Shodan, in a generally approving response to this post in the Pit (and the one after), said this:
and
This is, of course, a fairly popular conservative position. My question is, are there any real numbers to this? The sources and numbers in the Roderigo post mentioned above has been heavily criticized; are there any modern studies to back up this claim?
Whatever the answer is, there are larger questions: how much does the answer matter in the issue of gay marriage? Does it have anything to do with the promiscuity stereotype mentioned in another thread here? And what about the theory that, if gay relationships don’t go the distance as much as conservatives claim, this is partly (or greatly) due to societal disapproval of these relationships? If so, wouldn’t that mean that gay marriage, as a sign of societal approval, might extend the life of said relationships? After all, how many mixed-race couples thrived in the Fifties and Sixties, when such was either illegal, or could get one hanged?
In other words, conservatives seem to think that there’s something inherent about being gay that makes you want to fuck around more than straight people. If it’s not that, what is it, if anything?
A while ago Fark linked to one of the biggest human sexuality studies done so far to this day. I have been trying to find the link again for the longest time, but since I forgot what the little caption said, I’ve been no longer able to find it.
It was conducted in numerous countries all around the world and involved a large number of perticipants. In the study, they found that gay men and straight men both desired about the same number of sex partners. (IIRC, 10-15%) So did straight and lesbian women. (IIRC, 5-10%). Bisexuals wanted the most sexual partners of anyone. Bisexual women wanted 3 times as many partners and the straight and lesbian women did.
Men, either through natural tendencies or cultural pressures want about 2-3x the sexual partners per month that women do. Men are also less likely statistically to commit to long term relationships.
Because of this gay men over-all tend to have shorter relationships than straight couples while lesbians have the longest relationships of all. The difference is not as great as conversatives would like you to think it is. However, there are plenty of gay men who have been in long-term, loving relationships that last most of their lives. And there are also slutty lesbians who’ve had many partners.
I fail to see what letting some heterosexual couple who have each been married 5 times get married over a gay couple who have just had each other for almost their entire lives accomplishes.
I sometimes wonder if one of the reasons that gay relationships seem to fail so often is that a large part of society wants them to fail, and because of this places intense societal pressure upon gay relationships where for straight relationships the exact opposite, a supportive environment, exists.
Straight people are encouraged by coworkers and acquaintances to talk about their relationships, they are cooed over when flowers arrive at work, pictures of their SOs on the desk brings a positive response. Gay people are often expected to hide every aspect of their relationships, down to the fact that they are gay. That kind of thing, not only lack of support but outright hostility to their relationships has to add another layer of stress to the relationships themselves, and considering that it takes hard work to keep a relationship together, perhaps some of them can’t survive the additional strain.
These are just my wonderings on it, if any gay Dopers have any input into how the lack of societal support for their relationships plays a factor, I’d love to hear it.
The problem with the statistics is that they aren’t comparing comprobable things. Gay relationships can’t be compared to just straight marriages. You’d have to ask what percentage of all relationships break up before marriage to get a true comparison.
To illustrate in an extremely simplified manner:
Bob dates five different women for at least a year during his lifetime and ends up married “till death do us part” to the last, which ends up being 20 years.
Bill dates five different men for at least a year and ends up with the last one for the last 20 years of his life.
In the statistics cited by Rodrigo, Bob would count as a 0% divorce rate, but Bill would be at an 80% relationship failure rate. But in reality if Bill had been allowed to marry, his divorce rate would have been the same.