Will most Americans be gay by the turn of the next century?

[xyz48B]

3 hours ago, MikeBiDude said:

Even here in this generally very open minded group of men here on the forum.

[Guest]

6 hours ago, pubic_assistance said:

... those who choose a homosexual lifestyle.

No one "chooses" a "homosexual lifestyle." I didn't choose to be gay or male. It's the way I am. No complaints.

” No matter gay, straight or bi, Lesbian, Transgender life. Im on the right track baby i was born to survive” ~ Lady Gaga 2011

[+ José Soplanucas]

5 hours ago, Unicorn said:

No one "chooses" a "homosexual lifestyle." I didn't choose to be gay or male. It's the way I am. No complaints.

” No matter gay, straight or bi, Lesbian, Transgender life. Im on the right track baby i was born to survive” ~ Lady Gaga 2011

Meh. I did not choose to be homosexual. I do choose my lifestyle. "Gay lifestyle" is a debatable reality.

https://ilikepinga.com/2021/05/29/gay-is-not-good/

 

[xyz48B]

38 minutes ago, latbear4blk said:

Meh. I did not choose to be homosexual. I do choose my lifestyle. "Gay lifestyle" is a debatable reality.

You don’t “choose” your sexual orientation, whether natured or nurtured. But you can choose to be happy in whatever sexuality you have. I don’t know of that’s the “lifestyle,” but it is a choice of regarding psychological healthiness. 

[Rudynate]

 

The gay lifestyle is not nearly as emblematic as it was because the gay community has become so diverse, but there definitely still is a "gay lifestyle" pursued by urban gays. 

There have always been people who opted out of the gay lifestyle.  I remember on one of my early trips to San Francisco, I met a guy who had gotten fed up with drugs, sex and rock & roll and bought a general store in a small town in the Sierras.

There used to be a magazine called "RFD" for rural gays who were homesteading.

 

[Rudynate]

"The world is not to be divided into sheep and goats. It is a fundamental of taxonomy that nature rarely deals with discrete categories... The living world is a continuum in each and every one of its aspects. While emphasizing the continuity of the gradations between exclusively heterosexual and exclusively homosexual histories, it has seemed desirable to develop some sort of classification which could be based on the relative amounts of heterosexual and homosexual experience or response in each history [...] An individual may be assigned a position on this scale, for each period in his life. [...] A seven-point scale comes nearer to showing the many gradations that actually exist."   Alfred Kinsey

[pubic_assistance]

8 hours ago, Unicorn said:

No one "chooses" a "homosexual lifestyle

Of course they do.

Why are gay men so afraid of this fact ?

 

[Rudynate]

1 minute ago, pubic_assistance said:

Of course they do.

Why are gay men so afraid of this fact ?

 

Don't confuse lifestyle and sexual orientation.

[pubic_assistance]

2 minutes ago, Rudynate said:

Don't confuse lifestyle and sexual orientation.

I am not.

It's a fact that many people are innately bisexual in nature. To commit oneself to a relationship you must pick one gender or the other as a life partner.

It's shocking the number of gay men who refuse to accept this fact...even though it's publically displayed for them in Hollywood with actresses and actors going back and forth between men and women in their relationships..and happy to report these lifestyle decisions to the press .

[+ José Soplanucas]

2 hours ago, xyz48B said:

You don’t “choose” your sexual orientation, whether natured or nurtured. But you can choose to be happy in whatever sexuality you have. I don’t know of that’s the “lifestyle,” but it is a choice of regarding psychological healthiness. 

I disagree. In my opinion what is called today "gay life style" is just conformist reproduction of binary, heteronormative patterns, with no self questioning. Just another oppressive label.

If that is healthy for you, I am glad for you. It does not work for me. 

[xyz48B]

@latbear4blk– Those aren’t loaded, emotionless words! 😉 

I think of sexual orientation as a condition, not to be too crude. Lifestyle is how you choose to live with the condition. If that’s oppressive, well…I don’t know then. It’s oppressive. 🤷🏼‍♂️ 

[xyz48B]

2 hours ago, Rudynate said:

there definitely still is a "gay lifestyle" pursued by urban gays

Now this I find interestingly compelling.

How useful is this label? Not terribly. But we also have to determine how narrowly we want to define “gay lifestyle.” Is it just a (potentially sexual) relationship with another man? Or is it it the partying, drinking, music, clothing, sex, entertainment, etc. that does seem to be marked of the lifestyle of many-a urban gay—between the ages of 18 and about about 45-50, I’d estimate.

For me, the gay lifestyle isn’t what is portrayed as stereotypical by the media or social media…The glam isn’t what makes one gay, although it’s certainly attractive to a large swath of the gay population. 

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Rudynate said:

...There have always been people who opted out of the gay lifestyle.  I remember on one of my early trips to San Francisco, I met a guy who had gotten fed up with drugs, sex and rock & roll and bought a general store in a small town in the Sierras...

Yeah, that's us... 😄

 

[xyz48B]

Sooooo…

Straight folks who live a life of sex, drugs, and rock and rule are living the gay lifestyle? To me, that is misaligned. That’s not the gay lifestyle. Too many straight people live it to be so.

[+ José Soplanucas]

1 hour ago, xyz48B said:

@latbear4blk– Those aren’t loaded, emotionless words! 😉 

I think of sexual orientation as a condition, not to be too crude. Lifestyle is how you choose to live with the condition. If that’s oppressive, well…I don’t know then. It’s oppressive. 🤷🏼‍♂️ 

I agree there. We choose our life style. 

You do know that a lot of people choose an oppressive life style, right? There is not shortage of self hating people of all kinds. 

[Rudynate]

31 minutes ago, xyz48B said:

Sooooo…

Straight folks who live a life of sex, drugs, and rock and rule are living the gay lifestyle? To me, that is misaligned. That’s not the gay lifestyle. Too many straight people live it to be so.

Ah ha - that's your problem!! You're a troll.

[Rudynate]

8 minutes ago, Rudynate said:

Ah ha - that's your problem!! You're a troll.

And everyone knows that the way to deal with a troll is not to engage with them.

[xyz48B]

4 minutes ago, Rudynate said:

And everyone knows that the way to deal with a troll is not to engage with them.

I’m not totally sure why you think that was trolling. I was being genuine in trying to discuss the “gay lifestyle.” 🤷🏼‍♂️ 

Sounds like you have a preconceived, biased notion of what I post! 

[xyz48B]

1 hour ago, latbear4blk said:

I agree there. We choose our life style. 

You do know that a lot of people choose an oppressive life style, right? There is not shortage of self hating people of all kinds. 

Sure. People can choose that. But I think that’s a mighty far leap to go from “sexuality labels can make sense of complexity” to “sexuality labels are by their nature oppressive.”

[+ José Soplanucas]

48 minutes ago, xyz48B said:

Sure. People can choose that. But I think that’s a mighty far leap to go from “sexuality labels can make sense of complexity” to “sexuality labels are by their nature oppressive.”

I never said that. If you read my article, you will see that I describe in detailed the oppressive features of specific labels, without posing universal laws.

[xyz48B]

1 hour ago, latbear4blk said:

I never said that. If you read my article, you will see that I describe in detailed the oppressive features of specific labels, without posing universal laws.

If you mean the pinga opinion piece, I don’t agree that “gay is not good.” For me, I despise the label “queer” for myself because it means everything and therefore nothing. I’d rather actually figure out what gay means, and like so many think they’ve (unsuccessfully) done with the word “queer,” “take back” the word “gay” from all the extra bullshit people have come to associate with it. “Queer” is just the most recent attempt of gay folks to find a label that evades the strictures of puritanical society, but that’s what “gay” was supposed to be before we – gay folks – allowed it be stereotyped in a way many dislike. Running away from the moniker isn’t the solution; it’s just running away. The same will happen with “queer,” even if you think it’s “better” than “gay.”

[mike carey]

14 hours ago, Rudynate said:

 

The gay lifestyle is not nearly as emblematic as it was because the gay community has become so diverse, but there definitely still is a "gay lifestyle" pursued by urban gays. 

There have always been people who opted out of the gay lifestyle.  I remember on one of my early trips to San Francisco, I met a guy who had gotten fed up with drugs, sex and rock & roll and bought a general store in a small town in the Sierras.

There used to be a magazine called "RFD" for rural gays who were homesteading.

There certainly is a 'gay lifestyle' but it is open to dispute what that is. It was easier to understand when there were gay ghettos or areas where gay people congregated. It can also be argued that it can be where a person makes their identity as gay the core of who they are. I certainly don't do that, and I would say I lead a middle class suburban lifestyle, but I don't conform to what others may say are essential elements of that like having an opposite sex partner, 2.3 kids and a golden retriever.

The trouble with the term 'gay lifestyle' is that it has become code for homophobes and people who resent the idea that LGBTIQ+ people exist. It is used to tell them that all aspects of their existence, including the fact of their sexual orientation, are matters of choice, and choices they should not have made. I have no doubt that everyone comes in at one position or another on the Kinsey scale (is it fixed for life, I doubt it), but that being a 5.5 is what you are, not a decision you make. Of course, given any position on the scale what you chose to do with that and how you live your life, such as who you choose as sexual partners and life partners are decisions you make, and decisions that you may make differently in different parts of your life. There is no guarantee that the public manifestations of how a person lives are any indication of where on the Kinsey scale they are.

For that reason I view 'gay lifestyle' as a loaded term that I should avoid, and if someone uses it to describe how I live my life I wonder if it's an accusation rather than a description. I know (roughly) my position on the scale and know how I identify. Others should be free to identify as gay, bi or straight without having to prove their identification matches their Kinsey scale position. Why they identify as they do is none of my business, nor is it any of my business if they later change how they identify, and I have no right to read anything into such a change.

[xyz48B]

13 minutes ago, mike carey said:

For that reason I view 'gay lifestyle' as a loaded term that I should avoid, and if someone uses it to describe how I live my life I wonder if it's an accusation rather than a description.

And I’d say that applies for both straight and gay folks. Gay folks can use the term extremely pejoratively. 

[pubic_assistance]

10 hours ago, mike carey said:

The trouble with the term 'gay lifestyle' is that it has become code for homophobes and people who resent the idea that LGBTIQ+ people exist.

That may be used as some "code" for conservatives to turn their nose up at non-traditional relationships ...but I was the one who used the term and I am far from conventional. My history of adult relationships was as open minded and unconventional as you might get. So it was hardly stated with any bigotry.

I am making a point that is hard for many  homosexuals to swallow ( pun intended)...that many of us DO indeed choose our pathway in lifestyle when we aren't so solidly predisposed in our sexual attractions to one gender or another. "Born this way" works for some homosexuals but not everyone on the LGBT spectrum .

Edited February 28, 2022 by pubic_assistance
grammar

[marylander1940]

On 2/26/2022 at 8:44 PM, pubic_assistance said:

That, my friend is a completely bizarre accusation. By stating the very real fact that humans are by nature; bisexual, does nothing to "belittle" those who choose a homosexual lifestyle.

 

 

 

Edited February 28, 2022 by marylander1940