Myth No. 1

Myth: 10% of people are gay.

Fact: No one can be certain how many gay people there are, but its a helluva lot less than 10% of the population.

It's hard to find objective data, partly because sexuality is a subjective thing, and homosexuality is something that people are often less than truthful about, even in anonymous surveys.

Homosexuality is also something that people are passionate about, and both sides twist the truth to suit their own ends. This article from Family Voice cherry picks data from a university study to support their anti gay-rights agenda. Meanwhile, Out in Perth accurately quotes figures on gay partnerships from the Australian Bureau of Statistics... then shamelessly inflates auxilliary data to make those figures appear more impressive.

But one thing that we can say for certain after even a small amount of investigation is that the figure of 10% is utter bollocks.

A recent study by LaTrobe University in Victoria found that 1.6% of anonymously surveyed men identified as gay, and a further 0.9% identified as bisexual.

For the 10% figure to be even remotely accurate, one would have to assume that for every man who identified as gay or bisexual, there were three screaming queers who claimed to be completely straight. Even allowing for the closet cases and those in denial, that seems unlikely.

The LaTrobe study DID find that 8.6% of men confessed to at least one incidence of either a same sex experience or attraction. But a moment of sexual ambiguation does not equal being gay. And even if it did - if every man who'd ever had any sort of sexual experience with or attraction to a male was really deep down 100% gay - it's still only 8.6%.

Supporting the 1.6% figure are studies in mainland Europe, Britain and the United States, which found similar percentages to those found in Australia. Over such wide samples, the possibility of the figures being so significantly underreported is small, to say the least.

Of course all of this "X% of people are gay" stuff comes from a very binary conception of sexuality, whereas many of the more nuanced social researchers recognise a fluid spectrum of sexuality. However it would seem that the percentage of men who are what we'd consider "gay" at any given point in time would be somewhere between 1.6% and 8.6% of men. For myself, the figure of 3-4% that's occasionally quoted seems the most rational... although I have no stats to hand to back that up.

Like Mythbusters, only with more penises.

Partly for my own amusement, and due to a vague sense that I wasn't getting the unbiased story, I've done some research into facts and figures about gays in the modern world.

After going over as much data as I can find, as objectively as I can, I'm made three discoveries:

1. It's very difficult to pin down solid demographic data on homosexuality.

2. Many assumptions we make about gay experience and relationships are based on false and/or outdated information.

3. I am a massive statistics nerd.

So over the next few posts I'm going to present some of my findings, in the hopes that they may give a better understanding of what's actually going on in the realm of gay relationships.

Basket of goodies

Damn it, why can I never find this aisle when I go grocery shopping?



The last time I went to the supermarket all I got was corn chips.

Turns out the GTR Test is even more depressing than the Bechdel Test

Further to my last post, about the difficulties of trying to date men with 1) a job, 2) a place and 3) a car, I've had a rather startling realisation.

I wrote down the names of my seven closest single gay friends, the ones I see at least every couple of months. Of those seven, only two had a job, a place and a car.

And if we redefine place to mean, "a place they can actually invite people back to", the number drops to zero.

Zero. Out of my primary gay social circle, I'm the only one with a job, a place and a car.

To really grind my face into the raw concrete of failure, I then ran the test on my coupled gay friends.

To a man, every one of them has a job, a place and a car. And, obviously, a partner.

W. Somerset Maugham once refered to himself as being "first among the second raters" as a writer. Apparently I hold a similar title in dating. I really am the King of the Losers.

The Bechdel Test for gay dating

You may be familiar with the Bechdel Test, a feminist metric by which Hollywood films are judged. To pass the Bechdel Test a film must contain 1) two named female characters who 2) speak to each other about 3) something other than a male character.

It's an elegant and beautifully damning critique of Hollywood, largely because it's so undemanding. After all, it's no great ask for a film to have just one scene, or even one shot, of two women who speak to each other about issues other a man. And yet the vast majority of Hollywood offerings, from every Star Wars installment to every Toy Story movie, fail even these low expectations.

I was reminded of the Bechdel Test when I recently noticed something about the quality of men I was seeing in my dating life. So I created the GTR Test.

To pass the GTR Test, a man must have 1) a job, 2) a place and 3) a car.

Now when I say "a job", it doesn't have to be a high-flying career... or even full time. It simply has to be remunerated enough for him to support himself.

And when I say a place, I don't mean a fashionable apartment... or even an utter hovel. It can be a sharehouse, providing he has his own space within it.

And when I say a car, I don't mean a sleek new car... or even an old clunker. A motorbike or a scooter is fine.

Oh, and when I say a man must have a job, a place and a car... actually, I'll settle for two out of three.

And yet, even by those disgracefully low standards, the majority of men I've dated lately have failed the GTR Test.

- The 37 year old who came close, with a car and a part time job, but it wasn't enough to support him, and he lived in his parents' garage. And even then, the real deal killer was the fact that he had a) a serious drinking problem and b) HIV.

- The student from Saudi Arabia who failed on all three counts: he lived on a stipend from his parents, resided with a host family, and got around by bus.

- The 25 year old from a suburb half an hour away by car who lived off a university grant, in his parents' house, and didn't even have a license, let alone a car.

- The student from Singapore who was in exactly the same situation as the Saudi guy... including the same emotional problems.

Only two guys lately have passed the test. The first has a great job, a nice house and a car (technically - it doesn't work at the moment). As such we've been out four times, but it's just one of those cases of there being insufficient chemistry.

The second guy lives in a sharehouse and only has a part time job, but it pays enough for him to live, and he has a brand new Mazda 3, so he passes. He's also gorgeous, intelligent, stylish and a wildly talented classical musician - I was smitten from the first moment I met him. But after two dates he used the deadly phrase, "you're such a nice guy" and asked if we could just be friends.

So it's back to dating the unemployed, the carless and the homeless, I guess. Maybe I should get off Scruff and Growlr and just hang around under bridges to meet guys.

Damned if you do...

Recently a friend of mine sent a message to a hot guy on Grindr (or some similar app), stating that his profile pic was stunning and offering some generic pleasantry.

The hot guy's response was, and I quote, "what about my profile gave the impression that I was interested in a fat ugly prick like you?"

My friend was devastated by this reponse, and I think it was a deplorable way to treat a fellow human being. 

And yet I must admit that at the same time, there was something about it that reminded me of a classic feminist dilemma.

Say you're an attractive woman, and you're sitting in a bar having a drink. Skeezy men keep coming up to you, offering to buy you drinks, wanting to chat you up. You're not interested. What do you do?

A) Smile politely, say "No thank you" and then get dragged into conversation by their insistence and your own politeness, or,

B) Tell them to fuck off in no uncertain terms, and then be on the receiving end of a huffy, "Well I was only trying to be nice!" and/or "No wonder you're alone if you're such a bitch!"

Basically however you respond, you lose. It's no wonder attractive women are often aloof or over-defensive.

My friend didn't deserve to be sneered at by the hot guy... but then again, I can imagine that the hot guy gets a dozen unsolicited compliments a day from guys with a far lower sexual status, each seeking, in a wheedling way, to get him into conversation. He can almost be forgiven for snapping at them...

Or maybe he's just a narcissistic, entitled ass, relying on the fact that in the gay world if you're hot you can be as cruel and rude as you like and men will keep flocking to you.

Who knows?

Two wins in the genetic lottery.

"Hello, I have a perfect body and a huge cock. Thus my success in the gay world is pretty much assured."

Yes, I'm just jealous because... well, look at him.