Does Being Gay Shorten Your Life?

[LonesomePolecat]

@Revenant Threshold

I would have said the standard for needing a cite is whether one is asked for or not.

Then you would have been wrong.

[BrainGlutton]

@LonesomePolecat

It’s common knowledge and well accepted. No cite is needed.

It is also “common knowledge” that gay men are more likely than straights to indulge in bizarre sexual practices (other than homosexuality as such), but it ain’t necessarily so. (See this old thread.)

[Revenant_Threshold]

@LonesomePolecat

Then you would have been wrong.

Well, let’s see. Someone demands a cite for something, tends to suggest that they will be convinced by a cite (or at least, won’t be convinced without one). If you have no interest in proving your argument to them - then sure, you don’t need to give one. OTOH, if you’re interested in getting people to agree with you, it seems like a good idea to try and fulfil their request.

[jayjay]

@LonesomePolecat

There is no need to provide a cite for something which is well established. If someone were to challenge the heliocentric theory of the solar system, it would be entirely proper to put the burden for providing cites entirely on him. If you want to argue about it any further, go to your local state university or some such place and take it up with whoever teaches the basic introductory course on logic.

On the other hand, if an assertion is so established as truth and common knowledge that it needs no cite, then you should have no problem whatsoever finding copious amounts of evidence for it. Since there seems to be a contingent here who find such an assertion by you to be dubious, I’d suggest you find a way to defend that assertion or back off of it.

I think you’re going to find yourself in lonely company on this one (not necessarily the comparison for alcoholism between gay and straight, but that said comparison is so established as to be common knowledge and therefore needs no cite).

[jayjay]

Or, in other words, I can sit here and proclaim that the Republican Party is a party of loathesome pedophiles with necrophiliac tendencies and then state that it’s well-established and common knowledge, and therefore no cite is necessary.

See my point?

[John_Mace]

@LonesomePolecat

It’s common knowledge and well accepted. No cite is needed.

I consider myself as a generally well informed individual and I’ve never heard this. So “common knowledge” it isn’t. It wouldn’t surprise me if it were true, but we really need to see the details to determine if it’s significant or not. As others have already said, any marginalized group is likely to engage in more risky and unhealthy behaviors, but let’s look at actual facts before we come to conclusions.

[SiXSwordS]

I see upon preview that I missed a lot of the discussion while I was constructing this so I may be restating what others have already covered.

@LonesomePolecat

You actually think a cite is necessary for this? <snip>there is no reasonable argument about the fact itself.

I can offer a couple of counter cites:

…the most prominent research tends to portray lesbian, bisexual women, bisexual men, and gay men as a homogeneous body, often grouping them under the common category of “homosexual.” The assumption that lesbian, gay, and bisexual students share quite similar experiences has led to overgeneralizations about their lives and has compromised the quality of scholarship on such populations.

Offered as a cite against the argument that there is an obvious, unquestionable body of knowledge that requires no citation.

Also:

[Although causal relationships between homosexuality and alcoholism have not been established, the myths and assumptions surrounding this issue are numerous. Much of the available literature on the subject is from a psychoanalytic perspective, emphasizing latent homosexuality as a cause of alcoholism. Very little is from the perspective of gay and lesbian populations.

](Gay and Sober: Directions for Counseling and Therapy - Google Books)
typed/ not cut-n-pate. Any errors are mine.

This is offered as a cite opposed to the idea that common knowledge in the area of alcoholism and homosexuality is settled, agreed upon and clear.

[Miller]

@LonesomePolecat

As well as the whole “stupidly engaging in reckless sexual behavior such as extreme promiscuity and unprotected anal sex with strangers” thing.

Yes, that would be one of the many destructive behaviors engaged in as a result of the conditions I listed in my post. When society tells you over and over that you’re worthless, it’s hard not to internalize that attitude to at least some degree.

Luckily, this has changed quite a bit over the last ten to fifteen years.

@Mosier

I agree with your conclusion, but your premises are a little too dramatic to be credible.

How so? It’s certainly not a universal experience (my own parents were almost comically accepting when I came out) but that has been exactly the experience for the majority of homosexuals up through the end of the 20th century, and is still very, very common today.

[susan]

Here are some sources of empirical information on LGB people:

Gay Parents. Short answer: Not a problem.

Evelyn Hooker’s classic research. Short answer: “Being gay is just as healthy as being straight.”

New data on lesbian, gay and bisexual mental health. Short summary:

• Several studies suggest that gay men, lesbians and bisexuals appear to have higher rates of some mental disorders compared with heterosexuals, **although not to the level of a serious pathology. ** Discrimination may help fuel these higher rates.

• A study found lesbians reported **equally strong levels of mental health as their heterosexual sisters and higher self-esteem. **

• A new study of gay and lesbian youth finds that they are only slightly more likely than heterosexual youth to attempt suicide, refuting previous research that suggested much higher rates. (emphasis mine)

LGBT therapy issues.

Relevant to this thread:

• Higher rates of major depression, generalized anxiety disorder and substance use or dependence in lesbian and gay youth.

• Higher rates of recurrent major depression among gay men.

• Higher rates of anxiety, mood and substance use disorders, and suicidal thoughts among people ages 15 to 54 with same-sex partners.

While the findings do not prove that discrimination causes mental health problems, they take a step toward demonstrating that the social stigma felt by LGB people has important mental health consequences.

even though sexual-minority teens are more likely than heterosexual youth to report suicide attempts, half of those reports are false–that is, the young people had thought about suicide but hadn’t acted on it. In addition, Savin-Williams found, many of the true attempts the young people reported weren’t life-threatening.

“When you ask in-depth questions about suicide attempts, the responses you get account for the rate differences between heterosexual and sexual minority youth suicide,” Savin-Williams says.

two large-scale studies of lesbians and bisexual women report good news about lesbians’ mental health, particularly if the women are “out.”

researchers found that the more “out” lesbians and bisexual women were–as measured by self-identification as a gay or lesbian, number of years out and level of involvement in the lesbian or bisexual community–the less psychological distress they reported.

---

As well as the whole “stupidly engaging in reckless sexual behavior such as extreme promiscuity and unprotected anal sex with strangers” thing.

Again, again, again: Who are you talking about? Not all gay-identified men, not all men who have sex with men, and certainly not lesbians. Lack of clarity contributes to confusion.

[CarnalK]

@ultrafilter

I wouldn’t be surprised if being gay appears to shorten your life expectancy in the US, but I doubt you’ll see the same effect if you correct for HIV infection rates.

Life insurance companies could most likely charge higher premiums to gay people–after all, gender is a protected class but auto insurance companies can charge higher prices to young men–but it’s not necessarily in their best interests to do so. Suppose that a naive life insurance company decides that it will charge a higher premium to its gay customers, and requires everyone to report their orientation. If it becomes public knowledge that gay customers pay higher premiums, there’s a strong incentive for everyone to claim that they’re straight. If the company takes orientation claims at face value, they’ll end up systematically underestimating their expenses.

There’s such a thing as “Abstainers Insurance” where you get preferable rates if you are a non-smoker and non-drinker. You could just include “non-buttsexer” in there and you’re good to go.

[Shodan]

@BrainGlutton

But, do you have any cite that gay people drink more than straights? Or are more frequently diagnosed with alcoholism? Or, for that matter, spend more time hanging out in bars?

I’ve already given you two. Try reading something before you respond once in a while.

I also posted

not that it will accomplish much.

I’m too prescient for my own good.

[Antinor01]

@Shodan

I’ve already given you two. Try reading something before you respond once in a while.

The problem is that both of your cites rely on the same studies. And both of them say that the studies have serious flaws. (unless I missed something, which is always possible)

[Sampiro]

[soapbox]

@jayjay

This sounds like a “study” by the notorious and defrocked “psychologist” Paul Cameron did way back in 1994. Their methodology was laughable and the study is considered to be junk by actual psychologists (not to mention statisticians).

Paul Cameron is a man whose name every American with any interest in gay issues/politics/religion/etc. should know and yet it boggles my mind how few are aware of him. He is the ONLY “researcher” to find such conclusions as

-gay men have life expectancies of 42
-gay men are many times more likely to molest children than anybody else
-gay men regularly ingest each other’s feces as a sexual practice
-gay men are far more likely to be murderers and domestic abusers

etc.etc., and since it’s published by a psychologist/socioliogist in “peer reviewed journals”, hey, it must be true!

In fact the peer reviewed journals he publishes in are invariably vanity presses like Adolescence where the peer review process is waiting for the checks to clear [$3,500 for the first 20 pages and $100 for each additional page at one time, not sure what it is now- and I’m serious- the prices are published in their masthead]). NOBODY in the field takes these “journals” seriously or regards them as scholarly. His “findings” have included such methodology as what jayjay mentioned [AIDS deaths from HIV activism newsletters as representative of all gays] as well as counting homosexual rape in prison as typical gay dating behavior [I’m not embellishing that- he actually used it], he frequently cites his own vanity-pressed published articles in his next vanity-press published articles, and just flat out making shit up [which he has done and been caught in and even forced to admit to].

So, another nutcase crank right? Hardly-

His “findings” and “data” appear several times a year in everything from Christian Right newsletters to American courtrooms. His studies are the reasons that gays cannot be foster parents in the state of Arkansas, they have been used to physically remove foster children from gay households and discriminate in hiring practices and have even appeared in Congressional reports on gay legislation [particularly for those related to gays in the military]).
William Bennett (the guy who fixed our drug and education problems then [del]wrote[/del] edited the Book of Virtues, used Cameron’s findings in one of his reports, and while he’s no friend of liberal causes or “progressive” legislation Bennett actually apologized for doing so after Cameron’s bio was brought to his attention and retracted everything he’d said based on those articles.

Anyway, there are whole books written about Cameron so I’ll stop, but he’s a name nowhere near as well known as he should be, you hear his “research” spouted every year by [socially] conservative talking heads on CNN and other networks, and other than Anderson Cooper and Jon Stewart I’ve never known any anchor to call them on their shit. (Much of his “research” is now laundered in a way- it’s been cited in other “less scholarly” sources and so many who cite it don’t even know they’re citing it, not that I think any Fundamentalist anti-gay activist gives a damn about what a “peer reviewed” article is or would know one if it ingested their feces while molesting their children after beating their spouse.)

Fred Phelps is a total nutcase who I hope is bankrupted by the appeals of his recent judgment, but he is not a fraction of a percent as harmful as Cameron, just a lot better known because he makes better copy. (Cameron’s son Kirk works with his father and has also written articles, but he is not the Kirk Cameron of Growing Pains and “b-a-n-a-n-a, that spells God!” fame, though this is sometimes reported.)

[Sampiro]

PS- I mentioned the “laundering” of Cameron’s articles. Very important. Often you’ll see some alarming statistics that “1 in 4 gays cannibalizes babies” or some such shit in an article by “Dr. R.E. Pete at We Love Jesus College” (usually a Bob Jones or similar Christian school when you follow it), but if you “follow the garbage” you’ll find that the fact/statistic did not originate with Dr. Pete’s journal. In his citations you’ll find that he’s quoting Cameron, but since people attribute it to “Dr. Pete’s article”, it’s been ‘laundered’.

This happened in an article that appeared in Christianity Today some while ago. I busted hell out of the two theology profs who wrote it. They were publicly ridiculed at their college (Roanoke) on the basis of my articles- one of my proudest moments.
Christianity Today never offered a retraction, however, for printing garbage as fact (however laundered) and I seriously doubt the theology profs ever got so much as a slap on their hands for using Protocol of the Elders of Fire Island as a factual cite in their articles.

[susan]

From one of the APA sources I cited above:

Some nonscientific organizations have attempted to convince courts that there is an actual scientific dispute in this area by citing research performed by Paul Cameron as supporting the existence of deficits in gay and lesbian parents or their children compared to heterosexual parents or their children. In fact, there is no scientific evidence of such deficits. Cameron’s research is methodologically suspect. His key findings in this area have not been replicated and are contradicted by the reputable published research. Unlike research that makes a contribution to science, his key findings and conclusions have rarely been cited by subsequent scientific studies published in peer-reviewed journals as informing their scientific inquiry. For a detailed critique of the research project on which Cameron has based many of his published papers, see Herek (1998).

And here’s the Herek abstract (also APA):

Herek, G. M. (1998). Bad science in the service of stigma: A critique of the Cameron group’s survey studies. In G. M. Herek (Ed.), Stigma and sexual orientation: Understanding prejudice against lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals. (pp. 223-255). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.

Discusses the work by psychologist Paul Cameron and his research group, which has argued that homosexuals threaten public health, social order, and the well-being of children. This chapter critically reviews the principal source of data for the Cameron group’s publications and identifies six serious errors in their sampling techniques, survey methodology, and interpretation of results. This chapter also uses objective indicators to show that the Cameron group’s survey results have had no discernible impact on scientific research. They have been published in journals with low levels of professional prestige and scientific impact, and have been cited in few other research articles, most of which criticized their methodology. It is concluded that the Cameron group’s surveys are an example of bad science that has been used to perpetuate the stigma historically associated with homosexuality.

From the Amicus brief for BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA AND MONMOUTH COUNCIL,
BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA, Petitioners, v. JAMES DALE, Respondent:

40/ The Council, for example, relies on the long discredited work of Paul Cameron, FRC Br. at 24-25. See Minutes of the Nebraska Psychological Ass’n (Oct. 19, 1984) (adopting a resolution dissociating itself from writings and views of Mr. Cameron on sexuality); Baker v. Wade, 106 F.R.D. 526, 536 (N.D. Tex. 1985) (referring to Mr. Cameron’s testimony that homosexuals abuse children at greater rate than heterosexuals as misrepresentation and fraud on the court). See also FRC Br. at 23-24 (relying on statements from anti-gay organization NARTH not based on empirical data). Similarly, reliance on the journalistic work by Jay and Young reporting survey responses by gay and bisexual men that they had sex “at some time” with boys 16-19 years old or younger, FRC Br. at 23, PAUS Br. at 24, is questionable on several grounds. The survey did not distinguish between respondents who had experienced a sexual encounter with an age-mate as a teenager from any who had encounters with teenagers as adults. The authors also used inadequate methodologies that would not be relied on by scientists.

[BrainGlutton]

@Shodan

I’ve already given you two. Try reading something before you respond once in a while.

You try. From your [

The presumption that rates of alcoholism2 and alcohol abuse within the gay community are higher than within the general population is based primarily upon a number of early studies. These studies reported high prevalence rates of heavy drinking or alcoholism among gay men and lesbians in several disparate communities (Fifield et al. 1977; Lohrenz et al. 1978; Morales and Graves 1983). One study comparing lesbians and heterosexual women (Saghir and Robins 1973) found that 35 percent of the lesbian sample experienced “excessive and/or problem drinking,” as compared with 5 percent of the control sample of heterosexual women. Estimates of problematic alcohol use derived from this early literature for both gay men and lesbians have tended to cluster around a prevalence rate of 30 percent. Despite the use of divergent sampling and measurement techniques, these studies as a whole indicated prevalence rates of problematic alcohol use to be far in excess of the figure of 10 percent usually ascribed to the general population.

Before accepting these high prevalence rates of alcohol and other drug abuse within the gay community, however, the methodological limitations of the supporting literature should be considered. Each of the studies cited above describes data derived using opportunistic sampling techniques; these data may or may not accurately represent the community from which they were drawn. Gay bars and their surrounding environs have traditionally been a significant source for recruitment of samples, as they are one of the few public settings in which gay Americans congregate freely. This sampling practice is especially problematic for alcohol or other drug studies, as it can lead to an oversampling of bar patrons. Bar patrons are more likely to be heavy drinkers than individuals in the general population (Clark 1981), and also may be more likely to use drugs other than alcohol. To the extent that research protocols rely on methods that overrepresent bar patrons, they risk overestimating the prevalence of alcohol and other drug abuse among homosexual and bisexual men and women. Furthermore, most of the samples obtained through opportunistic sampling techniques have been predominantly white and middle class, thereby limiting our knowledge of the drinking practices of ethnic minority gay men and women.

Since the start of the AIDS epidemic, however, studies have been designed that approximate representative samples of specific gay male communities. Data from these projects often can be used to generate estimates of gay male alcohol and other drug use more rigorous than those possible through opportunistic samples. Stall and Wiley (1988), for example, compared the alcohol and other drug consumption patterns of self-identified gay and heterosexual men who lived in the 19 census tracts of San Francisco with the highest cumulative incidence of AIDS. The rate of heavy drinking among gay men in this sample was 19 percent, as compared with 11 percent among heterosexual men in the sample, but few other differences were found between the drinking habits of the sample’s gay men and heterosexual men. Although gay men did use a greater variety of drugs than their heterosexual male neighbors, differences in the frequency with which they used these drugs were comparatively minor.

To avoid the problem of oversampling bar patrons, McKirnan and Peterson (1988, 1989a,b) elicited their survey sample (n = 3,400) primarily from the readership of a Chicago gay newspaper. They compared their findings with those of a survey of alcohol use and problems within a national general population sample (Clark and Midanik 1982). They found rates of abstention from alcohol among gay men and lesbians in Chicago to be lower than those found in the national sample (14 percent versus 29 percent). Rates of heavy drinking among gay men and lesbians were comparable to those found in the general population (15 percent versus 14 percent), although rates of reported alcohol problems were higher in the gay sample (23 percent versus 12 percent, p < 0.001). Martin (1990) calculated alcohol consumption and alcoholism rates for a sample of self-identified gay men in New York City. He found considerable consistency in the typical alcohol consumption patterns of men in his study over a 4-year period (averaging about five drinks per week, excluding abstainers). As of 1986, 12 percent of his sample met the Diagnostic Interview Schedule (DIS)/DSM-III diagnostic criteria for alcohol abuse or alcohol dependence, or both. This rate fell to 9 percent by 1987. In summarizing his own study and the Stall and Wiley study (1988), Martin concluded:

While this rate is certainly higher than the 4 percent rate suggested by Dohrenwend and colleagues… in their synthesis of true prevalence studies in the U.S., it clearly indicates that problem drinkers are not typical among gay men, and are unlikely to constitute as much as a third of the homosexual population (p. 32).

Population-based probability studies have yet to measure alcohol-related problems among lesbians. Thus, McKirnan and Peterson’s (1989a) estimates of alcohol consumption and alcohol-related problems within the lesbian community (using samples elicited from the reader-ship of a Chicago gay newspaper) remain the most rigorous yet attempted.3 Rates of heavy drinking among Chicago lesbians were comparable with those of the general population (9 percent versus 7 percent). However, the rate of alcohol-related problems among these urban lesbians–23 percent–appears to be higher than the rate estimated for heterosexual women (8 percent) in a national sample of both urban and rural women (Clark and Midanik 1982).

In short, some difference, perhaps, but nothing for insurance actuaries to get their shorts in a knot about, and nothing to support a “yes” answer to the OP.

Your [url=http://www.alcoholmedicalscholars.org/gay-out.htm]second link](]first link:[/url) appears to be outline notes for a PowerPoint presentation or something, and cannot be meaningfully evaluated without reviewing the sources in its bibliography.

[Patty_O_Furniture]

My coworkers tell me that I look much younger and seem to have more energy then most other people my age. They think it’s because I have no wife and no kids. Little do they know…!

[Sampiro]

@Patty O'Furniture

My coworkers tell me that I look much younger and seem to have more energy then most other people my age. They think it’s because I have no wife and no kids. Little do they know…!

Eh, they’re just trying to pick you up. (You really should quit the job as a Congressional page already.)

[Shodan]

@Antinor01

The problem is that both of your cites rely on the same studies. And both of them say that the studies have serious flaws. (unless I missed something, which is always possible)

Yes, you missed what the studies said.

Since the start of the AIDS epidemic, however, studies have been designed that approximate representative samples of specific gay male communities. Data from these projects often can be used to generate estimates of gay male alcohol and other drug use more rigorous than those possible through opportunistic samples.

BrainGlutton has stopped pretending he didn’t see any cites, and is now lying about what they say, so his nonsense can be dismissed with the contempt such posts deserve.

To sum up briefly what you people refuse to read, all studies cited show significantly higher rates of alcoholism and alcohol-related problems. Gays also smoke more. Gay male adolescents are more likely to commit suicide. AIDS in the US has disproportionately affected gay historically. Gays, males in particular, are more likely to be subject to domestic violence. Gay bashing disproportionately affects gays (obviously).

So the answer to the OP’s question is a clear Yes, being gay correlates to a number of factors negatively affecting life expectancy.

Regards,
Shodan

[jayjay]

Your first domestic violence cite actually says that the results are contradictory. One survey says the rates are higher, one says they’re the same. I’d quote, but that page apparently doesn’t play well with copy/paste. Your other domestic violence link is from NARTH, which automatically makes it a seeping putrescent tissue of lies.