Flies Gay, Straight, Gay Again

But 'the absence of pride is not shame,' Jesse Bering concludes

(NEWSER) - It's LGBT Pride month, but research psychologist Jesse Bering is certainly not proud of the fact that he's gay. The way he sees it, "pride" can be defined in three main ways, and none matches the way he feels about his sexual orientation. Pride is sometimes defined as, according to the OED, "an excessively high opinion of one's own worth." That's not a good thing. In fact, it's so bad that to Christians, pride is one of the seven deadly sins. "Now, if embracing 'gay pride' were done simply for the slap-in-the-face-to-religion effect, I’d be all for it," he writes in Scientific American . But there are many gay Christians, and even gay atheists don't like that type of pride—so the definition doesn't fit. More»

But we need better surveys for a more accurate number: demographer

(NEWSER) - The true number remains elusive, but one demographer estimates that more than 9 million Americans—roughly the population of New Jersey—are gay, lesbian, or bisexual. Gary Gates averaged the results of five US surveys conducted between 2004 and 2009 to find that 3.5% of Americans identify themselves as gay, lesbian, or bisexual, he says in a report released today. More»

Sexual preference may be revealed even if hidden to your friends

(NEWSER) - Just days after it was revealed that Facebook apps were leaking personal user data , another privacy flap for the social networking site: This time, it appears that Facebook is giving sensitive information—specifically, sexual orientation—to advertisers. Researchers from Microsoft and Germany’s Max Planck Institute recently released a paper revealing that when they created six fake Facebook profiles (each indicating which gender of partner they're "interested in"), the ads shown to the fake gay man were significantly different than the ads shown to the fake straight men. More»

Author had quite a few same-sex romps at prep school, Oxford

(NEWSER) - Vanity Fair columnist Christopher Hitchens is straight—twice-married, in fact—but that didn’t stop him from steamy prep school sex with his male classmates. Below, a sampling of leaked excerpts from his upcoming memoir, courtesy of Gawker and an earlier article in the Times :

• “Most boys decided quite early on that, since their penises would evidently give them no rest at all, they would repay the favor by giving their penises no respite in return.”
• “It was quite possible to arrange a vigorous session of mutual relief without a word being spoken, even without eye contact.”

Nieces, nephews then more likely to keep bloodline going

(NEWSER) - Gay men’s tendency to lavish love and attention on their nieces and nephews could be a key to keeping a “gay gene” alive, a study shows. Looking at male homosexuals in Samoa—where they’re considered their own gender, and therefore fully integrated into family life—scientists saw that children with doting gay uncles were more likely to thrive and have their own kids. That means they pass along, if indirectly, the bloodlines that carried any genetic coding related to their uncles’ homosexuality. More»