on HPB's sexuality FAQ

if i have to read one more crappily-argued response to HPB's sexuality FAQ i will go berserk.

just look at this:

"...But as a site which claims to provide "factual information on sexuality and STI/HIV prevention from a public health perspective", its credibility turns on the reliability of information provided.

How do these fare?

Permanence of same-sex intimate relationships?  

In a misleadingly-worded statement, HPB claims that same-sex couples can have long-lasting relationships:

'[HPB FAQ:] Can homosexuals have long lasting relationships?

Yes, homosexuals can certainly have long-lasting relationships. A homosexual relationship, like any other relationship, is based on values like trust, love, commitment and support.'

To clarify, the issue is not about whether homosexuals can have long-lasting relationships, but whether two persons of the same sex can have long-lasting intimate relationships.

In an article titled "Yes, Marriage Will Change--and Here’s How", sociologist Mark Regnerus analysed statistics regarding same-sex relationships and found the following:

Lesbian relationships. Female-female intimate relationships have a high level of instability. In Britain, 62 percent of civil union dissolutions in the UK are between women despite the fact that lesbian relationships only represent 44 percent of civil partnerships in that country. In Sweden, 30 percent of female marriages are likely to end in divorce within six years of formation, compared with 20 percent for male marriages and 13 percent for heterosexual ones. Michael Rosenfeld reported at the 2012 annual meeting of the American Sociological Association that lesbian couples report higher break-up rates. Another phenomenon is that characterised as “lesbian bed death” by sociologist Pepper Schwartz, where women in same-sex relationships report lower sexual satisfaction.

Gay relationships. Conversely, male-male intimate relationships have an unprecedented degree of "openness". One non-random study of 566 gay couples revealed that only 45 percent of them had verbally agreed to monogamy, fewer than the share who agreed to be “open.” According to Add Health data on never-married heterosexual, homosexual, and bisexual men and women ages twenty-four and up, gay men are far more likely than straight men to say “yes” to two questions—during the time you and your partner have had a sexual relationship, has your partner (as far as you know)—or you yourself—ever had any other sexual partners? Just under 30 percent of gay men suspect their primary partner of being “monogamish,” compared to 15 and 20 percent of heterosexual men and women, respectively.

In an area like this, one does not deal with possibility, but probability. On this basis, HPB's claims are highly inaccurate when measured against the findings of social science.

It is worth seriously questioning why HPB is venturing outside its purview and expertise into the area of sociology when it should rightly focus on public health."


for gods sake.... this is HPB's FAQ. who are you to clarify (ie CHANGE THE QN) what the issue is about??? they framed the question as "can homosexuals have long-lasting relationships" so OBVIOUSLY the answer is going to be tailored to that particular question. if you want to change the question to something about probability and not possibility and claim the HPB has missed the mark in its "misleading answer" then you can go write your own damn FAQ.

secondly, i really don't see what is everyone's fuss is with HPB's answer in this particular section. homosexuals CAN have long-lasting relationships...it didn't say that homosexuals WILL have, it just proposes the possibility that it can. if you want to refute it and say homosexuals CANNOT have long-lasting relationships, then you need to give stats that show that 100% of all homosexual relationships have not lasted beyond X amount of time. as long as one homosexual couple has a long-lasting relationship (however that is to be defined), HPB has already proven its point right?

this guy has given stats to prove his own newly framed query ("whether two persons of the same-sex can have long-lasting intimate relationships" idk whats the big difference to be honest), basically that 62% of lesbian civil unions fail, and that only 45% of gay men are in monogamous relationships....regardless of the accuracy and fit of these surveys for the query above, i don't know if i am still missing something because don't these stats also suggest that yes homosexuals CAN have lasting relationships??? so why are HPB's claims still highly inaccurate???

i could go on for ages about the gripes i have with all the other arguments i am reading, or perhaps someone should really sit down and explain to me these arguments because i can be really slow:

1) why the insistence on the definition of the family unit to be "one man, one woman, and child"? where is this definition even from??????? social science like the author so loves or what??

i don't really understand the insistence on these technicalities, shouldn't family be defined by stuff like trust, sacrificial love, support etc. i've seen families who fulfill these technicalities but have very little of the latter values...i'm really not sure if insistence on these technicalities without focus on the substantives can be very healthy at all.

2) bizarre arguments about how the social fabric will be torn if 377A is repealed and homosexual marriages allowed. when i ask people to elaborate i often get answers that suggests they have been fed with the idea that a 377A-less world is a dystopia where the 'homosexual lifestyle' is rampant - often described to me as lots of clubbing, promiscuity, pre-marital sex, STDs and more people (or children) wanting to be homosexual instead of heterosexual.

FYI, for the uninformed, the former four are also part of the "heterosexual lifestyle", maybe you should get off your high horse and get to know the ground. then from that point, go to the root issue of each of these problems and come up with a solution instead of just protesting gay legitimization.

secondly, if people or your children are so easily influenced into becoming a homosexual, then i actually think that the fluidity of their sexuality suggests that they might be bisexual to begin with???? from personal experience, i've never once felt like becoming a homosexual just because i'm around other people who are, i don't even think i could if i tried. if influence really worked in the arena of sexuality, then the hordes of heterosexuals, by our existence alone should be influencing homosexuality into oblivion.

the most common closing statement i hear with regards to these arguments are: "would you want your children to grow up in a world where homosexuality is the norm???"

i dont know...my children are going to grow up in a world where violence on tv is the norm, materialism probably is the norm, capitalism is the norm, where people writing retarded arguments on the papers against a neutral and informative sexuality FAQ is the norm, but i'd like to think that i as a mother will have enough influence in my child's life to teach him what is right and wrong, regardless of what the world has to say. i also would like to think that there will come a point where my child will have developed a rational thinking mind that will help him discern for himself what he wants to believe and follow. ideally, to have moral backbone, but also recognize that there will always be people that we deem different from us (whether they hold diff moral standards, religions, cultures, lifestyle preferences and the list goes on), but to always treat them with acceptance and grace guided by wisdom, and not make prejudicial statements without really trying to understand what is at hand.

lastly, homosexuals already exist in our society, i don't see whatever social fabric being torn into shreds. to be honest, i don't see how legitimizing gays will tear the fabric of society. i would actually think that it is the individual that is the building block of society, and where we cannot engender a climate that moves towards understanding (by that i mean really getting to know the issue/people at hand and not made wild sweeping assumptions like how all gay people have aids and are possessed by the devil - hear this kind of shit so often its unbelievable), acceptance and grace towards ALL members of society, that is really where the social fabric is going to disintegrate.

i'm not vehemently pro or against either camps, but what i'd really want to hear is a good argument from both sides on how to deal with the issue. at this point, i've barely heard a single good argument from the anti camp regarding this issue (maybe someone should sit me down and tell me one!). only one would probably be the indranee rajah one, taken from yawning bread:

"Defending the retention of 377A, she compared the situation in Singapore today to the situation in other countries when they had slavery.

At the time when they had slavery, there were laws in place which reflected the public morality of that time. If you had been in America at that time when they had slaves and you had said to somebody, ‘You should not have slaves because slavery is wrong’, nobody there, at that time, would have agreed with you because the society was such that that was the correct thing at that time.

The gist of her argument was that an unenlightened majority had a right to deprive minorities of their rights. Citing another example, she pointed out that some countries today have  “institutionalised discrimination on the basis of either race or religion as part of their official policy. And for those countries, they consider it right.”

So there’s nothing wrong with discrimination against a section of Singapore’s population when “society” wants it, she argued."

simply, that the majority wants it as reflected by the IPS survey. all the other arguments like family unit being compromised, or homosexual lifestyle being normalized just doesn't make sense to me.

i think the "unnatural" argument could also have been worked on, but because 377 on unnatural sex between heterosexuals was repealed without response from most groups, its difficult to work with that argument now without seeming prejudiced.


long rant over, please god don't let me read any other bizarre arguments regarding the HPB.

P.S i thought this was a pretty good piece on why we need a informative HPB FAQ that fosters understanding on the homosexuality issue