Lesbian/Gay Relationships

Lesbian/Gay Relationships

I will share this article with you first about lesbian/ gay and heterosexual sexual relationships. I found this written by someone on blogger.

Here is the Article then I will share my thoughts as well.

How Gay and Straight Relationships Differ

A very interesting article on studies of long-term gay and straight relationships appeared in last Thursday's edition of the New York Times. The author, John Cloud, is himself a gay man who recently ended a 7 1/2-year relationship. After recovering emotionally from the loss of his partner, he set about studying what academic studies have been conducted on gay relationships.

I wondered whether Michael and I could have done more to save our union. What impact had our homosexuality had on the longevity, arc and dissolution of our relationship? Had we given up on each other because we were men or because we were gay? Or neither? Friends offered cliches: Some people just aren't meant for each other. But our straight friends usually stayed married. Why not us?

The results he found are fascinating. First, he listed some of the positive advantages gays have been shown to have over straights in relationships:

John Gottman, a renowned couples therapist who was then at the University of Washington, and Robert Levenson, a psychology professor at the University of California, Berkeley, led a team that evaluated 40 same-sex couples and 40 straight married couples. The psychologists concluded that gays and lesbians are nicer than straight people during arguments with partners: they are significantly less belligerent, less domineering and less fearful. Gays and lesbians also use humor more often when arguing (and lesbians use even more humor than gays, which I hereby dub "the Ellen DeGeneres effect"). The authors concluded that "heterosexual relationships may have a great deal to learn from homosexual relationships."

Researchers have long noted that because gender roles are less relevant in gay and lesbian relationships--it's a canard that in most gay couples, one partner plays wife--those relationships are often more equal than heterosexual marriages. Both guys do the dishes; both women grill the steaks. Straight couples often argue along gender lines: the men are at turns angry and distant, the women more prone to lugubrious bursts. Gays and lesbians may be less tetchy during quarrels because they aren't forced into a particular role.