How many people here know somebody who is gay?

oldyouth · 31-08-2013 09:24AM

I voted Yes to friends etc because 3 or 4 people came to mind immediately. While reading the rest of the thread I found myself thinking 'oh yeah, then there's X, he is gay also'. Within 5 minutes, another 5/6 people came to mind, so it leads me to think that we all must know a good few gay people but it's not a predominant feature in our minds when we interact with them

camel jockey · 31-08-2013 09:25AM

I assume people are answering based on people who are openly gay i.e. acknowledge they are gay as opposed to people you suspect are guy.

crazygeryy · 31-08-2013 09:30AM

i knew someone who was gay but we prayed it out of him.hes straight now.

corktina · 31-08-2013 09:34AM

carlmango11 wrote: »

How the hell do 13% of the nation not know a gay person!? Is this a country thing? I know countless gay men and women and have done almost as long as I can remember.

Irish Gaydar not enabled....it's to cut down the VRT I think.

computer44 · 31-08-2013 09:35AM

Never got that impression. Coming out was the best thing I did. But there is lots of closets especially with married men. How do they live with their conscience.

computer44 · 31-08-2013 09:38AM

Are you serious. Thats the kind of attitude that puts young men to suicide. And I will report that. That is abuse.

Ted_YNWA · 31-08-2013 09:44AM

Know a few people who are.

There still is a section of people who think there is something wrong with being gay.

Few comments above saying "we fixed him" , "we prayed it out of him" and the likes.

Live & let live I say, if Cecil likes taking in up the ..... , so be it as long as he is happy.

Know of a girl who is a lesbian, but is afraid to come out to her parents.

computer44 · 31-08-2013 10:29AM

I am gay and a woman.

Had to tell my family.

The issue was getting to me.

But I could no longer tell a lie.

dirtyden · 31-08-2013 10:30AM

kiffer wrote: »

Seriously? Something like 10 to 20% of the population is gay or bi... if you don't know anyone who's gay then your social group is probably not the sort of place people feel safe enough to be themselves.

Is that scientific? I don't believe it as anywhere near 20%

corktina · 31-08-2013 11:18AM

computer44 wrote: »

I am gay and a woman.

Had to tell my family.

The issue was getting to me.

But I could no longer tell a lie.

I can see how big a hurdle that would be in someone's life...I'd like to think that, if I were the Parent in that situation, I would be loving and supportive. How did they take it?

Mysteriouschic · 31-08-2013 11:22AM

I know quite a lot nearly all the guys I'm friends with are gay I don't mind though.

kjl · 31-08-2013 11:31AM

Osmosis Jones wrote: »

I know of a gay lad, lives in my town, not actually close to any though. Seems surprisingly uncommon around here.

so is he the only gay in the village?

Annasopra · 31-08-2013 11:35AM

Too Tough To Die wrote: »

Yeah, but that mostly applies to cities.

Thats changing - there are lgbt groups in Mayo, Donegal, Longford, Leitrim, Cavan, Tipperary, Wicklow, Wexford

Lux23 · 31-08-2013 11:36AM

Lots but I do live in Dublin.

dodderangler · 31-08-2013 11:39AM

carlmango11 wrote: »

How the hell do 13% of the nation not know a gay person!?

So the whole nation is on boards????

AtomicHorror · 31-08-2013 11:40AM

dirtyden wrote: »

Is that scientific? I don't believe it as anywhere near 20%

Depending on the study, and how you define homosexuality, the figures range up to about 35%. There seems to be a reasonable proportion of people who wouldn't consider themselves to be gay but have had a small number of homosexual experiences. And of course if you do your study in Iran, or did it in Italy in the 1930s, the answer would be a very indignant 0%.

My favourite studies were the ones which showed that homophobic people were more likely to have an arousal response to gay porn.

scudo2 · 31-08-2013 11:44AM

All the women I try to chat up tell me they are gay!!!!

AtomicHorror · 31-08-2013 11:46AM

scudo2 wrote: »

All the women I try to chat up tell me they are gay!!!!

Without knowing your gender, I can't tell if this is a happy comment or a sad one.

Grayson · 31-08-2013 11:47AM

AtomicHorror wrote: »

Depending on the study, and how you define homosexuality, the figures range up to about 35%. There seems to be a reasonable proportion of people who wouldn't consider themselves to be gay but have had a small number of homosexual experiences. And of course if you do your study in Iran, or did it in Italy in the 1930s, the answer would be a very indignant 0%.

My favourite studies were the ones which showed that homophobic people were more likely to have an arousal response to gay porn.

To be fair the way porn interacts on the brain is strange. One of the ways it causes a reaction is based on how extreme it is. If you watch soft porn without ever having seen it, then you would probably feel aroused. If you've seen loads of soft porn, your brain doesn't react to it as much. However at that point if you're shown hardcore porn, your brain will react.

basically it's the relative extremeness of the porn that contributes to the reaction so a homophobe would probably be slightly aroused by gay porn even though they are completely straight. Which has got to be damn confusing for them.

But either way, everyone in ireland knows a gay person, even if they don't know they are gay. And the same could be said about ireland 50 years ago.

kylith · 31-08-2013 11:51AM

I know people who are gay, but no-one that I hang around with is gay, that I know of. This is because I don't hang around with many people rather than that I have any problem with gay people.

stateofflux · 31-08-2013 11:54AM

i find this whole thread a bit disrespectful.

humbert · 31-08-2013 12:17PM

If I were to believe this thread I'm probably gay and just don't know it.

dirtyden · 31-08-2013 12:33PM

AtomicHorror wrote: »

Depending on the study, and how you define homosexuality, the figures range up to about 35%. There seems to be a reasonable proportion of people who wouldn't consider themselves to be gay but have had a small number of homosexual experiences. And of course if you do your study in Iran, or did it in Italy in the 1930s, the answer would be a very indignant 0%.

My favourite studies were the ones which showed that homophobic people were more likely to have an arousal response to gay porn.

I can only go on my own personal radar and I would say much less than 10% of the people I know would be gay. This is just an observation from a personal perspective so nothing scientific about it either. I have always wondered about that 10% figure. I have heard it mentioned so often but have always wondered how true it is.

anncoates · 31-08-2013 12:54PM

I knov millions and millions.

Son Of A Vidic · 31-08-2013 01:13PM

freshpopcorn wrote: »

How many people here know somebody who is gay?

Why do you ask? I'm hetrosexual because that's the way I'm wired. I had no choice in the matter, the same way as a gay man or gay woman had no choice in the matter. We are who we are and who gives a fúck anyway.

Staff Infection · 31-08-2013 01:14PM

DEFTLEFTHAND wrote: »

Fair play for saying it, it still is very much out there. The guy's who I drank with tonight when sober and in public are very tolerant and like to pass themselves off as that. We're all educated too from the same town and went to college together.

Maybe it's just the banter or whatever but when slurs like Fag and Queer are floating around you begin to wonder, it's not just a casual drunken uttering, there was meaning behind it and the jokes which ran while admittingly were humourous were also probably quite inappropriate when you think about it.

I have a mate who made an odd statement regarding gay people. He is straight and wants gay marriage but not for equality reasons but because "at the minute they can sleep around as much as they like, at least if they were allowed get married they would stick to one partner". We didn't even mention straight people have one night stands etc. it was just too bizarre. Have plenty of gay friends myself as he does so we were surprised at the wee statement but he has odd theories on everything so this is just another one really.

AtomicHorror · 31-08-2013 02:59PM

Grayson wrote: »

To be fair the way porn interacts on the brain is strange. One of the ways it causes a reaction is based on how extreme it is. If you watch soft porn without ever having seen it, then you would probably feel aroused. If you've seen loads of soft porn, your brain doesn't react to it as much. However at that point if you're shown hardcore porn, your brain will react.

basically it's the relative extremeness of the porn that contributes to the reaction so a homophobe would probably be slightly aroused by gay porn even though they are completely straight. Which has got to be damn confusing for them.

Sure... but the studies compare that arousal rate versus the rate in non-homophobes, so the effect of "extremeness" should be accounted for.

dirtyden wrote: »

I can only go on my own personal radar and I would say much less than 10% of the people I know would be gay. This is just an observation from a personal perspective so nothing scientific about it either. I have always wondered about that 10% figure. I have heard it mentioned so often but have always wondered how true it is.

For me, I would say instead that less than 10% of people I know have let me know that they are gay. It's a very important distinction.

Thing is, even if I could identify gay people with 100% accuracy, and the result was less than 10% of people I know, what would that mean? The proportion of african and eastern european people I personally know is well short of the proportion of such people who live in Ireland. There can be lots of complex reasons why any given person is a non-representative sample. All we personally have are useless guesses and anecdotes. The studies are much more useful.

freshpopcorn · 31-08-2013 04:32PM

jarvis wrote: »

What a stupid pointless thread.

stateofflux wrote: »

i find this whole thread a bit disrespectful.

Corvus Maximus wrote: »

Why do you ask?

I never meant to be disrespectful in starting this thread and nor do I think I this was a pointless thread.
Recently my aunts one in her late fifties, one in her sixties, my sister in her early thirties, my mother in her early fifties and myself in my early twenties. The topic came up and my aunts asked me did I know many people who were gay. I said 4. My sister said she knew 3 people and my aunts and my mother said said when they were about my age they would have known about the same amount of people.The one difference we think tough is people who are out are more comfortable/open than they would have being 20/30 years ago.

12gauge dave · 31-08-2013 04:37PM

In from a town of about 7,000 people in west of ireland and there is quite a few openly gay men but no gay women is it harder for lesbians to come out? Maybe there are no lesbians in my town but highley unlikely i presume

AtomicHorror · 31-08-2013 05:00PM

12gauge dave wrote: »

In from a town of about 7,000 people in west of ireland and there is quite a few openly gay men but no gay women is it harder for lesbians to come out? Maybe there are no lesbians in my town but highley unlikely i presume

I think so. It's hard for straight women to talk about their sexuality without being labelled as sluts or feminazis. Gay women get a worse deal again and are generally stereotyped as hot bisexuals or man-hating dykes, so it's easy to see why they'd want to keep a lower profile.

How many people here know somebody who is gay?

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