# The Silly Notion That Gays Are More Sensitive To Opera



## Xavier (Jun 7, 2012)

Was anybody else surprised to see Richard Taruskin cite Wayne Koestenbaum in his blurb for the new book _'A History of Opera'_ a few months ago? On the back cover we read this:



> *"Writers on opera tend to fall into two mutually hostile camps: the mind people and the body people, the Kermans and the Koestenbaums. Abbate and Parker are in possession of minds AND bodies, alive to pleasures rational as well as sensual"*


For those who've never heard of him Wayne Koestenbaum is a Professor of English at the City University of New York who wrote _"The Queen's Throat: Opera, Homosexuality, and the Mystery of Desire"_ back in 1993. In it he basically tries to demonstrate that gay audiences are super aesthetes and by nature *'predisposed'* to operatic conventions. Here are a few quotes from the book:



> *1. I hypothesize that opera's hypnotic hold over modern gay audiences has some connection to the erotic interlocking of words and music, two contrary symbolic systems with gendered attributes.
> 
> 2. Opera virtually died with Puccini.
> 
> ...


A few chapter titles:

1. The Queen's Throat: Or, How To Sing'

2. The Callas Cult' (20 pages detailing why Callas is a 'gay opera icon')

3. 'Queer Moments in Opera' that analyzes 28 opera highlights from a gay perspective.

Here are my questions:

Why on earth would Richard Taruskin, an eminent musicologist and historian, associate himself with someone who not only makes a wildly idiosyncratic attempt to establish opera as a paradigm of homosexuality but who also has such a limited view of the art form?

Never mind the fact that nowhere does he make clear exactly what if anything differentiates gay and straight audiences' respective responses to opera, I found his prose so off-the-wall I had to put it down and pick it up several times. And the pompous stabs at socio-musico-psycho-historico pontificating is something I have no patience for.

Also, how can anyone highly praise a book that is concerned almost exclusively with the soprano voice and the romantic Italian repertory?! This is NOT what opera is about and if Mr. Koestenbaum had better taste he would have devoted at least one chapter to more sophisticated composers like Debussy, Strauss, Pfitzner, Busoni et al

Yes folks, I am aware that opera study is a huge, huge endeavor that takes place on many, many levels and that Koestenbaum's book should be seen as just one small drop in the vast operatic ocean.... but still.

His whole approach just seems so narrowly focused, sentimental, opportunistic and silly.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

1993 sort of says it all, such subjects were rampant within trendy academia, ripe for a good likelihood of helping an academic secure their post or keep it secure (publish or perish.) 

It was about the same time one academic feminist came out with a dictionary of revised terms, "Personhole cover" for "Manhole cover," and hundreds of other inanities.

Maybe your critic is riding the gay vogue wave -- still not really accepted by most of American Society, a bit more in Europe but winked at, but now, nonetheless, it seems, terribly in fashion....

At any rate, it is time for another such paper, this one about all the male heterosexual opera audience who may dis and critique the performances and productions just as much as the most flamboyant homosexual, but having the underlying reason of their allegiance the desire to have a (beautiful) woman sing to them -- Ziggy would say they're all in need of their Mamas, and have spent a hell of a lot to sit in those seats to unconsciously once again have mama sing to them


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## katdad (Jan 1, 2009)

Thanks for bringing this idiotic book to our attention. We need a good laugh now and then.

What a loon! To even speculate about whether gays or straights like opera is, well, stupid. Frankly, were I to judge audiences and participants based on my personal experience, I've actually found that the distribution of gays in the audience or as singers is a bit below the average. In my opera time, I've only known two gay singers. And our opera company only had 1 gay board member out of a dozen. And of course, in all cases, nobody gave a damn.

And before I have to make the time-honored statement "Some of my best friends are gays" a little intro... When I was just a teen I got introduced to jazz and "beatnik" coffee houses and spent lots of time hanging around with a guy who was a tenor in our church choir who happened to be gay. I was reared by pretty sharp parents for depression-era folks, who had a very progressive grasp on society. And as a result, my friendship with Royce was never questioned. And Royce was not a "chickenhawk", he was not interested in younger men, and had a life companion anyway. But the story... for someone growing up in the late 50s I was deeply involved in the music, art, and performance arts world, and as a result met many gays. Thankfully, my folks didn't raise me to be prejudiced and so I saw gays as just other people, nothing more or less.

I'm probably one of the most hetero guys you could ever meet and have always felt "secure" in myself. Therefore I also never felt it necessary to be "suspicious" or "watchful" around gays. Some were jerks, most were not. I related to them as individuals. Gays are just like anybody else --- most are totally "inert" when it comes to opera or classical music, liking pop music (although usually a different "flavor" of pop from straight folks). But in either case, gays in my experience are neither more or less "artistic" than straights. It's an individual thing.

Anyway, as I stayed in touch with the arts (even though my education was in hard sciences -- chemistry and math -- and I made my living mostly in hard-core research) I sang in chorales and later, opera, also hung around with some ballet folks (dated a few "black swans" in my time, heh heh) and other artists, gays were just part of the fabric of the arts community. But they were neither "better" nor "worse" than hetero folks.

To assign "gayness" to opera is, well, idiotic. Hell, most opera composers have been pretty virile men and to a great degree, womanizers. Do I have to mention Mozart, Puccini, Verdi? Ha! Even in modern opera we've got a mix of personalities, Philip Glass for example straight, Benjamin Britten gay. So what?

But you can easily see the goofiness of that book anyway, with his "fixation" on the hole in an LP? Duh. And to proclaim that opera died with Puccini? Gimme a break.


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## katdad (Jan 1, 2009)

Re. Callas, I've never liked her much. I think her voice had too much tremolo (too "wobbly") and that she garnered much of her support from being a glamorous personality in the jet-set groupies. I've got no idea whether she was "over-admired" by gays, such as with Judy Garland. But I do think that her fame was not as deserving as her voice tells me it should have been.


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## deggial (Jan 20, 2013)

_1. I hypothesize that opera's hypnotic hold over modern gay audiences has some connection to the erotic interlocking of words and music, two contrary symbolic systems with gendered attributes._

because there is no interlocking of words and music in pop music, for instance...?

_2. Opera virtually died with Puccini._

he nearly killed it, I agree, but luckily later composers revived it.

_4. On the erotic implications of the spindle hole in operatic recordings: "It has always spoken to me of the emptiness at the center of a listener's life and the ambiguities in any sexual body, including a homosexual body, concerning the proper and improper function of orifices."_

the only way an orifice is used improperly is if you don't know what to do with it. But the spindle hole? obviously _only_ operatic recordings have spindle holes...

where do you always find these lame-o articles? makes me want to have stayed in academia - I could've popped articles on this level out of my armpits.


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## Hesoos (Jun 9, 2012)

It seems stupid...but why in the films and in tv opera and gays are usually linked?
Is it really that gays like opera more than heteros? 
About the book, perhaps this book is only for gays, if you are not gay you don't like it. Maybe the book is a good one if you are gay?


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Just accept the premise that opera 'likers' are weird. Then, pretty much anything goes. Not just gays, serial killers can probably be shown to have a predilection for opera (even if they 'didn't follow that urge'). Manipulate the data, maybe 'create' some, and you could be on a best seller list.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Hilltroll72 said:


> Just accept the premise that opera 'likers' are weird. Then, pretty much anything goes. Not just gays, serial killers can probably be shown to have a predilection for opera (even if they 'didn't follow that urge'). Manipulate the data, maybe 'create' some, and you could be on a best seller list.


Hannibal Lecter liked the Bach Goldberg variations -- just another Bach nutter


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

To quote Rhett Butler (I think) :"Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn".


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

Hilltroll72 said:


> Just accept the premise that opera 'likers' are weird. Then, pretty much anything goes. Not just gays, serial killers can probably be shown to have a predilection for opera (even if they 'didn't follow that urge'). Manipulate the data, maybe 'create' some, and you could be on a best seller list.


Audacity,just wait 'til Mamma Scarlatti reads this ,you're banned for five years !!


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## deggial (Jan 20, 2013)

Hesoos said:


> It seems stupid...but why in the films and in tv opera and gays are usually linked?
> Is it really that gays like opera more than heteros?
> About the book, perhaps this book is only for gays, if you are not gay you don't like it. Maybe the book is a good one if you are gay?


stereotypically speaking, flamboyant gay men -> drama queens <- larger than life operatic sopranos (on whom the book apparently focuses, as if they are the end and be all of opera). It's a very superficial commentary in regards to the nature of opera. A much more interesting thing to explore would have been its gender bending aspects.


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## Cavaradossi (Aug 2, 2012)

I think K-baum represents a generation where the alternatives for gay men were either flamboyance or conformance and invisibility. For decades the diva worshipers were perhaps the most visible gay subpopulation, and that's probably the source for the stereotype and his presumption to speak for all gay men. While I certainly recognize and appreciate the vital trails such brave souls blazed, it's almost as if their relevance as spokespersons has been a victim of their own success in the quest for acceptance. While I may be an opera lover, I assure you that's probably the only stereotype I conform too. 

The whole diva worship thing is pretty straightforward (no pun intended) too, not the esoteric/erotic thing he makes it out to be. Simply put, an opera star (Callas), opera heroine (Traviata, Manon, Butterfly..etc, etc), or pop star (Madonna, Cher...) who flies in the face of social convention, for better or worse, would be a natural icon for certain gay men living their lives the same way on a daily basis.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

deggial said:


> _2. Opera virtually died with Puccini._
> 
> he nearly killed it, I agree, but luckily later composers revived it.


If we ever meet, I owe you at least a cup of coffee for this one 



deggial said:


> the only way an orifice is used improperly is if you don't know what to do with it. But the spindle hole? obviously _only_ operatic recordings have spindle holes...


This reminds me of the saying, "The only unnatural act two people can perform is one which cannot be performed."


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## Glissando (Nov 25, 2011)

There are more gay people involved with the arts than there are involved with other realms of public life, such as sports and politics. And from personal experience, there are probably more gay people involved with or interested in opera than there are involved with or interested in other arts like rock music and painting. So yes, in any group of opera lovers, a significantly higher percentage will be gay than one would be proportionate to the general population. 

However, the misconception that all male opera fans are gay is one that, in my opinion, springs from the decay of cultural standards in the United States. No one could possibly jump to such a conclusion in Italy or Germany, where the tradition of opera runs strong through hundreds of years, and where there are opera houses everywhere you turn. However, in America people don't care as much about things like the arts and classical music, hence there tends to be a lot of misconceptions about these things. Even fifty or sixty years ago, it would have been normal for nuclear families in middle-class American households to have opera recordings in the living room, next to encyclopedias and issues of Time magazine. Today that is not the case, as we lose our sense of history and intellectual standards, and so things that are marginalized in popular culture, like opera, become associated with other marginalized groups, like gay people.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Glissando said:


> There are more gay people involved with the arts than there are involved with other realms of public life, such as sports and politics. And from personal experience, there are probably more gay people involved with or interested in opera than there are involved with or interested in other arts like rock music and painting.


Fundamentally flawed, I'm afraid... the non-arts professions are generally more conservative and expect more conservative conforming from those in them. Other workers in those professions are less inclined to be so accepting of otherness in general, too. ERGO: don't ask and don't tell, so to speak, leaves us with no honest or accurate answers as to how many footballers, bankers, etc. are gay but keep very quiet about it.

Demographic research on gays finds the usual spread of percents in different socioeconomic areas, political persuasions, etc. which pretty much parallel the balance of the population. No reason to think consuming fine art has an oddly higher gay consumer base.

Besides, I thought it was a British thing


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## deggial (Jan 20, 2013)

PetrB said:


> If we ever meet, I owe you at least a cup of coffee for this one
> 
> This reminds me of the saying, "The only unnatural act two people can perform is one which cannot be performed."


cheers for the coffee :tiphat:

I agree with you, I went to art schools and worked in entertainment in my 20s and the proportion of gay/straight seemed similar to the one in the general population.


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## tyroneslothrop (Sep 5, 2012)

PetrB said:


> Demographic research on gays finds the usual spread of percents in different socioeconomic areas, political persuasions, etc. which pretty much parallel the balance of the population. No reason to think consuming fine art has an oddly higher gay consumer base.


I beg to differ with the demographers here. Many years ago, at a very famous fashion design school that I shall leave unnamed, I was working on my undergraduate degree in fashion design (women's wear). There were only a few (actually, only *3*) straight males in my class and only slightly more women. Years later, I dated a musical theater actress in NYC and she pointed out that the only profession in the city where it was harder for a woman to get a opp-sex date than musical theater was dance.


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## Xavier (Jun 7, 2012)

Here is the original review (1993) of the book from The New York Times:



> *High-spirited.... Brilliant.... A dazzling performance. There can be no question that "The Queen's Throat" is the richest and most expansive discourse yet published on the relationships between gay culture and opera.*


Obviously there are many things I am not getting at all....


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

tyroneslothrop said:


> I beg to differ with the demographers here. Many years ago, at a very famous fashion design school that I shall leave unnamed, I was working on my undergraduate degree in fashion design (women's wear). There were only a few (actually, only *3*) straight males in my class and only slightly more women. Years later, I dated a musical theater actress in NYC and she pointed out that the only profession in the city where it was harder for a woman to get a opp-sex date than musical theater was dance.


Hah. You have managed to select several of the 'traditionally _nancy_' occupations. If you had gone for, say, the forest trades, the percentages are (I'm guessing) slanted the other way. The demographers may have found that Michigan's Upper Peninsula and San Francisco balance each other out.


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## Glissando (Nov 25, 2011)

If we want to discount the studies that have been done, let's just go purely on anecdotal evidence. It is obvious to anyone who has gone around and done a few things in life that there are fewer gay men involved in certain pursuits (professional sports; Dungeons and Dragons; IT; professional gambling) than in others (Broadway musicals; clothing and hair design; and yes, opera and the other fine arts). 

'Tis not I who am making this observation for the first time. Also, of course by no means am I saying that this trend is absolute. The nonsense comes in when the popular misconception is that a male must be gay if he is interested in opera. That is just your garden variety stupid popular misconception, on the level of the prejudices and stereotypes that fill our popular culture. In vain would one argue that the majority of opera composers and male singers would not seem to have been gay - it's like shouting at a wall, because people don't know and don't care to know, by and large.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Hilltroll72 said:


> Hah. You have managed to select several of the 'traditionally _nancy_' occupations. If you had gone for, say, the forest trades, the percentages are (I'm guessing) slanted the other way. The demographers may have found that Michigan's Upper Peninsula and San Francisco balance each other out.


Anglo American based cultures have a rather cartoonish attitude about what is male and masculine, ergo a more than negatvie disposition as to males going into many of the arts.

Because of this, family, peer pressure, and societal attitudes in general actively discourage many a hetero male, very early on, from becoming a dancer, classical singer, fashion designer, etc. Sometimes the stigma is so great that even those males who did want to pursue those careers but did not will not even mention it had been their youthful dream / ambition.

You will find, in those "Nancy" fields, on the European continent, a higher percentage of hetero males in those professions than compared to the percentages in the States, probably Britain as well. It is not the trades themselves, but cultural attitudes about men who take those trades as profession.

At any rate, homo or hetero, your score to the next Rite of Spring in hand, that and the fare gets you on the bus.


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## tyroneslothrop (Sep 5, 2012)

Glissando said:


> If we want to discount the studies that have been done, let's just go purely on anecdotal evidence. It is obvious to anyone who has gone around and done a few things in life that there are fewer gay men involved in certain pursuits (professional sports; Dungeons and Dragons; IT; professional gambling) than in others (Broadway musicals; clothing and hair design; and yes, opera and the other fine arts).


I completely agree. I don't know where those demographers doing these absurd studies showing the contrary live. Obviously not in the Western world!



Glissando said:


> 'Tis not I who am making this observation for the first time. Also, of course by no means am I saying that this trend is absolute. The nonsense comes in when the popular misconception is that a male must be gay if he is interested in opera. That is just your garden variety stupid popular misconception, on the level of the prejudices and stereotypes that fill our popular culture. In vain would one argue that the majority of opera composers and male singers would not seem to have been gay - it's like shouting at a wall, because people don't know and don't care to know, by and large.


Unfortunately, these ideas are also widely believed in the gay community. The second part of my earlier story about my time as a fashion design student is more of a cautionary tale about these biases. With the wild optimism that comes with youth, I had dreams of graduating and going to Paris to work in _Haute Couture_. As I said, there were only a few of us straight males in my class and only slightly more women, and to our knowledge, no gay women at all. I can say that the male professors (who were all gay) treated us--the 3 straight males--with the utmost disdain and condescension. One of my straight classmates ended up adopting protective coloration. That is, he "became" gay, at least at school. I eventually couldn't handle the discrimination and the fact that we were given fewer opportunities than our gay classmates and finally dropped out of that school and changed majors, giving up my Parisian dreams. I still think fondly of those days when I read _Women's Wear Daily_ every morning before school though and would pore through each season's catwalk magazines and color/swatch boxes.

On a similar note as my classmate who "became gay", my late wife had a hair stylist who she knew was straight, yet because it helped his business to be gay, he would be pretty "glamboyant".


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## katdad (Jan 1, 2009)

tyroneslothrop said:


> Years later, I dated a musical theater actress in NYC and she pointed out that the only profession in the city where it was harder for a woman to get a opp-sex date than musical theater was dance.


Mostly true, it seems. My former wife was in the Corps of SanFrancisco Ballet, earlier she studied under Eric Bruhn at Natl Ballet of Canada, and she had lots of funny stories about the female dancers (most of whom were hetero, and very very healthy young women!) going nuts whenever the rare straight male dancer showed up on the company doorsteps, the girls practically lining up and taking numbers. Most of the time he was a bit older and happily married to yet another dancer, however. Damn it!

She told me conversations at the barre were like: (position two) "Have you seen the new principal Gregg?" (position three) "No. Tell me about him" (position two) "He's not gay!" (stumbling...) "OMG! Where is he?"


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## katdad (Jan 1, 2009)

It's however my personal experience that the percentage of gays involved with opera performance or production is approximately the same as gays in the general population. That is, no special concentration of gays in opera. I don't know whether this is attributable to any particular circumstance but that's how it's seemed to me. I don't have any stats or theories to this either.

However, other performing or visual arts, yes, such as dance, theater, musicals, costume design, there seems to be more gays than average, performing "athletic" arts such as dance especially.

I wouldn't nevertheless place this "blame" on US or British mores or culture. It's been my experience that the arts (and I would include plenty of things in that big tent) are pretty much the same anywhere, Europe, Asia, the US, etc. This isn't the 50s after all. We can't "gang up" on the US as the world bully and attribute all ills to this. It soon becomes tired and overwrought, like blaming every rainstorm on global warming.


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## tyroneslothrop (Sep 5, 2012)

katdad said:


> I wouldn't nevertheless place this "blame" on US or British mores or culture. It's been my experience that the arts (and I would include plenty of things in that big tent) are pretty much the same anywhere, Europe, Asia, the US, etc. This isn't the 50s after all. We can't "gang up" on the US as the world bully and attribute all ills to this. It soon becomes tired and overwrought, like blaming every rainstorm on global warming.


I don't think "blame" is the right world, but there are some countries where it is different. For example, I spend quite a bit of time in Russia since we have an apartment there, and definitely the percentage of straight males in ballet is much higher than in the U.S.


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## guythegreg (Jun 15, 2012)

tyroneslothrop said:


> I completely agree. I don't know where those demographers doing these absurd studies showing the contrary live. Obviously not in the Western world!
> 
> Unfortunately, these ideas are also widely believed in the gay community. The second part of my earlier story about my time as a fashion design student is more of a cautionary tale about these biases. With the wild optimism that comes with youth, I had dreams of graduating and going to Paris to work in _Haute Couture_. As I said, there were only a few of us straight males in my class and only slightly more women, and to our knowledge, no gay women at all. I can say that the male professors (who were all gay) treated us--the 3 straight males--with the utmost disdain and condescension. One of my straight classmates ended up adopting protective coloration. That is, he "became" gay, at least at school. I eventually couldn't handle the discrimination and the fact that we were given fewer opportunities than our gay classmates and finally dropped out of that school and changed majors, giving up my Parisian dreams. I still think fondly of those days when I read _Women's Wear Daily_ every morning before school though and would pore through each season's catwalk magazines and color/swatch boxes.
> 
> On a similar note as my classmate who "became gay", my late wife had a hair stylist who she knew was straight, yet because it helped his business to be gay, he would be pretty "glamboyant".


That's FUNNY! I never heard anything like that!


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## katdad (Jan 1, 2009)

tyroneslothrop said:


> I don't think "blame" is the right world, but there are some countries where it is different. For example, I spend quite a bit of time in Russia since we have an apartment there, and definitely the percentage of straight males in ballet is much higher than in the U.S.


This is interesting, something I really don't know much about, as I only have anecdotal info about dance and personal observations about other aspects of gays in the arts.

I've had several straight male dance pals, and they were soooo glad the 20th century came along and let men dance as men. Sad to say, maleness in dance has been "in the closet" for ages. In classical ballet, the male onstage has 2 purposes: 1- to buoy up the female during lifts and catches, and 2- when not otherwise engaged, to "dance like a girl". That is, to use female-style arm and leg postures, nothing displaying male strength and male athletic grace (quite different from female athletic grace). Influence from strong male dance figures like Baryshnikov [sp?] and others, plus input from more "balanced" choreographers like Bob Fosse have changed things.

Anyway, it's my personal opinion (with no stats or proven data to show this as true) that in opera, the percent of gays is about the same as there are in the general population -- about 2% to 3%.

And no, I don't think people can be "programmed" to be gay or straight or whatever. I think it's genetic or at least it seems to be. Artists or musicians or engineers or plumbers, gay people have repeatedly said that they "always knew they were different" even as kids, regardless of how they were raised or by whom. And the percentage of "genuinely gay" people seems to be pretty constant throughout the world population and throughout history (as much as can be gleaned from studying this, as "gayness" has often been shunned or punished).

Bottom line, I don't think being gay or straight has anything at all to do with artistic (or other) creativity. I've met some totally clueless stupid gays, same as I've met clueless straight people.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

katdad said:


> [...]
> Anyway, it's my personal opinion (with no stats or proven data to show this as true) that in opera, the percent of gays is about the same as there are in the general population -- about 2% to 3%.
> [...]


Your % estimate is probably _way_ low, unless you are referring to people _openly_ gay.


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## katdad (Jan 1, 2009)

Hilltroll72 said:


> Your % estimate is probably _way_ low, unless you are referring to people _openly_ gay.


(I said the gay population is about 2-3 percent) Well, that's what I've read from clinical research. I know there's a politically correct percentage that's higher but it's not backed up by scientific studies. Some gay-progress groups "say" the number is higher but they're simply padding the issue for political gain.

Being gay is totally okay as I see it, but it's also a no-win scenario, as committed gays don't have children. Sure, adoption, but if gayness is genetic, the trait isn't passed on and so it's a genetically recessive trait, like sickle cell or tay-sachs or any other genetic anomaly. This is NOT to discredit gay people, but only a purely scientific evaluation.

Some people think that "gayness" is learned socially, but I disagree. And to think it's a socially "acquired" behavior is a bit dangerous, leading rabid gay-haters to think that gays can be "de-programmed" into being straight. Which isn't the case -- gay people are born gay and although many live "straight" lives due to social pressure, to try to force people into politically correct molds is wrong, as I see it. The famed mystery novelist Robert Parker ("Spenser" creator) was a genuine "he-man", virile and masculine and truly that. Yet both his biological sons are gay. Thankfully Parker and his wife never tried to "fix" their sons and accepted them always. But if social surroundings were in any way a force to teach people how to behave "straight", the Parker sons certainly had all the conventional role-images of masculine father and supportive mother. Yet they are gay. I'm fairly certain that gayness is genetic and I'm also pretty sure that the genuine percentage is about 2-3 percent, across all ethnic or social genres. However, a "low" figure of 2-3 percent rather than higher is NOT an excuse to deny any gay rights whatsoever. Freedoms and rights cannot be apportioned like lotto tickets.

Addendum: Reviewing some newer research online, it appears that the percentage of homosexuality (a clinical term, not meant as derogatory) is about 5%, higher than the number I originally used of 2-3%. The 5% is probably more accurate.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

katdad said:


> [...]
> Addendum: Reviewing some newer research online, it appears that the percentage of homosexuality (a clinical term, not meant as derogatory) is about 5%, higher than the number I originally used of 2-3%. The 5% is probably more accurate.


Unless your 'newer research' goes into the closet, it is still guesswork. Unless the research quantifies degree-of-gayness, it masks reality by creating 'boxes'.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Xavier said:


> Here is the original review (1993) of the book from The New York Times:
> *High-spirited.... Brilliant.... A dazzling performance. There can be no question that "The Queen's Throat" is the richest and most expansive discourse yet published on the relationships between gay culture and opera.
> *
> Obviously there are many things I am not getting at all....


I still am amused people within the gay "community" and outside of it have bought, hook, line and sinker, "Gay Culture" and that there is such a thing -- "Gay Culture," like "Youth Culture" both sound like something one would grow in a Petri dish.


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## deggial (Jan 20, 2013)

they both sound manufactured specifically to sell something to suggestible people.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

deggial said:


> they both sound manufactured specifically to sell something to suggestible people.


Bingo.

I think just about any collective minority, (and / or persecuted minority) can be led by a collective ring in their nose to come to believe they are special, apart, etc. and then that group starts to become as exclusive as the majority who shut them out. They also become an active and predictable demographic group to which to specifically market "Stuff."


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## katdad (Jan 1, 2009)

Hilltroll72 said:


> Unless your 'newer research' goes into the closet, it is still guesswork. Unless the research quantifies degree-of-gayness, it masks reality by creating 'boxes'.


You seem to adhere to the "sliding scale" of sexuality, from totally heterosexual to totally homosexual, where everyone is somewhere on the curve. I don't. I think people are either hetero or not. And closet notwithstanding, research is done that includes closeted people who've been carefully protected from exposure. And the numbers show about 5 percent regardless of the study, where it's taken, whom it covers, whatever. My original 2-3% was based on only one study I happened to have saved, but delving into other studies brought the figure up to about 5%.

Incidentally, that 5% coincides pretty well with the incidence of homosexuality in other animals (primates, etc) and that number probably indicates a recessive single gene, as in most cases, the 5% value is indicative of most every other recessive genetic trait that's dependent on a single gene that's also located about midway along the chromosome. I kinda know this stuff, having my ** in chemistry w. biochem and genetics as a focus, and also having done some MS-level research into a particular recessive trait in white mice. In other words, there's a pretty good correspondence mathematically that tends to put almost all single-gene specifics into the 5% range, most especially recessive ones. I got away from biochem research myself before the big gene-mapping research, but I still worked in the scientific community and maintained close contact with friends and colleagues.

The 5% value has NO social or prejudiced or any other application except pure genetic code and the statistical mapping of traits. Nearly all single-gene recessive traits fall statistically from 2% to 8%, with 5% of course in the middle of the bell curve, depending on where that particular gene is mapped along the chromosome.

And again, percentage of homosexuality should have NOTHING to do with its acceptance and equality in our society. It shouldn't matter if it were 1% or 20% -- homosexuals must have total equality regardless. But some may have the mistaken idea (and no, I don't think you feel this way) that homosexuality is more "valid" if the percent is higher, but it's a false concept, assigning quotas as it were. Each individual, no matter how much in the minority, deserves equality.

Anyway, that's just my opinion and although it's backed up in part by what I know to be statistical foundations of scientific genetic behavior, it's still just my opinion, no more, no less.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

katdad said:


> I think people are either hetero or not.


Unlikely. There is a substantial contingent of "bi's." In addition, the incidence of homosexuality seems clearly related to the tolerance for that in any given society. To SOME extent sexual preference is a matter of will, not nature.


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## katdad (Jan 1, 2009)

Well, I agree that when you're considering humans, you're not dealing with robots or purely instinct-driven creatures, but individuals with free will and choice and cultural influences, too.

I think that genuine bisexuality is pretty rare. Mostly it's a case of just tiptoeing into the shallow water and seeing if it's too cold or hot. But I do agree that bisexuals do exist -- I've known two females and one male whom I would consider "bi".

And naturally, culture and human choice and free will have an effect, surely. Perhaps the genetic situation is a predisposition and it's something that may or may not be acted upon. I still however think that homosexuality vs heterosexuality is genetically determined and that someone who's homosexual cannot be "deprogrammed" or "shamed" or persuaded otherwise.


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## Pantheon (Jun 9, 2013)

In the end, I urge you to question, does it matter how and why ?
Do we have to categorise people in terms of which gender they like? I suggest we leave people alone and let them deal with their love life as they please. It may not be natural to some, but it's not for external people to judge. It is between two people and two people alone. 
To come back to opera, I believe that a factor that contributes to this general, stupid opinion that homosexuals are more sensitive to opera than heterosexuals is the costumes and _mise en scène_. 
I happen to know a counter tenor very well who has often taken the role of a female character in several operas. People often speculated that he was gay, and yet he is not at all. People tend to to associate effeminate to homosexual men and therefore opera to homosexuals as opera often involves extravagant costumes, virtuoso tenors and arias about love.

Perhaps I am being too superficial, but that is the impression I get when I hear acquaintances talking about my fellow counter tenor friend or about opera in general. 
In any case this general, public opinion is completely false.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

KenOC said:


> Unlikely. There is a substantial contingent of "bi's." In addition, the incidence of homosexuality seems clearly related to the tolerance for that in any given society. To SOME extent sexual preference is a matter of will, not nature.


as in what will be allowed. Stops some people from acting on their native impulses, if the taboo or disdain are generally strong enough. I think where it is accepted, even tolerated, the only higher number you see is because more are unafraid to let others know they are themselves.

Q: Which is worse, being black or being homosexual?
A: Homosexual. When you're black, you don't have to tell your parents.

...something like that....


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## katdad (Jan 1, 2009)

Pantheon said:


> In the end, I urge you to question, does it matter how and why ?
> Perhaps I am being too superficial, but that is the impression I get when I hear acquaintances talking about my fellow counter tenor friend or about opera in general.
> In any case this general, public opinion is completely false.


I agree totally. I however have never picked up on any "general" public perception that opera is more prevalent with gays. Ballet, yes, but not opera. Those who decry opera seem to mostly criticize its "diva" adoration and silliness of the story line, but that doesn't seem to be slanted re. homosexuality, just to "fakery" -- and of course, we all know that's bunk, too.

Sure, nobody in real life goes out and sings an aria about how they feel or whether he or she will kill someone. But in real life, nobody also drives cars 130mph across bridge openings and shoots bad guys with guns blazing in both hands, all the while turning somersaults. But people will flock to see an action-thriller movie that's just as fake as an opera production, and think nothing of it.

A small disclosure here... I've been a very big fan of recreational firearm shooting most of my life. And I'm pretty proficient in shooting (at targets, of course) just for fun. And I get so irritated at "gun goofs" in movies or TV that I sometimes get frustrated at Hollywood's totally wrong techniques. But at the same time, I eagerly accept that, in Masked Ball, the popular and well-known King is totally unrecognized and thought to be a wizened seaman till he takes his hat off! So go figure!

But regarding straight or not, you're correct. Who the hell cares?


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## deggial (Jan 20, 2013)

katdad said:


> Sure, nobody in real life goes out and sings an aria about how they feel or whether he or she will kill someone.


hey, speak for yourself! if I'm in a particularly jolly mood I make up tunes to accompany something I'm doing and several times people have asked me what song I was singing :lol:

I wonder though why they don't teach them to hold guns properly in films, especially when the character is a cop or such.

my fave silly scene in Ballo is when they break into cabaret stylee singing/dancing to express how entertaining it is to consult the fortuneteller!


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## tyroneslothrop (Sep 5, 2012)

katdad said:


> You seem to adhere to the "sliding scale" of sexuality, from totally heterosexual to totally homosexual, where everyone is somewhere on the curve. I don't. I think people are either hetero or not.


In order for you to believe this, you yourself must be 100% one or 100% the other. Many of us may differ with you on this opinion because they are not. Your two position switch theory would mean that those who do feel in the middle are in reality in only one position and therefore only deluding themselves that they can be set in the other position under certain conditions. That is really as unfair as believing that everyone is heterosexual by nature and being gay is a learned behavior.


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## katdad (Jan 1, 2009)

Not a question of deluding themselves, but that some people feel interested in playing around. This I equate to experimenting with drugs vs being an addict (not that homosexuality or heterosexuality is in any way a negative thing nor an addiction) -- just an analogy. Some folks like to experiment, some do not. But they are, as I think (my opinion only) not partway in any permanent sense.

There's no "unfairness" to it, either. I'm NOT associating any negative connotations to "gayness" nor do I think there should be any. It's perfectly legitimate in my opinion.


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## tyroneslothrop (Sep 5, 2012)

katdad said:


> Not a question of deluding themselves, but that some people feel interested in playing around. This I equate to experimenting with drugs vs being an addict (not that homosexuality or heterosexuality is in any way a negative thing nor an addiction) -- just an analogy. Some folks like to experiment, some do not. But they are, as I think (my opinion only) not partway in any permanent sense.
> 
> There's no "unfairness" to it, either. I'm NOT associating any negative connotations to "gayness" nor do I think there should be any. It's perfectly legitimate in my opinion.


I think the science doesn't support your view.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Xavier said:


> Why on earth would Richard Taruskin, an eminent musicologist and historian, associate himself with someone who not only makes a wildly idiosyncratic attempt to establish opera as a paradigm of homosexuality but who also has such a limited view of the art form?...Never mind the fact that nowhere does he make clear exactly what if anything differentiates gay and straight audiences' respective responses to opera...His whole approach just seems so narrowly focused, sentimental, opportunistic and silly.


I think the real issue here is "sensibility."

So are you criticizing this particular writer, or are you miffed that gay men are seen differently, and ultimately saying that Archie Bunker-types of men are no less sensitive than gay men? I hope it's not the latter, because, although I'm not gay, I feel that I have a "gay sensibility" which underscores my feeling that men, in most cultures, are raised to be insensitive dolts, good only for being expendable and being shipped-off to fight wars, or sit around in lumberjack shirts drinking beer and watching football.


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