Hello from a straight woman

[Pix]

is this a men vs women difference or no matter how open minded is it still rather norm for gay-couples to be publicly on their toes. (By the way it almost sounds like Jane Austen-esque; cannot even hold hands due to impropriety ?!?!?!)

Depends on where you live (and I speak of the USA unless I say otherwise, though even the USA varies widely on how it reacts). And, generally speaking, men have to be a lot more careful. Women who show casual affection may just be friends (though I've known hetero friends of mine to be mistaken for gay simply for sharing affection with their friends), and even when they're thought to be gay then men tend to not care so much (not always true, lesbians can be the victims of hate crimes as well and I even know of a pair of straight women who were nearly lynched for dancing together). Gay men are actually breaking 2 taboos within countries like the USA: homosexuality AND violating the boy's code (that is, not being man enough, sort of a "gender treachery"). Men can be shunned or even attacked for either, and combining both just makes it worse.

A more scary aspect is that "rape culture" seems alive and well and men tend to fear a gay man will rape them if given a chance (just as he'd rape a woman if given a chance to do it and get away with it, and a man is even more unlikely than a woman to report it). In addition:

Because I think the sapphic love has it and has had it a lot easier throughout the history. First because I think, men were ignorant enough to think that "honorable" women didn't possess a sexual bone and secondly a woman had a vagina, just so they could bear a heir.

Generally speaking in historical terms (including Biblical times), a woman's worth was her "purity" which was represented by her virginity. Furthermore, a woman wasn't considered a person but closer to livestock (especially in Biblical times) so men didn't concern themselves too much with her behavior (anymore than they that would of a lamb in their flock) as long as her value was maintained.

That said, Queen Victoria, IIRC, did reject a law aimed at prosecuting lesbians as she said it wasn't needed (only men would do something icky as homosexuality in her book), though of course she may have had a secret...(in which case kudos on not targeting everyone else gay as many of our gay and/or sexually immoral Republican politicians do).

Im my opinion a heterosexual woman will refuse lesbian advances more moderately than a heterosexual man shots down a homosexual advance. Actually this is something I would like to hear your opinions about, too

Generally speaking I'd agree. While females tend to have "gender norms" they enforce, there's A LOT more room for wiggling in than men have and I think that's part of why homosexuality tend to be more accepted among women than men.

That said, there are women who believe men are only gay out of hating women and thus take offense. One girl (a high schooler so hopefully she outgrew that) was so homophobic (or at least scared others would think her gay) that she refused to shave her legs with another woman as she thought that would "make her gay." And I once overheard 2 women at the gym saying they were too scared to use the sauna for fear of lesbians jumping their tender hetero bones (I refrained from telling them both not to flatter themselves).

7 billion people on the planet the probability of homosexual numbers being higher than 3-8% seems logical to me. But logic and I do not always keep company.

I'm sure it is, though firm orientation is a fuzzy thing, the lines blur easily. From what I understand the majority of both gay and straight people have had at least a one night stand with someone of the "not what I normally go after" gender. Some people drift so they can be straight, gay, or bi at any given time (and perhaps this is why some refuse to define themselves). And plenty of bi men seem to me to claim they're straight who "just get horny I'll screw anything that moves" though one bi man here on GS says a woman told him men were obligated to pick either gay or straight and if that's common then maybe that encourages them to do that.

I also used to have sex with my best friend when I was a girl growing up but she absolutely refused to acknowledge what we did as anything other than "practicing." (Practice for her since she always had me be the boy...) To be fair she had sex with many guys but I'm the only girl I know of that she ever had sex with (nevertheless it went on for years and she liked it even more than I did). After I challenged her on how she could join in on the bullying of 2 girls "caught having sex in the shower as lesbians" (which I did not believe, btw) she got upset with me and tried "feminizing" me and getting me to have hetero sex. (In retrospect I believe her Christian beliefs messed her up as it does so many people even though she didn't get crazy with it.) Of course she'd list herself as fully heterosexual should anyone ask. She may have even believed it herself.

to my knowledge and experience in a heterosexual relationship after a while at the latest there is a "role-assignment" which in most cases despite all the feminism, despite all the enlightenment, despite all the modern thinking, still leans towards a women more nester, men more hunter role even if there is a very sharing, caring, and equal partnership. So does that apply to homosexual relationships as well?

Yes, but not as much as most people think. Certainly among lesbians the gender roles blur a lot (though a few will practice gender roles even more than a heterosexual couple). And there are 2 common jokes:

Q. What does a gay man bring on his 2nd date? A: What second date? (I've heard enough gay men complain of this to know there's at least a grain of truth to this, though one wrote that this is, in part, due to having to hide themselves in their teenage years and thus acting like teen boys without commitment in their 20s instead.) ETA: this shows a similarity with straight men who are prone to wonder (be it to hunt, to provide, or spread his seed).

Q. What does a lesbian bring on a 2nd date? A: U-Haul (alternate: turkey baster, to help get the other woman pregnant with donated sperm). And in case you don't get it then this vid explains it:




ETA: this shows the nesting instinct when not checked or stopped (as a man would normally do to a woman getting too close too fast).

Not all my relationships have been that way, but a few (including one serious one) have. And another one would've been had I allowed it. (Moving in together and becoming financially entangled can make for a lot of problems when the magic fades and/or you find your partner has bulimia, is a drug addict, etc, so while these sometimes work out very well most of us with experience advise against it.)

[pellaz]

...I honestly believe that the part of homosexuals are higher. Not because I believe in Santa Clause or because I have a gut feeling. It is just a probability-calculation. I sucked at math, so I can't go and lay out the numbers for you, but i figure by 7 billion people on the planet the probability of homosexual numbers being higher than 3-8% seems logical to me ...

in general humans have an immediate fear about people different in some way from them. Fear of the gay agenda. Once the fear sets in they tend to demonize the emotion to support their theory. Straight people think the population of gay men is around 25+%.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2...rcent.html

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/natio...l/1642203/

A 10% number seemed to have stuck in gay men's mind. This is mainly from pioneering work done by Alfred Kinsey, two main publications:
Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948)
Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953)
Note the dates here as late 40's. Totally revolutionary for the time but lacked proper sampling and probability methods. Kinsey did not use a broad sample of the population but rather people easy to recruit. The outcomes from the research could have been tainted by his personal interests. Sexuality is a difficult thing to determine, often it maters how the questions are asked. for sure these numbers are sooo small that even if the population were to double over night no one would really be able to measure it accurately. It seems an easy thing to determine any human behavior by conducting a poll but sometimes the sample size is so small that the results from the polls are worthless.

How many gay men and women would we have in a totally accepting society? More but that is not where we are now. We are not the 10% we thought we were tho. Its important for a gay high school student to realize how few gay men there are and the probability that his or her best friend is gay is low.


while speaking of Kinsey
he came out with the Kinsey scale ( between 0-6, 0 = a totally straight man, 6 = a totally gay man and bisexual in between ). Work done way back in 1948. To this day some of the gay population discount the existence of bi and think it is a only a un stable transitional state people are in while they are still in the closet. Others think a persons sexuality is completely varied and fluid and that you are stupid to put a label on it, set your self up to fail if you do.

[lili]

I am sorry I just realized there is a second page to this thread, which makes me giddy endlessly and fills me with enourmous gratitude at the same time.
I hadn't realized it before I posted an answer (Ok, tried to post, since it has to be approved first) at the chit chat section, because I thought it is more appropriate location-wise -and I wanted to post the new location on here.
Right now my fever is making a come-back so I cannot take my time to appropirately respond to your posts, but next time I get to I will answer them, I promise. As always thnk you all for taking time to respond!