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This Reddit thread that I saw linked over on rDrama made me wonder if any studies have ever been done about the relative intelligence of straight people and gay people.
Just like there is reason to believe that some ethnic groups are more intelligent than others on average, is it possible that some sexual orientations are more intelligent than others on average? I have not tried to crunch the numbers, but it seems to me that gay people are overrepresented compared to their population size among the ranks of prominent intellectuals and artists. Not just recently, but also hundreds of years ago. Them living in high cost of living areas would add evidence to this theory.
Of course there are many possible other explanations, and the thread mentions some of them: gays have more money because they usually have no kids, gays in poor areas stay closeted out of fear of persecution and are drawn to liberal and usually also expensive cities, gays move in to poor areas and make them fashionable and then those areas become rich. Etc.
One other possible explanation that comes to my mind that I did not see in the thread is that maybe because it is easier for gay men to get laid than straight men on average, they don't have to devote as much of their minds as straights to getting laid and are thus free to focus on other things. I'm not sure about that theory, though - after all, just because getting laid is easy for you does not necessarily mean that you will spend less of your mental energy thinking about getting laid. And being a sexual minority could tend to add some level of stress that partly counterbalances the benefits of being able to easily get laid, especially in the olden days.
I suppose it is also possible that intelligent, creative gays are more likely to come out than intellectually mediocre gays, but I have no idea if there is any truth to that.
I do wonder, though, if maybe part of the reason for gay affluence and prominence is an actual intelligence difference of some sort.
I’ve always believed with zero evidence that there are fatter tails for the distribution of income for gay men, partially for a version of this reason:
Many of the gay men I know tend to fall into two categories.
The first are obsessed with casual sex and devote their lives to its pursuit. They typically work either menial/low level jobs (bartenders, waiters, baristas, junior line cooks, retail store assistants) or they pick a profession with an easy 9-5 like working for the state, and then devote the rest of their time to Grindr or alternative. They almost always seem to have no money unless they’re hereditarily rich, in which case they don’t work at all and spend all day in pursuit of sex either directly or indirectly (eg by lifting weights). This may be a function of male-ness and availability; if straight men could access an endless number of attractive women for no-strings-attached hookups, many would probably drop out of the rat race for this lifestyle too (and in fact there are hot straight men who drop out and become bartenders or surf instructors for this reason, it’s just harder so it’s more rare).
The second category seems to shirk sex, or at least to pursue it less vigorously than the other group. Often they seem to have long periods of celibacy, or even a lifetime of it. If they pursue hookups they do so occasionally and quietly. All gay men I know in stable marriages are in this category, obviously, and those who aren’t married date ‘for a husband’ rather than for sex. They’re often extremely devoted to their careers and career progression, plan to adopt children or have them with a surrogate, are quite materialistic and want the trappings of an upper-middle class lifestyle. I don’t know, maybe Tim Cook is in this category, although I can’t say I know much about his romantic life.
Again, I don’t think this is ‘because’ of their sexuality per se, rather it’s because straight men are reliant on women (most will marry and have children with women) whose preferences they at least somewhat want to try to meet. Gay men are unmoored from this heterosexual dynamic; they have their own, but it’s almost entirely superficial (unless you’re a wealthy older man looking for a sugar baby), so those gay men one sees pursuing high-level professional careers are almost entirely doing so out of personal ambition, while straight men doing the same have a larger number of possible motives. If you work in corporate law or investment banking or medicine or whatever (and I have noticed this in my own line of work) you might therefore find that your gay male coworkers seem more conscientious or likely to be promoted than straight men, who might just be slackers who knew they wanted a good job to attract a respectable wife and provide for a family, but who had no substantial innate ambition.
It's not so obvious to me that there's no overlap. I've read a few accounts of fairly rich or successful gay men with absolutely bonkers sex lives.
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