Relationship Breakups Motivate Most Suicide Attempts
Next, we ask--do the papers show that it is gay lifestyle factors, or society's stigmatization, that are the motivators that lead a person to attempt suicide? Neither conclusion is inevitable. Still, Saghir and Robins (1978) examined reasons for suicide attempts among homosexuals and found that if the reasons for the attempt were connected with homosexuality, about 2/3 were due to breakups of relationships --not outside pressures from society.
Similarly, Bell and Weinberg (1981) also found the major reason for suicide attempts was the breakup of relationships. In second place, they said, was the inability to accept oneself. Since homosexuals have greater numbers of partners and breakups, compared with heterosexuals, and since longterm gay male relationships are rarely monagamous, it is hardly surprising if suicide attempts are proportionally greater. The median number of partners for homosexuals is four times higher than for heterosexuals (Whitehead and Whitehead 1999, calculated from Laumann et al 1994).
A good general rule of thumb is that suicide attempts are about three times higher for homosexuals. Could there be a connection between those two percentages?
Another factor in suicide attempts would be the compulsive or addictive elements in homosexuality (Pincu, 1989 ) which could lead to feelings of depression when the lifestyle is out of control (Seligman 1975). There are some, (estimates vary, but perhaps as many as 50% of young men today), who do not take consistent precautions against HIV (Valleroy et al., 2001) and who have considerable problems with sexual addiction and substance abuse addiction, and this of course would feed into suicide attempts.
The Effect of Social Stigma
Third, does pressure from society lead to mental health problems? Less, I believe, than one might imagine. The authors of the study done in The Netherlands were surprised to find so much mental illness in homosexual people in a country where tolerance of homosexuality is greater than in almost all other countries.
Another good comparison country is New Zealand, which is much more tolerant of homosexuality than is the United States. Legislation giving the movement special legal rights is powerful, consistently enforced throughout the country, and virtually never challenged. Despite this broad level of social tolerance, suicide attempts were common in a New Zealand study and occurred at about the same rate as in the U.S.
In his cross-cultural comparison of mental health in the Netherlands, Denmark and the U.S., Ross (1988) could find no significant differences between countries - i.e. the greater social hostility in the United States did not result in a higher level of psychiatric problems.
There are three other issues not covered in the Archives journal articles which are worthy of consideration. The first two involve DSM category diagnoses.
Promiscuity and Antisocial Personality
The promiscuous person--either heterosexual or homosexual --may in fact be more likely to be antisocial. It is worth noting here the comment of Rotello (1997), who is himself openly gay: "...the outlaw aspect of gay sexual culture, its transgressiveness, is seen by many men as one of its greatest attributes."
Ellis et al. (1995) examined patients at an clinic which focused on genital and urological problems such as STD's; he found 38% of the homosexual men seeking such services had antisocial personality disorder, as well as 28% of heterosexual men. Both levels were enormously higher than the 2% rate of antisocial personality disorder for the general population (which in turn, compares to the 50% rate for prison inmates) (Matthews 1997).
Perhaps the finding of a higher level of conduct disorder in the New Zealand study foreshadowed this finding of antisocial personality . Therapists, of course, are not very likely to see a large number of individuals who are antisocial because they are probably less likely to seek help.
Secondly, it was previously noted that 43% of a bulimic sample of men were homosexual or bisexual (Carlat et al. 1997), a rate about 15 times higher than the rate in the population in general--meaning homosexual men are probably disproportionately liable to this mental condition. This may be due to the very strong preoccupation with appearance and physique frequently found among male homosexuals.
Ideology of Sexual Liberation
A strong case can be made that the male homosexual lifestyle itself, in its most extreme form, is mentally disturbed. Remember that Rotello, a gay advocate, notes that "the outlaw aspect of gay sexual culture, its transgressiveness, is seen by many men as one of its greatest attributes." Same-sex eroticism becomes for many, therefore, the central value of existence, and nothing else--not even life and health itself--is allowed to interfere with pursuit of this lifestyle. Homosexual promiscuity fuels the AIDS crisis in the West, but even that tragedy it is not allowed to interfere with sexual freedom.
And, according to Rotello, the idea of taking responsibility to avoid infecting others with the HIV virus is completely foreign to many groups trying to counter AIDS. The idea of protecting oneself is promoted, but protecting others is not mentioned in most official condom promotions (France in the '80s was an interesting exception). Bluntly, then, core gay behavior is both potentially fatal to others, and often suicidal.
Surely it should be considered "mentally disturbed" to risk losing one's life for sexual liberation. This is surely among the most extreme risks practiced by any significant fraction of society. I have not found a higher risk of death accepted by any similar-sized population.
In conclusion, then, if we ask the question "Is mental illness inherent in the homosexual condition?" the answer would have to be "Further research--uncompromised by politics --should be carried out to honestly evaluate this issue."
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