leicesterstreet

Oh my god normal decent gay guys on this forum left right and centre! I'm clearly living in the wrong country

*Thinks* I am really wanting to tell you something positive, or give you something positive to go with. I will say that you are definitely not the only one who experiences everything you say. For all the gay guys who don't want to be a cliche, they are feeling the things you are a feeling. I personally am dealing with the same issues and emotions that you are going through right now. I'm perhaps more open and more aggressive than you, but nonetheless I have an awful lot of trouble finding a partner. Naturally you start to question yourself as well. ie is it me that I luck out with all these guys and it never goes anywhere? The thing is I can't be %100 cynical about it all, because I know gay couples that have been together and stayed together for many years, so I guess this stops me from assuming it is completely impossible. Your also right that "gay dating" as you described it is... on many levels rather forced. Nobody knows - unless you are a complete screaming fag that you are gay so you have to make a point of advertising it on some level in order to have any relations with other men. Obviously this has lead the rise of gaybars *as trashy as they can be* I'm not sure if this is at all helpful

My question was not really literal but more metaphorical. I'm saying that......somewhere along the line the right to procreate has been made fundamental, which makes no sense to me. This decision was probably derived from the Church no doubt. Which in the US is ironic, considering laws and things of that nature are meant to be separate from any Religious leanings. I will reiterate, just because we have the capabillity to do something, doesn't mean we should - this includes having a baby. I do not believe that this should be a fundamental right. If someone can give me a good reason why it should, then please explain.

See now this was a well thought out, rational piece of commentary that I actually do agree might be true.

I live in Australia FYI. So basically what your saying is because it's in America it must be right because Americans are right about everything? Come on that's not even a rational argument.

Going to be honest here. In terms of being gay coming out is not really the hardest thing you'll have to face. What you will probably have issues with is finding and maintaining relationships if you want one. I personally feel that I made a big mistake coming out for this very reason, and at times wish I didn't.

I'm sorry but the conception of one great person (Churchill) does not justify the misery of thousands, possibly millions of others - that argument just doesn't wash with me. It's not so much a disregard of human rights..... I have considered the rights to bear children, and I believe that to ensure healthy, happy children superceding these rights is appropriate in this case. Just because you can have a baby doesn't mean you should. And anyway, who says it's a right to have children? Who made that rule? Humans are capable of many things but doesn't mean we have the "right" to do them by default.

I think we should all pause for a minute and consider something. Humans are basically just intelligent animals. Which means the rules of attraction are intellectualised to an extent, but those basic physiological factors are still there. This means that a man who is attractive 99% of the time is going to achieve success in terms of attracting members of the opposite sex. A woman's physiology says "if I'm going to have a baby, then I want the baby to have the best chances in life". So of course they will seek partners who are attractive (this means the baby will more likely be attractive too, thereforeeee more successful in life). Because of the way human society is constructed, factors such as power and money can also come into play. The woman on a subconscious level says "This man because of his wealth/and or power will be best for my yet to be born baby". I really don't know how much personality comes into play here. Obviously you have to get along with them. I guess people are prepared to bend and compromise a lot for people who have looks/power/money. It's funny though, I'm not sure how physiology works when it comes to gay people such as myself. I think I'm kind of screwed a bit there - as a large proportion of gay men in particular don't want relationships. At least if your straight you have more chances, from a sheer numbers perspective, so be thankful for that.

A privilege granted by who? Who sets the standards to determine who is a fit parent? Politicians? Social workers? People like me? People like you? Who examines the examiners? What you are suggesting is something that would have been dreamed up on some sort of totalitarian state, where human beings are considered to be the property of the State and have no individual rights at all. The way things are may be imperfect - but it is infinitely superior to anything remotely similar to that which you are proposing. Well that would be the hardest thing to figure out - the criteria on which licenses are given out. I mean there's a few basic things you could look at ie age, drug dependancy's, history of violent crime, as far as the rest goes I suppose that could be decided by civil committee's in conjunction with the government of the day. Infinitely superior? based on what evidence? Your focus is on the rights of the parents - what about the rights of the child to a happy and successful life? I couldn't give a toss about the parents to be honest, I'm concerned about the child and taking whatever steps are necessary to protect the child.

Your right I'm not joking I'm deadly serious. Something has to be done, and sometimes it has to be drastic in order to make any real/effective change. What alternative do we have? Let individuals have babies willy-nilly, then have generations upon generations of people perpuating misery? Having a child is a privelege not a right - for anybody.

So, by your argument, it is ok if gays have their own children but not adopt other children as they are a 'high risk' group? Why should their own children not enjoy the same protection from them that you would extend to adoptees? Oh, right! I forgot - licenses!! You think gays are a high risk group? What about the other sub-groups that are also deemed to be, or soon will be, high risk. Stop them too? What constitutes low-risk? What percentage of 'at-risk' members of a sub-group determines whether the entire sub-group should be allowed to adopt or not adopt? What to do about gays who can demonstrate a history of a loving stable relationship, AIDS free? Are we to deny them because statistics show that they might split up and get AIDS. Well, so might you from your partner. Perhaps we should not allow you to adopt either. I think I should make a distinction here between my personal concerns and what should be legislated. From a personal point of view I am concerned about high risk groups having children, such high risk groups may include gay couples, those people from lower socio-economic backgrounds, and so forth. This is not to say rule out those people from having kids entirely, but there would be more potential for harm to come towards the child, in my opinion. In regards to gay couples, my main concern is the stability of the relationship of the parents. From a legislative point of view, each couple would have to be evaluated on a case by case basis, regardless of which group they belong to, whether it be gay,straight, black, white or otherwise. FYI I am actually gay myself.

This is also another difficult question as well. Possible sterilization or vaccines at birth to prevent pregnancy?... once a license is granted, an antidote or reversal procedure can be given - allowing the woman to become pregnant. A bit of science fiction at the moment, which is why a lot more work would need to be done in this area before the whole system can be put in place.

No my argument is that I personally would have reservations about allowing gay men in particular to adopt and have relationships due to their poor success rate in relationships - of which the AIDS statistics support this hypothesis - among other evidence. As I've already pointed out three or four times I am not proposing ruling out gay couples from having children all together - am I saying that they are what I would call a "high risk" group in terms of having the ability to raise a child properly. I think it is appropriate to have some discrimination, especially when raising children. If you just let anybody do whatever they please, the world would be chaos - which it is now in some ways! In terms of what conditions child licenses are given, that is a very good question, and it would not be appropriate to give you a flippant answer. Although it would be a good idea to stop drug addicts and fourteen yr olds having kids.

At no time anywhere did I say I was against gay marriage. My main reservations were allowing gay couples to have children, based on the fact that through my own personal observations and through some of the evidence I've presented to you that gay relationships do not have the same stability, or chances of success as straight relationships. I will also stress that these same reservations extend to straight couples as well. My parents are a perfect example of this - totally screwed up. I wouldn't allow them to have babies - now or in the past. Hence my argument for "Child Licenses"

link removed That article points out that AIDS exist in other parts of the world and that women also get AIDS, I didn't deny either of these facts. However it doesnot negate my point that in the United States AIDS contracted through male to male contact (which we could safely say is mainly by gay men) is disproportionately high than amongst the rest of the population.

This is a case of the chicken and the egg - which comes first? You might be right. I'm not sure to be honest and I'm undecided either way. Even if we had social support as you say would gay people's attitudes change? I'm not so sure, at least when it comes to men. There is a Comedy Show in Australia where one the of the characters say: "Men are just animals with urges - I thought that was good advice for a four year old" - LOL Jokes aside, I'm afraid that this might be true

A recent study of over 5,000 obituaries in gay papers showed the average age of death for gay men from all causes to be 41 (5. "The Homosexual Lifespann, from Family Research Institute, Washington, DC, 1992.) Homosexuals account for 80% of the serious sexually transmitted disease in the United State (From various statistics compiled and documented by the Family Research Council in "Sexual Disorientation: Faulty Research in the Homosexual Debate," Washington, DC June, 1992) study showed that between 25 and 33% of homosexual men and women are alcoholics (Robert J. Kus, "Alcoholics Anonymous and Gay American Men," Journal of Homosexuality, Volume 114, No. 2, 1987.) Dr. Maria Xiridou published a study in a 2003 edition of AIDS, which reveals that homosexual couples in Amsterdam engage in what can be called consensual infidelity. Dr. Xiridou was studying the spread of HIV among homosexuals in The Netherlands and found that HIV was spread more rapidly among homosexual couples who considered themselves to be in "steady" relationships. These couples failed to engage in "safe sex" and were involved in 6-10 additional sexual encounters outside of the primary relationship each year. Those who considered their sexual relationships "casual" engaged in 16-28 sexual encounters outside of the primary relationship each year. (AIDS, 17:1029-1038, 2003) In 2004, a group of researchers at the University of Chicago published a study of homosexual sexual relationships in that city. The research was led by Sociology Professor Edward O. Laumann. His team of researchers studied the sex habits of homosexuals in Shoreland, a "gay center" in Chicago. Laumann found the following: * 42.9% of homosexual men in Shoreland had more than 60 sexual partners; 18.4% had between 31 and 60 partners. * 61.3% of the area's homosexual males had more than 30 partners. to report high rates of HIV infection among homosexual and bisexual males. In spite of a 20-year educational campaign about the dangers of HIV, homosexuals and bisexuals continue to engage in sexual behaviors that result in HIV infection and death. I mean I can quote statistics until the cows come home, but there is one very confronting statistic which is very difficult to ignore: In 2003 Of the 920,565 Diagnosed AIDS cases, 440,887 were through male to male contact in the United States (link removed) - doesn't that strike you as somewhat unbalanced in proportion to the general population? Heterosexual contact only made up 149,989 I might add. Given that approximately 5% of the population are made up of mostly gay men, and this group were involved in nearly 50% of the AIDS cases, what does this tell you about the lifestyle choices of gay men in particular? All of those men can't be single - it doesn't exactly make me feel confident about the stability of gay relationships. You are yet to present evidence to the contrary......

Who or what acts as 'nature's brakes' on promiscuous straight women? Ha good question. Well one would hope fear of pregnancy would play a role in perhaps limiting their sexual activity, not to mention society's view on promiscious women. If a woman screws around, she is a whore, if a man does it, he is a stud. Personally I don't think any sex/gender engaging in promiscious sexual activity should be feeling proud. The other point I wanted to make was this. If gay society is so heavily focused on the sexual act and the pursuit of a hedonistic lifestyle, is it any wonder that those in power are reluctant to allow gay couples to have children? Yes I'm sure there are gay couples who are happy and stable and all the rest, but based on my personal experience and from my readings on the topic (some of which I've presented to you), overall gay relationships, in particular relationships involving two men, are not as stable as straight relationships. Gay culture needs to change for a variety of reasons. It needs to focus on higher ideals aside from mere sexual gratification at all costs. Perhaps then society will start to take gay people more seriously as a whole.

I'm quite certain the study did not look at straight men at all, butI'm not sure of the exact specifics of the study. This online book may be of some interest to you: link removed It suggests (particularly around pages 80-90) that straight men would be just as promiscious as gay men if women allowed them to be, but women act as "natures brakes" in terms of sexual conduct.

Your right in that I am making a generalisation and with any generalisation there are always exceptions. You are also correct that there are no definitive studies to accurately potray the success of gay marriages, so I only have my personal observations to rely on. To be honest, I wasn't even referring to gay marriages at all, but gay relationships in general. Gay marriage is not legal in Australia. I think that gay culture as a whole is highly individualistic and places an excessive amount of emphasis on the sexual act, which I find bizarre and quite contrived. I think any group of people wanting to have children should be heavily scrutinized. Now given the moral impropriety of a large proportion of the gay community (and I do stress there are exceptions who do not follow such trends), they should definitely face this same scrutiny. Children are just too precious to gamble with. I know of a gay man who is I'd say is in his mid 40's who is about to have his first child with a lesbian couple through IVF. This same man is happy to pursue men half his age for sexual gratification. I find this appalling in itself, but one would hope he would be trying to live the best way that he can, if only to set an example to his presently unborn son and throughout the remainder of his son's life. A study of homosexual men under age 30 in Amsterdam, sponsored by the Dutch AIDS project and published in AIDS 2003, found that single men acquire 22 casual partners a year, men with a steady partner acquire eight casual partners a year, and "steady partnerships" last an average of 18 months. (2) In a book published in 1996 and entitled Virtually Normal, Andrew Sullivan argues that stable homosexual couples have a "need for extramarital outlets". Keep in mind this was only a study of men, so lesbian couples may be more stable. Overall, it would be lovely to think that Gay Relationships are "on par" with straight relationships in terms of healthy functionality, however, this just isn't the reality. Now I'm not saying rule out all gay couples based on this, what am I saying is that we should be damn careful about who we let raise our kids. This applies to straight people as well. This is why I think people should have a license to have kids.

There's a few things I need to point out here: A large majority of gay people don't even want a relationship, let alone marriage and children, so why bother give people an opportunity they won't even use? The other thing is, gay relationships are so volatile I would be reluctant to expose children to that kind of environment. Yes straight relationships can be just as bad (although better overall), and to be blunt, I don't think anybody, gay, straight, single, coupled or otherwise should be given rights to have kids willy nilly. If it was up to me you be required to obtain a license to have a child. Under what conditions the license is given is a debate within itself which I won't go into on this particular topic. The bigger question is why do people have kids? Wanting to have kids is a selfish act, it's about extending yourself. Let's face it, there's enough pple in the world, we need to stop breeding. Humans can face a lot of pain and suffering in their life, some more than others, and bringing a child into the world to face that suffering is cruel. Maybe I'm bitter and cynical, but most relationships are warped and twisted, especially gay relationships (for who knows what reasons), and exposing kids to that is not right. If we are going to allow raising of children it should be under very strict conditions - not based on sexuality but other factors.

People who are genuinely homosexual do not choose their sexual orientation, if this was the case, then I would "choose" to be straight, because frankly it would be a lot whole easier on a number of levels! No doubt your friend has been gay for a long time, but for whatever reason has not acted on his sexuality. It's amazing what you can twist your mind to do . I myself attempted to have gf's when I was younger. I knew that I had sexual attraction/feelings for male friends, but I assumed it was simply because I felt "close" to them. What your friend needs now is your friendship and support. Being gay is not easy, especially if he is trying to find a relationship - if he wants one that is.

The most beautiful and rare flowers are those that bloom in the face of adversity.

Hi Guys, I know this is a rather delayed response but just wanted to say thank you for your replies. I have moved to Melbourne now (Australia's second largest city). mgirl not to sound bitter but you are right in that gay men in particular are the same everywhere. Do you believe it is as equally difficult for lesbain couples? stevo84 how long did you see your fiancee for? The thing that I've noticed that even in the city the Gay Community is oh so small and everyone knows everyone! it's a tad suffocating!

Hi people, I'm not sure whether you can really assist me with this matter, but I've got nothing to lose by posting on this forum. So here goes. I'm a 25 yr old man who currently lives in Ballarat, Australia. Ballarat is a town of about 80, 000 pple, approximately an hour away from the major capital city (melbourne) of my state. Recently I broke up with my bf about 3-4 months ago. Ever since then I have been miserable and depressed, to be honest. When I first came out when I was about 23 there seemed to be so much hope for me. I guess I was in the mindset of well I've finally accepted my sexuality, so now it's time to find a bf and be happy. I was totally naive of course. When I started dating this guy (phil) I was so happy, more than I ever had been in my whole life. I had a bit of a rough trot as a kid, my father was an abusive alcoholic, and my stepfather was abusive, but in a psychological way, and of course the gay issue on top of all that. My X's reasoning for breaking up was something along the lines of - oh I can't give you the love you need rah rah. which I thought was a tad premature - considering we'd only been dating for a few months. I never told him until after we'd broken up that in fact I did fall in love with him. I guess my main issue now if he doesn't want me is to find somebody else. However this is proving to be an insurmountable task. I get really upset and frustrated by it all. I just want to find a nice guy who I'm actually attracted to and live happily ever after. Maybe I'm being too idealistic. I've done everything in my power to... increase my chances if you will, ie going to gaybars, putting profiles on the net and so forth but no joy. I'm at my wits end here and I don't know what to do. It frustrates me that I have this need to want a relationship. It appears that the majority of other gay guys don't want one so why do i? I can't help but feel that if I was straight a lot of these problems would be eliminated. A lot of my friends would say that I was quite attractive, eligible even (university educated, full time employed) so why do I have so many problems? I can't stand this.