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Uh oh, my meter was going off.... First of all, I do not believe the studies were all gay versus all straight -- and it wouldn't be a fair assessment if it was.

If you are making a medical comparison you take as large a database as possible. But this is not a medical issue -- it is an ethics issue. Comparing between differing value systems is unfair and biased. It is the standard tactic of organizations who wish to bash an entire group of people (like Chev's first two links).

As an example lets do a study on the attractiveness of co-eds in universities. Most of us know that Playboy does several layouts of coeds every year. You could simply count the number of coeds over a few years that appear in Playboy from a particular school and rule that the school with the most appearances as the the school with the most attractive coeds. A reasonable approach, but then how would you account for the Miss America winner that came from Brigham Young University (no BYU coed has ever appeared in Playboy). Hmmmm. Here ethics has collided with a relatively unbiased study. We failed to take into account what the university and student body consider normal and acceptable -- a university which would expel any student posing nude.

You could look among different religious groups and see the same trends. In those groups where a little hanky-panky before marriage is okay you'll see more partners. For those groups where the individuals who engage in such activities are shunned, excommunicated, or stoned you'll see a much lower number of partners over a lifetime. The biased statistician groups all these together into "heterosexual" -- very unfair since no homosexuals exist in such environments (since they would be shunned, excommunicated or stoned themselves).

The real study should be between groups of the same basic value systems. Compare those that belong to the same religion (if that religion allows homosexuality without it being a sin), the same basic view of marriage or partnership, and the same acceptance/condemnation of extramarital affairs.

There is a large number of straight men who have very few partners simply due to religious beliefs. I am saying don't mix religious beliefs with the gay/straight issue -- that IS unfair.

[ December 15, 2004, 19:47: Message edited by: T2Bruno ]

 

Let's compare the number of Christian, Muslim and Atheist people in the world. Oh NO! That is unfair and biased!
How about comparing the number of men and women working in upper-class positions. Oh NO! That is unfair and biased!
Maybe compare the number of children attending school in developed and developing countries. What then? Oh NO! That is unfair and biased!

Finally, we can always say that even studies of people fallen ill to a disease and people free from that disease is unfair and biased because it is done by people who either have that illness or they do not have it. I think it is possible to void ANY and ALL studies (statistical or otherwise) because they are unfair and biased. What's there to stop us? Don't like the statistics? Doubt their veracity, bash them, ignore them. Heck, why stop at this? Invent your own, nobody's going to check. Right? Well, there is the risk that somebody will check them, but then the discussion will be long forgotten. Either way, doubting statistics, and let me reiterate: 'Oh NO! That is unfair and biased!' - is a sure way to wriggle your way out of any argument.

But suppose these statistics are true. What then?

 

Well lets take a look and see, shall we?

I'll just grab the most inflammatory one that we all seem so hung up on. The one about how the "mos get "mo" tail than the heteros/

M'kay, lets take a closer look! OOh, what's that (6) thing doing in the middle there... ok kids... its a footnote! yay! footnote!

Ooh! Its a figure from a book published in 1980

Go validity!

 

This way you couldn't compare the number of children in families who use contraception and those who don't. Why? Because they have different views on contraception, ergo: they have different value. Heck, you should even outlaw elections! After all, people voted Kerry because of certain values and others voted Bush because of other values. So their values differed and therefore you can't compare the two. If you can't compare the two, you can't make elections. Clearly, your claim is absurd.

No one gets excommunicated for sex before marriage. This is one. But your argument is still non-sense. How? See: what after marriage? When the person is married, it's no longer before marriage. And so what now? According to your logic, many different partners should now enter the stage.

Homosexuals would be stoned? Yeah. Do I really need to comment?

However, those heterosexual people CHOOSE to follow a religion. They don't have to. If they had so much problem with it, they would leave. So here's the news: upholding pre-marital chastity and sexual exclusivity in relationships is their own free choice. Based on values? Hell, yeah. All choices are based on values. Even when a homosexual has sex with another homosexual, he or she first decides that it's OK for him/her to have homosexual intercourse. If we accepted your claim, we could make no comparison of anything whatsoever so far as humans are concerned. Except the number of men and women in the world or something like that, maybe.

There's no logical reason to adjust the comparison in favour of homosexuals. What works in politics doesn't work in logic, sorry. Logic doesn't know political correctness.

Why? We are comparing the number of sexual partners one group has with the number of sexual partners another group does. What's wrong here? A comparison between a country where you could go to prison for cheating on your partner and a country where you can't, that would be unfair. But no one forces anyone to profess a particular religion or philosophy.

Your proposal looks like:

Let's compare the frequency of cheating between people who approve of cheating but don't do it themselves, and people who do it. This is clear

Religious people are still hetero- or homosexual. Note that there are also irreligious people opposed to cheating. Should we exclude them as well? If not, why keep philosophical opposition but exclude religious opposition? That would clearly be illogical. What I say is compare ALL vs ALL if we're going to generalise the conclusions. THIS is fair.

 

If we went on and compared only people who value exactly the same moral principles, let's say Catholic, and observe them absolutely. What would be the outcome? Married couples are infinitely more promiscuous than single people as well as homosexuals. What's worse, widowed who take another spouse would be even worse. How's that?
Number of partners:
Homosexuals: 0 partners over a lifetime
Singles: 0 partners over a lifetime
Married people: 1 partner over a lifetime
Widowed people: >1 partner over a lifetime

If we were to go on and make a ratio, 1÷0 would near infinity. Therefore we would reach a conclusion:
Homosexuals and single people are the least promiscuous members of the Catholic faith, married people are filthy by comparison, and widowed are even worse.

That is what happens if you limit statistics to a certain, limited, non-representative group of people. They become useless, and conclusions drawn from them are absurd.

Thus, by means of classic, reductio ad absurdum method, we reached a conclusion: limiting statistics to only a certain group of people based on criteria derived from their own choice, and not by birth, or something they didn't have a choice of (e.g. gender, colour of skin, etc.) makes them useless and pointless.

There, your point is invalidated.

 

@ Chev: Interesting arguements. You make a good devil's advocate.

There are two possible conclusions we could draw from these types of studies:
First, sexual orientation is a major factor in fidelity. (should have used monogamy originally)
Second, ethical orientation is a major factor in fidelity. (should have use monogamy originally)
The two conclusion may not be far apart, but I do not see how you can positively state one without adequately exploring the other. This appears to be where we (Chev and I) disagree. I think it's an interesting area of study and others believe it's a waste. Such is life.

I have serious doubts in the validity of the data -- it is just too overboard and comes from obviously biased sources. Until a recent, unbiased source can be found the results are simply not credible.

A couple of points:

Individuals, in general, do not choose their religion -- it is handed down to them. A person is born into a religion and very few change. Many stay at church because it's habit and they don't want to disappoint their family and friends. Even those that do change still carry the values they learned when they were younger (many rebel directly against those values which causes internal conflict). People, in general, just simply don't like change.

People ARE excommunicated and shunned for premarital intercourse. Some (usually women) are even killed for such indescretions in certain areas of the world. Homosexuals raised in those environments face the same issues -- shame, humiliation and even physical danger.

@Toughluck: You used the old anti-logic arguement... My dog has four legs. A cow has four legs. Therefore, my dog is a cow. Hmmm... she is kinda fat...you could have something there.

Edit: Several for clarification and because I'm a poor typist.

[ December 15, 2004, 21:46: Message edited by: T2Bruno ]

 

What has fidelity with the amount of sexual partners a person have? A person can be completely faithful his entire life and still have thousands of partners.

 

True, monogamy would have been a better choice.

 

Precisely.

I always thought "to excommunicate" was a technical term applying to Catholic Church only, in which case people are not excommunicated.
Oh well, maybe it is used in other religions as well. Learn something new every day.

[quoteIndividuals, in general, do not choose their religion -- it is handed down to them.[/quote]
On the contrary. If they decide they do not want to follow that religion, they simply don't. Going to church every Sunday does not equal observing a religion, even if it were perceived so. It is their choice to either follow or not. External appearance is just that.

 

Women are the brakes, men are the accelerator, thus I say that gays have more and lesbians less. Of course, lesbians can come to me to fix this little "problem."

 

I'm not sure where your stats come from, but I think of the two things as not having a direct bearing on each other. There are many Streaight people who just want as much sex as they can get, and aren't picky about where they get it. They are as much of a danger with regard to STD's as any gay. Being Gay doesn't mean being promiscuous.

 

Oh, so you insist that people are excommunicated for being homosexual? Well then, I'm waiting for examples.

In those cultures you mention, perhaps punishment for non-marital intercourse comes more inevitably to women, but that's because of pregnancy or non-virginity being more easily detected than the fact that a guy had some sex somewhere with someone. So guys typically escape unpunished. Even if they are ****ing rapists. But the gravity of transgression is usually the same for both genders. I could come with examples of cultures and laws where males were punished more severely than females for adultery etc (e.g. some mediaeval European laws served castration to males, while females only got their heads shaved bald).

But if we move on to male vs female homosexuality, in ancient societies or in nowadays primitive or extremely conservative societies, female homosexuality is typically disregarded for large part and treated like mere fooling around in comparison to male homosexuality. First, there's no sodomy. Second, there's no waste of semen (for this latter reason, female masturbation also tends to be taken more lightly, if we consider semitic cultures or mediaeval Europe). And then, they can always say they were taking a bath and playing a bit. Women are, after all, practically expected to get more physical with other women than men are with other men. Even in our own modern culture.

There's also the phenomenon of heterosexual men who totally hate and disdain male homosexuals, but enjoy lesbian porn a lot. Heck, they even drool over lesbians getting at it in clubs or at parties. And when you ask them about their favourite fantasy of doing it with two girls, that fantasy typically involves those girls fooling around a bit with each other, as well. Talk hypocrisy.

Yeah, folks. If you drool over lesbians, it's not much different than if you sodomised your best buddy. But that's a matter for a separate topic, if someone feels an urge to flame me for this one.

 

You went considerably there. I agree with Gnarlfinger -- the promiscuity and homosexuality are seperate issues. Those people who feel homosexuality is psychological instead of physiological may disagree.

Sorry, I'm not getting dragged into this type of debate. I know it happens.

[ December 16, 2004, 21:11: Message edited by: T2Bruno ]

 

I think it's a lot different. OK, I don't droll over lesbians, so maybe I'm a bad example, but still, isn't fantasizing about a homosexual act and actually engaging in a homosexual act two totally different things? It's not even the same ballpark.

To quote Pulp Fiction:

Unless your method differs significantly from mine ... (excluded possible offensive reference), it ain't the same ballpark, it ain't the same league, it ain't even the same ****ing sport!

 

You aren't getting dragged into providing examples to your accusations? How convenient.

 

I've known two people who were (along with a few who were asked never to come back to their church -- shunned, another word I used earlier). I'm not going to name names, nor which religions still do this (I do not feel it is appropriate). I will concede on one point: being homosexual is not grounds for excommunication -- committing homosexual acts has resulted in such punishments.

Now could we please get back on topic?

Edited: In response to Taluntain's very appropriate response.

[ December 16, 2004, 21:30: Message edited by: T2Bruno ]