Split Thread [Ed] Personal experiences with gays

[Quad4_72]

....very low.....
at least 5% of men are queer. most estimates are around 10%.

So you think my accuracy would be very low, but yet you give me a percentage of gay men in the United States of 5. Going off of that percentage, I should have a 95% success rate at picking out who is gay and who is not, even without utilizing gaydar. That's a pretty high success rate.

 

[Quad4_72]

But that alone would explain why precisely zero soldiers would ever reveal to you that they are gay and why they would instead make damned sure you thought they were straight. They would put on a show!

And if anyone ever suspected them of being gay, you'd be right there swearing up and down that you knew they were interested in women, too!

Ok, so what do you make of the hundreds of men in my sample who are not in the military?

 

[Quad4_72]

The other 2 options are completely consistent with your experiences too. It's the unwillingness to consider different explanations for your experiences that I find interesting.

ETA: As you mentioned bias above, thought I'd just say that I'm straight and don't know all that many gay people as I mentioned in my previous post..

I see. So what is your argument then, in comparison to mine?

 

[quadraginta]

While I respect his experience with gays, I fear that it may be too biased to be utilized in a statistical manner. If you go ask a group of weed smoking hippies their political opinions on weed, and how many people they think smoke weed in the United States, do you think that number is going to be accurate simply because they know a lot about weed?

I would think that there is a strong likelihood that their knowledge of the subject would be more detailed and accurate that a random sample of people who didn't smoke it.

Are you saying that you wouldn't? Doesn't that seem counter-intuitive to you.

If I saw a group of people leaning over the the open engine compartment of a car in a garage, all of whom were wearing coveralls and wielding hand tools, I'd expect them to have a noticeably superior knowledge of auto mechanics than a random sample of people walking through a shopping mall. Would that surprise you too?

 

[Guybrush Threepwood]

So you think my accuracy would be very low, but yet you give me a percentage of gay men in the United States of 5. Going off of that percentage, I should have a 95% success rate at picking out who is gay and who is not, even without utilizing gaydar. That's a pretty high success rate.

No precisely the opposite. You would have a 95% success rate at picking out straight people.

Lower than 5% success at picking out gay people.

Read this thread (which isn't about gays) to understand why.

 

[Quad4_72]

How about this. The distribution of gays across the country is relatively constant except for certain limited areas which are less hostile to openness about sexual orientation.

The 5 or 10% general incidence would be unaffected by a few concentrations.

(What percentage of the population of San Francisco do you believe is gay? How do you think that number affects the general population of the entire United States?)

I have no idea. I am curious though where you get your information. Do you have some sources I could look over for the claims you have presented?

 

[Professor Yaffle]

I see. So what is your argument then, in comparison to mine?

Option 2 or option 3...

Either you happen to have a sample of male friends and acquaintances which does not reflect the make-up in the rest of the country (wrt straight-acting gay men), or your sample does reflect the rest of the country, but for some reason you are unaware of it.

 

[chillzero]

But why would I say I am mistaken when the confidence levels in my samples are so high?

Because of the simple fact that you are mistaken.

Look ...

While I respect his experience with gays, I fear that it may be too biased to be utilized in a statistical manner. If you go ask a group of weed smoking hippies their political opinions on weed, and how many people they think smoke weed in the United States, do you think that number is going to be accurate simply because they know a lot about weed?

... Your assertion is that most gay men are camp (or 'act' 'feminine', or whatever way you want to put it). People who have plenty of experience with gay men are telling you that you are wrong ... that they have more experience with gay men who can't be told apart from straight men. Gay men who tell you that they are not camp, and nor are the majority of their gay acquaintances, are not displaying bias, they are providing a counter to your rather simplified simplification of how people are. They are giving you evidence that your assertion is incorrect. You should accept that truth and admit your error.

People have tried to show you that your assertion that you know that men who don't camp it up are straight is erroneous because you can't possibly know with 100% accuracy that this is the case. You simply can't know everyone's sexual preferences no matter how they behave in relatively public social situations.

In your position at work, and with this clear misconception of how gay men 'act' you will create a distance between yourself and any gay man who might otherwise have considered being honest with you about something so personal that frankly isn't really your business anyway.

 

[quadraginta]

But why would I say I am mistaken when the confidence levels in my samples are so high?

It is your confidence levels, and the reasons you ascribe that level of confidence which are in dispute here.

 

[MarkCorrigan]

And I contend that most likely someone who is gay or bi is going to naturally seek out and have more contact with people who are gay or bi.

Exactly my point. They have far more contact with gay and bi people than you do, therefore to assume that the majority of gay people act camp in the face of their statements to the contrary is just...idiotic.

Moving on from this, it is therefore reasonable to assume that you lack the relevant ability to spot if someone is gay or not, given your reliance on an incorrect stereotype, which in turn leads to the reasonable belief that the gay men in your life who aren't camp are just good at hiding it from you.

It's entirely possible that you do only know straight men, but given your utter lack of knowledge about gay men as a group, I'd say it's more likely you just aren't aware they are gay.

I say this, by the way, as a straight man who has, as far as I can tell, only 2 gay male friends, both of whom are in the closet.

This would in essence skew their view of society, leading them to believe that "Oh there are tons of gay people! There are almost as many as straight people!" When this simply is not the case.

No one is arguing this, however. Where on earth you got this nonsense from is beyond me.

 

[zooterkin]

So you think my accuracy would be very low, but yet you give me a percentage of gay men in the United States of 5. Going off of that percentage, I should have a 95% success rate at picking out who is gay and who is not, even without utilizing gaydar. That's a pretty high success rate.

Well, if you say they're all straight, you'll score about 95%, but you won't have successfully identified any as gay.

 

[Tatyana]

So you think my accuracy would be very low, but yet you give me a percentage of gay men in the United States of 5. Going off of that percentage, I should have a 95% success rate at picking out who is gay and who is not, even without utilizing gaydar. That's a pretty high success rate.

What I find odd is that you are claiming that a group of people, or rather 'most' of that group of people are a particular way.

That is bigotry.

 

[Ron_Tomkins]

Direct me to a single post where I have made an argument about all gay men in the world. In fact, I specifically indicated that I was NOT talking about gay men outside of the United States.

Okay, I apologize for mistaking your position.

However your new position only makes it trickier, as you still need to explain how is it that you know what the majority of the gay men within the United States.

Also, notice the incoherence of your position: How is it that this law of most gay men being effeminate only applies within the United States?

I acknowledged their experiences, but I think some of their experiences may be biased, just as they think mine are.

And what objective criteria are you using to determine when someone is making an argument out of bias? Because right now people are pointing out to you how you are making a conclusion out of bias. You're making a conclusion based on your own personal experiences within very specific contexts. That should immediately trigger your making-an-argument-out-of-bias alarm.

I in fact do not say this, and have not said this anywhere in the thread. I have actually acknowledged that there are indeed masculine gay men, they are just not anywhere near the majority. Please read my arguments closer before putting words in my mouth.

Please explain how you've systematically and objectively determined that effeminate gay men are in the majority, and why does this only apply within the United States?

 

[quadraginta]

I think you haven't been following what he's been saying very carefully.

He is clearly making the assertion that because all of the gays he has met that he knows are gay have femme mannerisms then only people who have femme mannerisms can be gays.

Wrong. Never made that assertion. See my previous posts in the beginning of the thread about how my brother has some feminine tendencies but is not gay.

Wrong.

"Only" is not a synonym for "all". Think about it.

I didn't say that you claimed "all" people who have femme mannerisms are gay. I said you claimed that you "only" knew gays who had femme mannerisms.

Are you changing your claims now?

 

[Piscivore]

Ok, so what do you make of the hundreds of men in my sample who are not in the military?

Given your demonstrated attitude in this thread, I cannot imagine any situation where a closeted gay would ever want to let you know their sexual preference.

Insisting on repeatedly calling KY "anal lube" for instance. To tell you the truth, that kind of thing makes me start wondering about you.

 

[Quad4_72]

What is a high level of accuracy?

If you *always* guessed everyone was straight, you'd be right between maybe 90 and 95% of the time. But your method would clearly be useless!

The more interesting question would be: If one of the people you randomly met were gay, how likely would you be to get that right? And how often would you wrongly identify a straight person as being gay?

With the hundreds of people you know and nearly nobody being gay at all: You'd get the first wrong quite a lot of the time, the second - hardly ever.

I wish there was some way to test this, because I beg to differ. Then of course we would have to develop some kind of method for how much exposure I had to the individual.

 

[Quad4_72]

I would think that there is a strong likelihood that their knowledge of the subject would be more detailed and accurate that a random sample of people who didn't smoke it.

Are you saying that you wouldn't? Doesn't that seem counter-intuitive to you.

If I saw a group of people leaning over the the open engine compartment of a car in a garage, all of whom were wearing coveralls and wielding hand tools, I'd expect them to have a noticeably superior knowledge of auto mechanics than a random sample of people walking through a shopping mall. Would that surprise you too?

Your auto mechanic example refers to a technical subject, which is different from a social issue or political issue, which can contain a fair amount of bias. My point about the hippies is that they are more likely to tell you that a lot of people smoke weed because they hang out with a lot of people who smoke weed.

 

[Quad4_72]

No precisely the opposite. You would have a 95% success rate at picking out straight people.

Lower than 5% success at picking out gay people.

Read this thread (which isn't about gays) to understand why.

I see what you mean, and the example if probably flawed, given that we have established no set way of determining how much contact I would have with the individual and how much I would know about their personal life.

 

[Quad4_72]

Option 2 or option 3...

Either you happen to have a sample of male friends and acquaintances which does not reflect the make-up in the rest of the country (wrt straight-acting gay men), or your sample does reflect the rest of the country, but for some reason you are unaware of it.

Why not option one?

 

[Quad4_72]

Wrong.

"Only" is not a synonym for "all". Think about it.

I didn't say that you claimed "all" people who have femme mannerisms are gay. I said you claimed that you "only" knew gays who had femme mannerisms.

Are you changing your claims now?

No, you are asserting that I made claims which I did not. You said this:

He is clearly making the assertion that because all of the gays he has met that he knows are gay have femme mannerisms then only people who have femme mannerisms can be gays.

The last bolded part is mine. I never made that claim.