Ten Percent
Kinsey never said that ten percent of the male population is gay. What he did was construct a range from the behavior of his subjects, the Kinsey scale, which went from zero, which was exclusive heterosexuality, to six, which was exclusive homosexuality. It was only later, as gay people began to fight against oppression, that the data for 5s and 6s were combined to come up with a figure of ten percent. Kinsey never said it, but when you looked at it that way it was a figure that made sense to throw out there. Ten percent of the male population is exclusively homosexual, or nearly so.
It’s a figure that the kook pews have challenged ever since, because it is in their interest to claim that we are a tiny, insignificant, worthless part of the human family. Except when we’re the vast conspiracy of militant homosexuality that controls the news media, Hollywood, liberal churches and the democratic party. Then we’re a looming menace. But a looming menace mind you, that only amounts to 1, or maybe 2 percent of the human family at most.
Perhaps they need to rethink that…
Almost one in 10 straight men on the `down-low,’ study finds
PHILADELPHIA – Almost 10 percent of men who say they’re straight also happen to be having sex with men, according to a new study, one of the largest ever to specifically address "down-low" behavior.
The study, based out of New York City, found that most of the down-low men did not use condoms and that 70 percent were married. Researchers said they hoped their report would change the way doctors asked patients about their sexual behavior.
"Everyone talks about it, but it’s the first time I’ve seen data on this issue," said Thomas J. Coates, a psychologist who specializes in sexual behavior at the University of California at Los Angeles. Even so, he said the numbers were probably low estimates.
"It’s probably above this, because it’s hard to get people to admit to this kind of behavior."
What’s really interesting about Kinsey’s figures is how well they’ve withstood the test of time, considering what it was he actually looked at. All he studied was the behavior of his subjects over a three year period. But why three? Why not just one? Why not five? It’s like Mendel and his damn beans. Mendel was the monk who did that now famous experiment in which he showed how traits are inherited. For his subjects, he used a bean plant, and he tested for seven characteristics. And as it turns out, seven is the most you can cleanly test for, without getting some cross linkage on the genes, because the bean plant only has seven genes. But Mendel knew nothing of genes. As Jacob Bronowski once put it, you can be elected abbot of your monastery, you can even be elected pope, but you can’t have that luck. Mendel had obviously done some background work with his beans prior to his experiment, which told him which traits he could test for. Kinsey had to have done something similar, that told him three years of sexual history was all he needed to know about his subjects, to have a good idea of the whole.
Clearly, the stigma surrounding homosexuality is still strong here in America, and in particular in minority communities. While many of us are now able to live lives out and proud, many cannot. The religious right would like to bring the stigma back down on all of us in the name of righteousness and morality. But the human identity isn’t a blackboard anyone can scribble their will upon. Homosexuality they say, brings only disease and pain and suffering. No. Shame does. Here is what shame buys you.
"We found that those who identified as straight but had sex with men were also less likely to be HIV tested within the last year and less likely to use a condom," than men who said they were gay, said Preeti Pathela, a research scientist at the department.
Pride has the power to lift us out of the gutter of self abuse and self destructiveness. And that is why the religious right hates gay pride. In the relentless logic of knuckle dragging fundamentalism, if we’re not bleeding, they’re not righteous.
