Yesterday I told myself that I needed to stop teasing Kevin Keith about his verbose comments. While it’s true that his comments on my posts contain more words than Bill Clinton’s autobiography, there was no reason for me to be so rude as to point out that fact. But now I don’t feel so guilty.
Earlier today, Russ Reeves sent me an email letting me know that I was mentioned in Peter Wood’s article “Scofflaw Sexuality” in the latest issue of The American Conservative (article not available online).
Mr. Wood’s was kind enough to briefly mention several of my posts on same-sex marriage. I found, though, that my contribution paled in comparison to an extended excerpt of one of Kevin’s comments. Granted, Kevin’s contention that the “one-partner-forever” model of marriage wasn’t the ideal in the gay community was rather shocking. But it was still painful to be trumped by his prolixity.
At least I can take some consolation in knowing that, at least in some people's minds, there is now a close association between the words “Kevin Keith” and “American Conservative.”
(For any TAC readers who might have wandered over, the original posts (and Kevin’s comments) can be found here and here.)
1
"Among the findings: 79 percent of married heterosexual men felt non-monogamy was not okay, compared with only 34 percent of gay men not in civil unions and 50 percent of gay men in civil unions."
Wait a minute here. If 50% of all men in gay civil unions think monogamy is important, doesn't that mean that in every gay civil union, on average, only one of the partners thinks monogamy is important? If they were joined randomly (sorry:)) it would be something like for every four gay male couples, two couples would have a single partner that believed in monogamy, one would have neither partner believing in monogamy, and just one in four couples would have two monogamous partners.
If heterosexual marriages had those numbers marriage would have no meaning at all.
2
Velocette:
Depending on where you look, somewhere between 43% and half of all heterosexual marriages end in divorce, so it seems that a high percentage of non-gays doesn't really buy into the whole one-partner-forever thing, either. And those statistics don't include the married heterosexuals who cheat and stay married.
Honestly, the taboo surrounding homosexuality still exceeds the one that surrounds infidelity; so it stands to reason that someone who is admittedly gay (flying in the face of that taboo) is more likely to give a candid answer concerning infidelity.
I also wonder why unmarried heterosexual men were left out of the statistics given.
posted on 07.30.2004 9:22 AM3
Check out Sexual Detours by Dr. Holly Hein. She collected some interesting statistics on marital relationships. Including:
1. Almost 70% of married men and 60% of married women have had affairs.
2. Every ten to thirteen seconds someone gets divorced
3. More than 90% of divorces in long-standing marriages involve infidelities some time during the marriage.
4. More than 50% may be involved in a current affair, but only 25% cite an affair as an actual reason for divorce.
posted on 07.30.2004 9:45 AM4
VINDICATED!
Thanks for the piggy-back. I'll be sure to remember you from the podium.
posted on 07.30.2004 10:17 AM5
The actual statistics on real marriage and divorce are somewhat interesting.
4/5 of first marriages last until death do them part.
The 20 percent who do divorce tend to do that over and over and over, skewing the statistics we've all heard that Mr. Girsch posted, substantially.
This is somewhat encouraging, in a way.
Moderate, what was her methodology for those stats? We now all know that Margaret Meade was making things up as she went in Samoa, and that the Kinsey's were sex criminals and based their stats on prison populations, not a valid sample.
posted on 07.30.2004 10:59 AM6
Moderate, what was her methodology for those stats?
Puzzled, where is the source much less methodology for your stats?
posted on 07.30.2004 11:01 AM7
Since there hasn't ever been the option of Gay and Lesiban couples getting married (except in some native american cultures)it is rather premature to be discussing fidelity rates.
And even when you do, you should be careful not to hold a double standard in place.
And since we are talking about a civil marriage, do they even specifically say there must be monogamy? How does that work with Islam, or some of the Mormon offshoots, which still approve of polygamy?
posted on 07.30.2004 11:10 AM8
Puzzled:
I, too, would like to see a source on that. The statistics I've heard were more like 2/3 of all first marriages lasting that long. Of course, if the anti-gay movement has its way, we'll never know what the statistics might be for gay marriages.
posted on 07.30.2004 3:04 PM9
I hope no one took my comments on the stats too seriously. Without knowing the methodology and other numbers, such as the % of married heterosexual women who think that monogamy is important, no conclusions can be drawn.
If you assume, and this is a big assumption, that people who believe the same thing about monogamy will always be paired up, and that women heterosexuals in marriage feel that monogamy is important at the same rate as their heterosexual partners, you would find that for every 100 heterosexual marriages 79% were "closed" and 21% were "open", at least potentially. using the 50% for gay men, Half of civil unions would be "open" and half would be "closed". Civil Union partnerships between two gay men would "open" at a rate almost 2.5 times as often as the hetero couples (50/21).
These numbers are for amusement only & not meant to make any definitive judgment on whether gay civil unions are desirable or undesirable. I just want to point out that the 50% to 79% numbers reveal more if you consider them as part of a marriage/civil union partnership rather than a description of an individual's beliefs.