A new report into problem gambling has revealed some interesting insights.
The Times reports that "researchers at the Universities of Minnesota and Yale advertised for gambling addicts to join a research project, they noticed something odd.
"Of the 105 men who approached them, 22 were gay or bisexual — a much higher proportion than in the population at large — and they included a number of the worst problem gamblers."
This leads the paper to ask - do gays like risk?
It seems an insulting hypothesis to us. The "risks" that people associate with gay men are everything to do with living in a society that tells you you are worthless.
That is why some gay men have risky sex in risky situations and take risky drugs. Its because they don't love themselves enough.
They subconsciously have absorbed the message that they are worth less than their str8 counterparts.
We need to stop thinking its "cool" to be risky and start realising we have just as much right to be safe as everyone else.
photo: chris chappelear@flickr.com
Even if we accept their theory that less than 20% of the population are lgb (and there's a figure you could argue over forever!) -- if they were academics worthy of the name they would consider other likely explanations: like that due to being less likely to have kids, lgb people are more likely to have time to take part in their daft research project; or whether factors in how and where they advertised led to which sections of the wider community responded; or even just that one person saw it and got seven of their mates to sign up too and thus skewed the maths because the sample size is so stupidly small.
But then, the "gay gene" debate, the "do bi men exist" debate, and so much more reflects that a lot of people working at universities are not academics worthy of the name.
Posted by: Jen | February 23, 2007 at 09:16 AM