queeny way. This is a guy who thinks he comes across as much straighter than he does. In general gays seem weaker, more effeminate, even if they are not twinks or queens.
Homosexuality is inherently about being submissive in an unmasculine way. Performing fellatio, submitting to anal sex--these are not masculine sex moves. It's implausible to suggest that this extreme form of sexual submission is not expressed in other parts of the personality, even if gay men don't see themselves as effeminate. If anyone were that severely compartmentalized, then at any rate their sexuality would be an expression of buried personality issues. No matter how you slice it, this isn't "regular guy" stuff.
Despite the endless propaganda to the contrary.
"Most gay men are not "queens", even though "queens" are a subset of gay men.
It would help matters if you at least knew what words meant."
Severn,
I didn't say that most gay men are queens, I said that your example of gay men as high achievers was wrong. I said that you were focusing on a subset of gay men who dominate other gay men. These guys are indeed usually queens.
Maybe I'm wrong. Then please give examples and statistics. I gave statistics: gay men earn less, not more, than straight men.
Regarding such attributes as effeminacy, I realize that there are guys who behave regularly who are gay. But here's an area where anecdote and social science seem to coincide: yes, Virginia, you really can tell the gay from the straight.
How many ex-athletes have died of AIDs?
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