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Photo by Flickr user G.I. Folk. Used under a Creative Commons license.

Amanda Hess says

Peter Sprigg, a Family Research Council policy fellow who advises Montgomery County public schools on their sex ed curriculum, is encouraging gay kids to identify as straight in order to lower their risk of suicide. Because when gay kids identify as straight, only straight kids will kill themselves. Problem solved.

Source: TDB

What's, well, queer about Peter Sprigg's report is that it appears to take perfectly sound (if strategically incomplete) data, and even some sound intermediary conclusions, but then add a couple of agenda-driven definitions and turn it all into some really batshit-insane, dangerous recommendations.

Fact: Young people who identify as gay, lesbian, or bisexual do in fact have higher rates of suicide.

Fact: The sooner young people begin to self-identify publicly as gay, lesbian, or bisexual the greater their likelihood of committing sucide.

Fact: It's really is common for young people to feel "confused or uncertain" about their sexuality in adolescence.

Fact: Despite early uncertainty or confusion, by age 25 or so most people really have settled on a lifelong and generally far less flexible orientation

Fact: Of those people end up being exclusively heterosexual.

Oh, and

Fact: It actually really isn't a bad idea to wait to become sexually active till you're really sure what your identity and orientation is.  Even if (as Sprigg may have sock-puppeted into a quote) "you are sure you are heterosexual."

Facts, facts, facts, facts.  Most not even terribly objectionable since Sprigg got most of them from an article by Mark L. Hatzenbuehler in the respectable, peer-reviewed Pediatrics called The Social Environment and Suicide Attempts in Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Youth.

But then he turns that into... what?  A recommendation that everybody identify as straight people who just like sex with their own sex.  In other words to be more like former Senator Larry Craig, former minister Ted Haggard, or even better, like the millions of other conservatives who stay in the closet and don't get caught.

But you know what?  There's at least one other fact that Sprigg pretty much necessarily omits...

Fact: The biggest difference between an out gay, lesbian, or bisexual and a closeted one is... a closeted gay, lesbian, or bisexual isn't subject to the kind of harassment, ostracism, and outright violence out ones are.  Not from their friends, not from their families, not from their teachers, not from other people their age, and so on.

Question that perpetually eludes Mr. Sprigg and his ilk: what do you suppose drives a lot of teenagers to suicide anyway?  Gee, I wonder if maybe not only feeling like you don't fit in but being told to your face by that "vast majority" who "will end up being exclusively heterosexual as adults?"  Particularly when egged on by... Mr. Sprigg and his ilk!

Naah, couldn't be.  It's gotta be them gay cooties.

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What makes me particularly bitter about all this, by the way, is that when I was growing up I was regularly taunted, harassed, and beaten up for "being gay."  Even though, of course, I wasn't.

That said, as far as I know none of the boys and young men from my neighborhood who regularly beat the living shit out of me ever committed suicide.  Although, funny thing, at least two of them died of HIV/AIDS in the 1980s.

Actually did I just say "funny thing?"  It's really not very funny at all.  Because pretending, for instance, that you're really a straight guy who likes sex with other men, and by lacking credible, comprehensive sex education that Mr. Sprigg's coven deplores, makes it very difficult for men to learn the kind of sex safety practices that best minimize health risks to themselves, their partners, and, often, their spouses.

Paul Waldman of TAPPED wrote such a wonderful indictment of the IJNNWACDI tendency towards conservative perversion that I’m reproducing the whole thing here.

Via Steve Benen, we see that former Rep. J.D. Hayworth, who is challenging John McCain in the Republican Senate primary in Arizona, has some interesting ideas about what gay marriage will lead to:

“You see, the Massachusetts Supreme Court, when it started this move toward same-sex marriage, actually defined marriage — now get this — it defined marriage as simply, ‘the establishment of intimacy,’” Hayworth said. “Now how dangerous is that? I mean, I don’t mean to be absurd about it, but I guess I can make the point of absurdity with an absurd point — I guess that would mean if you really had affection for your horse, I guess you could marry your horse. It’s just the wrong way to go, and the only way to protect the institution of marriage is with that federal marriage amendment that I support.”

This kind of thing comes up with alarming frequency from Christian conservatives. For some of them, any issue of gay rights is about sex – — hot, steamy sex, so hot they can’t stop thinking about it. I’ve always said that James Dobson thinks about gay sex more than any five gay people I know put together. And apparently, people like Hayworth think that there is a tide of perversion lapping at our levees, and if we allow a crack in the edifice of heterosexual marriage, it will come down upon us like a tidal wave, drowning us with its forbidden temptations. I wonder what kind of thoughts led them there?

He said it here.

That sounds about right about James Dobson, and one suspects Fred Phelps thinks about it more than every other gay man in Kansas. Any time folks start going into lurid details or taking their proposed prohibitions to extreme lengths there’s gotta be at least a little fire behind all that smoke. Another example, one with almost universally horrific consequences are the white slave-owning men who, while regularly justifying violence against African American men for their “lust” for white women, also happened to have unrestricted and coercive access to African American women. Another example? I always wonder what’s really up when I hear of another regressive state legislator proposing one of those no-exceptions-for-rape-or-incest abortion restrictions. For instance one wonders how long it’ll be before a weeping Glenn Beck upbraids the likes of me for being all nonconsanguino-centerically privileged and just not understanding that, say, Louisiana state legislators deserve grandchildren just like people do. Now I’m forced to wonder whether J.D. Hayworth would support this petition drive... or if he’d change the subject and fulminate about government having no business interfering with private property rights. $%!#%&%

(Quick note, plus attempted guilt expiation for quoting his entire post: I don’t quote Paul Waldman often in this blog but if you’re into politics and social issues TAPPED is a great group blog and you can find a bunch of his other posts here. I particularly appreciated his post Pro-Lifers For More Abortions from yesterday.)

So… Just a quick follow-up on this and this (about homophobia and asexuality denial.)

Y’know, there’s this maxim of marketing, one that I first heard for the first time from a greasy district supervisor of a pizza chain, and nearly every other customer-relations yak-it-up I’ve seen since, and that’s that

• A satisfied customer tells, on average, three other people about enjoying your product or service
• A dissatisfied customer tells seven to eleven how much they hate you
• Therefore it takes more than two happy customers to offset just one unhappy one.

Not that that did our local pizza chain much good but in the small community our shop was in you could confirm the way about good vs. bad service spreads in real time.

So…

Let’s say we lived in a society where traditionally, oh, say, somewhere between 3% and 10% of society was forced to have sex with a gender they weren’t oriented towards or else be beaten up, imprisoned, sentenced to receive hormone injections, murdered, or plain old executed. And while we’re at it, let’s say there’s another 1% or 2% of the population that, having no orientation at all, might be squicked by sex with anybody… but still faces the same old pressures to get out there and “take it for England.” So we’re up to somewhere between 4% and 12% of the population that’s probably not so thrilled about the sex they’re expected to have.

Going by the old marketing rule of thumb where people who enjoy tell three friends and those who don’t tell seven. That means we could have somewhere between 28% and 84% of the population hearing from someone or other who can honestly tell them sex — no matter how considerate or egalitarian — sucks.

That would be pretty bad, right? Eh, maybe not too bad. I mean if nothing else, social network inefficiencies suggest that there’s likely to be some overlap of the receipt of bad news. (Although, of course, marketing experts also claim that, a la The Hunting of the Snark “what I tell you three times is true” is, well, true.)

Yeah, it could be bad, if just those 4-12% of the population was out there spreading the bad news about their displeasure with heterosexual sex. But it gets worse because it’s not just 4-12%. Because in this idealized “econ 101” style social modeling, each member of that 4-12% of the population sort of by definition has a partner. Who, one can only imagine, probably isn’t able to say his or her sex life is exactly a peak experience either.

So. If you let those people blab too you’ve not got 28-84% of the population hearing about how awful heterosexual sex is, you’ve got 56-100%* hearing about it. That’s pretty awful, right? But surely some of that bad news will be offset by other news from the majority of people who actually enjoy sex… even if they’re telling you they like it at a lower rate there are more of them and so on average you’re going to get an at-least balanced view of the benefits, right?

Oooh that’s a tough one. Because ‘member how we’re talking about a civilization where people who aren’t oriented towards active heterosexuality face burnings, beatings, imprisonment, medical experimentation, and murder if they’re suspected? And how the only realistic/intelligent thing to do under those circumstances would be to stay as aggressively closeted as possible and do everything else possible in order to “pass?” Well gee, what do you think some non-heterosexuals under that kind of pressure might say about their experiences with sex?

How about “Rapturous?” “Storybook?” “Flawless?” “Fireworks?” “Complete mingling of souls?” “Just one look / Was all it took / Just one touch / I came so much” or whatever?

Well, now it really gets interesting. Let’s say you haven’t had sex yet but you’re about to. You’ve heard from a surprising number of people that , you’ve actually heard from quite a few others that it’s pretty disgusting. And while you’ve heard from some people (who’ve actually had sex and enjoyed it) that it’s kind of fun. But then you’ve heard others say, effectively that if the top of your head doesn’t explode in a shower of rose petals there’s something wrong with you. Oh, and meanwhile? You’re also in a culture that doesn’t provide any meaningful sex education.

How’s that first-time sex going to turn out for you?

• And if it’s as great as you were led to expect… you’re going to tell three people
• And if it’s either pretty awful or at least not anything like you were led to expect… you’re going to tell seven people

Oof! That sucks.

Now remember, this little thought experiment doesn’t measure up to anything like formal social modeling, right? But it does illustrate the mechanics of how bad news drives out the good (another marketing maxim particularly popular in “negative” political campaigning) is all it takes to make almost everybody miserable, as a result of merely trying to make 4-12% of non-heterosexuals miserable.

There just really isn’t a way to measure it so that homophobia adds up. There’s just no way to measure it so that failure to leave asexual people the heck alone pays off.

And the biggest hoot of all, of course? The thing about orientation is that the very difficulty gay people encounter trying to pretend they’re interested in straight sex is… exactly why there’s no conceivable reason to fear that gay people might somehow “make you gay.” And, I might add, the very difficulty asexual people experience trying to pretend they’re interested (check out, for instance Joan Sewell’s wonderful I’d Rather Eat Chocolate: Learning to Love My Low Libido) brilliantly illuminates why abstinence-only programs have such miserable failure rates (despite the desperate efforts of the 4-12% of the population with vested reasons for pushing it.)

[* Yes, 84% of the population times 2 would be 168, but since there’s only ever 100% of a population you sort of gotta round down. —fl]