This is a comment by wellokaythen on the post “Spelling Queer with L, G, B, & T (and A, I, P…) Part 3“.
Just thinking some more about #2:
Another way to look at the plurality of sexual identity is in terms of political grouping. If, for example, society tries to enforce heterosexuality as the norm, that can only happen through a coalition of hetero men and hetero women. Ultimately, if straight men and straight women defend heterosexuality as normal, that’s basically two sexual minorities teaming up to create a majority. That’s not a uniform majority, but it’s two subgroups pairing up who define themselves as having something central in common. Heterosexuals are the majority only if you add together straight men and straight women into one giant supercategory, when in fact straight men and straight women may have just as much in common with other sexual minorities as they do with each other.
I don’t know the exact figures, but I’m guessing that androphiles are a slim majority of the general population. There are more women than men, and from what I understand there are more gay men than lesbians, and assuming that the small percentage of the others is roughly equally androphile and gynephile (or both or neither) that should be about 51% of the population is attracted to men. That must be depressing for some people: a higher percentage of people attracted to men than there are men …
Photo credit: Flickr / donjd2
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I have re-read this “article” a few times and I am not sure you make any sense. Heterosexuality is the norm in the US and across the globe. Homosexuality is not the norm. Yes, being gay seems to be the new fad and all the rage, especially with the trendy. But it is still not natural and is a moral issue and will continue to be suppressed by those who are normal. Heterophobia is on the rise and is not welcomed.
It’s always funny to hear right-wing people who “know” that being gay is a choice, because they themselves are attracted to men.
If they can suppress it and not act on it, why can’t others, right? In this idea is the assumption that all men have some attraction to other men, and it must be actively suppressed, “for the greater good”, “to be moral”, and such platitudes.
Newsflash: Most men are not attracted to other men. A lot might be bisexual and denying it, but that’s still a minority, same as for women – just more than is normally thought (hint: it’s more than the gay and lesbian total).
Hence, you can’t say that most men are doing a superhuman effort not to “fall” for the gay lifestyle. They’re not attracted in the first place, it’s pretty effortless.
Not to mention all those heterosexuals that chose to be heterosexual…oh wait…
Let’s say for the sake of argument that what you say is true about homosexuality being abnormal and trendy and heterophobic. What do you suggest our society do to combat this fashionable deviation from normal?
err, females being attracted to males is hetereosexuality. Unless I’m misreading something here, only men who are attracted to men would count?
Part of the point, I think, is the way in which your gender + the gender of the people you’re attracted to has been made into a social identity. i.e. heterosexuality (and homosexuality) is dependent on your own gender identity being part of the gender binary, and the gender identity of the people you are attracted to also being part of the gender binary.
Another way to look at sexual/romantic attraction would be to group gay cis-men and straight cis-women together, because the gender of the people they are attracted to is the same. And the same thing for lesbians and straight cis-men.
Or another way to look at it is to ask why the gender identity of who people are attracted to is the source for seemingly unified social identities. There is huge variety even within heterosexuality (just as there is huge variety within homosexuality and bisexuality, etc). But the way our culture has framed the discussion is to make heterosexuality the umbrella, and then monogamy and polyamory and bdsm, etc all fall into subcategories of heterosexuality. And homosexuality is an umbrella with monogamy, bdsm, polyamory, etc all falling into subcategories of heterosexuality. It could, conceivably be the other way around. Why don’t we view a person’s fetish as the umbrella, unifying social identity, and then view homosexuality, heterosexuality, pansexuality, etc as subcategories under that fetish? Get what I’m saying.
wouldn’t the same hold true for gay men and lesbian women? aren’t you combining both into one super group?
Yes, indeed. Gay men and lesbians combined into one category would also be a kind of coalition. You can see this in names like “alliance” that are often used for LGBT(et al) groups.
There are more women than men, and from what I understand there are more gay men than lesbians, and assuming that the small percentage of the others is roughly equally androphile and gynephile (or both or neither) that should be about 51% of the population is attracted to men. That must be depressing for some people: a higher percentage of people attracted to men than there are men …
I challenge this statement, on a number of different grounds.
First, attraction is not evenly distributed. If there are 10 or 20 people openly and visibly attracted to my neighbour and I can’t find a single one attracted to me, then that is likely to make me more depressed then waxing philosophically whether I have 3 420 000 000 or 3 437 000 000 potential mates worldwide that I’m most likely never going to meet. (And, the vast majority of whom wouldn’t be the least interested in me either, anyway.)
2. It shouldn’t be necessary to break this in a place like this, but: Not all people are monogamous!
3. Your calculation of “higher percentage of people attracted to men” doesn’t make sense, esp not in combination with the statement that there are more homosexual males than females.
4. Consider the age distribution, where men are in the majority throughout the adolescent and fertile ages, and then rapidly dropping off when approaching an age where the attraction and/or interest, possibilities, opportunities in acting out on that attraction in many cases are diminishing.
But I’ll just take the short route and say that “Love and attraction is not a numbers game!”.
Yeah, the estimate was mostly my thinking out loud and not very deeply. All valid points here.
You are trying to frame the discussion in a bait-and-switch way. You start by reffering to individuals as either homosexual or heterosexual, and then you change the definition of sexual category to “attracted to men” or “attracted to women”.
Hetero or Homo just refers to preferring partners of opposite or same sex. If we are going to discuss portion of population prefers men or women, that is a conversation that is totally unrelated to hetero or homosexuality.
And yes, there is an overwhelming majority who prefer the opposite sex as mating partners.
I did talk about two different ways of defining a sexual category. My intent is not so much to switch out one category for the other as to suggest that there are alternative ways of grouping people together on the basis of sexual preference.
Yes, heterosexuals make up the majority of the population. That “heterosexual” category is composed of at least two subgroups. Members of these two subgroups may actually have more in common with still other subgroups than with “other heterosexuals.” I am not saying there is no such thing as heterosexuality or that there is no heterosexual identity or that they are not in the majority when added all together.
I am positing the possibility, perhaps in a clumsy way, that people who are attracted to women have a lot in common with each other even if the people attracted to women are different in other ways. (What, no one thinks straight women and gay men ever have anything in common to talk about?) I suggest that the people who are attracted to men have a lot in common with each other even if the people attracted to men are different in other ways.
Why not have just as much focus on “attracted to men” as there is on “attracted to opposite sex”?
I haven’t tried to frame a discussion in years. I wonder how I even could on this chaotic site.
Shoot. My cover has been blown. I’ve been caught red-handed trying to further the homosexual agenda. I was hoping to divide and conquer the straight people so we gay lifestyle fascists can force all their children to march in weekly Gay Pride parades.
What was I thinking? I should have known that suggesting straight people have a lot in common with gay people is still too radical a concept. It raises too many red flags. (Or is it rainbow flags?) Oh, well. Maybe I’ll try again in a few decades.
Dang that heterosexual underclass and their majority position. There are just too many of them to round up all the troublemakers for re-education. I hope they never find out that being gay is just a really big practical joke to make them feel uncomfortable.
Stop giving away all our plans. Incidentally, why weren’t you at the meeting (lol):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTa9DfOnltA
Pardon me, but since approximately 97% of the population is heterosexual, this would make either women or men as a group no less than 10 times the majority of any other group e.g. homosexuals! What gives with your math?
Actually, it’s probably something like 80-90% of the population identifies as heterosexual and cis-gendered. Also, I think wellokaythen is more looking at this conceptually rather than strictly mathematically. He’s pointing out that even within people who identify as ‘heterosexual’ there’s huge variety, and that actually a straight person and a gay person might have a hell of a lot more in common with each other, and yet are considered so different by society all because of one identity, sexual orientation.
“Actually, it’s probably something like 80-90% of the population ….”
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Actually, You’re Wrong!
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/williams-institute-report-reveals-million-gay-bisexual-transgender/story?id=13320565
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/us-adults-overestimate-homosexual-population-much-tenfold
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“I think wellokaythen is more looking at this conceptually rather than strictly mathematically.”
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In other words he’s attempting to mislead! Reread the title he gave his article. Playing semantics and twisting concepts in order to confuse is a thinly veiled yet often used tactic to appear as though his ideas are esoteric and therefore worthy and valid.
This isn’t an article; it’s a “comment of the day.” What that means is that one of the editors, moderators, or what-not at GMP found something they liked in his comment and then published it as a “comment of the day.” The title isn’t something he came up with, but rather is just meant to be a snip-it of the comment. Wellokaythen has already explained elsewhere in these comments that he wasn’t necessarily focusing on being mathematically accurate. It was, actually, conceptual rather than mathematical, though I don’t know if he used those terms, exactly.
And here’s the problem with any estimation…non-heterosexuality and being trans* is still so socially maligned that all anyone can do is estimate. A crap ton of people are closeted, some even unable to acknowledge their sexual orientation or gender identity to themselves. So it’s all estimates, and really which percentage you go by is still besides the point.
There are two ways of asking the question that points to one’s sexual orientation.
1. Are you attracted to the same sex or the opposite sex?
2. What sex are you attracted to?
They seem very similar, but the first question refers to two components – your sex and the sex you’re attracted to, as implied by “same” and “opposite.” The second question only has one component, the sex you’re attracted to, with no bearing on your own sex.
(Bear with my oversimplifying, I know there are alternatives and that sex =/= gender and all that, I just don’t have that kind of time right now.)
Each question only allows for two answers. 1, same or opposite. 2, female or male. So in this theoretical experiment where one group of people answers question #1 and the other group answers question #2, you could split up Group One based on the dichotomy of hetero/homo – and you’d likely see significantly more heteros than homos. Group 2 would be divided between people who are attracted to men, and people are attracted to women. Given that the sample is roughly the same in each group, you might find (and I think this is what wellokaythen is saying) the disparity between the two sub-groups isn’t nearly so great – that there might not even be a clear majority, or at least not a significant one.
Are the majority of people heterosexual?
Yes.
Are more people attracted to women than are attracted to men?
Are more people attracted to men than are attracted to women?
Hmm. Don’t know, because we usually don’t frame the question this way. I would agree with wellokaythen that it’s a perspective worth considering – that hetero/homo isn’t the ONLY way to categorize sexual orientation.
I sort of touched on this with the terms androphilia and gyenophilia in part 2. (Yeah, I’m plugging more of my stuff. lol).