Meeting our recruiting goals

Eugene Volokh on Gays and Lesbians Trying to Convert Others to Homosexual Behavior:"I've seen lots of assertions that it's a "myth" that gays and lesbians try to recruit others into homosexuality. (See, among many other examples, here and here.) Yet it seems to me that this assertion of "myth" is likely itself something of a myth, or at least quite incomplete."

Here's the argument as I understand it:

1. There are some bisexual people who never have gay sex because of homophobia.
2. Some people want to abolish homophobia.
3. If homophobia is the only thing standing in the way of bisexual behavior, then abolishing homophobia will, ceteris paribus result in a marginal increase in the number of people having gay sex.

So far, Volokh's argument shows that everyone is either a bigot or a gay-recruiter, regardless of their sexual preference. He wants to defend the claim that gays and lesbians are trying to recruit people. That's where he goes into a convoluted argument about how if you think your lifestyle is worthwhile, it follows that you want to encourage other people to try it, especially if you think these neophytes might thereby increase their chances of happiness.

You don't have to be gay to think that some people would be happier if they had more gay sex, or to be glad if there's less homophobia to interfere with their chances of personal fulfillment.

I'll leave it to the readers to speculate about why Volokh is so interested in identifying gays and lesbians as agents of homosexual recruitment, as opposed to anti-bigots generally.

Update: Scott Lemieux has a good post on Volokh's curious hybrid of health nuttery and gay conspiracy mongering.

Comments

[Thomas]

I thought Volokh's argument was weak -- as you say, all he's really saying is that, of the marginal group of people who, barring impediments other than lack of desire, would have same-sex partners, the removal of such impediments will increase the likelihood that they will have same-sex partners.

As you say, other than those who are simply against homosexual behavior in any form, who is against removing impediments to doing pleasurable things?

Then, Volokh put up his next post, which argues that same-sex activity is relatively dangerous, so anyone who can find an opposite-sex partner should do so.

There are obviously several asumptions packed into that.

Volokh has gone a long way around to say this: gay sex is bad for people, so even though most gay people must have same sex partners to be happy, because of the marginal danger to bisexuals and some others, gay folks should get back in the closet and stop encouraging people to explore their sexuality.

Leaving aside all the other assumptions, I make the following claim: the combined social cost of descrimination, homophobia and hate crimes, self-hate among gay folks and teenage suicides, far outweight the marginal health benefit Volokh supposes, even if he were calculating that benefit accurately, which he is not.

It would be ad hominem to discuss Volokh's general tendency to abandon his libertarian principles at critical moments and justify the entitled bigotry of his straight white male technoconservatarian following.

[Joe S.]

I view Volokh's move somewhat differently. He is "merely" arguing that, in some senses, it is true to say "gay people recruit."

The argument is analytically correct. It is also analytically correct to say that a law against--say--murder will tend to increase murder rates by the subset of the population that prefers violating the law for its own sake. (Ah, those unintended consequences!) It is also analytically correct to say that nuking Iraq to a green glaze will cut down on the number of roadside bombs.

The question is: why is Volokh going so far out of his way to make a point that is no more than analytically correct. And I don't like the probable answer.

[Scott Lemieux]

Given that I have a limited amount of material, I'll post a slightly edited version of what my comments over at ogged:

Without the broader implication of "conversion" there's just no argument there. To read the argument the way Volokh's defenders read it--that he thinks conversion means nothing more than the narrow way he (sometimes) uses the term--requires us to believe that Volokh has made seven fairly lengthy posts saying nothing more than 1)gay people prefer that their common sexual practices not be illegal, 2)people try to have sex with people who may be attracted to them, and 3)having lots of unprotected anal sex is not an optimally healthy lifestyle. I look forward to his forthcoming 12-part series "Alabama is more conservative than Vermont."

And there's no reason to ignore the larger context. Obviously, as public opinion becomes more supportive of gay rights it's becoming more difficult to defend the legal and social repression of gay people in an explicit way. The two most common pretexts used to defend the status quo are the "homosexuality is an unhealthy lifestyle" argument and the "gay people are coming for your children!!!!!!!" argument. Volokh, an extremely intelligent conservative Republican, knows this perfectly well, and I'm just not going to read his argument as if he doesn't.

[Thad]

Scott, I read that thread and admire your persistence and precision, but for some reason Ogged seems determined to stick his head in the sand on this one. The idea that Volokh just happened to echo standard rightwing antigay arguments because "he has a tin ear when it comes to political rhetoric" is particularly risible.

[Uncle Kvetch]

I read the thread too, Scott, even though I had sworn I wasn't going to expend any more mental energy on the topic of just what the hell is up Prof. Volokh's butt (in a manner of speaking). I have to second Thad: you've been doing an excellent job there, as have several other commenters. It was nice to see Matt Yglesias weigh in on this as well.

It would be ad hominem to discuss Volokh's general tendency to abandon his libertarian principles at critical moments and justify the entitled bigotry of his straight white male technoconservatarian following.

I don't think you should let that stop you, Thomas. 8^)

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

What interests me about the post is the set up: gays and lesbians are recruiting--because they constitute a subset of the larger class of anti-homophobes, a group a grup that seeks to abolish homophobia by definition. And homophobia, ex hypothesi, is the only thing standing in the way of a massive upsurge in gay behavior from people who would have otherwise been lifelong abstainers.

So, Volokh is trying to position gays as the people who are responsible for anything bad that might happen as a result of increased social tolerance.

He's not just arguing that homosexuality is bad because it's unhealthy. He's trying to show that because gays are actively "recruiting," they deserve to be blamed.

Of course, we're all recruiters by Volokh's standards. All his sophistry about how gays have a special incentive to encourage behavioral straights to cross the line is BS.

Volokh doesn't want to make an empirical argument about what gay individuals or groups do or say. Do gays actually engage in recruiting? Do gay rights organizations embrace it as a goal? There's no evidence for any of the above.

So Volokh has to go into this conceptual argument about how increasing the rates of homosexual behavior is a foreseeable consequence of the "gay agenda" and how any gay person must also desire the increase in gay behavior as result of believing gay behavior to be worthwhile.

Obviously, non-gay non-bigots want gay behavior to increase if homophobia is the only thing standing in the way of people's self-fulfillment.

Pure sophistry on Volokh's part.

[pdf23ds]

He's not just arguing that homosexuality is bad because it's unhealthy. He's trying to show that because gays are actively "recruiting," they deserve to be blamed.

Does he say this? Or do you mean, you're sure that's what he really means?

I can't see where he even implies this, except as a function of his larger political stance and the sensitivity inherent in the issue. So what makes you so sure?

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

Because Volokh is going out of his way to defend a pillar of anti-gay paranoia, namely, the recruiting myth.

But the best argument he can come up with is to note that some people want to abolish homophobia and that a world without homophobia might be a world with more gay sex.

That's hardly a confirmation of the claim that gays are recruiting your children. Volokh's argument amounts to the claim that that civil rights activists, some of whom happen to be gay, are trying to bring about social conditions under which your child (and everyone else) might act on gay desires without shame or stigma.

That's such a bizarre and trivial definition of "recruitment" that I have to wonder why Volokh would raise the point.

What kinds of behavior are normally considered "recruiting" by intelligent English speakers? Generally, they involve intent.

Recruiting officers go to schools and try to persuade kids to join up because they want more people in the army. Someone who supports the right of gays to serve in the military is not recruiting gays for the military, even though lifting the ban would increase the number of gay recruits.

[pdf23ds]

The actual mechanics of "recruitment" that he describes are far more focused on the level of individual friendships that gay people have with others, leading sometimes to the homosexual bringing up the issue with their straight friend who they suspect might have some homo- or bisexual leanings. As far as I can tell, he doesn't describe any wider agenda, but instead individual agents acting in their own rational interests (indirectly through the interest of the people they care about). That's worlds away from the "gays are recruiting my children" paranoia of real homophobes, isn't it? What he describes is plausible, but the recruiting myth is not.

On the other hand, he doesn't go out of his way to dispel the myth, or dissociate himself from it. I hadn't heard this myth much (don't really read any homophobe blogs) but if it is fairly prevalent, I would expect Volkh to disavow that he's saying anything like that. He hasn't done so, and that makes him suspicious. If he were really as naive as ogged seems to think, he ought to have apologized at this point. Perhaps this is what you're seeing? I just can't see anything else you might be reacting to. Has Volokh really earned this level of distrust? (I don't read him much; I don't know.)

[rob helpy-chalk]

What exactly is wrong with recruiting anyway?

Certainly if we are talking about recruiting adults, there isn't anything wrong here, unless one is harassing. On a couple of occasions people have said things to me that, while they weren't exactly recruiting pitches, made it clear that they would be very happy if I were playing for their team. I said no thank you and that was it.

Depending upon what you mean by recruiting, the recruiting of children might not be a bad thing either. The phrase "they are coming for your children" makes it sound like they are going to molest your children, which is obviously bad. But if you are merely talking about sex education that increases the likelihood that someone will be gay (even if they didn’t have a pre-existing disposition to be gay) I don't see what's wrong with it.

Perhaps this bizarrely puts me in the same camp as Volokh. I'm not sure recruiting is a myth, but I'm not sure its a bad thing either.

Didn't the Lesbian Avengers used to have a t-shirt that said "We Recruit"?

[Thad]

If he were really as naive as ogged seems to think, he ought to have apologized at this point.

That's exactly the point. Give the man some credit, here: Volokh isn't naive and he doesn't have a tin ear. He knows precisely what he's doing.

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

I don't see anything wrong with recruiting in principle. I just don't think that there's much evidence of widespread homosexual prosletyzing. Evangelism for heterosexuality is rampant, though.

Volokh is annoying me because he's distorting the usual meaning of "recruiting" for political reasons and he won't own up to it.

Volokh was talking about individuals encouraging their friends to try gay sex, but also about the implications of gay rights positions in general. In fact, he was careful to emphasize that very few individual gays personally recruit or explicitly favor recruitment. He talked about how gays would agree that society should be remade in order to bring about certain conditions (reduced social stigma for homosexual experimentation, positive gay role models for teens, open and supportive friendships, etc). My answer is, yes, all intelligent people of good will want that.

[pebird]

But does a world without homophobia result in more straight sex?

[Mnemosyne]

It always astonishes me how much time some ostensibly straight people spend thinking about gay sex.

I'm straight. I've been straight all my life. I don't seem to have very much of that fabled "natural" female bisexuality and can't really say I've been attracted to another woman.

So, frankly, I spend very little time thinking about gay sex. I mean, I assume gay people I know have sex, and I've seen some of the mechanics of it in the movies, but it doesn't really take up much space in my head.

And yet it seems to be something that Volokh and homophobes can't stop thinking about.

Newsflash: if you constantly have intrusive thoughts about gay sex, you're probably gay. Or at least bi. Because the rest of us don't give it much thought.

[Uncle Kvetch]

It always astonishes me how much time some ostensibly straight people spend thinking about gay sex.

It's not gay sex, strictly speaking, that they obsess about; it's anal sex. Volokh, along with the many 'phobes commenting on his site, consistently conflates "gay sex" with "unprotected man-on-man anal sex" because acknowledging any other variety of sexual activity among same-sex pairs renders his "argument" (whatever that may be) nonsensical. This conflation is an old chestnut in the repertoire of the homophobe.

Not that Volokh is a homophobe, mind you: he thinks we should be able to get married, even though he finds us icky, and that's a sure sign of his libertarian bona fides, right?

[theogon]

But does a world without homophobia result in more straight sex?

From a macro perspective, probably less of the kind not worth having - i.e., by homosexuals lying to themselves. From a micro perspective - my own sexually self-interested perspective qua being a heterosexual male - more homosexual males increases the ultimate odds in my favor, and more homosexual women means more hot girl-on-girl sex, which is obviously a good thing.

Upon further reflection, I'm not sure if the above is a better parody of recruitment fantasies, stereotypes of heterosexual men, or new institutionalist economics.

[Mnemosyne]

It's not gay sex, strictly speaking, that they obsess about; it's anal sex.

Yeah ... still don't get it. Is it a Freudian, bad-potty-training thing that leads to the obsession? The whole "certain parts of your body are DIRTY!" thing they tried to teach me in Catholic school?

Because despite the fact that my boyfriend has strict instructions that my "area" is exit-only, I don't give much thought to the idea of other people doing it. It's just not interesting to me.

So they must get some kind of thrill out of thinking about it constantly.

[db]

By Volokh's own logic, isn't homophobia a form of *straight* recruiting? He pisses me off sometimes.

[Kuas]

This all leads us to another enduring myth: the myth that Volokh is worth taking seriously. I get the impression that many liberals adopted Volokh as their nominal "honest libertarian blogger" after they were reluctantly forced to concede that Glenn Reynolds was nothing more than a cartoonish hack. Now that Volokh's cover is wearing thin, where will they go next?

[Uncle Kvetch]

Yeah ... still don't get it. Is it a Freudian, bad-potty-training thing that leads to the obsession? The whole "certain parts of your body are DIRTY!" thing they tried to teach me in Catholic school?

There's some of that, I'm sure, but I'm inclined to see gender transgression as the big no-no: it's the blurring of the line that separates active from passive, or to put it more bluntly, penetrator from penetrated, that drives them around the bend. A man who allows himself to be penetrated is forsaking an essential part of his maleness. Add the stereotype of the "predatory" homosexual, always on the lookout for new orifices to conquer, and you've got some serious dread (the "phobe" part of "homophobe").

Doesn't make a damn bit of sense, of course, but there you go.

Just listen to some of Eddie Murphy's wildly successful "comedy" routines from the 80s, if you have the stomach for it: it's not "I can't imagine why I would want to fuck another man," it's "Those homos better stay the hell away from my ass." That's pretty much it in a nutshell.

[Mnemosyne]

Just listen to some of Eddie Murphy's wildly successful "comedy" routines from the 80s, if you have the stomach for it: it's not "I can't imagine why I would want to fuck another man," it's "Those homos better stay the hell away from my ass." That's pretty much it in a nutshell.

Considering Murphy's little "problem" with picking up transvestite/transsexual prostitutes (it's happened more than once), I think that stuff was all cover.

Either that, or he's one of those guys who's convinced he's 100% straight because he's always the fucker, never the fuckee, when he's with another man. Sad, really.

[[email protected]]

One of my wife's best friends is a gay man. I'm pretty right wing / libertarian in the sense that yeah I want the USA to triumph over the world but I just can't see why people get bent out of shape over gay people.

The guy came over and showed me how to plant a cherry tree correctly and later on made dinner that was pretty spectacular. I did have to wind up taking one of his evicted cats, and that sucks, but...

He said something that I agree with, like, if gay people have to be in the closet, why can't straight people in the closet. Like we're defined by a lot more than our sexuality.

I'm trying to do my evil neo conservative calculations, even though I'm rather smashed, and I just can't see how someone being gay could actually thwart my plans to take over the entire planet, or, to reduce all the liberal serfs into my consumer slaves of my excellent products.

Capitalism and imperialism have nothing to do with who you bone!

[Thad]

Now that Volokh's cover is wearing thin, where will they go next?

Tacitus was the nominee for a while there, and when he proved too hackish, John Cole (before he decided to get himself a big piece of slime-Cindy action).

Personally, the only rightwing blogger I have any stomach for these days is Arthur Silber, mainly because he's willing to call out all of the above. But, of course, most people don't consider him a "proper" libertarian since he's anti-Iraq war, anti-torture, anti-police state, pro-gay rights, etc. Apparently he didn't get the memo.

[Trystero]

It always astonishes me how much time some ostensibly straight people spend thinking about gay sex.

I think it's funny how much time the Culture Warriors spend worrying, in apparently very specific and graphic ways, about what other people might be doing in the privacy of their own bedrooms.

I'm certain they think about it more than I do.

[J POTTS]

To be recruited means to be persuaded to join an endeavor--as in army recuiter-- and this fellow is equating opportunity to exercise a sexual inclination with joining some kind of organized program.
And yes, this truth cannot be denied. It is little known that most gays are card carrying members of the outwardly conventional but secretly evil worshipping "Gay Sex America Association" (the GSAA) and attend regular outwardly innocent but secretly evil meetings at one of their outwardly innocuous but secretly nefarious "Good Service Association Association" Lodge Halls in towns across the nation.
Once you are persuaded by their subtly deceptive techniques to become a Lodge Brother with lies like, " oh we're just a social club with a little tea every Wednesday and a bible study circle on the weekends" --you discover to your horror the-- Gay Sex Association Code of Behavior (the GSACOB); any deviation from it or attempt to leave the fold will subject you to horrible tortures in the dark dungeons of dread hidden deep beneath each Lodge Hall. The fundamental tenet of the dark code is: You must want to have gay sex, even if you are not so inclined, all day, all the time.
You soon learn discipline. Any of your normally strong heterosexual leanings are viciously and systematically suppressed and you are helpless to resist as this Gay Cabal, using its insidious mind numbing techniques learned from demons, consolidates its control over you, unaturally magnifying to monstrous proportions the weak urge you may have felt as a reluctant bisexual- and soon, all too soon, though you continue to look outwardly normal to those in the grocery line or by the workplace watercooler-- within you have become a ravening Gay Sex Animal (GSA, a clinical term)-- and it is too late, you have become one of them.
Let this be a warning to you all. If you are even the most itsy bitsy teeny weeny bit inclined to experiment with the same sex--- you may be sucked screaming down the deep hole of the GSAA into the dark realms, never to return.