HomoQuotable - Dan Savage

"The mistake that straight people made was imposing the monogamous expectation on men. Men were never expected to be monogamous. Men had concubines, mistresses and access to prostitutes, until everybody decided marriage had to be egalitar­ian and fairsey. [Rather than granting women] the same latitude and license and pressure-release valve that men had always enjoyed, we extended to men the confines women had always endured. And it’s been a disaster for marriage." - Dan Savage, quoted in an extensive NYT Magazine article on fidelity.

The Map Of Non-Monogamy

Complicated! Unicorn polyamory? Bigger version here.

On Gay Sexual Jealousy

Over at Scientific American, Jesse Bering discusses a partner's infidelity and opines that sexual jealousy among gay couples is genetically hardwired, whether or not we intellectually dismiss monogamy as unnatural. Bering concludes:

[B]ecause fatal sexually transmitted infections for which gay men are unusually vulnerable, such as HIV, were not present in the ancestral past and could not have produced any special adaptive psychological defenses, sexual jealousy in gay men can only be explained by some sort of pseudo-heterosexuality mindset simulating straight men’s hypervigilance to being cuckolded by their female partners. All this is to say that I reacted the way I did because, at an unconscious level, I didn’t want my testiculared partner getting impregnated by another man. I don’t consciously think of him as a woman, mind you; in fact, if I did, I assure you I wouldn’t be with him. But tell that to my gonads and amygdalae. I would imagine the same is largely true for lesbian relationships; at an unconscious level, a lesbian’s bonding with another woman may trigger concerns in her partner about her “male” spouse’s disinvestment in real or prospective offspring.

Read Bering's entire essay.

Gays And Monogamy: Here We Go Again

NOM is already happily tweeting the link to another story about gay men and open relationships. You may recall the brouhaha that erupted in January when the New York Times published a story about a study which reported that 50% of gay male couples are non-monogamous. While the truth of that study seemed self-evident to me, many questioned its methodologies and conclusions. From today's San Francisco Chronicle about the same researcher, who has now published her study:

They call them "San Francisco relationships." A term coined by the local gay community, it's defined as two men in a long-term open relationship, with lovers on the side. A new study released this week by the Center for Research on Gender & Sexuality at San Francisco State University put statistics around what gay men already know: Many Bay Area boyfriends negotiate open relationships that allow for sex with outsiders. After studying the sexual patterns of 566 gay male couples from the Bay Area for three years, lead researcher Colleen Hoff found that gay men negotiate ground rules and open their relationships as a way to build trust and longevity in their partnerships. "I think it's quite natural for men to want to continue to have an active and varied sex life," said 50-year-old technology consultant Dean Allemang from Oakland, who just ended a 13-year-open relationship and has begun another with a new boyfriend. "I don't own my lover, and I don't own his body," he said. "I think it's weird to ask someone you love to give up that part of their life. I would never do it."

Hoff has received a $3.5M grant from the National Institute of Mental Health to continue her research for five more years. (Cue wingnut outrage!) According to Hoff, of the male couples surveyed, "47 percent reported open relationships. Forty-five percent were monogamous, and the remaining 8 percent disagreed about what they were."

Obviously our enemies will once again leap on these statistics as "evidence" that gay people are undeserving of marriage equality. And once again, some gay men will decry non-monogamy in general and rip apart Hoff's research as unscientific. Timothy Kincaid at Box Turtle Bulletin is first out of the box in the the latter regard.

[B]ased on the pattern of the stories and my communication with the authors, I have a new conclusion: When the news repeatedly and consistently reports conclusions that cannot possibly be determined from your data, it’s not because you’re trying to correct them. Huff has, in all occasions I’ve seen, made broad generalizations about the nature of gay relationships – not just those in her study – that lead me to wonder if her research is little more than an attempt to provide talking points to support her presumptions. And Huff’s study – which does, at least, seem to have structure – now leads to press reports about a “study” which has almost no validity whatsoever.

My own opinion is unchanged. Regardless of the methodology in which Hoff arrived at her conclusions, my gut tells me she is not only correct, but that her estimation of the percentage of gay male couples in open relationships may even be low. I've been out for almost 35 years, and yes, that's a purely anecdotal conclusion, but I've known thousands of couples over these decades and most of them were non-monogamous. Of course, the places I've lived and my chosen social circles have surely influenced that perception.

But we shouldn't really care, whatever the number is. I think we do the truth about our lives and our unique culture a tremendous disservice when we try to deny aspects of our world just to buy a few meager points on some marriage survey. We should happily and proudly own all of the ways in which gay men build their lives, even if some of those ways seem alien to us personally.

Study: 50% Of Gay Relationships Are Open

Following up on Joy Behar's widely reported comment about gay relationships and monogamy, today the New York Times published word of a new study which claims that 50% of gay relationships are non-monogamous.

A study to be released next month is offering a rare glimpse inside gay relationships and reveals that monogamy is not a central feature for many. Some gay men and lesbians argue that, as a result, they have stronger, longer-lasting and more honest relationships. And while that may sound counterintuitive, some experts say boundary-challenging gay relationships represent an evolution in marriage — one that might point the way for the survival of the institution. New research at San Francisco State University reveals just how common open relationships are among gay men and lesbians in the Bay Area. The Gay Couples Study has followed 556 male couples for three years — about 50 percent of those surveyed have sex outside their relationships, with the knowledge and approval of their partners.

That consent is key. “With straight people, it’s called affairs or cheating,” said Colleen Hoff, the study’s principal investigator, “but with gay people it does not have such negative connotations.” The study also found open gay couples just as happy in their relationships as pairs in sexually exclusive unions, Dr. Hoff said. A different study, published in 1985, concluded that open gay relationships actually lasted longer. None of this is news in the gay community, but few will speak publicly about it. Of the dozen people in open relationships contacted for this column, no one would agree to use his or her full name, citing privacy concerns. They also worried that discussing the subject could undermine the legal fight for same-sex marriage.

And now the rest of the world knows what we here always have.

Joy Behar: Gays Don't Care About Monogamy Like Straights Do

Expanding on Dan Savage's comments about monogamy on her HLN show last night, on today's episode of The View Joy Behar suggested that gays in general are less concerned that their partners remain faithful. Both Whoopi and Elisabeth Hasselbeck (!) warned against such blanket statements. I imagine that many here will condemn Behar, but at least regarding gay men, in my experience and for my generation, she's quite correct. YMMV.

(Via - Good As You)

Survey: Young People Hold Traditional Relationship Values (Gays Too!)

A survey conducted by the University of Minnesota reveals that young people continue to hold "traditional" values regarding love, monogamy, and commitment - regardless of their sexual orientation.

"Given increases in cohabitation, divorce and debates about same sex marriage, it is easy to think that traditional relationship values have gone out the window," said Ann Meier, U of M sociology professor and one of the study’s lead investigators. "In fact, young people still place a very high premium on love, faithfulness and commitment." The study found modest but significant differences by gender and sexual orientation in relationship values. Some of the findings included: Straight women valued faithfulness and lifelong commitment more than straight men.

Sexual minorities (gay men, lesbians and bisexuals) valued both slightly less than heterosexual women, but about the same as heterosexual men, and there were no significant differences among the different genders of sexual minorities when it came to faithfulness and lifelong commitment. “The lack of differences in the responses of gays and lesbians may be due to the fact that both groups share the legal obstacle to marriage – marriage tends to reinforce different gender norms, but if marriage is off the table, these gender differences may not exist,” said Meier. When all groups were compared, in most cases sexual minorities shared the same relationship values as straight men. It is straight women who appear to have values somewhat different from all other groups – they are particularly enthusiastic supporters of traditional relationship values.

(Tipped by JMG reader Andrew)

Gay Marriage Leads To Straight Adultery!

The deep thinkers at the Maine Marriage Alliance point to a survey about monogamy among gay male couples and come to this conclusion:

Legal recognition for openly non-monogamous gay unions would effectively destroy the taboo on adultery. The result is a continual downfall of families and society. Stanley Kurtz, a research fellow at Stanford University explains: “What we need to understand — but do not — is that gay marriage will undermine the structure of taboos that continue to protect heterosexual marriage — and will do so far more profoundly than either the elimination of sodomy laws, or the general sexual loosening of the past thirty years. Above all, marriage is protected by the ethos of monogamy — and by the associated taboo against adultery. The real danger of gay marriage is that it will undermine the taboo on adultery, thereby destroying the final bastion protecting marriage: the ethos of monogamy.”

The survey they cite, a 1996 study by gay researchers Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen reportedly concludes that "the cheating ratio of ‘married’ gay males, given enough time, approaches 100%." The Maine Marriage Alliance does note that this "outside sexual activity" occurs by agreement, but really, so what?

The Fantasy Of Faithfulness

The New York Times editorializes on the non-stop "scandal" of philandering heterosexuals:

You can accuse the disgraced ex-governor Eliot Spitzer of many things in his decision to flout the law by soliciting the services of a pricey prostitute: hypocrisy, egomania, sophomoric impulsiveness and self-indulgence, delusional ineptitude and boneheadedness. But one trait decidedly not on display in Mr. Spitzer’s splashy act of whole-life catabolism was originality.

It’s all been done before, every snickering bit of it, and not just by powerful “risk-taking” alpha men who may or may not be enriched for the hormone testosterone. It’s been done by many other creatures, tens of thousands of other species, by male and female representatives of every taxonomic twig on the great tree of life. Sexual promiscuity is rampant throughout nature, and true faithfulness a fond fantasy. Oh, there are plenty of animals in which males and females team up to raise young, as we do, that form “pair bonds” of impressive endurance and apparent mutual affection, spending hours reaffirming their partnership by snuggling together like prairie voles or singing hooty, doo-wop love songs like gibbons, or dancing goofily like blue-footed boobies.

Yet as biologists have discovered through the application of DNA paternity tests to the offspring of these bonded pairs, social monogamy is very rarely accompanied by sexual, or genetic, monogamy. Assay the kids in a given brood, whether of birds, voles, lesser apes, foxes or any other pair-bonding species, and anywhere from 10 to 70 percent will prove to have been sired by somebody other than the resident male.

I'm reminded of a somewhat unpopular post that I wrote in 2005 in which I complained that gay marriage was eclipsing ENDA as the primary goal of the LGBT movement, a trend that I felt was at least partially fueled by assimilationist queers who were kidding themselves about the fantasy of a monogamous marriage.