# Is gay marriage "the final tactic of the women's movement"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 10, 2004, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-gay-marriage-the-final-tactic-of-the-womens-movement/233515 "2004-03-10T17:45:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2004, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-gay-marriage-the-final-tactic-of-the-womens-movement/233515/1 "2004-03-10T17:45:24Z")
James Howard Kunstler is one of my favorite commentators when he writes about things like the deleterious effects on American life of automobile-dependent suburbanization, destruction of pedestrian-scale neighborhoods, and ugly, soulless modern architecture – which covers most of his nonfiction. And his political views are generally very liberal. I was very surprised to find this comment in the March 8, 2004, issue of his online column, “The Clusterfuck Nation Chronicle” ([http://www.kunstler.com/mags\_diary10.html](http://www.kunstler.com/mags_diary10.html)): > [@](#): > > ``` > I have been puzzling over the issue of gay marriage myself the last few weeks, as perhaps many of you have. It seems to me that everything necessary in the way of legal protection for same-sex partners was already available in the several "domestic partner" laws already enacted in states such as Vermont. Gay marriage, on the other hand, is an effort to gain official approbation for a form of sexual behavior and establish it as socially normative. This, it seems to me, has several drawbacks for all concerned, gay and non-gay alike. > As much as the gay community wishes, they will never persuade the non-gay majority that homosexual behavior is wholesome, in particular between males. **In reality, the norm of male gay social behavior is extreme promiscuity with predatory overtones** -- hence, for example, all the problems the Catholic church is having with what is basically a homosexual subculture devoted almost exclusively to victimizing boys. > **The wish to normalize male homosexuality is inevitably a way of discounting and marginalizing male heterosexuality.** However, I'm not convinced that male homosexuals want to cede the social margin to the straights; that "outsider" position is so deeply connected with gay culture generally. **What we are really seeing, I believe, is the final tactical move of the womens' movement to keep bothersome men away from them generally and to get as many men as possible corralled into a gay ghetto with the priapic diversions of gay life.** > In the end what bothers me about gay marriage is the idea that it is *exactly the same thing* as marriage between a man and a woman, and this is the obvious result of the extreme relativism that has reigned as a kind of supreme fashion statement among high culture vamps since the 1960s. This relativism has been a long game of pretend -- pretending that all behaviors are equally okay. > > ``` > > * * * > > ``` > . . . The *[New York Times]* stands for a new and extremely peculiar form of puritanism: one that regards heterosexuality as fundamentally disgusting and homosexuality as the greatest social good. The subtext is the end-game of the womens' movement: the complete marginalization of men. As a heterosexual male (and a registered Democrat), I've had about enough of this point-of-view and I will fight to overturn the cultural consensus that supports it. > > ``` (Bolding added.) Whew! What do you all think about this? Is it true that the gay community “will never persuade the non-gay majority that homosexual behavior is wholesome, in particular between males”? Is the norm of male gay social behavior “extreme promiscuity with predatory overtones”? Is gay marriage a radical feminist tactic to “get as many men as possible corralled into a gay ghetto with the priapic diversions of gay life” and to achieve “the complete marginalization of men”? If so, is this a good thing or a bad thing? ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2004, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-gay-marriage-the-final-tactic-of-the-womens-movement/233515/2 "2004-03-10T18:12:51Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Is gay marriage a radical feminist tactic to “get as many men as possible corralled into a gay ghetto with the priapic diversions of gay life” and to achieve “the complete marginalization of men”? If so, is this a good thing or a bad thing? I just don’t see how it marginalizes men at all. Marc ---
**Author:** ![Truth\_Seeker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5fc32e/32.png) [@Truth\_Seeker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Truth_Seeker)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2004, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-gay-marriage-the-final-tactic-of-the-womens-movement/233515/3 "2004-03-10T18:26:17Z")
All seems a bit overheated and paranoid to me. > [@](#): > > Gay marriage, on the other hand, is an effort to gain official approbation for a form of sexual behavior and establish it as socially normative. This is most certainly true, however. For many people, it’s not about rights, it’s about recognition. > [@](#): > > In reality, the norm of male gay social behavior is extreme promiscuity with predatory overtones There is, certainly, a large promiscious subculture within the gay community. But many gays have deep reservations about it. Lots of gays, for example, are uncomfortable with the stereotypical gay pride parade and the image it portrays to the larger world. They don’t get much press, however. A bunch of gay people mowing their lawns on Saturday afternoon aren’t as good a story as a bunch of guys in leather thongs riding a penis float. > [@](#): > > – hence, for example, all the problems the Catholic church is having with what is basically a homosexual subculture devoted almost exclusively to victimizing boys. Pedophillia is more complicated than that. It’s not really a “gay” problem. Having said that, I do suspect that social pressures did drive a lot of gay men into the priesthood. If you’re deeply religious and not attracted to women, I can see how you might conclude that you have a calling to the priesthood rather than admitting to yourself that you’re gay. > [@](#): > > Is it true that the gay community “will never persuade the non-gay majority that homosexual behavior is wholesome, in particular between males”? Well, it’s certainly true that they haven’t done so yet. I don’t believe that you’ll ever get mainstream society to accept the stereotypical gay lifestyle. But I don’t think that’s necessary. All you have to do demonstrate that most gays accept the mainstream lifestyle. Which, I think, is already true. ---
**Author:** ![Dogface](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9d8465/32.png) [@Dogface](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogface)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2004, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-gay-marriage-the-final-tactic-of-the-womens-movement/233515/4 "2004-03-10T18:38:26Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Is it true that the gay community “will never persuade the non-gay majority that homosexual behavior is wholesome, in particular between males”? “Never”? Well, “never” is a very long time. However, “not yet done it in 4,000 years, for the most part” seems to give us a clue that it’s probably not an easy task. > [@](#): > > Is the norm of male gay social behavior “extreme promiscuity with predatory overtones”? Couldn’t say. However, it does seem to be the face that the “subculture” spends the most time and money showing to the world. The thing is that I highly doubt that anybody has done a comprehensive study to show what percentage of homosexual men actualy frequent the gay dens of iniquity and what percentage would far rather go to an ice-cream social to meet a nice boy and settle down. How do you tell if two guys at a bar who are talking about which pitcher is the best of all time are two heterosexual buddies sharing some time or a long-term and devoted homosexual couple on a rather masculine date? I can’t think of a way to tell just by looking–unless some PDA breaks out, but I’ve seen plenty of devoted heterosexual couples who are quite bashful about affection in public. > [@](#): > > Is gay marriage a radical feminist tactic to “get as many men as possible corralled into a gay ghetto with the priapic diversions of gay life” and to achieve “the complete marginalization of men”? It probably is. But there is no limit to the whacky-nutty-out-of-touch dogmas that the fringe can produce. Whether or not the current controversy is the product of loonfringe feminuts (as opposed to rational feminists) is a matter for amused consideration, I’d say. ---
**Author:** ![Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/96bed5/32.png) [@Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patty_O_Furniture)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2004, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-gay-marriage-the-final-tactic-of-the-womens-movement/233515/5 "2004-03-10T19:14:32Z")
Kunstler seems personally bothered by the whole situation. I wonder why it’s any skin off his back. > [@](#): > > It seems to me that everything necessary in the way of legal protection for same-sex partners was already available in the several “domestic partner” laws already enacted in states such as Vermont. He’s wrong. > [@](#): > > In reality, the norm of male gay social behavior is extreme promiscuity with predatory overtones[.] That sentence works just as well without the word “gay” in it. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2004, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-gay-marriage-the-final-tactic-of-the-womens-movement/233515/6 "2004-03-10T20:05:13Z")
Wow. This guy has to be clinically insane. I haven’t read such an irrational, self-contradictory cry for help in a long time. ---
**Author:** ![Dogface](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9d8465/32.png) [@Dogface](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogface)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2004, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-gay-marriage-the-final-tactic-of-the-womens-movement/233515/7 "2004-03-10T21:17:47Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > Wow. This guy has to be clinically insane. I haven’t read such an irrational, self-contradictory cry for help in a long time. Well, he is a Liberal/Left icon, after all. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2004, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-gay-marriage-the-final-tactic-of-the-womens-movement/233515/8 "2004-03-11T01:11:03Z")
Now, don’t get mad at me, but I’ve always thought that the male gay culture did have strongly promiscuous and predatory [althought NOT pedophilic] tendencies. I thought this was a result of not having the healthy option of marriage. [Well, so do young straight people, but straight kids seem to grow out of it sooner.] And actually, the problems of the Catholic church result from a millenia or two of viewing women as a dirty subspecies, useful only for breeding. And doesn’t “will never persuade the non-gay majority that homosexual behavior is wholesome, **in particular between males** ” and “to get as many men as possible corralled into a gay ghetto with the priapic diversions of gay life” show what this guy is really afraid of? ---
**Author:** ![hansel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/6bbea6/32.png) [@hansel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hansel)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2004, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-gay-marriage-the-final-tactic-of-the-womens-movement/233515/9 "2004-03-11T01:19:44Z")
The content of the OP’s quote is so grotesquely wrong, so continuously, as to be meaningless. The tinfoil is wrapped too tight, and around the wrong head. ---
**Author:** ![Knorf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/58956e/32.png) [@Knorf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knorf)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2004, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-gay-marriage-the-final-tactic-of-the-womens-movement/233515/10 "2004-03-11T01:50:12Z")
I agree with everything stated above in response to the OP. I want to add: just about the most crass mistake made is equating pedophilia with homosexuality. They are not related, they are not the same, they are not linked. [Cite.](http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/rainbow/html/facts_molestation.html) There is no reuptable science behind linking pedophilia and homosexuality. Anyway, the article cited in the OP is so astonishingly full of crap, my best advice is: please disregard. > [@Brain Glutton](#): > > Is it true that the gay community “will never persuade the non-gay majority that homosexual behavior is wholesome, in particular between males”? Unknown at the present time. > [@](#): > > Is the norm of male gay social behavior “extreme promiscuity with predatory overtones”? That is pure bigotry. > [@](#): > > Is gay marriage a radical feminist tactic to “get as many men as possible corralled into a gay ghetto with the priapic diversions of gay life” and to achieve “the complete marginalization of men”? Man, does this guy have issues with feminism. Look, lots of gay people just want to be married, for various and sundry reasons, most of them including being in love. They aren’t doing it further the paranoid ideology of some extremist fringe. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2004, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-gay-marriage-the-final-tactic-of-the-womens-movement/233515/11 "2004-03-11T02:11:33Z")
> [@hansel](#): > > The tinfoil is wrapped too tight, and around the wrong head. Good one! Please note I didn’t quote the whole article, so everyone’s not getting the full context. It begins: > [@](#): > > March 8, 2004 > If the _New York Times_ is any measure of things, the national superego is in a state of terrific confusion about sex. > Exhibit one: we get Jonathan Rauch’s lead-off article in the Sunday Magazine promoting gay marriage. Rauch, of the Brookings Institution, is the author of a forthcoming book on the subject by (who else) Times Books. Rauch’s idea is that President Bush’s stance on social value of marriage is unwittingly an argument favoring gay marriage. Essentially, Rauch says, any marriage ought to be construed as a benefit to society. > Exhibit two: the lead article on page one of the Sunday Styles section about “transgender” students at elite colleges. Here’s the lead: > Arriving in Providence last fall to begin his senior year at Brown University, Luke Woodward didn’t have to tell friends what he had done on his summer vacation. They could tell with one glance. Before the summer, Luke had the body of a woman. Now Luke’s breasts were gone, leaving a chest more compatible with Luke’s close-cropped hair, baggy jeans and hooded sweatshirt. Some classmates had chipped in to pay for the surgery; to cover the rest, Luke took out loans. > Note that this story ran in what is essentially the fashion section of the Sunday paper, and note also the emphasis the reporter puts on sex change surgery as a fashion statement. The surgery goes with the outfit. > Exhibit three: the “Lives” endpaper of the Sunday Magazine, an article by a woman whose life was devastated because a 21-year-old male babysitter had given her 9-year-old daughter kissing lessons. > I have been puzzling over the issue of gay marriage myself the last few weeks . . . And ends: > [@](#): > > . . . This relativism has been a long game of pretend – pretending that all behaviors are equally okay. > It seems to me that this kind of lazy relativism is a luxury that can only be enjoyed by a cossetted elite luxuriating in a high entropy economy. Why else would the students at elite universities like Brown be so preoccupied by adolescent sexual confusion? I would think that seniors at Brown (and Yale, and Princeton, and Harvard) would be more concerned with how our society is going to function in the permanent energy crisis soon to come, or how we are going to reorganize farming so we can feed ourselves when oil-based agriculture ends, or how we are going to reestablish local networks of economic interdependency when WalMart globalism grinds to a halt. Instead, they are being encouraged to submit to extreme acts of surgical mutilation in order to erase their sexual identity. > Finally, though, the _New York Times_ gives the game away with that Magazine endpaper about the babysitter who gave kissing lessons and thus destroyed a mother’s life. The Times stands for a new and extremely peculiar form of puritanism: one that regards heterosexuality as fundamentally disgusting and homosexuality as the greatest social good. The subtext is the end-game of the womens’ movement: the complete marginalization of men. As a heterosexual male (and a registered Democrat), I’ve had about enough of this point-of-view and I will fight to overturn the cultural consensus that supports it. If that makes any difference. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2004, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-gay-marriage-the-final-tactic-of-the-womens-movement/233515/12 "2004-03-11T02:29:43Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > James Howard Kunstler is one of my favorite commentators … He’s made a whole series of unsubstantiated claims, as you noticed by your bolding of certain passages. You might want to check the veracity of his commentary in those instances when you already agree with his conclusions. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2004, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-gay-marriage-the-final-tactic-of-the-womens-movement/233515/13 "2004-03-11T05:22:30Z")
> [@Dogface](#): > > Well, he is a Liberal/Left icon, after all. 😃 Not exactly . . . Politically speaking, Kunstler is only an “icon” in the fields of New Urbanism, “smart growth”, anti-automobile and anti-suburbanization activism, and energy-crisis alarmism. He has a lot of distinguished company in these fields (check out Andres Duany, Peter Calthorpe, Jane Holtz Kay, the Congress for the New Urbanism ([http://www.cnu.org/](http://www.cnu.org/)), and Smart Growth Online ([http://smartgrowth.org/](http://smartgrowth.org/))). But the idea that our total dependency on the automobile is a bad thing for society is not really a “left” or “right” position. That is, the people who are concerned with it are generally concerned with protecting the environment, but otherwise they don’t appear to fall in any one area of the political map. (Duany himself is a refugee from Castro’s Cuba – I don’t think he’d be inclined toward a leftist position.) The only political pattern I have noticed is that the people who oppose “smart growth” and “New Urbanism” on principle all seem to be libertarians. See Randal O’Toole ([http://i2i.org/Other/iv/otoole2002/](http://i2i.org/Other/iv/otoole2002/)) and Wendell Cox ([http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=12350](http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=12350)). (And here – [The Town Paper: Wendell Cox -- Andrés Duany Debate](http://www.tndtownpaper.com/CoxDuany.htm) – is a report on a public debate between Wendell Cox and Andres Duany.) All I can figure is that libertarians are against “smart growth” because all conceivable approaches to it would involve some kind of government action. Then again, maybe it’s all part of a broader anti-environmentalist backlash by libertarians and pro-business conservatives – we’ve had some GD threads on that already. None of which has anything to do with gay marriage . . . which is the point, I guess. There’s no apparent connection between Kunstler’s views on homosexuality and his views on anything else. ---
**Author:** ![Tanaqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3bc359/32.png) [@Tanaqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tanaqui)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2004, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-gay-marriage-the-final-tactic-of-the-womens-movement/233515/14 "2004-03-11T06:40:14Z")
He sounds like a full on nutbar to me. One of those rather sad people who have a persecution complex with regard to the opposite sex–I always think that is the most _confusing_ kind of bigotry, because damn! the other sex makes up half the population! That’s an awful lot of people to utterly despise, whether it’s men or women. > [@](#): > > Is it true that the gay community “will never persuade the non-gay majority that homosexual behavior is wholesome, in particular between males”? Well, of course, that’s a matter of opinion. I don’t think it’s true, myself. Society has made huge strides in just a few decades, and I don’t see us sliding backwards, though it’s possible. There will always be plenty of bigots, but I do believe homophobia will eventually become as unacceptable as sexism or racism. Though I guess it does depend on your definition of “wholesome” and also “homosexual behavior.” I mean, if we’re talking about S&M leather bars, then probably not. If we’re talking about two totally non-threatening gayboy A&F models getting married and adopting a kid, that’s a totally different thing. > [@](#): > > Is the norm of male gay social behavior “extreme promiscuity with predatory overtones”? That’s another tricky question. I think it’s undeniable that, generally speaking, gay male culture is more promiscuous than straight male culture, but is that due to gayness or maleness? Since lesbians aren’t particularly known for promiscuity, I’d go with #2 myself. The same goes for the “predatory overtones” thing, whatever the hell that means exactly. I think it has more to do with this guy’s capital-I Issues than anything else. > [@](#): > > Is gay marriage a radical feminist tactic to “get as many men as possible corralled into a gay ghetto with the priapic diversions of gay life” and to achieve “the complete marginalization of men”? If so, is this a good thing or a bad thing? Um. I–I don’t know what to say. Words fail me. How could anyone take that seriously? It sounds like something out of the Onion. Is this guy for real? I don’t know that there is a particular feminist movement to legalize gay marriages, first of all. It’s probably true that there’s a positive correlation between supporting gay rights and being a feminist (and that goes both ways) but it’s hardly surprising–we’re both fighting the same enemy (and I’m not talking about heterosexual men, for any paranoid guys who may be reading this.) Secondly, how the hell would legalizing gay marriage “corral” anyone into a “gay ghetto”? This argument really reminds me of those people who seem to believe that homosexuality is so damn fun that if you don’t run the immediate risk of being murdered/ostracized/discriminated against you’ll instantly turn to a life of gay lovin’. How are women going to make men into homosexuals? Again, this seems to be getting far deeper into this guy’s personal issues than I really want to deal with. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2004, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-gay-marriage-the-final-tactic-of-the-womens-movement/233515/15 "2004-03-11T07:59:48Z")
> [@Tanaqui](#): > > I think it’s undeniable that, generally speaking, gay male culture is more promiscuous than straight male culture, but is that due to gayness or maleness? I’d say it’s due to maleness. A woman I knew once told me the story of a gay male friend of hers (since dead of AIDS), who, living in New York in the early '80s, by his own account, had an average of 1,000 sex partners a year. She couldn’t believe it – she pointed out to him, that would be more than three a day, right? He thought about it a moment and said, yes, that’s about right. (Generally he picked them up in adult film arcades.) And then there are the “glory holes” – you ladies might not be familiar with them, but all us guys are. You might find one in any public men’s room: a small, waist-high perforation in the partition separating two toilet stalls. This hole was bored by somebody, with the intention of facilitating completely anonymous gay sex: One guy will insert his penis into the g-hole, and the other will suck it or whatever. Thus two men are able to have a kind of sexual contact without getting to know each other, without learning each other’s names, without even seeing each other’s faces. I got to thinking about this, and I wondered: What if **women** were as urgently horny as **men** are? Would we straight guys conduct ourselves in such a disgusting, hedonistic, promiscuous fashion, if the world were full of straight or bi women who were willing to relate to us on exactly those terms? Would we fuck unseen women through opaque partitions? Would we make use of 1,000 or more female sex partners in a year? Would we go to highly charged mixed-gender clubs where everybody dances up a sweat, does lots of drugs, and has orgies of fornication in the dark corners? Yes. No question. Without hesitation. The male sex drive might not be any more powerful than the female sex drive, but it is definitely more urgent. Women, straight or gay, are **not** as horny as men, straight or gay. A great pity it is, and one of life’s little abominable cruelties – but if women were as horny as men, nobody would ever get any work done. The gay lifestyle (at least, the extreme promiscuous version of it) is what you get when you take the urgent male sex drive, and synergize it with **other** urgent male sex drives. Sometimes I wish I **could** work up an interest in gay sex. 1,000 partners a year! It makes me so fuckin’ jealous! But we are what we are . . . ---
**Author:** ![spectrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc29f/32.png) [@spectrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spectrum)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2004, 8:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-gay-marriage-the-final-tactic-of-the-womens-movement/233515/16 "2004-03-11T08:39:25Z")
None of my gay friends are promiscuous. There is one fairly well-known promiscuous gay guy on campus, but he’s shunned because he’s a shallow, obnoxious creep. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2004, 8:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-gay-marriage-the-final-tactic-of-the-womens-movement/233515/17 "2004-03-11T08:59:48Z")
> [@Kunstler](#): > > Gay marriage, on the other hand, is an effort to gain official approbation for a form of sexual behavior and establish it as socially normative. Dunno about that. If I were gay, I would want to marry the man I loved for the same reason that in real life I would want to marry the woman I love–as a form of locking him/her down and adding some sort of (if only perceived) binding between the two of us. So essentially it comes down to a matter of selfishness. While I would admit that gays must be more politically conscience of such aspects of their life than must I, I would not doubt that for many the political angle may be their current chief concern. But, as I do not believe that the thought processes of gays to be all that particular alien to mine, were such political issues not so prevalent I am sure that the desire to get married upon finding that special someone would be just as strong in them. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2004, 9:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-gay-marriage-the-final-tactic-of-the-womens-movement/233515/18 "2004-03-11T09:23:13Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Women, straight or gay, are **not** as horny as men, straight or gay. I was never certain about this whole thing. I have always been told that men are wild, horny, pigs and such. Similarly, I have always been told that teenagers being “teenagers” was just a matter of their age and raging hormones and such. Personally, I have never felt this immense sexual craving–at least not on any similar scale to what other men evidence. And so far as I have ever been able to tell, when I was a teen I acted no differently nor felt any particularly different urges than I had previous nor following that time period. As such, I still feel that a lot of this is people expecting such behavior and as such not reprimanding the people for acting this way. And most people knowing they can get away with it, then proceed to act accordingly. On top of this, then, I would suggest upbringing. Boys and girls are raised differently. It annoyed the heck of me once when my uncle chided his daughter for playing rough with her sister because “girls shouldn’t act that way.” Boys are encouraged to play games that emphasize the desire to compete and to win. Girls are encouraged to play house and look pretty. So I would have to wonder if the male sex drive is less a product of actual physical impulses, and more with the desire to go out and enjoy the pillages of war (i.e. sex and sexual domination) as trained into us by our parents. Or, it is simply a matter that I have less of the guy gene than most…? ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2004, 9:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-gay-marriage-the-final-tactic-of-the-womens-movement/233515/19 "2004-03-11T09:59:50Z")
I would never describe this person as politically liberal. I hate to see an articulate mind become so twisted. He appears to be both ignorant and paranoid. Rule #1 in the Liberal’s Handbook: You are required to respect a majority of the people. ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2004, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-gay-marriage-the-final-tactic-of-the-womens-movement/233515/20 "2004-03-11T13:33:59Z")
Brain Glutton: Sigh. Women are as horny as men; sex is just not as sure a thing for women as it is for men. For real psysiological reasons, women have more physically disappointing sexual experiences than men do. That takes it toll on the libido. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-gay-marriage-the-final-tactic-of-the-womens-movement/233515.md?page=2)