Is Homosexuality On The Increase?

uair01 said:
Maybe not increasing, but definitely changing. Recently I've stumbled on this fascinating book:
https://www.bitebackpublishing.com/books/something-for-the-weekend
(Note: This is also a very interesting publisher overall.)

The most fascinating part was in the last chapter, where the author explains how this gay subculture is enabled by modern technology, and couldn't exist without. I wonder how many other subcultures are fuelled by this:
Click to expand...
I'd figure virtually every subculture.
 
Steven said:
Adjacently perhaps, this kind of cartoon has always held particular resonance for me and, I assume, not a few fellow autists:

View attachment 81295
Click to expand...
I find this quite normal but don't see me as an autist...I see myself more an introverted extrovert. (Assisting someone to see where they can correct their line of thought has caused me to stay up longer than I planned)
Steven said:
The Emperor's New Clothes again:

Here's the thing though: it's not a matter of temperament, let alone of (foolishly and arrogantly) believing one is always right - it's that we expect others to tell us the truth i.e. the correct facts. When this doesn't occur, then we find it very hard to comprehend and consequently struggle to remain silent.

EDIT: By 'we', I mean 'I'.

That was about as successful a post as my denial regarding bemoaning Min's absence by pretending that I was on about mince pies not being in the shops.
Click to expand...
And this...

we expect others to tell us the truth i.e. the correct facts. When this doesn't occur, then we find it very hard to comprehend and consequently struggle to remain silent.
 
escargot said:
Our old friend Laud Humphreys explained all this in his splendid work The Tearoom Trade. :nods:
We have a discussion of his work somewhere hereabouts.

Here it is in a free PDF format -
The Tearoom Trade
Click to expand...
Thanks! So here's the source of the story that hetero men use gay meeting places! I almost feared it was just an urban legend.

I have this very good book from a very good author on statistics:

Sex by Numbers: What Statistics Can Tell Us About Sexual Behaviour
David Spiegelhalter
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25266687-sex-by-numbers

But there's nothing in there on the trends in homosexuality.

Note: let's keep this thread alive. I learn a lot of interesting factoids, like more LGBT+ in neurodivergent circles.

If someone would like to look, I think there are recent useful data here. But this evening I'm too tired to look myself:
https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/acx-survey-results-2024
 
This same phenomena occurs every so often with regards to crime. Is knife, gun, violence on the increase? The police turn round and say statistics say no. So what is going on? Emotion blowing things out of all proportion. Fear makes what we fear, seem larger than it is in reality. We have emotional bias and we have facts.
 
Steven said:
Adjacently perhaps, this kind of cartoon has always held particular resonance for me and, I assume, not a few fellow autists:

View attachment 81295
Click to expand...
You might like to check out my post today about the immature and that's me on the computer before my wife tries to drag me off it by the way (autism? Don't make me laugh? In fact I'm autistic, so you can't make me laugh anyway)
 
oraclepaige said:
This same phenomena occurs every so often with regards to crime. Is knife, gun, violence on the increase? The police turn round and say statistics say no. So what is going on?
Click to expand...
It's on the increase in big cities, yes. Elsewhere, not so much. So if the police are saying 'no', they probably mean nationally.
 
If you were gay before, are you now super-gay? What if I was just only, like 2% gay?

/that's Lauren Chen, in case you were wondering.

fark_PukPvo3QbVWexWfY36qkuAnkWFQ.png
 
I did see someone describe themselves as 70% asexual. Not sure how that works.
 
Xanatic* said:
I did see someone describe themselves as 70% asexual. Not sure how that works.
Click to expand...

By coincidence, I reckon I'm boringly heterosexual around 70% of the time.

I'm asleep for the other 30%.

God only knows what's going on then - absolutely nothing would surprise me.

Frideswide said:
yeah - I always go and watch (used to walk :( ) and I enjoy the waving and being given windmills, mardi gras beads and... what's the name for those coiled things you blow and there's a feather on the end? Wonderful costimes but really just a family day out. It may change as the day goes on I suppose?
Click to expand...

Apropos of not very much.

Back in 2019 I went to the carnival in Sitges, just south of Barcelona. Sitges probably occupies same kind of place in Spanish culture as Brighton does - or at least used to - in the UK. And although the carnival is a separate thing to the Pride event, the local culture being the way it is, at least parts of it are a bit like a warm up.

Anyway, I’m pretty hardy, I live up in the hills, I’ve been known to walk up mountains in winter – I thought a February evening on the Catalan coast would be a walk in the park.

Absolutely fucking freezing!

I remember looking at some float covered in extremely partially dressed men strutting their gym honed stuff in the rain and wind and freezing bitter and thinking - you know what, if the culture wars ever turn into an actual war, I want to be on this lots side, because these lads are definitely going to win.
 
I wonder if some of the statistics are being affected by older women deciding that they've had enough of men and embracing their bisexuality, which may have never really surfaced before the menopause, and entering a same-sex relationship?
 
catseye said:
I wonder if some of the statistics are being affected by older women deciding that they've had enough of men and embracing their bisexuality, which may have never really surfaced before the menopause, and entering a same-sex relationship?
Click to expand...
You are probably correct and certainly for some women embracing their bisexuality is a political act against the patriarchy and domestic abuse etc*

*according to The Guardian
 
Last edited:
catseye said:
I wonder if some of the statistics are being affected by older women deciding that they've had enough of men and embracing their bisexuality, which may have never really surfaced before the menopause, and entering a same-sex relationship?
Click to expand...
There's possibly a certain amount of that happening.
 
Paul_Exeter said:
You are probably correct and certainly for some women embracing their being bisexuality is a political act against the patriarchy and domestic abuse etc*

*according to The Guardian
Click to expand...
It's more that, by the age of menopause, a lot of women have had it up to here with men and spending what remains of their lives in a mutual sharing relationship rather than listening to a bloke going on about his aches and pains and how he's just going into the garage to polish the Mondeo seems a viable alternative.

I wish I were gay sometimes.
 
catseye said:
It's more that, by the age of menopause, a lot of women have had it up to here with men and spending what remains of their lives in a mutual sharing relationship rather than listening to a bloke going on about his aches and pains and how he's just going into the garage to polish the Mondeo seems a viable alternative.

I wish I were gay sometimes.
Click to expand...
Gay people also go on about their aches and pains. It's not gender-specific or sexuality-specific.
It'd be like going from the frying pan into the fire.
Better to be single!
 
'A lot of people in unhappy and rather lonely long-tern relationships can be challenged by people living a single life'

I suspect you could be right there @Paul_Exeter !

When I was first on my own after my ex left and I had eventually, after much trauma I might add, found a cottage to move into I was surprised by the number of women who I'd always thought were happily married, taking me into their confidence expressing such things as 'I wish my old bugger would leave me I'm heartily sick of him but I lack the courage to walk out myself.'

There were probably men who felt the same but it's not as easy for them to express it especially not to a woman.

There are more and more of us finding ourselves unexpectedly on our own and it is indeed challenging financially and emotionally but I know from observation and confidences that the grass is not necesarily greener on the other side!
 
I am sure I'll be booed and hissed by some, but we'd like to leave out the personal declarations and get back to the topic in the thread title.

We might move some material to CHAT or the Tangents thread.
 
I don't believe "homosexuality" is "on the increase" my guess there is roughly the same amount of gay people as there has always been. Mainstream UK culture seemed to shift some time in the early 00s and accept that some people are gay and frankly whatever. It's not perfect and never will be.

This can be reversed and will be by those who "think it is on the increase" you all know exactly what I'm talking about and if I say any more I'm just hastening the ban hammer.
 
Ogdred Weary said:
I don't believe "homosexuality" is "on the increase" my guess there is roughly the same amount of gay people as there has always been. Mainstream UK culture seemed to shift some time in the early 00s and accept that some people are gay and frankly whatever. It's not perfect and never will be.

This can be reversed and will be by those who "think it is on the increase" you all know exactly what I'm talking about and if I say any more I'm just hastening the ban hammer.
Click to expand...
:nods: Nodding faster'ere than Lewis Hamilton's secret nodding dog.
 
As for is homosexuality on the increase? I think there's no way of knowing. Men in the past who were gay often kept their preferences secret whilst married and with children. I know a few gay older men who had wives and children who only 'came out the closet' in the last 15 or 20 years. The further back in time you go, the less likely that was to have happened.
 
Last edited:
kesavaross said:
As for is homosexuality on the increase? I think there's no way of knowing. Men in the past who were gay often kept their preferences secret whilst married and with children. I know a few gay older men who had wives and children who only 'came out the closet' in the last 15 or 20 years. The further back in time you go, the less likely that was to have happened.
Click to expand...
For sure. Remember our old friend Laud Humphreys and his Tearoom Trade?
The men he observed interacting sexually with each other in the 'tearooms' (public toilets) usually identified as straight and many were married with families.
 
kesavaross said:
As for is homosexuality on the increase? I think there's no way of knowing. Men in the past who were gay often kept their preferences secret whilst married and with children. I know a few gay older men who had wives and children who only 'came out the closet' in the last 15 or 20 years. The further back in time you go, the less likely that was to have happened.
Click to expand...
And all those women who lived with 'a friend'. This was far more accepted than two men living together - it would always be assumed that the men were gay, and the women were just 'sharing the bills'.
 
Nobody is interested in pronoun whinges here.

They only—inevitably—lead to bickering. Have your opinion, whatever it is, tell your friends and family about it in the café, but don't post it on Forteana please.

Post removed.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top