From fork-admin@xent.com Mon Sep 9 19:27:58 2002 Return-Path: Delivered-To: yyyy@localhost.example.com Received: from localhost (jalapeno [127.0.0.1]) by jmason.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B5D8C16EFC for ; Mon, 9 Sep 2002 19:27:56 +0100 (IST) Received: from jalapeno [127.0.0.1] by localhost with IMAP (fetchmail-5.9.0) for jm@localhost (single-drop); Mon, 09 Sep 2002 19:27:56 +0100 (IST) Received: from xent.com ([64.161.22.236]) by dogma.slashnull.org (8.11.6/8.11.6) with ESMTP id g89G8TC22536 for ; Mon, 9 Sep 2002 17:08:29 +0100 Received: from lair.xent.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by xent.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id E7DB52940A8; Mon, 9 Sep 2002 09:05:03 -0700 (PDT) Delivered-To: fork@example.com Received: from imo-d04.mx.aol.com (imo-d04.mx.aol.com [205.188.157.36]) by xent.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1866529409A for ; Mon, 9 Sep 2002 09:04:18 -0700 (PDT) Received: from ThosStew@aol.com by imo-d04.mx.aol.com (mail_out_v34.10.) id x.3e.23ec2d20 (3842); Mon, 9 Sep 2002 12:06:48 -0400 (EDT) From: ThosStew@aol.com Message-Id: <3e.23ec2d20.2aae2118@aol.com> Subject: Re: Re[3]: Selling Wedded Bliss (was Re: Ouch...) To: gojomo@usa.net, fork@example.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: AOL 5.0 for Mac sub 45 Sender: fork-admin@xent.com Errors-To: fork-admin@xent.com X-Beenthere: fork@example.com X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.11 Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Friends of Rohit Khare List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: Date: Mon, 9 Sep 2002 12:06:48 EDT X-Spam-Status: No, hits=-2.6 required=7.0 tests=KNOWN_MAILING_LIST,NO_REAL_NAME,SPAM_PHRASE_03_05, USER_AGENT_AOL version=2.50-cvs X-Spam-Level: Here are numbers that come from a study of a couple of thousand swedes, with no reference to sexual preference that I could find. The point would seem to be that (1) sexual activity follows a power curve, with a few people, a la Wilt Chamberlain, having an extaordinarily large number of sexual contacts, ev en in a short period of time and (2) a tendency for men to have more partners than women. I have no idea, being a statistical ignoramus, whether the fact that there seem to be more men than women at the extremely promiscuous end of the sex-partners-distribution curve means that you'd get even more extreme results in a group of men who chiefly have sex with other men. http://polymer.bu.edu/~amaral/Sex_partners/Content_sex.html <> As for gay men: There is indeed anecdotal evidence of cases of extreme promiscuity among gay men. You can read about it in Randy Schiltz's And the Band Played On. He writes about bathhouse culture pre-HIV; he also discusses how, in the gay politics of the time, there was a sub-culture of what you might call radical gay men who argued (and acted on the argument) that having many partners was an essential part of what being gay actually was. It was an explicitly political statement: monogamy is an artifact of straight culture. That view seems to have died, in more ways than one. Part of the point of Schiltz's book was to condemn the role that it and bathhouse culture played in spreading the AIDs epidemic that eventually killed Schiltz, among so many others. This doesn't let Eugen off the hook--but it is accurate to say that there was a cult of promiscuity that was particular to the gay community. Tom