Would a Gay man feel comfortable in PA?

Sean Trane wrote: RayRo wrote: Despite the many wonderful welcomes and encouraging answers I received in my other post asking if Gays and Lesbians are welcome in PA, as an openly gay man, I would have to say that I do not feel welcome.   There were some glaring red flags that cropped up both within that post and externally.   For example, there was not  a single mention of a LGBT discussion group existing in any of the peripheral Prog Archives "non music" forums. There were "threads" that discussed everything from the 2015 NFL season to a non ending "thread" on Libertarianism. But no "thread" discussing Gay and Lesbian rights and their political concerns. Why?   There was also an instance of a longtime "collaborator" who mentioned that he was gay and was surprised that my question even came up. Again, I ask why?   There also seemed, by the person's site name, of either an anonymous transsexual or transgender person. I could be wrong about this, but as an LGBTQ advocate, I have a lot of experience in these matters and have to go by an educated guess. And this broad based posture of anonymity is paramount to me.   Prog Archives is not some bigoted discussion forum, but I feel that cultural norms and practices of the 20th Century, such welcoming gays but not actually discussing the "who, what, where and why's" is what is still dominant in the 21st Century for this site.   If PA wants to welcome Gays and Lesbians, it has to show more tolerance that simply saying we're welcome.        Hey SteveG,   is that your latest ploy to get around your suspension on this site??   To come back in through the back door (pun intended) and camp as a gay dude??   That's lacking much class.... even wondering if this is not disrespectful to the LGBT community   Even Svetonio wouldn't stoop that low!!! (hopefully)

I wondered if this might be the case.

Kati wrote: identity politics.

I agree that ALL THE TIME, it become boring, but LGBT as a political identity is important, even to adquire the basic rights.

Steve are suspended from the site?

RayRo wrote: Despite the many wonderful welcomes and encouraging answers I received in my other post asking if Gays and Lesbians are welcome in PA, as an openly gay man, I would have to say that I do not feel welcome.

Edited by Dean - November 05 2015 at 01:21

^ Nice try, Dean, but our RayRo won't have any of that.

Triceratopsoil wrote: BaldFriede wrote: Triceratopsoil wrote: In dozens of anonymous studies? no Why does it matter to you what percentage of people are homosexuals anyway?  Surely it doesn't affect your own sexuality in the slightest. GKR wrote: ^ and this matters.... why...? Because he asked. You would be surprised. It actually matters a lot if such a study is done with face-to-face questioning or online questioning; in the latter case the percentages tend to be higher. It doesn't matter to me at all. But I know that in Cologne, where I live, about 10% of the population is homosexual. Granted that Cologne is a city that attracts homosexuals because it is much more tolerated here. But if 2% of the German population is homosexual that is about 1.6 million people. And 100,000 of them live in Cologne? And  Berlin has a similar percentage, which means about 350,000 are homosexual there.. So if there really are only 1.6 million homosexual in Germany it would mean about 28% of them live in Berlin or Cologne. I sincerely doubt that. I mean, what we have is many many formal studies VS 1 person (ok, 2 people) saying that they definitely know better than everybody else who actually researched it And actually it doesn't sound that outrageous to have a third of the adult homosexual population moving to the most gay-friendly cities in the country.  Why would they stay somewhere less tolerant?

You contradict yourself a bit, my friend. You say it does not surprise you that homosexuals would move to areas where homosexuality is more tolerated. This does of course mean that there are areas where it is not that tolerated.

This is exactly were socially desirable responding enters. People who live in areas where it is less tolerated are much less prone to answer truthfully to such a question. So there is always a number of unreported cases, a dunkelziffer. How big this dunkelziffer is can only be estimated.

It is the same when you ask women about being beaten up by their husbands, only in that case it is more obvious why they would not answer truthfully. Many homosexuals have still not come out of the closet yet because they fear disadvantages of some kind.

You may argue they need not fear in an anonymous study. But if you constantly live with that fear it becomes an automatism to deny it when you are asked about it. This is why I don't take any of these studies to hit the mark.

Interestingly female homosexuality seems to be somewhat more socially respected than male homosexuality these days. This has not always been the case. Back in the time when the church had much more influence male homosexuality was a very bad thing, but female homosexuality was absolutely unthinkable. A woman enjoying her sexuality without participation of a man was absolutely not de rigueur.

Triceratopsoil wrote: In dozens of anonymous studies? no Why does it matter to you what percentage of people are homosexuals anyway?  Surely it doesn't affect your own sexuality in the slightest. GKR wrote: ^ and this matters.... why...? Because he asked.

You would be surprised. It actually matters a lot if such a study is done with face-to-face questioning or online questioning; in the latter case the percentages tend to be higher.

It doesn't matter to me at all. But I know that in Cologne, where I live, about 10% of the population is homosexual. Granted that Cologne is a city that attracts homosexuals because it is much more tolerated here. But if 2% of the German population is homosexual that is about 1.6 million people. And 100,000 of them live in Cologne? And  Berlin has a similar percentage, which means about 350,000 are homosexual there.. So if there really are only 1.6 million homosexual in Germany it would mean about 28% of them live in Berlin or Cologne. I sincerely doubt that.

Triceratopsoil wrote: I'll grant you that somewhere like San Francisco, which is clearly not representative of the rest of the world, was found to be somewhere around 15% homosexuals. Anyway it's a prog website, not a LGBT website.

It has nothing to do with SF--  2% is a low-ball percentage of those interested in same or both sexes.  Nothing to be alarmed by.  



Edited by Atavachron - November 04 2015 at 19:21

Triceratopsoil wrote: Atavachron wrote: ^ Sarcasm!   And I suspect that percentage is a wee bit low. Hard to find data because studies don't all match up but: -less than 2% of polled Australians identify as homosexual -1% of Canadian college students identify as homosexual (an area that frankly most would expect to be higher than national average) -3.6% of polled French people identify as homosexual -2.7% of Irish people identify as homosexual -4.5% of Israeli people identify as either homosexual or bisexual (survey didn't distinguish) -2.4% of Italians identify as either homosexual or bisexual -about 2.5% of Dutch people identify as homosexual -0.9% of New Zealand students -somewhere between 1% and 6% of Britons, depending on the survey you look at.  UK Office of National Statistics says 1.5%. more studies: Bell-Weinberg, 1970 - 2% Billy-Battelle, 1993 - 1.1% Cameron-Ross, 1975 - 3% Catania-NABS, 1992 - 2% FRI, 1983 - 5.4% MacDonald, 1988 - 2% NCHS, 1988 - 3.5% Schmidt, 1987 - 0.6% Trocki, 1988 - 3% etc 2% seems like a safe enough average.  I'll grant you that somewhere like San Francisco, which is clearly not representative of the rest of the world, was found to be somewhere around 15% homosexuals. Anyway it's a prog website, not a LGBT website.

Of course we can expect that everybody answers truthfully when asked about his or her sexual preference. . Sorry, but I sincerely doubt that. Ever heard of socially desirable responding?

Edited by BaldFriede - November 04 2015 at 18:55

^ and this matters.... why...?