Dr Mark Regnerus - Sexual Behaviour Patterns

Ten of Swords

Dr Mark Regnerus, author of the controversial same-sex parenting study, recently gave a speech in the Franciscan university of Steubenville (an ultra catholic university in the US) about what future sexual behaviour patterns mean for the future of the 'mating market', in other words - how gay marriage will change things in the future.

Bloggers and the media are jumping all over a 20 second segment where he states that normalizing gay marriage will encourage heterosexual men to cheat on their partners and to demand open relationships and more anal sex from their partners - I find this assertion a bit ludicrous particularly since he does not offer analysis to back it up. The entire speech is 1 hour long, there is more to consider than that 20 second piece.

It is actually an interesting speech, although heavy on rhetoric and a bit light on evidence, and I wanted to see what people think of a particular segment. It's from 35.00 minutes to 41.00 minutes and it deals with a number of points,

1. After the initial demand for SSM and the novelty has worn off civil marriage will still be more common among hererosexual couples and not SS couples, partly due to fidelity issues and how these values are more tightly held by hererosexual unions.

2. There will not be two types of marriage, ie heterosexual and SS, there will be three - MF, MM and FF as the dynamics of gay male relationships are very different to gay female relationships and they are currently lumped together under the umbrella of 'Same-Sex' purely for political reasons.

3. It is likely that there will be more infidelity in a MM marraige than a FF marraige, not because the men are gay but because 'men are men'

4. FF marraiges will involve less sex than MM or MF but be more focussed on monogamy. FF marriages will also be statistically the shortest and the most likely to fail compared to MM and MF because women are less tolerant of sub-optimal unions than men.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/20/mark-regnerus-gay-marriage_n_4823568.html

Peregrinus

I confess I am not motivated to listen to the speech. But, FWIW, my reaction to the numbered points.

Ten of Swords wrote: »

1. After the initial demand for SSM and the novelty has worn off civil marriage will still be more common among hererosexual couples and not SS couples, partly due to fidelity issues and how these values are more tightly held by hererosexual unions.

Possibly SS couples will be less likely to marry, but not just - or not mainly - for the reasons he suggests. My suspicion is that the experience of identifying yourself as gay, of coming out, and of dealing with the sometimes painful or distressing reactions you encounter means that gay people are more likely to have scrutinised not just prevailing societal notions of sexuality and sexual orientation, but associated notions about romanticism, fidelity, monogamy, etc. We know there are at least some Queer activists who are not supportive of SSM because they basically reject the notion of marriage and believe it should be overthrown, and I suspect there is a larger but quieter group who object to discrimination and support SSM as a civil right, while at the same time doubting the wisdom or value of marrying. So I suspect there’s a subset within the LGBT community who probably wouldn’t be inclined to marry, and this subset is larger than the corresponding subset within the straight community.

Ten of Swords wrote: »

2. There will not be two types of marriage, ie heterosexual and SS, there will be three - MF, MM and FF as the dynamics of gay male relationships are very different to gay female relationships and they are currently lumped together under the umbrella of 'Same-Sex' purely for political reasons.

Actually, there will be one type of marriage, as there is now. It may well be that the dynamics of MM, FF and MF unions may vary somewhat, but there is considerable variation in marital dynamics within those groups - everything from the romantic ideal of coupledom to the marriage of convenience to the near-sexless marriage to the open marriage to companionate marriage, and more besides. MM and FF marriages will likewise display a variety of dynamics, but I don’t think that means their marriages will be fundamentally different to MF marriages. On the contrary, this diversity of dynamics is a point in which they will resemble MF marriages.

Ten of Swords wrote: »

3. It is likely that there will be more infidelity in a MM marraige than a FF marraige, not because the men are gay but because 'men are men'

Meh. Possibly. I don’t see that this matters (except, obviously, to the people involved). MF marriage has survived as an institution for an awfully long time notwithstanding considerable rates of infidelity.

Ten of Swords wrote: »

4. FF marraiges will involve less sex than MM or MF but be more focussed on monogamy. FF marriages will also be statistically the shortest and the most likely to fail compared to MM and MF because women are less tolerant of sub-optimal unions than men.

I have no idea about the less sex. As to the shorter duration and higher failure rate, maybe. Time will tell.

Lou.m

Ten of Swords wrote: »

Dr Mark Regnerus, author of the controversial same-sex parenting study, recently gave a speech in the Franciscan university of Steubenville (an ultra catholic university in the US) about what future sexual behaviour patterns mean for the future of the 'mating market', in other words - how gay marriage will change things in the future.

Bloggers and the media are jumping all over a 20 second segment where he states that normalizing gay marriage will encourage heterosexual men to cheat on their partners and to demand open relationships and more anal sex from their partners - I find this assertion a bit ludicrous particularly since he does not offer analysis to back it up. The entire speech is 1 hour long, there is more to consider than that 20 second piece.

It is actually an interesting speech, although heavy on rhetoric and a bit light on evidence, and I wanted to see what people think of a particular segment. It's from 35.00 minutes to 41.00 minutes and it deals with a number of points,

1. After the initial demand for SSM and the novelty has worn off civil marriage will still be more common among hererosexual couples and not SS couples, partly due to fidelity issues and how these values are more tightly held by hererosexual unions.

2. There will not be two types of marriage, ie heterosexual and SS, there will be three - MF, MM and FF as the dynamics of gay male relationships are very different to gay female relationships and they are currently lumped together under the umbrella of 'Same-Sex' purely for political reasons.

3. It is likely that there will be more infidelity in a MM marraige than a FF marraige, not because the men are gay but because 'men are men'

4. FF marraiges will involve less sex than MM or MF but be more focussed on monogamy. FF marriages will also be statistically the shortest and the most likely to fail compared to MM and MF because women are less tolerant of sub-optimal unions than men.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/20/mark-regnerus-gay-marriage_n_4823568.html

This guy is known for being anti gay and against gay marriage.

The professor behind a controversial and heavily criticized gay parenting study is back in the headlines, this time with some eyebrow-raising claims about same-sex marriage.

In a clip provided by Good As You's Jeremy Hooper, Professor Mark Regnerus of the University of Texas at Austin claims that straight men will feel compelled to demand open relationships, as well as anal sex, from their wives and girlfriends.

"If gay marriage is perceived as legitimate by heterosexual women, it will eventually embolden boyfriends everywhere, and not a few husbands, to press for what men have always historically wanted but were rarely allowed: sexual novelty in the form of permission to stray without jeopardizing their primary relationship," Regnerus says in the clip, which can be heard below:

He is not only anti gay marriage but also has some really weird conservative ideas about gender roles.

He came up with a heavily criticized study against gay parents a while ago. Now this.

J_E

Have to admit after doing a bit of research on the man in question, I don't feel particularly compelled to listen to him speak for an hour.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wayne-besen/gay-parents-study-dollars_b_1592989.html
This pretty much says it all.

Ten of Swords

Cydoniac wrote: »

I don't feel particularly compelled to listen to him speak for an hour.

You're not missing a great deal to be honest. He speaks for 45 minutes then someone else comes on. I took it on as an endurance challenge :pac:

Initially I did think 'Uh-oh, Regnerus at it again, ignore that...' but it's too easy to dismiss what he says simply because I don't like him and I was curious. I think the man is a self righteous prick but that doesn't make him automatically wrong about everything.

As I said, it's not overly exciting and is full of rhetoric but a couple of the points he raised in the six minute segment I listed I thought would be worth a bit of discussion