Are homosexuals attacked more than straights? Stories like that of Matthew Shepard are used to teach Americans that homophobia is rampant, and that it is often manifested in hate crimes. Homosexuals are attacked, we are told, because they are hated. If this is true, gay men and lesbians should have higher rates of being attacked than straights, since they face more than the usual number of reasons for being victims of violence. So what does the General Social Survey say?
Percent ever punched or beaten up
Straight men 56.0
Gay men 47.1
Staight women 27.4
Gay women 57.9
Now, you might look at the numbers for lesbians and conclude that homophobia is rampant since their rates of violent victimization are more than double that of straight women. But such an interpretation doesn't hold up, because if it were true, gay men would be assaulted more than straight guys.
This pattern of numbers is consistent with the fact that most violence is mutual combat that starts with verbal aggression and escalates. Victims often provoke violence, and straight women and gay men are less aggressive than their counterparts. If homosexuals are attacked, chances are it is motivated by the same kinds of things that cause attacks against heterosexuals: you tell some guy that his girlfriend is an ugly slut, and you get punched in the face.
Are gun owners mentally ill?
Some anti-gun people think owning a gun is a sign of some kind of mental abnormality. According to General Social Survey data, gun owners ...
Straight men tend to be more macho and less willing to back down from a fight.
ReplyDeleteGay men are generally pansies.
Wow, nearly 60% of men have been punched or beaten up. That's pretty sad.
ReplyDeleteI got randomly sucker punched in the back of the head by a black stranger once. I remember his friends criticizing him for it as they continued walking in their direction and I walked in mine. None of use stopped or even slowed down.
Had it been a black guy that got punched by me, a real fight would have been initiated and I probably would have been charged with a hate crime in the aftermath - especially if I won, and he got injured. (I wasn't smaller than the guy who attacked me, and I took martial arts classes through highschool)
In that way the "hate crime" dice may actually be loaded against less agressive groups. More aggressive groups will be more likely to help push low intensity conflict/abuse into high intensity conflict.
This also shows that low intensity victimization of homosexuals may actually be underreported.
Rain And
Gay men at least. Apparently not lesbians!
ReplyDeleteCrimes such as the Matthew Shepard case are publicized my the MSM only when they fit preconceived notions of race, class, gender or sexual-orientation bias. This is done to support a political agenda, in this case, the inclusion of sexual orientation in hate crime legislation. At about the same time as the murder of Shepard (who was a gay man who went cruising for rough sex in Jackson, Wyoming and was killed by two heterosexuals), a 13 year old boy, Jesse Dirkhising, was kidnapped, raped, tortured and murdered by some homosexuals in Rogers, Arkansas. This horrible crime received ZERO MSM coverage because it did not fit the hate crime agenda. Sort of like the Duke lacrosse case - the NY Times and other MSM shills thumped the tub to lynch the "perpetrators," but, when the truth came out, the only crimes had been committed by the corrupt district attorney and the lying complainant. All of this is nothing but agitprop.
ReplyDeleteAnother fascinating post!
ReplyDeleteThe relevant question is how often people are subject to unprovoked attacks, and that's not something the data addresses (OK, address if you insist).
ReplyDeleteintellectual pariah
How "slapped" instead of "punched"?
ReplyDeleteWow. More lesbians have been punched or beaten up than straight men. That, I did not expect. Any info on domestic violence rates among gay and lesbian couples, particularly relative to straight couples? The lesbians I know tell me that domestic violence is endemic among gay women.
ReplyDeleteAnecdotally, I had straight friends who would come with me to gay bars every now and again in college because "it was a relief to go to a bar where you didn't get into a fistfight every time you accidentally spilled your drink on another guy." I'm sure they exaggerated somewhat, but I can see their point. Not that having their pick of the straight girls who were there with their gay male friends wasn't a draw as well.
Still, my impression has always been that with groups of straight guys, there is always the risk of all that testosterone spilling over into a massive brawl. I can't ever see a group of gay men brawling--no way, no how. With gays, the tetosterone spills over into a culture of unfettered sexuality.