Are gay men really a risk to women?

[Polynerd]

The @fairplaywomen account tweeted this today:"Male people are an inherent risk to women and children. That includes all groups of males. Gay males, straight males, trans-identified males, white males, black males, old males, young males...."
Are gay men really a risk to women? Personally I think they are an emotional risk, given the numbers of my gay friends who would drop me like a brick of they knew of my GC views. But I would not be at all surprised to learn that gay men physically hurt women at a proportionally much lower rate than straight men. Views?

[Karwomannghia]

Well they’re still bigger and stronger than women on average and still have male entitlement and outrage. But they’re not usually shacked up with women so not as close physically.

[BitterAndOnlySlightlyTwisted]

I think the principle at play here could be that once you allow one group of men to be excluded then you could be allowing any other to insinuate themselves as well. Given what I know about FairPlay I’d be surprised if gay men were included in that list for any other reason

[DuLANGMondeFOREVER]

I wonder if there are any actual statistics for violence against women by gay men?

I think gay men contribute to women’s oppression in a bunch of ways, surrogacy being an obvious one, the fashion and beauty industry being a more insidious one. Drag is a contentious topic and women are often shut down for criticising it because gay men are a minority group.

Some gay men are outright misogynists, seeing little point to women at all and saying so, loudly and proudly. See some of this amongst gay male MPs.

But there are good and bad apples in every bunch. Same as all men.

[ArranUpsideDown]

For anyone wondering about the context, Nic Williams' quoted response in in a reply to a classic Bec Stinson thread:

twitter.com/fairplaywomen/status/1228652492436787202?s=20

[Polynerd]

@DuLANGMondeFOREVER I agree with you, but the context here is physical harm. I don't think I've ever heard of a gay man killing a woman. Possibly family members? But women kill family members too sometimes.

[DreadPirateLuna]

Any man could lie about being gay, and I'm sure some would if it gained them access to women.

I assume gay men pose exactly the same risk to boys as straight men do to girls.

[Polynerd]

Just to clarify, I'm not suggesting that gay men be given access to women's spaces (and I doubt they'd want it)! I just think that was a somewhat contentious comment.

[Doyoumind]

I agree it means that males of any kind could pose a risk - that we aren't talking about a distinct group of males. If a man is walking down a quiet street close behind you at night you are likely to feel vulnerable and concerned. You don't know anything about him, except that he's male.

[AfterSchoolWorry]

No, real gay men? No.

Fake gay men?

Maybe.

[Tigerty]

Stick “gay man killed woman”into google and you’ll get hits. The couple I looked at were where a married men killed their wives to be with their boyfriend.

[Russellbrandshair]

I don’t feel physically threatened by gay men whatsoever but some of the most mysogynistic men I’ve ever encountered just happened to be gay. In that respect they can contribute to the oppression of women which in turn puts us at risk. I’ve always supported gay rights but sadly, I have not seen much support for womens issues from gay men. This both baffles and deeply saddens me at the same time.

[janeskettle]

Gay men are just as capable as straight men of harassment of women. We're just meant to laugh and take being the butt of the 'joke' when it's gay men feeling entitled to manhandle our bodies or otherwise demean us.

[AutumnRose1]

There’s some grim reports of gay men harassing lesbians at Pride.

[Bagofoldbones]

I’m surprised at the tweet tbh. I have gay friends and they are only just sticking their heads above the parapet with regards to the trans issue. Some of my gay friends have drag friends. Real drag women who know they are men but perform and they are getting pressure of the trans community too so it is hard for them to get off the fence. I wish they hadn’t included them to be honest not at this time when we unfortunately need male voices in support of us.

[janeskettle]

If gay male allies are so fragile that their inclusion in the class (men) who harm the class (women) can shake their solidarity, they weren't allies in the first place.

[Muddlewitch]

I've had similar experiences @Russellbrandshair

[Goosefoot]

A danger as in violence? I would doubt it's at anything like the same level, because a significant amount of violence against women is partner violence. And that is not going to be applicable in the vast majority of cases. Also direct sexually motivated violence won't normally be a factor.

What you would have left are other types of violence men commit against women which tend to be less common, and often less specifically about their being women.

[Bagofoldbones]

I’ve never been man handled by a gay man. Ever.

I know other people may have different negative experiences so I’m going to step away from this thread

I really hope this thread doesn’t start getting tweeted because MN being accused of being ant gay is just one more string to add to the bow for the trans activists. We don’t need that

[Carowiththegoodhair]

Gay men are just as capable as straight men of harassment of women. We're just meant to laugh and take being the butt of the 'joke' when it's gay men feeling entitled to manhandle our bodies or otherwise demean us.

This.

Years ago, I was on one of many night outs with a group of gay men. We were in a club and one man decided it would be hilarious to pour shots down a random woman’s cleavage and lick it off. He got ejected from the club by the bouncers and started screaming homophobia.

Just because he thought it was hilarious and had no sexual desire towards the woman, didn’t render him any less of a pest.

[Carowiththegoodhair]

Meant to say (wish MN had an edit function) gay men are like other men. Some pose a risk, some do not but there is a double standard going on here.

We shouldn’t generalise but neither should we allow someone’s minority status to give them a free pass for poor behaviour.

[Goosefoot]

As far as the quote - it really depends how you read it I guess. As a group, sure, men are more dangerous to women than women are. And you can argue, I think quite convincingly, that it's best to manage that risk at that level. But you can't actually take a statement like that and say, therefor any individual group of men are more dangerous, or any individual man is. It's an improper way to interpret statistics. You can't use stats to say anything about individuals, and if you want to know about a particular sub set of men, you'd have to look at the data.

To me, it's a quote that is likely to create confusion in anyone inclined to read things in a more literal way.

[calllaaalllaaammma]

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/dec/04/pharmacist-found-guilty-of-killing-wife-so-he-could-start-new-life-with-gay-lover

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Anni_Dewani

www.thesun.co.uk/news/7124445/colorado-dad-chris-watts-gay-dating-apps-murdered-pregnant-wife-daughters/

I guess gay men have the same offending behaviours as other men.

[Goosefoot]

Um, you can't look at individual cases to see if rates of offence are the same. I expect you could come up with three lesbian examples of violence as well.

[Bagofoldbones]

goosefoot is right although they are mainly murdering children.

[TheBewildernessisWeetabix]

Women and children do not have the ability to read minds and therefore cannot determine which males are a greater or lesser degree of risk to them.
Proximity to an abuser, or a rapist, or a serial killer, is the determining factor of risk. The vast majority of each of those risk categories are filled by men.