... but isn't it really hard to distinguish _actual_ rates of homosexuality from visible homosexuality? As public acceptance for LGBT people has increased, more people can feel safe coming out or identifying as gay.
Further, if the pill became widely available around 1970, and if this were an impactful factor, wouldn't you expect to see the corresponding change beginning in at least the mid 80s, as those kids grow up?
I would argue that double of zoomers are more comfortable assuming they are homosexuals, or even, zoomers are less afraid to explore and discover their sexuality instead of "I'm not doing X because I'm obviously not gay, I'm macho" kinda of thinking, and are happier for that.
The only thing we can really measure is what people say about themselves, often in a poll/survey/study context. More people are identifying as LGBT in the younger generations. We have no way of knowing how many people in each generation are some form of closeted. But people's increased rates of _identifying_ as LGBT have occurred in an environment where both cultural and chemical/biological factors have shifted. How could you disentangle their effects?
I think there's a risk when making claims about anything that has stigma attached to it. How prevalent has sexual assault been, over time? How many kids are raised with corporal punishment? If you expect that both their prevalence, and the willingness of people to report or talk about it changes over time, how could you know when rates go up or down?
> According to Plutarch, the 300 hand-picked men were chosen by Gorgidas purely for ability and merit, regardless of social class.[18] It was composed of 150 male couples,[15] each pair consisting of an older erastês (ἐραστής, "lover") and a younger erômenos (ἐρώμενος, "beloved").
Older dudes with their designated younger bottoms.
I’ll also recommend https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_in_ancient_Gre...
Over a niche historical anecdote
> During Plato's time there were some people who were of the opinion that homosexual sex was shameful in any circumstances. Indeed, Plato himself eventually came to hold this view. At one time he had written that same-sex lovers were far more blessed than ordinary mortals. He even gave them a headstart in the great race to get back to heaven, their mutual love refeathering their mottled wings. Later he seemed to contradict himself. In his ideal city, he says in his last, posthumously published work known as The Laws, homosexual sex will be treated the same way as incest. It is something contrary to nature, he insists, calling it "utterly unholy, odious-to-the-gods and ugliest of ugly things".[31]
No, we don't because before we didn't even count. It is possible that
1. there were fewer homosexual men in the past
2. increase in the number of homosexual men is due to less persecution
are both contemporarily true.
Talk to a doctor sometime about the volume of 30+ year old women who are on some type of daily anxiety medication. My understanding is that it's approaching 50% or higher.
Was that level of anxiety among women common before birth control?
IMO there are a whole lot of questions that come from it.
You do that for 5, 10, 15…20 years…it’s reasonable to wonder what it will do longer term.
At the same time, as you age and have older friend groups it’s hard not to notice a correlation between the friends you have who never took birth control or minimally took it who also have no anxiety issues and those that don’t.
Maybe it could be something else but IMO it warrants further study.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S174360951...
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S17436...
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/15579883145384...
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001502821...
I think that in that context, it would be hard to miss!
No idea if it's true, but the timeline and mechanism of action seem plausible. The rise of the pill also happened around a time of greater LGBT awareness, so overall awareness is also a factor.