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]