Well here’s some cheery midweek news to get you over the hump.
According to a new Gallup poll measuring the well-being of Americans, Americans who identified as LGBT had an average Well-Being Index score of 58, compared with 62 for non-LGBT people.
So in the classroom of life, straight people earned a D and we, well, failed apparently.
And the study’s findings don’t get any better.
“35 percent of LGBT adults are thriving socially, compared with 41 percent of non-LGBT adults, while LGBT Americans are also 10 percentage points less likely to be thriving financially than their non-LGBT counterparts.”
So not only are most of us low on the “Well-Being Index” (which sounds suspiciously Orwellian), the majority of us, gay or straight, aren’t “thriving socially.”
Now excuse me while I go break the news to the only two friends I have left who listen — Ben and Jerry.
Oh shit, $5.99 for a pint? I can’t afford that.
h/t HuffPost
vive
Well, 58% is the same as 62% in this kind of squishy-feely poll statistics, so the claim is that there is really no difference between gay and straight well-being.
E T
@vive: Not necessarily true, that’s just Queerty’s anti-feminist reporting. If you go to the study, you’ll find significant differences between straight men and LGBT women. Gay men and straight women moderate the statistics a little. That’s a pretty glaring detail missing from this article, unfortunately.
E T
Scratch that. The starkest differences are between straight women and LGBT women. I read it like a week ago, should have checked it again before posting. My bad. Guess it’s good I’m not writing articles.
It’s particularly physical and financial well-being, where LGBT women rank 12% lower than non-LGBT women.
sage18
It’s not hard to understand this really. Pay attention to various gay driven sites, clubs, bars, communities, etc. There’s a huge emphasis on sex even more-so than hetrosexual communities. We put porn, success, promiscuity, vanity, shallowness on the forefront. Sounds harsh but we do…
Take a look at Queerty or Xtra! for example, so much attention on hookup apps, porn and shirtless or nude male celebrities. What does that say? go hookup, go sex crazy, praise pornstars, feel ashamed if you don’t have a body like the ones seen in these photos, be a pervert and look at men like physical objects. It’s so stereotypical yet encouraged.
Heck I feel even ashamed that I can’t keep up with all of this. Anything gay mainstream promotes this unrealistic hyper-sexual sleaze ball attitude that put’s you in a place that’s so pathetically stupid.
And to think more and more gay youth are coming out and being exposed to these encouragements…
You write half the crap said about shirtless or naked men that is seen on here and you’d get tackled down by people who say it’s tacky, unacceptable, exploitative and perverted. You do it on a gay site to men and you’re praised… crazy in my opinion.
Let’s hope better role models are visible in the upcoming years…
Black Pegasus
@sage18: Great observation! Well said!
DickieJohnson
@Dan Tracer, you left out the percentages concerning *bitchy/whiney* and *jealous/judgemental*, not to mention the *snarky/mean ole c?nt* categories.
boring
Really, knowing that everyone is just as depressed as I am is the only reason I don’t kill myself.
tdx3fan
My future husband (planning a wedding for next year) is a full time attorney and linked to a muli-million dollar trust. I’m a full time grad student, have a part time job (for fun) and am involved with multiple clubs and organizations. Apparently, we don’t meet the trends of the poll.
tdx3fan
@E T: This is easily explained by the fact that LGBT women face a major glass ceiling that is even more insane than that of their hetero counterparts and their hetero counterparts can link to a hetero male who can easily ignore the ceiling.
tdx3fan
@sage18: If you don’t think straight sites are 1000x worse when it comes to objectifying women instead of men you are delusional.
Saint Law
@sage18: Kudos for the post.
Many, if not most gay people spend their adolescence dealing with homophobia. Then they move out on to the scene and have to cope with the often unrealistic expectations you describe, expectations fueled in part by the media.
That said, the engine driving the quest for physical perfection is probably homophobia too.
Kieran
I wonder what the numbers would reflect if gays and transexuals were polled separately?
I know its not politically correct to say it, but this linking of gays with transexuals (GLBTs) is totally bogus.
Being gay and being transexual are two totally separate things. One deals with a person’s sexual orientation, the other with a person’s gender identity. Why are these two things being continually linked in the mind of the public under the “GLBT” label? Why not just call gay people “gay” and transexual people “transexual”? Otherwise, why not add an H to include hermaphrodites?
Paul Nadolski
@sage18: Well said and I could not agree more!
Of course, I personally am not happy, but that comes from being the only gay guy in a small town and having no social life AT ALL outside of online…and being long-term unemployed…*sigh*
[email protected]
@dx3fan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5U319VzSqEU
o.codone
@tdx3fan: I’m going to assume you’re kidding with this post because I don’t think there’s anyone on earth who would push their excruciating happiness on others at a time when 58% of the rest of us are only happy when we’re eating Ben and Jerry’s. And, you know, I am sure you also have a 28 inch waist, an 8X7 inch penis, you live in the new super-posh needle condos in Manhattan, and your mother is a big movie star, you’re just not comfortable telling anyone which one. If you’re not kidding then see the video above from Kjenkins because the crack of doom is coming soon to you, hastened along by me and 62% of everybody who reads queerty. How could you.
Stache99
@tdx3fan: Well, aren’t we daddies little spoiled princess. Lol
vive
@Sage18, you sound like you just need a good fukc. 🙂