On Monday, the UN AIDS agency released a study claiming “HIV infections are increasing among homosexuals” in countries that have laws criminalizing homosexuality (like China, Kenya and Malawi). And while we’re all for exposing how anti-gay laws harm everyone, the UN study didn’t acknowledge that there have also been HIV increases in countries like Thailand which have become more gay-friendly over the last decade. Though well-intentioned, the UN report was incomplete and incorrect, and can lead lazy reporters and bloggers (like us!) to jump to incorrect conclusions, like how criminalizing homosexuality automatically leads to increased HIV rates. While it may play a role in the larger picture, you can’t hop directly from A to B here. It was just one of five recent ghey studies that allowed some ridiculous conclusion jumping.
The UN/AIDS study focused on at-risk groups in anti-gay countries. We get that. And we’re not saying these studies shouldn’t be conducted; they should. But correlation doesn’t equal causation, and journalists should question data and methodology before repeating faulty conclusions about current research. That being said, check out which four other erroneous studies made us twitch in disapproval. Which this website has reported on.
Fifty Percent of Americans Would Accept a Gay President
While we believe that fifty percent of 60 Minutes and Vanity Fair‘s audience would be OK with an openly gay president, we find it impossible to believe that half of all Americans do. (Unless the election were held in Unicorn Dreamland, that is.)
You may be amazed to learn that we’ve probably already had a gay president, and it’s not Obama like some bigots believe. No, it’s 15th president James Buchanan who was “a lifelong bachelor” and very close with his lifelong companion, William Rufus King.
Buchanan may have been able to keep “Aunt Fancy” under the radar back in 1957 but he was most certainly not openly gay when he ran. Call us pessimistic, but an openly gay candidate today wouldn’t make it through the general election; he’d get crushed in the primaries for being too “outside the mainstream” and having low “electability”, especially with such divisive LGBT issues currently in play. Attitudes may be warming about LGBTs in public office, but the idea that half of America would elect a family member as the head of state is preposterous.
America Has 39 States Filled With Men Just Waiting To Top You
Do we even need to point out the overwhelming flaw of a study whose figures come from Manhunt? Nevermind that their “quantitative data set” was surrounded by butt hole pics.
Almost every gay man knows that when a Manhunt guy says he’s a Top, he’s Vers. When he says he’s Vers, he’s a Bottom. And when he says he’s Bottom, he wants to become your pass-around party buttslut. We’re all tops in the bar, but in the bedroom, it’s a hole different story.
Still, we say that the Craigslist poll of the same nature is probably a more accurate representation. Manhunt’s data is like a gay electoral map turning most states either top or bottom, leaving out all the guys who like it both ways or not at all.
Circumcision Reduces HIV-Transmission By 50%
Keeping in mind that 83% of all statistics are bullshit, first there was a study that said that circumcision helps reduce HIV-transmission by 50%. Then, there came the data saying the first study didn’t apply to gay men. So to date, there’s no study to say definitely whether foreskin makes you more or less susceptible to transmitting HIV. But even if there was, it’d have to account for tops, bottoms, and vers men to be accurate, and the results wouldn’t matter half as much as, y’know, actually using a condom.
If a study did come out saying that cut men transmitted HIV less often than uncut men, could you imagine all the dumb guys who’d say, “It’s OK if we don’t use a condom, I’m cut”?
How about we take this to the next level?
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50% of Californians Support Gay Marriage
After the burn of Proposition 8, can you blame us for being wary? While poll respondents might indicate half of them support gay marriage, it’s a very different thing to say half of people who vote support gay marriage, and that’s what a poll like this let’s reporters conclude.
Let’s look at the top and bottom of this two-headed coin.
First, some participants will tell pollsters that they’re pro-gay marriage and then turn around and vote against gay marriage in the polling booth, because they can’t admit their bigotry to another person. (It’s called the Bradley effect, as you’re probably aware.)
Second, and even more problematic, is that we haven’t figured out how to get folks who genuinely support gay marriage to the polls on Election Day. It’s easy to be a pro-gay when some guy standing outside CVS asks you (or you answer the survey online), but why would you leave home to vote for some gay-issue that doesn’t even effect you when there’s so much good television on?
The only good thing this poll reiterates is that celebrating a 50 percent figure is too risky when a) it comes to spreading HIV; and b) thinking we have gay marriage in the bag. Next time, we need to make sure we have the odds slanted well in our favor.
j
Good article queerty 🙂
Qjersey
So our editor who can’t proofread (e.g., spelling and grammar) did pick something up in college.
Alex
Oh, please! Put your oversized-ego-powered-god-damn-journalistic-integrity aside. Anything that could keep innocent people from being arrested/killed is a good thing…
UMB
A well informed and written article on Queerty… this must be an April Fools joke…
B
No. 4 · UMB wrote, “A well informed and written article on Queerty… this must be an April Fools joke…” … you mean the part that said, “Buchanan may have been able to keep “Aunt Fancy” under the radar back in 1957 but he was most certainly not openly gay when he ran.”
QUEERTY was off by 100 years (Buchanan started his term in 1857, but of course the presidential campaign was in 1856). I’d imagine it was a typo (the ‘9’ being next to the ‘8’ on a keyboard) but there is obviously a proof-reading problem.
Brandon
“But correlation doesn’t equal causation”
Indeed. Correlation does NOT equal causation. Now if only people would retain that knowledge when they are tempted to claim that condomless sex or BB porn are responsible for HIV.
If a study did come out saying that cut men transmitted HIV less often than uncut men, could you imagine all the dumb guys who’d say, “It’s OK if we don’t use a condom, I’m cut”?
“OK” is relative. Like it or not, those “dumb” guys would actually be acting on the same principle of “negotiated risk”, as that individuals relying a a condom while having sex with someone that has HIV to transmit. There IS that that third option of not taking the risk at all, which most people refuse….so think before you attempt to judge.
B
What the AP article that QUEERTY linked to ( http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hUkW5ADocOfpj9wOTCUJgpmZBD4wD9EFGT6O0 ) stated is, “New HIV infections are increasing among homosexuals, drug users and prostitutes who don’t seek help because of laws that criminalize these practices, the head of the U.N. AIDS agency said Monday.”
Note the phrase, “who don’t seek help”. Michel Sidibe is saying that laws criminalizing various practices are preventing people from getting medical help, presumably including diagnostic tests, because they don’t want to get caught. It doesn’t state that this is the only factor that can make things worse.
Sammy
So…blame a factually accurate report for lazy bloggers/reporting? The report isn’t the issue…people making the leap from A to B are the issue.
Tessie Tura
Anyone who’s ever fooled around in Atlanta would know that Georgia would NOT be among the blue.
Mike
Ummm … Queerty, you don’t exactly have a 100% track record in accuracy with regard to your reporting. I think I’ll leave the analysis of academic study to academics, thanks.
hephaestion
Why doesn’t Queerty proofread its postings? And why does Queerty even fail to correct its errors (e.g., 1957 instead of 1857) when the errors have been pointed out? It’s quite embarrassing for Gaydom’s Premier Website to be riddled with typos and errors.
Ohpba
“in countries that have laws criminalizing homosexuality (like China, Kenya and Malawi)”
Homosexuality is not criminalized in China since 1997.
Lamar
Queertys right those who support gay marriage know that it won’t directly affect them so they don’t really bother to vote but those on the other side think it will directly affect them and that children will suffer so they do go out and vote. The re should be some way to make voting easier or we will be beaten again by those who want to stop our ‘agenda’.
Steve
@hephaestion:
Like you, I tend to notice errors in many publications. But, I also have an appreciation for the difficulty of proof-reading. One of the hardest things to do is to proof-read your own stuff. If you have ever proof-read your own post ten times before pushing the “submit” button, only to notice an obvious error immediately afterward, you know exactly what I mean.
Most dead-tree newspapers and all academic journals have multiple levels of proof-reading, so that every sentence is proof-read by several different people whose only job is to find errors before being published. And, even with multiple dedicated proof readers, some errors do get published. A web site with a small staff, short deadlines and no dedicated proof-readers cannot hope to catch every error before publication.
I expect the quality level will work itself out over time. One of the things that will distinguish the “better” companies in the market will be a reduced frequency of errors. I doubt any rapid-cycle publication will ever have a zero error rate.