My reading of things (e.g., Laumann,et al, 1994) is that gay men as a grouphave somewhat more partners than straight men. Noting this however says nothing about why it occurs or whether there are a type of gay man that offsets the relatively boring existence of other gay men. Read the most recent post of my interview with Nick Cummings. His experience was that there is a subset of gay men that are partying big time but there is a larger group that isn’t.

My take is that any general trend toward promiscuity is more related to the fact that gay men are men, not that they are gay. The men with a zillion partners probably have some real personality problems and this can occur for both gays and straights. If it occurs more gays and straights proportionally may relate to many things and I know of no study that has proven it is something specific to SSA.

I don’t claim to be perfect. Your response, however, tends to confirm my suspicion that some gay men are determined to deny that, if gay men do tend to be more promiscuous than straight men, factors inherent in the nature of homosexuality have anything to do with this.

This may be a convenient and politically correct stance to take, but it’s not really plausible.

I have several brothers. At least one of them has been with one and only one woman, his wife. The same is true of her. They are husband and wife and best friends. I’ll admit their circumstance is rare nowadays but it seems well worth aspiring to.

I will try to look in more places for those monogamous-minded people. I will concede that they may well be out there. I just thought of a couple that I see get on the bus. It’s obvious they are partners and have been for at least a few years. Maybe they can steer me.

BTW: This isn’t a win/lose for me. It’s not ex-gay vs gay Christian necessarily, either. I’m not in a big hurry to figure things out…and, if and when I do, it’ll be what I figure out FOR ME not necessarily for the world. I’m really just trying to make the most informed decision that I can. Hearing from both sides seems to be a good way to do that.

You make a great many assumptions. But they seem only to be based on anti-gay stereotypes. It’s difficult to take your arguments seriously because they are based on nonsense.

It’s like trying to have a conversation with someone who says, “but all Christians want to kill gays” or “Christians are just uneducated and superstitious”. You have to spend all your time rebutting false assumptions and never get to any substance.

Your point, if I understand it correctly, is that some heterosexual men abstain from sex until marriage and then only have sex with their wife. To you, this is the primary determinant to say that heterosexuality and homosexuality are unlike.

This seems to imply that an inherent aspect of orientation is an instinct to monogamy – heterosexuals have it and homosexuals do not. (If I’m missing the point, please let me know). As best I can tell, if it could be shown to you that both monogamy and multiple parters are present in both homosexuality and heterosexuality, you would cease thinking that these two things are not alike (or at least that is the argument you have presented).

First, lets see if monogamy is an inherent part of heterosexuality. Let’s look at some numbers from the CDC

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/pubs/pubd/ad/361-370/ad362.htm

77.9% of men aged 15 to 44 in the category “never married, not cohabitating” have had sex with a woman.

87.6% of all men aged 25 to 44 have had sex with more than one woman. 19.3% of men aged 20 to 24 had sex with 3 or more women in the past year and 29.2% of 25 to 44 have had sex with more than 15 women in their life.

I think your assumption that heterosexual men wait for marriage and only have sex with one woman during their life seems to apply to a very small number of individuals. I think we can agree that monogamy is not inherent in heterosexuality.

The second part of your assumption is more difficult to address. Unfortunately, I do not know of any good studies that give information about monogamy in gay men. There are a number of bogus “statistics” created by anti-gay activists, but no one believes that they are real.

However, for the question as to whether monogamy is absent from homosexuality, anecdotal evidence may be adequate. (in other words, the presence of a single red sock in the drawer will not tell you how prevalent red socks are, but it will tell you they exist).

And it is fairly easy to demonstrate that – in at least some gay men – monogamy is valued.

I can tell you that I see it around me regularly in couples and that your assumptions about them do not match with my observations. I can tell you that there are at this time strong social pressures within the gay community to respect relationships. I can tell you of at least one person I know who was dropped by his group of friends because he cheated on his mate. But that is just my word.

Instead, I’ll ask you to open your eyes and ears. There are plenty of gay people in the news or in your town. And while some of them are hedonistic, you will also see many who are in committed long-term monogamous relationships. If all you see are open relationships or men with massive sexual histories, then that’s probably what you are looking for.

It may well be that gay men on average have had more sex partners than straight men. I don’t know. It may also be true that fewer have only ever had sex with one man. I think that is likely.

But it simply isn’t true that monogamy is an aspect that is missing from homosexuality.

I hope that you will allow this to change your perspective. Perhaps it won’t and it may be the case that you are anti-gay and this was only an argument to support a predetermined bias. But you seem sincere and I hope that isn’t the case.