ONS Gay Survey: Gaydar Nation

Following the ONS sexuality survey claiming only 725,000 people - or 1.5 percent of British adults - were gay or bisexual, Gaydar were quick to issue a self-promoting press release [reprinted in first comment] pointing out that this sounded rather odd - as there are 2,185,000 Gaydar and Gaydar Girls profiles registered in the UK.
Neil Midgley wrote in The Daily Telegraph; 'Now I'll never find a boyfriend. There aren't enough gays.'
"...these ONS figures are rubbish. And I have figures of my own to back up that claim.
"The gay ‘dating’ website Gaydar has 1.5million profiles in the UK [This is the figure for the mens' site only]. Given that almost all its users are men, that means – if the ONS figures are to be believed – that at least 1.25million heterosexual men in the UK are registered on a site whose principal purpose is to hook men up with each other for casual sex.
"Of course Gaydar is entirely private and a bit naughty, whereas the ONS figures come from a survey where people were asked out of the blue to tell the government their sexuality. Whose figures do you think are likely to be more accurate?"
The Gaydar figures - which I believe are an accurate number of the profiles, and not a PR fantasy figure - were also referred to in articles by Philip Hensher in The Independent, Mark Townsend in The Observer, and on Queerty.
Well, not every gay man - or bisexual man - has a Gaydar profile, so the actual figure could be higher.
Though Fagburn suspects the truth is somewhere between the ONS figure and Gaydar's.
But only Queerty saw that the Gaydar gaystimate was almost certainly just as flawed as ONS's.
Gaydar has being going for over a decade, and how many of us have opened multiple profiles over the years?
You may have one where you're looking for love, another where you're being a slut.
It also seems common practice to close a profile when you get a new boyfriend.
Then maybe open a secret one.
Then start yet anther one once you're single again.
And so on and so one and so on...

ONS Gay Survey: Oh Dear

It's hard to know where to start with this think [sic] piece published on Guardian online, written by one Joseph Galliano.
Apart from expressing my delight at how it is so beautifully written and well argued.
Oh hang on - I'm being sarcastic...
Fagburn presumes it must be the result of an editing error, and the piece that appears has been written by a particularly thick five year-old.
Oh well, these things happen.
Fagburn has nothing to say about Joe Galliano - or the fact he's clearly so thick it's a wonder he hasn't got a job as a draught excluder - but Fagburn loves the irony of Joe Galliarsehole (as I understand he is known to his former workmates) writing about gay men and the closet.
Could this be the same Joseph Galliano - the former editor of Gay Times - who edited a book, Dear Me, where he described himself as the former editor of a "national magazine"?
Fagburn wonders if he was ashamed of being gay.
Or of how bad he made Gay Times.
The mind boggles...

ONS Gay Survey: No idea. Anyone?

Here's Rod Liddle's take on the ONS survey in The Sunday Times.
Fagburn is posting it mainly to stick it to The Man in brazen defiance of Rupert Murdoch's News Corps paywall, but also as it's a textbook example of how to write a newspaper column if you're a liberal bigot.
Read it and see if you can tell what Mr Liddle's argument is.
No?
Me neither.
Do you think he was sober when he wrote this?
No?
Me neither.
Verily, Rod Liddle is the thinking man's Jeremy Clarkson.

Lesbian myth

I knew it. A census from the Office for National Statistics has at last proved that lesbians — like the Abominable Snowman, the unicorn and werewolves — do not actually exist, but are the creation of someone’s mischievous imagination.
The report out last week suggests that 0.6% of the British population are lesbian, and only 1.3% of men are gay. Given the usual margin of error on such studies, this could mean that minus 4.4% of British people are lesbian, a figure I would be inclined to believe.
For years, gay pressure groups have insisted that at least one in three of us is gay, or perhaps all of us but we don’t know it yet: all we need is a night out down Old Compton Street with some amyl nitrate. Just as disabled pressure groups insist that one in three of us is disabled and child abuse groups claim that almost every child in the country has been interfered with.
It is a shame that there are not more gay people in Britain, as they are responsible for very little crime, work hard and are high achievers.
If only the ONS was wrong and the gay pressure groups were right, we’d be the richest country on earth.

No idea. Anyone?

ONS Gay Survey: A Doctor Writes

Curiouser and curiouser...
The Daily Telegraph isn't usually the go-to paper if you're looking to make sense of the cavalcade of nonsense issued in the wake of the ONS sexuality survey, but it was yesterday.
There's one page in today's Daily Telegraph that says most of what needed to be said.
ie it was nonsense.
Firstly, Matthew Norman - an old Guardian writer...

[Which Fagburn will provide a link to whenever the Daily Telegraph put it on their website. It was actually quite funny, though he did start off badly by quoting that cliched line from Samuel Johnson about statistics, and then went into a bizarre riff about Brighton as some fantasy Gayland where the streets are paved with Gays, which only exists in the minds of some journalists and stand-up comedians, but anyway...]

And right above it a letter from Dr Tony Bentley from Leicester.

No pride in gay figures

SIR – You report research (September 24) which shows that one in 66 will admit to being gay or bisexual. I can’t believe that the three per cent who “did not know” or would not say are all straight.
Rather than raising questions about the focus on diversity (the implication being that there should be less attention on this), it raises serious concerns about the ongoing shame that a significant number of people still bear over their sexuality.

ONS Gay Survey: 1 in 6 homosexuals are gay

The Daily Telegraph thought the ONS sexuality survey was front page news; 'Only one in 66 is gay', but bizarrely gave it just 134 words - the smallest coverage in any of the broadsheets.*
The Guardian, The Independent and The Times all gave over a page to it.
We might as well quote it in full...

"One-and-a-half per cent of the British population is homosexual or bisexual, according to the first official survey on sexual identity.
The estimate, equivalent to one person in 66, is well short of government assessments that put the figure as high as seven per cent. The latest figures come from a survey of 450,000 British people carried out by the Office for National statistics.
It concluded that 480,000 people are homosexual or lesbian and a further 245,000 bisexual.
Homosexual campaign groups welcomed the study but claimed it was an underestimate, as many people would not wish to make their sexuality public.
Philip Davies, the Tory MP, said it raised questions over the focus given to sexual preference in diversity issues.
About three per cent of respondents aid they "did not know" or refused to answer."

As ever, Fagburn loves the fact that the Telegraph still uses the prehistoric term "homosexual".
Even if they fuck up by using it twice in the same tiny, little article to mean two different things; "lesbians and gay men" and "gay men" (as opposed to lesbians).
Time to sort out your style guide, Colonel Blimp.
And who the heck is Philip Davies, "the Tory MP" who is quoted in the Telegraph, but also in The Sun and The Daily Express today?
And why should anyone give a fuck what he thinks about The Gays?
If you Google "Philip Davies MP gay" you'll see that Mr Davies has turned himself into quite a rent-a-quote of late, always more than happy to feed the tabloids with his bigoted take on any gay story they're planning to run.
He's the "Parliamentary Spokesman for the Campaign Against Political Correctness" - ie a bigot alligned to two lonely bigoted nutters.
He's certainly a man to watch - his website suggests he's a first class right-wing saloon bar shitbag, which may not surprise you.
More on Mr Davies a little later after we do a little digging.

* A different and longer piece appears online.

ONS Gay Survey: A Brand New Myth

The Daily Mail can hardly contain its excitement today.
Their headline? "Only one in 100 Britons is gay despite long-held myth... but 71% of public say they are Christian."
Eh?
"The first ever official count of the gay population has found that only one in 100 adults is homosexual."
Even The Guardian said that the survey had "found" this ('1.5% of Britons say they are gay or bisexual, ONS survey finds') - as if this was the final word, a real eureka moment.
Utter poppycock!
The survey can only be said to have found that 1% of people who took part in their survey were willing to tell the person conducting the survey that they were lesbian or gay.
Does anyone really think 1% is anywhere near the real figure?
"The figure explodes the assumption - long promoted by social experts and lobbyists - that the number is up to ten times higher than this at one in ten."
Eh?
Does anyone still believe that 10% of people are gay?
Some gay businesses and marketeers may still push the 1 in 10 myth, but even they don't actually believe it.
Similarly most newspapers claimed that the survey had "found" lesbians and gay men were more likely to be younger, better educated and "middle class" than the general population.
Here's The Guardian's headline; 'Young, educated and middle-class: sexual identity survey profiles typical gay Briton'.
"...The latest detailed figures show that gay people are much more likely to be in managerial or professional occupations – 49% compared with 30% for straight workers - and better educated, with 38% holding a degree. Their age profile is also much younger than the rest of the population, with 66% under the age of 44 and 17% aged 16 to 24."
But you could make an educated guess that all this may actually show is that young people, graduates and middle class people feel it's easier to be out (to a stranger conducting a survey).
Perhaps the worst outcome of this ONS survey is that we will now have to endure a brand new myth; only one in 100 people are homosexual.
Which means we'll be seeing a lot more crap like this from - but of course - the Daily Mail:
"The gay population, while small, is highly educated and economically successful, the survey showed.
"Gays and lesbians are twice as likely as heterosexuals to have university degrees or the equivalent.
"Nearly half of all gays and lesbians work in managerial or professional grade jobs, compared with fewer than one in three heterosexuals."
This is an old argument loved by the Right - how can gay people be considered "an oppressed group" when they're all doing so well?
And thus...
"The figures brought calls from religious groups for less political attention and public money to be spent on meeting the demands for legal protection for homosexuals.
"Mike Judge of the Christian Institute think tank [sic] said: 'A large amount of public money has been spent on the basis of higher figures, which have turned out to be a lie.'"

ONS Gay Survey: From The Express Messageboards

Daily Express readers are thrilled to bits - but still of course mad as hell - to learn that 'UK's Gay Population Is "Smaller Than Thought"'.

"The amount of gays on the TV would refute this report, the rag trade, theatre are full of them not just the odd one here and there, the BBC might have a look at the numbers it has in their shows and mainstream programmes because they are if this report is right over represented." Euripedes

"That's strange, listening to all the media luvvies you'd think that they were the majority. In the interests of ethnic diversity surely we are now due a cull. Let's start with the one who made the most fuss about the Pope's visit, Peter whatshisname." Jayhawk

"Good it should be uncounted as they dont deserve the recognition ,why is my taxes used to their advantage ,out of sight out of mind all perverts should be treated with the same accord." Retired

"The people of Britain have been deliberately lied to about the numbers to make it look as if there are more of these people. If only 1% of the population is homosexual, then why are there so many in parliament? If parliament represented the people - which it doesn't - then there would be not one homosexual in the cabinet and only 6 MPs. Yet, even among the Tories they seem to be in the majority. And what about the BBC? One in a hundred there? Yesterday, the BBC did not even mention this important news and you will see how they will try to hide it." Voter

And finally... Fagburn's Daily Express reader of the day, Frankofile. "I don't think any survey can be accurate when such delicate subjects are tackled. If you look at a gay porn website you will find all sorts from young teens to pensioners and very few are obviously homosexual looking.
Gay men are not all mincing queens with eye make up on and being married is no guarantee of heterosexuality."

ONS Gay Survey: The Sun Says

Hats off to The Sun who accompany their story on the ONS sexuality survey with the above photo of two typical lesbians, pictured recently.
Reader Trublu has left the comment; "Only one thing I can say about this story: Well done with the picture The Sun! You could've gone completely the wrong way with that one. =)"
=) indeed...