As you’re probably aware, June is Gay Pride Month. To show our gay pride, we’re having Gay Week over at Boinkology: from Monday to Friday, it’s all gay posts, all the gay time.
SUBMITTED BY MIKE: With gay marriage tentatively legalized in California there’s been a ton of attention turned toward homosexuality in the press and in published research– everything from brain studies to comparative figures on dissolution rates in gay relationships. One fact that’s emerged has been the differences in gay male and lesbian rates of marriage.
I can’t speak for the ladies, but I’ve done a fair bit of research on gay men. Aside from the issue of marriage, gay men are more likely to be single than either lesbians or heterosexuals so it’s a natural to see fewer marriages.
In some studies it’s been shown that attractive men are less satisfied with relationships and I’ve discovered that guys with self described athletic physiques are most likely to be single.
Men are more visual. You often see an attractive straight woman with older or less attractive men. Rarely will you see the opposite. Among gay men there’s no room for compromise. Attractive men expect equally attractive partners… in addition to personality and intelligence, which makes coupling difficult.
There’s also much less motivation for gay men to form stable partnerships. We’re picky, more than occasionally horny and there’s no mitigating biological, economic or social incentive not to be, especially when many of us find the intimacy we need either through friendships or casual sexual encounters.
This does not imply that it is hopeless for gay men to find committed relationships, simply more difficult and mainly as a result of our own selectiveness. The tentative results of the research on gay marriage show that when we do tie the knot, it tends to be more stable than lesbians (although it will be years before we have true longitudinal data).
[Photo by amanky]
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Comments
Did you by any chance read that long ass article in NY Times Magazine about young gay marriage? It addresses some of the points you are making, but mostly to say there is a trend among young gay men to get married.
I will poke around and try to add it to the Boinkology tumblr because that seems prettier than putting the url in this comment.
June 25th, 2008 at 7:22 pmI think Mike makes some interesting points but they seem mostly based on an urban perspective of what it means to be a gay male. He needs to visit the heartland and see just how many exceptions to his rules there are. I was 47 when I came out and had no difficulty finding relationships….Me and my partner…17 years my junior and a hell of a lot cutter than me have been together for nearly 13 years….for more of my written stuff…including gay commentary and political observations go to
June 25th, 2008 at 9:04 pmhttp://www.americanchronicle.com/viewByAuthor?authorID=2437
oipps…I meant “cuter” than me….sorry, its my dyslexic fingers
June 25th, 2008 at 9:07 pmi don’t know where you hang out, but i’ve seen a fair share of sweet young gay men with older men society would deem not attractive. it’s totally unscientific, but these couples seem to be around as much as the young woman/old man couples, especially if you allow for there just being more straight couples in the world.
i also think that this statement “You often see an attractive straight woman with older or less attractive men.” is misleading and offensive. to begin with, just because a woman you consider attractive (or you think society considers attractive) is with a man you (or society) does not consider attractive, is in no way evidence that she is ‘less visual’. not everyone thinks my boyfriend is hot, but i do. it has nothing to do with my being ‘less visual’ than those other people. it has to do with my being attracted to different visuals than they are.
and conflating ‘older’ with ‘unattractive’ as you are is ridiculous. being with an older person certainly doesn’t make you ‘less visual’.
this post seems like a more personal issue. i mean, it’s harder to find a long term partner because gay men are picky? i’m a picky motherfucker and i’ve only had long term relationships. because i’m -that- picky.
June 25th, 2008 at 9:20 pmSecondlastwish– I have read that article. However based on social network data, that age group is still largely the most single of any, even in Massachusetts. The guys getting married appear to be statistical outliers– the recent interest in gay marriage has caused a lot of interest in the mainstream media and the gay blogs.
Dave– I grew up in the heartland and it was a categorically miserable experience. For me. Most stats from social networks show little difference in singleness between rural areas and urban gay meccas (san fran excluded). Having fewer options and less competition can be helpful for relationships.
Al– if you define attractiveness as youth, fitness, facial symmetry and expression of gender characteristics (in the case of men square jaws etc.) then I absolutely stand by my assertion.
Women are less focused on these things, but not completley ignorant. Physical attraction is a prime motivator for females but what they find attractive differs– Women generally prefer older partners for instance, while almost all men prefer their age range or younger.
June 26th, 2008 at 12:34 ami just don’t agree with anything you’re saying here. i don’t define attractiveness as youth, fitness blah blah. women are physically attracted to men who are not youthful, fit, symetrical and who don’t fit the expression of gender characteristics. not because they’re standards are lower or other factors are more important, but women actually like looks other than young, fit and square-jawed. i am physically attracted to men with bellies. it’s not that i value their mind more than their physique, but because i am attracted to that physique.
and women do not generally prefer older partners. i mean, what are we calling ‘older’? if my partner was 2 years older than me, but i’m 35 and he’s 37, is he really ‘older’ than me?
how do gay women fit into this equation? if women are generally attracted to older, less attractive people, who would date the younger more attractive ones? and how would old men get dates with young men if young men weren’t attracted to them? people are all attracted to different physical things. we don’t assume the same personality is generally attractive to everyone, why do we assume there is some body form that is?
it bothers me that you are trading in all of the same ideas that straight men have been using to justify sexual double standards for decades.
June 26th, 2008 at 1:03 amWell if you don’t buy in to any evolutionary or biological basis for attraction I’m not going to try to convince you. The standards are set by society and supported by countless studies on the issue and mechanics of attraction.
If your personal standards don’t conform to those expectations then clearly those rules don’t apply to you as an individual. It does not invalidate the general accuracy of the statement, but I’d be very interested if you had any published research to the contrary.
As far as gay women go I don’t know very much on the subject other than they have a much higher success rate in terms of dating and finding significant others.
And finally, my interest is really not to define beauty– it’s to show how the existence of (and rigid adherence to) these standards creates dysfunction within the gay community in terms of dating which can be measured by a higher than expected occurrence of singleness.
June 26th, 2008 at 8:35 amLeave a reply :